January 1

If you told me in 2014 that I’d be ringing in the 2016 New Year in India, I would have probably thought you were a little bit crazy. But if there’s any way for me to sum up 2015, it was a little bit crazy. This past year was something else. So let’s get to breaking it down month by month to the best of my ability.

January was the beginning of the wildest ride. I mean the New Year always brings new things, but it was then that we discovered that the entire newbie WRKC staff was nationally qualified for the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Awards in New York City. One of the reasons this nomination was one of the best things ever was the fact that we were all an entirely new staff that was trying to still try to figure out how everything worked and yet every single one of us had a piece in consideration for the competition. That was probably an important moment for me in learning that I could do a lot of things with journalism but it never really clicked. I mean yeah, that month was pretty fun because January 2015 had my 21^st birthday shenanigans.

February March and April were pretty important I’m sure, but they all blurred together with life happening. The most significant was probably getting the chance to really get to know some of the lovely people I truly care about now. Who am I kidding, February was one of the most important of my entire life because I decided to finally do that news story about anxiety, which included my own personal struggles with anxiety. That took a few weeks and a lot of nitpicking before I was happy with the final result. I’m still not looking for anything other than that piece existing to even just help out one person during their struggle with things like mental illness. That’s all I could really ask for. March and April were the chances for me to light the fire under my butt to really push to keep getting better at what I love. We were national finalists but we were unable to really continue and take home the big one. I’ve never really stopped wanting to keep getting better when it came to news. It was just something else to see those big names schools like NYU and USC in the same exact competition as the little Harvard on the Susquehana aka Kings. I never wanted to stop pushing and I’m thrilled to know I’m going back to try to take home the big W this March for one of my news stories. April was the beginning of me realizing I wanted to do this whole study abroad thing and I don’t have many regrets about that decision (this being sick for the last three days thing totally could have been skipped tbh) but other than that, the memories and time spent with people was the most precious thing I can recall from this time period.

May was the beginning of all the changes if I can be totally honest. A fair amount of my friends were crossing the stage and I was levelling up to be the top of the metaphorical totem pole. I was officially set to be the leader of so many things the following semester and I was kinda just itching to get away and relax. Sure it was cool to finally be on vacation and that we were going to get to bring my mom to see the Lion King performance at the Academy, but I just wanted my own adventure, you know? It started off with one of the weirdest weeks of my life in Atlantic City but everything changed with that week of weirdness. I saw a psychic, a whole debacle that will need to be elaborated on at some future point, and then I just gained a new outlook on life. I just decided to go for it and life just so happened to like me living that way. I somehow scored amazingly legitimate free passes to the Atlantic City Comic Con. I met some incredible celebrities, got my favorite Sinestro shirt and was just in absolute awe of my luck. I had spent many wishes on stars, eyelashes and anything to just have one of the most incredible summers of my life and my god did 2015 deliver.

June was absolutely incredible. Now that I had no worries about doing school work, I got to focus on myself and writing more. I began doing recaps for my favorite webseries and that very first one earned me a shoutout from the series official twitter for the recap. It began the saga of the most entertaining pieces I got the pleasure of doing and it even propelled me to get through the WipeOut run later that month. I mean if I could get bold enough to publically recap my favorite series, I could handle a not public version of Wipeout (It was a stretch but I survived it). The day of that race, I was just on such an exhausted high that I made one of the craziest ideas and risks in my entire life, and I’m not talking just spontaneously going to experience Philly Pride (where I got my favorite homo estas pins) for the first time. I decided that I was going to live a lot and emailed one of my favorite youtube personalities who just so happens to be on Carmilla. For some reason, they were totally down with meeting up with me the next month to do an interview. I was just so ecstatic that I could pretend to be a real journalist for a little bit longer. But this little bit of excitement pushed me into thinking why don’t I push myself more to do things by myself for myself to be happy?

July was a wild ride. I began the 100 happy days challenge and I have no regrets about that whatsoever. I went from only taking pictures of what I saw to eventually becoming happier with who was making the memories and developed a better outlook on life as well as towards myself. I finally made my first trip to Canada with one of my good friends from college, who I got to reconnect with because she shares my excitement towards the series and I promised if I ever got to interview any of them I’d bring the person who technically introduced me to it. Interviewing Kaitlyn was one of the best pleasures I’ve ever had even though life is a bit cruel and somehow we were an hour late because we were both at opposite sides of the same street at the same named coffee shop. It was an experience I’ll never forget and I just kept rolling with everything. I learned a lot about journalism and myself with that trip. But I enjoyed the entire month because I spent time with my friends in Queens, Wilkes-Barre and people in Philly while constantly growing and developing who I was as a person, going on solo adventures while preparing for the upcoming hell of the GREs.

