Happy New Year!

Hey all!  Happy 2019!

If you’re like me, you love the feeling of getting to start fresh in the new year— truly, there are few better gifts than a blank slate.  I’m especially relishing this feeling when it comes to this blog, as, despite all my good intentions, I never really made much use of it in 2018.  I’m starting some reconstruction efforts to really polish it up now— getting rid of some of the old or outdated stuff and bringing in shiny new content— so that this place can really serve as a comprehensive portfolio for me for a long time to come (and as a small little internet community for people who are interested in the same sort of stuff as I am!)

In the meantime, though, I thought I might share a couple of general life updates:

Over winter break, I got to take an amazing trip to Panama (as part of my university’s Global Scholars* program).  The trip itself was centered mostly around sustainability and urban development (which is, of course, right up my alley)— but we also got the chance to do a decent bit of sightseeing and relaxing, too.  I took a bunch of video clips throughout the week and will hopefully be posting some kind of “Thoughts From Panama” video on the old YouTube channel sometime in the next week or two.  I can’t wait to share so much of what I saw!

After getting back home, I unfortunately came down with a pretty severe double case of both mono and strep (yikes.  I have to think that it was maybe my body’s way of telling me that I needed to slow down— really slow down— for a bit after working pretty nonstop for most of 2018.)  Being sick was, well, not as fun as Panama, that’s for sure— but it did give me some time to play with a cool drawing tablet I got for Christmas!  I posted some fun test sketches I made over on my Twitter if you’re interested.  Making art is still one of my favorite ways to relax, and I don’t do it nearly often enough.  Maybe once I get a little more practice in, I’ll start posting some of my work here on this website.Oh, and I guess the other good thing about being sick/having to rest so much is that it gave me plenty of time to finish applying to graduate school.  (Here’s a shoutout to you, Graduate School Admissions Representative or Faculty Member who may be reading this!)  I’m intentionally staying pretty tight-lipped about this whole process for the time being (don’t want to jinx anything, and all that)— but for now, it’s just nice to have all that work done and just be able to concentrate on school for my last semester of undergrad.  Between applying to grad schools, and for a National Science Foundation Grant, and for a Truman Scholarship, and organizing TEDxUniversityofTulsa**, and working a job or two (all other things I did this past year), it’s actually been a while since I’ve been able to devote that singular sort of focus to school, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about it.

That’s all I’ve got for now!  I hope the new year has found you well so far, and that you’re as excited as I am for the rest of 2019.  I did make a whole list of goals and resolutions, some of which got posted on Twitter— but I’ve decided to skip the formalities of posting any of that here, and just get straight to writing, making, and doing things I like for people I love.  After all, that’s what this whole website is for!  🙂

Happy New Year & all my best,

Aa

*The University of Tulsa website recently underwent some of its own rebranding & renovation, so it looks like the information on Global Scholars is a bit more sparse than it used to be (at least at the time of writing).  Essentially, GS is a program of students from across the University who complete coursework, both on campus and abroad, centered around global issues such as technology, governance, population, and resource management.  It’s a really awesome program, and if you happen to be a TU student, you should definitely consider it!

**Now TEDxUTulsa!  (I guess everyone rebranded last year?)  If you love TED talks and are in the greater Tulsa area, check us out on Facebook or Twitter— I’m biased, but I think it’s truly a remarkable experience.