Resolutions and Rolling Balls

So, to be honest chaps, not too much has happened since last weeks that is really worth talking about. I got my booster shot on Tuesday, which pretty much wiped me out for the whole week. I don't know why, but all three vaccines have given me really rough side effects :/ but I'm glad to have it, since COVID is going crazy in MA right now.

Anyway, the big news is that today I had my thesis defense, where I met with my two readers and they asked me questions about the thesis. I think it went really well which I am grateful for! Honestly, if I could do things over again, I probably would not have written a thesis. I think it was way more mental strain than it was worth, but hopefully if I decide to go to grad school, it will come in handy, and I did enjoy writing it sometimes, even though most of the time I was pulling my hair out. In any case, I have to review it one last time before I officially submit it and wash my hands of Smith College, but I am so close now!

The weather in MA is also crazy cold this week (tomorrow it's going to feel like negative teens), so I am pretty much just staying bundled up inside. I wrote a little bit about my New Year's Resolutions in my last post, and one of my big New Year's Resolutions is to use social media less. Recently, I've been realizing that I kind of checked out of my life a bit last fall. Like, I hit a point where I was so stressed and overwhelmed by the world that I think I kind of started just going through the motions, and I think I used social media to escape a lot, mostly TikTok and Twitter. I kind of justified it by being like "Well, these apps keep me informed about the world," but I think it's just wearing a lot on my energy and attention span. I used to think the term "doomscrolling" was silly, but what do you know, sometimes people on the Internet are actually right. I notice myself becoming more cynical and while I don't think social media is solely responsible, I certainly don't think it's helping. Anyway, that was a lot of words but the main thing is, I am trying to do more to keep my mind active, like reading or doing puzzles, so that I can avoid using social media and wean away from it or find a healthy balance.

Oh, and since everyone else made a list of their New Year's Resolutions, I wanted to add mine in one place too. Sorry if this feels redundant hehe:

- Cook more of course :^) Trying to order takeout a lot less and learn to make foods I really like instead.

- Read more, especially fiction. I feel like at Smith, I only ever read nonfiction for class and just give up on fiction. I am trying to get back into it by reading Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. It's been my favorite book since I first read it a few years ago, so hopefully I still like it just as much hehe.

- Exercise more. I don't really have any particular targets with these goals. I have just noticed that I don't feel good, and I want to introduce more healthy habits into my life, so I'm just going to try to walk and do yoga more, nothing crazy lol.

- Along with that, I also want to get my health issues figured out. Going to try to make a doctor's appointment soon to get the process going again since last summer was kind of a bust.

- And get good at bowling !! I will update you all in my journey :D I want to also have more hobbies bc I feel like I kind of don't have hobbies anymore besides just reading, watching movies, and listening to music, which are all very passive. I used to love bowling and honestly it brings me a lot of joy when I go. My friends at Smith took me to that place at Hampshire Mall at the end of the semester, and I got a score of 121, my highest so far. The other hobby I might try again is archery, but I don't have a job right now, so we'll see if I get my money up enough to take an archery class.

Proof of my score. It was a rough start, but we got there in the end.

Other than that, I've been trying to think about whether I have more to say about my last semester at Smith, and I'm still pretty much coming up dry, but I'm going to dump some photos here. I did a little retrospective of memories on Instagram back a couple weeks ago, but there were a lot of pictures of places that I didn't post so I'll include them here :')

And in terms of cooking updates this week, Kyra and I made ratatouille (very easy hehe), pasta carbonara (I was also surprised at how easy this was. We think we messed up the proportions bc we didn't have enough eggs so we had to guesstimate, but it still came out very yummy), and chili. Doing really easy stuff right now, but next week I want to try to make tiramisu so I am excited to show you if we end up making that :D

Chili, it was very hot.