Answering questions about life in post-grad
The weekend of October 1-3 was beach retreat. It involved hopping into a car for a 5 hour long drive down from Charlottesville, VA to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The lead up to that weekend had been A LOT. I had been gone for the two weekends before - one weekend home in NYC, and the next away at a different retreat that I wrote about in my last post. While I knew that the weekend was going to be fun and filled with all sorts of beauty, I didn’t expect much spiritually.
College is absolutely hectic right now. Midterm season is crushing me and my sleep schedule is a choose-your-own-adventure of 7 hours, 5 hours, or 3 hours. Needless to say, I’m kind of exhausted but in a week, I should be great. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. In an effort to memorialize a retreat I have, I invite you to go a little bit down memory lane with me. I hope that this will remind you to get away and listen closely to the stories others are telling you. And make sure you ponder your own.
The trees are shaking off what is dead to make room for the living. This is a weird one. That statement isn’t quite true yet. The trees are still green. Fall hasn’t begun to touch their edges. They are clinging to the last vestiges of summer while we wait in eager anticipation of cooler days and cozy nights.
But in the transition between winter to spring, this is what happens. The trees begin to shake off what is dead to make room for the living. The brown leaves of decay lie on concrete, and slowly but surely, we see new life spring up in the form of bright, green leaves. There are two tales here and one tree.
We spent a lot of our days on autopilot. If you’ve read one of the many books on habits during quarantine, you know that most of our decisions are unconscious ones. And yet the more recognized moments are the ones we put on social media. They are the public celebrations and joys of doing life alongside other humans. There is something beautiful to all the good life seems to offer, but it’s the unseen moments that make up this other part of life we’re not always so keen on exploring.
And friends, we are back with the days in the life posts. These are simple posts to write and yet complicated to put together and here we are back at it again (with the white Vans). This is a weekend-ish in the life. This means I am blogging my Friday and Saturday. I ended up sharing my Sunday on Instagram, so follow me on there for more day to day content.
Fourth year is here. It’s no longer upon me. It has solemnly arrived, whether or not I was ready for it. Are you ready for it? *Taylor Swift eerily plays in the background*
Welcome to the year I thought would never come - fourth year! And my fourth year dorm tour! Whoop whoop!
Currently in Charlottesville in the midst of my move in day weekend (Monday-Tuesday), and I’m bringing to you this post - what I’ve learned this summer. This was COVID summer round 2. Did I make a lot of changes? Not really. But did I learn things? Yep. Let’s discuss.
If you were ever to meet me in real life, you’d come to slowly find out that I love sci-fi. Not necessarily the Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica-sci-fi, but YA sci-fi and more specifically, Fringe. Fringe is my favorite TV show ever. I’ve always loved Olivia Dunham and I think it's an incredibly fun, thought-provoking show. It’s been a while since I’ve last binged the series on the whole, but it is on Amazon Prime if you’re interested.
Actually, it’s just me. I’ve been waiting for this one. I’m about to head back to school so I wanted to give you my books and songs for summer 2021. I started this series not really thinking it was going to be a series, but here we are! I love music and I love books, so the combo was absolutely necessary. Plus, you, the reader, get to know a little bit more about me. If you want me to learn more about you, comment down below!!
Today I scrolled on Twitter. That’s not the most interesting thing ever, but that’s one of the things I did today. I saw on Twitter trending that self-made, this idea of self-sufficency, women were being celebrated. Just also stumbled onto this Twitter thread about people working 9-5 and feeling like they had no hobbies. These two separate posts on Twitter led me to a conclusion- Our culture truly glorifies self-sufficiency but then everyone wonders why they feel so isolated.
Maybe summer is a weird season for a college student, but I’m sort of in this journey of uncertainty. As a college senior in the midst of a pandemic, I am excited, confused and slightly terrified for what lies ahead. For a second there, the pandemic seemed to be turning a corner. But given the way the tides have turned, I’m starting to regret my optimism. I’m confused as to what I should expect a few weeks from now when I start classes again. I’m even more uncertain about what I expect in less than a year from now - when I graduate.
Studying Life with Gigi 