August was a true moment of character development. My summer would be cut a week shorter because I had the honor of being one of the Orientation Coordinators for Kings. So with 13 days remaining after struggling to get through the GREs, I treated myself to 13 days of various adventures: I spent time with family, I explored Philly even more with seeing the Franklin Institute for the first time in years, went to the art museum (played in the sprinklers too after seeing the fantastic art), went to the beach, discovered the awesomeness that is the Spruce Street Harbor Park, had a blast at the PA Renaissance Faire, saw one of my closest friends that I get to possibly see once a year, saw the incredible Miranda Sings perform live in Philly, got amazing seats to a last minute Phillies game, cut off all my hair, and most importantly came out as Demisexual publically to most family and friends. Those last two seemed to be very important in my life. The loss of my long hair was just big to me because I was ready for something new and it was drastic because I was going to do something slightly terrifying like tell people that hey, I’m actually not 100% heterosexual. I’m actually pretty androgynous and I like guys or girls depending on how close I feel to that particular individual. It was big for me but one of the most freeing experiences I’ve ever dealt with. Orientation was fantastic with an amazing group of leaders and phenomenal people that helped us make the first year students feel welcome to their new family. Soon enough, orientation passed and the final chapter of my time as a King’s College undergrad was beginning.

September was pretty hectic since August had me deciding that I would take the trip to Toronto on my own because the members of my favorite webseries were going to do a panel at Fan Expo. I never knew if there’d be an opportunity like that again and since it was only the first few days of class, I figured that I wouldn’t be missing all that much so I made the journey in my lovely Olga all the way to Canada and had one of the best weekends of my life. I met so many good people at the expo. I got sooooo much merchandise to decorate my room and I got to attend that panel. It was great to be surrounded with others who shared my love for the series as well as see in person the lovely people I would only see from my computer screen. I didn’t expect to get their autographs but somehow I did and even ran into two of the cast members the following day admist a panic attack, getting the opportunity for personal pictures and just a short opportunity to give them both a hug and thank them for everything they had done. It was really hard to come back down from that high, it was just such an intensely good experience for me to be on my own and it didn’t absolutely destroy me. I was so happy I couldn’t even function, but somehow I did and got right back into the swing of work and a brand new semester of challenges.

October and November were definitely hectic. New responsibilities, like being Co-Editor and Station Manager as well as a member of the Quidditch team, with different classes, like acting for non-theatre majors as well as tv studio, was pretty difficult on top of trying to get my head on straight to deal with Senior Sem. Did that stop me? Hell no. I was kinda struggling to get through because I had lost a significant amount of time in my day to be spending with friends instead of constantly working on projects or sleeping. I wasn’t able to get much socializing done but somehow I managed to make a few new friends and get closer with some important ones. November really stands out to me because that was when my wake-up call happened – where I realized I love journalism too much to just give it up. I couldn’t ignore my dream, not after all the adventures I had pushed myself to find. I loved writing, I love telling stories and I was pretty good at Journalism and had no legitimate reason other than playing it safe instead of taking a risk like I know I could. So now I’m an aspiring journalist once more.

December was pretty blurry, ironically even though it was the most recent. SO MUCH was packed into that month. Also it didn’t help that I had been introduced to the struggle of all night projects (something I shouldn’t really be doing apparently) Celebrations and bittersweet pauses when senior seminar was finally complete and I realized only one more semester truly protected me from the real world anymore. The time between the finishing of final projects and getting onto the plane to India were hectic as I mentioned on this blog. India has been insane but I can’t just help but be so happy with the year I have managed to have.

I have a few things that I do hope to accomplish though. I do honestly want to get back into shape and take care of my body. The real world won’t be easy to deal with, but it might be a tad easier if just taking the stairs doesn’t wind me as much as it does now. Graduate school is a major plan that I hope to accomplish. Upon my return to the states, I have every intention to put all my work and energy into applying for at least five masters programs to continue my education and become a better journalist. I want to be someone worth respecting. I want to be a better person. I want to do another crazy fun race. I want to really enjoy every moment of this new year. This year is going to be something I don’t expect and I’m really excited for that. Maybe I’ll accomplish these things. Maybe I’ll even be able to grow. Hell, maybe I’ll fall in love or rebuild bridges with friends who I thought left. Life is never certain and I love being able to just try to tell the story of the world I’m trying to understand.

That’s all for now, let’s start this New Year off right shall we? Til Next time.~KA