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In my six years of driving, I’ve hit my fair share of curbs, retaining walls, and traffic cones, but never a vehicle… until Sunday.

I was on my way to work, jamming out like usual. This time, though, I was jamming a little too hard and not paying attention to my surroundings. I was driving slightly faster than typical parking lot speeds, glanced to the side, and when I looked back, there was a car right in front of me on my left. I slammed on the brakes but couldn’t stop in time. I ended up T-boning the other car, hitting its back passenger-side wheel.

Thankfully, no one was injured, and the damage was minor, but it was still a crazy moment. I HIT SOMEONE’S CAR.

The other car had some scratches on the back and a dented wheel cap, while I left with a scratched front bumper and a missing license plate.

My hood now has a gap and won’t fully close, but both cars were still drivable. The worst part was the awkward exchange of numbers, insurance info, and waiting for the cops.

Overall, I rate my Sunday evening a -100/10 because: a) minor car accident, and b) I had to miss work.

This is a blog topic because it’s on MY blog and I’M the one who’s writing about it! I can write about a lot of things as long as they’re appropriate. Anyways…Let me start this incredibly funny story about how my life has been this past month.

When our campus had a fire drill, student housing had theirs the day after. I was walking home from my photography class and I hear the fire alarms beeping and everyone is standing outside of the apartments. Everyone was grouped together except for one person who was standing by himself. I was still confused as to what was going on, so I decided to approach him.

After some small talk, I found out he lives in the apartment directly across from mine. I was telling my roommates about this guy and they asked me “what’s his name?” and I had absolutely no idea. I couldn’t believe I forgot to ask this guy what his name was! After some pacing back and forth in my room, I decided to write him a note and give him my number because I thought he was cute.

The next morning, I get a text from a new number, and surprise! It was him! After that, we hung out a few times and got along really well. After talking for around three weeks, we started dating at the end of September. Now, this is where it starts to get good.

While we were dating, I asked him some questions about his last relationship. What I didn’t know is that he lied to me when he answered me initially. When I talked to him during the fire drill he recently got out of a relationship that lasted for over a year! I had no idea until yesterday!

I’m definitely disappointed because he lied to me, and I really started to like him, but I’d say it’s for the better. He wasn’t over his ex yet and I just happened to meet him at a bad time. This probably wasn’t the best topic for a blog post, but I needed to lay it all out and work through it. Anyways, I hope it was a semi-fun read!

I complain about being busy every single time I write a blog post. I’m aware… Due to a recent life change, however, I have a little more time to spare, and I thought I’d like to get into crocheting again. I’d also like to start reading again as well, but I don’t think I have the brain capacity to focus on a physical book right now.

I started crocheting as a hobby around two years ago after my first ever breakup. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, and I finally had a good reason to start a new hobby. Who doesn’t want a distraction after a breakup? I started off making lots of beanies. None of them are currently in my hat rotation, though, because they all fit my head weird or look ugly.

After crocheting beanies, I started to make tote bags, which became a favorite project of mine. The only downside was that they took over 6+ hours to make. I made a bag for my friend’s birthday and I worked on it all weekend. Each granny square takes around 20-30 minutes, and each bag needs 13 squares. Stitching the squares together took me around 2-3 hours, and adding the straps took another hour. I made myself a bag with color changing yarn and I love it!

I recently bought some yarn for a project I was going to work on, and I was thinking of making myself a beanie and a tote bag. I still haven”t found out the perfect style of beanie I like, but I hope I do eventually because I’m tired of making ugly hats.

I hope with my newfound free time I use it for something productive! I’ll definitely update if I end up making something.

Getting to Know the Software

Starting my app prototype made me feel a little bit lost, even after watching the video tutorials. I feel like I took a little too much time messing around with the software, and I was running out of time before the prototype was due. A lot of my “messing around” was done in class, and I didn’t do that much outside of that. Looking back on it now, I kicked myself in the foot with that one.

