It’s been quiet around here, for a number of reasons. Most of it was school, which started towards the end of January or so and only wrapped up a few weeks ago. It was my first semester of my Masters of Library and Information Science, and it was intense towards the end. Mostly because of an intensive class that was run in half the time of a usual class, meaning I essentially went from taking one class to taking three, instead of having a nice and even two classes throughout the semester. *Never* doing that again. It was a lot, and stressed me out something fierce. To make it worse, near the end I was so overwhelmed and busy that I stopped doing fiction writing for a while. Even when I did do it, it was slow. But I’m going to make a concerted effort to get back into it, and tonight and Team Tentacle writing group I did a decent job.
Woo! First time I’ve hit 1k in over a month!
The semester has since ended, of course, so what have I been up to? Not much, unfortunately. That sneaky grey specter, depression, came up from behind and smacked me over the head. There’s probably a lot of sources, including being sleep deprived and just being too busy in general, even without school, but I can’t quite pinpoint a cause yet. Still, I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, make sure I spend time doing things I enjoy instead of just sitting around feeling bummed out and doing nothing. And playing a lot of Fallout 4. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. Hopefully everything will work out on the mental health front. (Updates as events warrant.)
There are happy parts, of course! I’ve moved into a new apartment with my lovely boyfriend, which has been quite the adventure. Except for the part where I lost my work keys in it over this weekend and we can’t find them, but I digress. It’s in a new neighborhood of Seattle, much more residential than the old one. I’m loving the quiet, and the ability to pull out of my unit’s driveway without risking the nose getting taken off of my car by passing traffic. The space of the apartment itself is great, just the right amount of space for the two of us, allowing for privacy without isolating us from each other. It’s also close to nature, with a park literally out our back window, and Discovery Park just a couple blocks away.
Woodpecker friend as seen from the back deck/balcony of my new place.
It’s pretty cool waking up to this view every morning.
Over the weekend I got a chance to go and hike the loop trail of Discovery Park with a friend from out of town. All the moving and school chaos had completely destroyed my exercise routine, so it was so refreshing to just get out and exercise for a while. Being in nature was fantastic, too, something I don’t get a lot of even though I live in the Pacific Northwest, land of a thousand forested hiking trails. It was definitely a nice change from a lot of where I spend my time day-to-day: in a windowless, heavily air-conditioned server room where I spend a lot of time sitting in the server’s airflow output for warmth. (Those boxes get hot when they’re running 24/7!)
One of the great views from Discovery Park bluff.
I’m looking forward to what’s next. I’m trying to treat June as a clean slate, where I get back into consistently doing the things I love. Exercising will be a big one (need to order the weight equipment, but I want to start running/biking again ASAP). Writing, including submitting more things to markets. It’s been far too long since I’ve had anything published. And perhaps most importantly to long-term project finishing, working on finishing up the current draft of Nautilus and editing my doorstop of a fantasy novel.
So here’s to a hopeful June, everyone. See you again soon.
PS I got an Instagram, and will be trying to post one picture a day to encourage myself to do more photography. Please check it out if that sounds fun to you!
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