Updates from the Past Year - Part 1

 Hello everyone! It's been a minute since I have posted anything here, and I'll tell you why in a sec. There is a Part 2 for this post that shouldn't be too hard to find, and if this sort of thing is boring for you, skip, skip, skip. Nobody is forcing you to read, but I definitely am judging you.


I have been working on a lot of projects, and most of all, I moved to Sydney and started uni! I just completed my first year at university, and I am excited to be starting my second year in a couple weeks. Taking a double major in English and Psychology proved to be way more challenging than anticipated, but I really am enjoying my course. A lot of people ask me why I am studying English and Psychology, and someone even asked me what I can do with a degree in English, and the answer is, a lot more than you think! Go Google it. Like please. 

Writing has always appealed to me, and I have attempted to write a book more times than I can count, and I have been as early as 5 years old! Not to be conceited, but I think that shows how much I really do love writing. The problem, however, is that I am a massive self-critic, and an even more massive perfectionist. This often holds me back from creating, and a few weeks ago I came to the realisation that creating crap is a lot better than creating nothing at all, and someday, through practice, I might be able to create something that isn't crappy at all. So with this newfound wisdom, I would like to begin my journey of writing and creating more often.

I also tend to worry a lot about what people think of me, and weirdly, this feeling has gotten a lot less crippling over the years.

As for the projects I spoke about, I have been getting involved in a lot of extra-curricular activities at uni (call me boring, but no, not clubbing and getting shit-faced), like working for my university's magazine as a marketing assistant and also being the Director of Publications at the Psychology Society. In the marketing role I manage the marketing aspect of the magazine (obviously) where I work on websites and social media, and I mostly create reels and posts, and it has helped me get over my fear of Canva (to a great extent at least). Working in the publishing role has taught me so much, like reading and editing peer-reviewed articles and fact checking them to see if the content in the article lines up with the citations and research. I struggled with Imposter Syndrome at the start of acquiring the publishing role, because I knew nothing about editing and publishing. It still bothers me quite a bit today because I have to edit the works of people who are years ahead of me in their degree, and I often wondered, "what on earth am I doing?", but the more I worked, the less this thought got to me, so kudos, I guess.

Social media has captured my interest a lot, and I have been dabbling in it for quite a while now. Since 2019, I think? I worked on my art account, which has been dead for over a year now, and it gave me the introduction to managing a social media account that I needed. I have taken a lot of courses over the past year, and I currently work as a volunteer social media manager for an Australian charity called Purpose and Growth (go check them out, they do amazing work for refugees). I also recently started a study page on instagram and YouTube, and I saw that I reached 5.7k accounts, and that absolutely blew my mind. I have been trying to officially break into the social media space for a while now, but it seems a lot harder than it looks. I think it is a matter of staying consistent, but I can't seem to figure out what the hell works. More dabbling, and I think I'll get there. My study YouTube account is temporarily stagnant, because I am still trying to figure out an effective way to post the same content on Instagram and YouTube, without compromising the video quality. Instagram is a jerk when you try to download your content, because the quality drops so much it almost feels as if you're watching in 360p, and there is an obnoxious little watermark that unapologetically keeps floating around.

More recently, I have also picked up coding again when I realised how much of a stupid little twat I was at 14, because I stopped coding. Why? All I saw in the news and media was these whiz-kids creating million-dollar apps and becoming famous, and I had the audacity to give in to self-doubt, and believe that I was way too old (at 14) to be learning coding. I also was often told that being a female would not work in my favour, especially in the tech industry. I wonder if I never stopped and continued studying coding into uni, would my life be much more different than it is... Now that I have realised how indescribably dense I was, I have started learning Swift, which is Apple's programming language, and so far so good! A lot of people ask me what I am coding, and right now, I would like not to overwhelm myself by thinking about final projects, so I'm going to focus on learning the language, and when I have sufficient command of it, I might think about projects and how I can translate what I have learnt into making a product.


I will end Part 1 of my updates here, and the idea of sending this post to anyone I have not been in touch with for a while sounds very good, because I have so many people to catch up with and email being our primary form of communication...yeah, I might just do that.


Here's a beautiful Sydney Harbour skyline for you <3



Part 2 coming soon! :)

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