Why does time fly by so quickly?
To be honest, as I reflect on this past year, I’m not quite sure what to write about it. Like the past few years of my life, it’s been a turbulent, amazing, dreadful, and bountiful time all at once.
A Quick Summary
Here are some quick notes about the bigger things that happened to me this year:
- During the Spring 2021 semester, I seriously debated between 1) continuing my education and going to university in the fall, 2) taking a gap year, and 3) working full-time. (I ended up with #1.)
- In June, my family set out on a long road trip across the United States, the highlights of our time being the Ohio Scriptorium and a friend’s wedding. It was also really neat to be able to visit many Bible Bee and Scriptorium families!
- In August, I moved near USC and began my first semester there. During those few months, I switched majors, added a major, dropped a major, then added another major. I also became active in several clubs / organizations, including band, gymnastics, dnd, and the gop. I also switched a class, dropped a class, and switched sections in band. In addition, I decided to start planning to follow a premed track in Spring 2022.
- In December, I wrapped up my semester at USC with finals and a trip to Cal. I also (later in the month) applied for the National Bible Bee Alumni Service Team, and am happy to say that I’ll be joining them in 2022.
Portfolio-wise, I didn’t have such a good year. I created a few UI and graphic designs at the beginning of the year, focused on 3D modelling near the end of summer, then completely neglected working on my skills during the fall semester. I’m trying to catch up a bit on projects over winter break, so wish me luck.
Reacting to Recap Posts :0
I’m binge-reading all my weekly / monthly / semesterly summary posts from this past year. In this section of my 2021 recap post, I’ve written a few notes and comments regarding some things that popped up in my writings over these past few months.
- It’s so funny how things change. At the beginning of the year, I was debating over whether to attend Make School or Minerva in Fall 2021. I originally didn’t really want to go to USC after getting rejected last year, but my parents insisted I apply for transfer anyway. (xD Isn’t it very interesting how things turn out?)
- Okay, I’m going to grab a quote from this post that I think has proved to be very true time and again this year:
Whenever I think I have everything figured out, that’s when I realize I don’t. Me
- Yup. I reference my original reservations towards majoring in Computer Science in this post, and lo and behold, by the end of my first semester at USC, I’d dropped out of CS and gone into art and biology instead.
- P.S. I was able to put off reading The Dark Artifices until mid-March. >_>
- Well, this did finally happen in Fall 2021 (I had 14 units) . . .
I always tell myself I’ll take fewer classes next semester, but that somehow never seems to happen.
- . . . but then I’m gonna go back to doing it again in Spring 2022. >_> Alongside my classes at USC, I hope to take Introduction to Psychology, as well as Introduction to Sociology, from a community college as part of my premed requirements.
Let’s not mention that it’s also gymnastics competition season, or that I’m looking for an extra job or two (one might be a night shift), or that I took up a volunteering position, or that —
- Welp, in April I discovered I got accepted as a transfer student to USC, which is where I ended up in the fall.
- I just realized that almost every post I wrote in 2021 before (and including) this one has a recap of all the books I read that month. Then once I entered USC, all my book-reading stopped. ToT
Favorite Quotes (from 2021 posts)
Whenever I think I have everything figured out, that’s when I realize I don’t. me
I always tell myself I’ll take fewer classes next semester, but that somehow never seems to happen. also me
Me being me in a state of shock, I forgot that pretty much no one delivers rejection emails earlier than acceptance ones. hehe, me again (from April Post)
Once I finished the first book, I read the next, and the next, and the next, and before I knew it, I’d finished both Camp Half-Blood series and was halfway through the first of the Trials of Apollo. (Want to know how long it took? Less than seven days.) And then I stopped reading for the next two weeks. typical me (also from April Post)
Book Recap
See https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2021/83196155 for My Year in Books!
Favorite Books
- The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
- Every Single Lie by Rachel Vincent
- The Dark Artifices series by Cassandra Clare
- The Eldest Curses series by Cassandra Clare
- A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas
- Camp Half-Blood Chronicles books by Rick Riordan
- The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal
- Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee
- The Last Hours series by Cassandra Clare
- Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger
- Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
- The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
- Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
- The Cousins by Karen McManus
- Maximum Ride series by James Patterson
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
I read about 150 books this year (well, 149 as of the time of this post, but I’m going to push it to 150 hehe), in comparison to 310 last year.
Summary
There is only going forward.