Hey y'all! Been awhile since the last journal, so figured what better time to dust off the page a little than a new one on the last day of the year!
It's been wild, coming (sort of) out of the pandemic and trying to get back to as close to "normal" as we can. So here is some of my highlights and other things I wanted to catch y'all up/reflect on!

Health:
Covid-19 may not have plagued me personally, but I'm plagued by consequences of it... I got FAT yo, lmao. I mean, okay... It's not -that- bad, but it's definitely not ideal. I'm hoping now that my life has kinda cleaned up abit (you'll see momentarily) I'll feel more motivated to address that. I use to burn off fat pretty easily back when I started swimming before the pandemic, so I'm hoping I've retained that ability still! x> Otherwise, I'm pretty much as healthy as can be, thankful to whatever power is at play for not plucking my string of fate, lol.

School:
I started this year doing remote classes in the Spring semester, only to waltz back into in-person lectures for the Fall semester. Relearning how to learn in a physical environment, coupled with the crippling senioritis settling in was uh... A challenge to be sure! But hey, I (somehow) managed, and as of 3 weeks ago, I've officially graduated with a Bachelor's in Arts, Technology and Emerging Communications, so yayyyyy!! \ovo/

Socials:
I definitely feel like I've phased out from the fandom a bit, especially in the last few months. I guess I can partially pin that on my senior project eating away my time (and soul), but even now I feel... I dunno, disconnected? BEFORE YOU PANIC, no, I'm not leaving or anything, haha, I just mean that I haven't really maintained a "sociable" presence online (if I had one??). I've found that I've confided myself to a few friend groups and rarely stray from them, which while that's fine and perfectly healthy/normal, I DO wanna branch out a little, be a little more receptive to y'all reaching out to me, and conversely doing the same to others whom I find interest in/pull inspiration from! A lotta y'all are pretty cool n' chill peeps, and I just feel like I've shot down a fair amount of y'all solely because I was at a sort of limit to my social bandwidth this past year. I can't promise to immediately rectify this, but I'm hoping with burden of school finally lifted from my shoulders I'll feel a bit more lively online. Hell, maybe even person! There's lotsa places I wanna visit, the sky's the limit, I suppose!

Work:
I was working alongside my remote classes earlier this year, but I quit mid-August and buckled down for my final semester to focus on my senior project/thesis/capstone/whatever you wanna call it! I spoke with my former lead earlier this week, and turns out the office is in the midst of a relocation/expansion, and it looks like I'm set to start again around Jan. 10th! They sound like they're really starting address some of the previous issues of stagnation in positions/educating for new opportunities... I'm not holding my breath entirely, but I'm hopeful I can at least endure it until I find a more suitable job pertaining in (relatively close to) my degree. I have a few options lined up, so who knows, maybe one of those will stick!

Commissions:
Ho lordy, here we go... YES, I'm still DRASTICALLY behind in my backlog of uploading these, but damn it I wanna at least toss -some- words to make the piece more interactable than just slapping in credit to the artist. So yeah, still grossly behind, but I'm working on it (If the last 3 days of posts have been indication of that... Which speaking of, HEY, I just passed 400 submissions, WOW)! That said, I also took an idea from a stinky bird friend earlier this year and started using an excel spreadsheet to keep track of, well... Everything! Artist's name, commission date, price amount, tip amount (tip your artists you plebians), completion status, so on and so forth... It's been very helpful... And brutal at the same time! :D Holy FUCK I spent a lot on commissions this year (none of which y'all have even SEEN yet cause my backlog is still into Fall of 2020). This spreadsheet a living testament to my insanity, BUT, it was helpful in getting me to chill the fuck out and reel it in a bit... So much so that I actually was able to do the PC upgrade I've been wanting to do for the past like 3 years... Considering my last build was when the most expensive component was a 256GB SSD... :^)

I think that about wraps things up for me! With the completion of college, I feel like the previous chapter in my life has officially come to a close, and I'm excited to see where the next one takes me! Thanks to everyone who was there to experience this year with me, no matter how big or small the interaction, y'all, this fandom, changed my life for the better, can't thank y'all enough!! 💚

Have a Happy New Year's! Here's to better 2022!!! 🎊🎉