Farewell 2017, Welcome 2018! : Monthly Wrap-up/End of Year Post

Happy New Year, everyone! This post is certainly late, as we are already a few days into 2018, but I felt I had to publish it anyway. 2017 was a terrible reading year for me, I read less than twenty books. That's ridiculous! I pledge to read at least thirty books by the end of 2018. I've already started reading my first book of the year, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K Rowling. This is the first time I read the third installment of the Harry Potter series. I first read Sorcerer's Stone when I was, like, seven years old; Chamber of Secrets when I was in high school, and Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows right before the former's movie hit theaters. After Prisoner of Azkaban, I plan to read Goblet of Fire and Order of the Pheonix. I also want to read Lord of the Rings because I've always loved the movies including the Hobbit trilogy but never got around to reading it. The book is 1179 pages long, which is intimidating for some people, but not me! Subsequent to LoR, I want to read The Handmaiden's Tale so that I could watch the critically acclaimed show, for which I'm excited. I also added the widely popular Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur to my Kindle library.

Admittedly, 2017 was not a very good year for me. I finished the last of undergraduate studies last May and graduated the same month. A strange bout of laziness and a lack of motivation took me for months. I procrastinated and completed almost all of my major assignments last minute and didn't care about my grades as much as I did the semester before, for some reason. It might've been because of all of the uncertainty that accompanied the culmination of my undergrad career, or it might've been because I was simply tired of school work. I don't know. What I do know though, is that I still suffer from a residual lack of motivation. I was super excited to start grad school and take courses relevant to my studies, but I wasn't as excited as I was to do actual school work as I used to be.

May 17, 2017, was the day of my commencement ceremony. I always knew I would graduate, obviously, but I didn't imagine I would do so after my third year. I was proud of myself because I considered earning a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Sociology to be my first major accomplishment. The day of the commencement was fun, I spent it with family and friends celebrating my achievement. I spent the summer completing the last of college requirements, gone were the hopes of having any fun. I started to panic when the end of the summer break was fast-approaching, I didn't have a set plan after I completed my course. I continued the graduate school search that began last December and looked for relevant programs that I could apply to so late in the year, ones I was interested in, of course. As you may know, I ended up only applying to Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. I so badly wanted to be accepted. In fact, I don't think I'd ever yearned for anything more in my life. The day I got the acceptance letter, I was ecstatic. Even that word might be an understatement. Orientation Day for graduate students was held on September 6, 2017, and I remember going to the event feeling like an imposter like didn't deserve to be there, but soon found out that that was feeling common among first years. But as the day progressed, I felt increasingly better suited for the challenge. When classes commenced the day after the next, I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know if the courses were as structured as undergraduate courses or if they were more flexible, with loose deadlines. I found that they were a combination of both. The material was a little challenging but definitely understandable and doable. I did have trouble with one course, a Foundations course no less. I performed terribly on the exams for a reason unbeknownst to me. I studied and practically memorized the material, especially as I was preparing for the final exam, but I still didn't do well. 2017 has been my most stressful year yet. I do hope 2018 is a great one!

Open Letters: Bathsheba Everdene

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days) by Susan Ee

I don't remember if I featured this playlist in a Monthly Wrap-up before, but it's what I've been listening to recently. 

I haven't been watching anything consistently for the past month, I watch a few episodes of a few shows here and there. I did start watching HBO's Girls, the show created by Lena Dunham. It's a good show, it follows four young women three nearing their mid-twenties and one eighteen-year-old trying to figure out life, one mistake at a time. The show is supposed to an unembellished and realistic portrayal of the post-collegiate life of the average twenty-something, but I think it's a little too...harsh to be a fitting depiction of the average. 

Happy New Year!