Making my Login Screens

Once I got to animating my art boards, I was really excited. The login and signup screens were also the easiest art boards to make. I used the overlay feature with my animation transitions for most of it. I’m debating if I should add a progress bar to represent the app loading upon opening it, but I don’t know if that’s necessary because I already have toggle buttons as a required feature.

Having fun with scrolling

One of my app features is a spending tracker. I wanted to have the user scroll and see all their purchases over a week long period, but I also didn’t want the entire screen to scroll upwards. I messed around a lot with locking my elements so the text would be the only thing that moves. I think I got my vision down 99%. The only drawback is that you can see a small gap when you scroll too far, and I don’t think I’m able to get rid of it.

Copying a Whole Bunch of Art Boards

My app also has a calendar feature, and for my mockup I included adding an event. Adding an event had a lot of art boards I needed to make because the user needed to add the name of the event, the start and end times, and if they wanted the event repeated or not. This was probably the longest thing I’ve worked on so far for this project, and it was becoming a pain after a while. After animating it, I noticed that a few elements moved slightly to one direction, and I still need to go back and fix a few things.

I’m glad the app prototype was the first project we made in XD because we had a lot of creative freedom with what we wanted to do even within the guidelines we had. After working on my prototype, I have a lot more confidence because I’m more familiar with how to use everything!

Yesterday night my friend and I went to Greyday (a rap concert with a whole bunch of artists). By the end of the night I had no voice, and a phone that was at 3% battery. My friend and I went to see one of the artists that played, but I enjoyed the other artists on the lineup as well. My friend and I had floor tickets, so everyone was jumping around and hitting each other, and it was really fun!

A lot of the videos I took were of the openers, and I didn’t have enough battery to take any photos/videos of the last artist (the one I came to the concert to see), so my friend had to take most of them and send them to me.

The concert started at around 6:30 and ended at 12:00-ish, so it makes sense that my phone was basically dead. On the car ride there, I was using my car charger and my phone was permanently stuck at 80% because my phone kept overheating and it wouldn’t charge.

The line to get merch afterward was super long, but it moved pretty fast. There was a whole bunch of people coming down on the escalators that had bench seating at the venue, so the main area was packed!

The concert was in Lincoln, so it was a three and a half hour drive there and back. The drive there was really fun, but the drive back was awful. I had such a hard time keeping my eyes open while driving. We stopped at a gas station on our way back to get gas and grab some water, but the inside was closed. We eventually found somewhere in Sioux City that was open. After that, we switched drivers so I could take a nap in the car.

Overall, I had a lot of fun and I hope I can go again next year if floor tickets aren’t crazy expensive!

Last Monday was my first day working at Grocott Ink and Thread as a screen printer! I’m liking it so far, but I’ve been super busy all week and it’ stressing me out a little bit. I only work there on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but I also work at my other job on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays. Mondays and Wednesdays are both full days for and I don’t have any time to get my homework done on those days so I have to manage my time super well.

Other than that, everyone is really nice and I like working with them. I obviously haven’t done any projects on my own yet, and I don’t see myself doing any soon. Helping out with everything is a lot less overwhelming that doing entire projects.

Yesterday I heat pressed shirts for the two hours I was there, and it was really nice to turn by brain off for a while before I went to my other job. Walmart typically puts me in a bad mood, so I’m glad I got some time to relax earlier.

With having classes and two jobs, I have even less time to focus on my other hobbies. It’s a little upsetting, but I know I won’t be this busy forever! Only 8 weeks left of my extremely busy semester. I’m also looking forward to having a long weekend! I’m also going to a concert with my friends this Friday, so I have a pretty exciting week ahead of me!

Friday and Saturday I’ll be out of commission from concert preparation and post-concert tiredness, so I’ll definitely have to get most of my homework done beforehand. I’ll manage it, though!

Near the end of my second semester last year, I rekindled with my favorite game of all time. Over the summer, I’d try to play at least a few times a week, and I’d even post updates on my progress. Recently, however, I haven’t been playing as much.

With the limited amount of free time that I have, I typically nap or go on my phone for hours each day. Animal Crossing was more of an activity where I’d sit and play for a couple hours at a time, which is something I don’t have the time to do anymore.

It was still nice to pick the game back up as a hobby for a few months, but I have a lot of other things to focus on right now, which is unfortunate. Playing Animal Crossing was very relaxing, and I’m thinking of trying to start playing again!

I’ve also been thinking of going back to the library and reading again. I used to read all the time in middle/high school. Comparing my schedule now to the one I had two years ago, they aren’t that different, so I don’t know why I feel like I have significantly less free time now than I did back then.

Sometime when I have a whole day to myself I need to play again and see how everything’s been going after my long break!

Student day was a couple days ago, and Angel and I carpooled together. There was a ton of people, and I felt really overwhelmed at first. I was in line waiting to sign in and get my name tag, and I felt like I was getting squished by 10+ people on all sides of me. It was nice to see people from different schools, though. It was nice being somewhere with people who had the same ambitions I did!

I had my portfolio review almost directly after the introduction, and I was pretty nervous. After a few minutes I realized that I had nothing to worry about! Wyatt was very nice and he gave me very good feedback on my portfolio, and I got some help on improving my resume as well.

My review took up the first panel discussion, so I only got to go to the second. It was very interesting hearing how everyone got to where they are now in the industry, and I got a lot of good advice from all of them! I got a lot of good takeaways from everyone.

I was a little bit intimidated by roundtable speed networking, but I was less scared since there were other classmates at the same table I was at. It was nice talking one-on-one to industry professionals and hearing about what type of work they do. There’s so much variety in the creative field and there’s something for everyone! I’m glad I ended up going!

Yesterday was my interview day, and it went very well! Brooke was very friendly, and I loved talking with her! I was introduced to her other coworkers as well, and everyone was very nice. It was less awkward that I thought it was going to be, which was good. I’ve been nervous about this interview since it was announced as something we needed for the magazine, and I’m glad I finally got it knocked out. Her answers to all my questions were very thorough, and I know I’ll get a good article out of it!

I got 4 out of the 6 places for the HDR assignment done on Thursday. It was a lot less awkward since I went with one of my classmates to take the photos. I still don’t know where I want to take the other 2 photos, but I have lots of time to decide! The only concern I’ve been having is that the underexposed photos don’t look much different than the original photo. All of the overexposed stops look different, but not the underexposed. Hopefully it’ll still work when I merge them together.

I also dyed my hair red yesterday! I know it’s not design related, but I still wanted to share it. I haven’t had an unnatural hair color in over two years, so I’m not used to it. I feel like I’m wearing a wig. I’m gonna give it a week and see how I feel about it afterwards. I have a plan B set in case I don’t like how the red looks anyways.

Hooray for me and my fantastic week!

I hate going to the dentist. Not because I’m scared, but because it makes me frustrated. Ever since I moved to Sioux Falls, scheduling appointments has become a pain. I’m able to drive an hour and a half to make it to my appointment, but the number of openings has somehow gotten smaller. I’ve had this appointment scheduled for 6 months, as a result of my other appointment getting cancelled and needing to reschedule. The appointment itself was uncomfortable because I hate the feeling of cold air on my teeth and the tools scratching them. Now, at the end of this appointment, I scheduled another 6 month checkup…8 months away. My next appointment will be after I graduate.

Enough of me complaining about the dentist, I have other things to be happy about! I had a job interview today, and I think it went really well! Everyone on their team asked me questions, which was a little different, but I liked that I got to know everybody.

Speaking of interviews, my interview for my magazine is tomorrow and I’m very nervous. I know I’ll be glad to have got it done, though. I’m really excited to meet with Brooke! I’m also excited to get some photos. I hope everything goes well tomorrow!