New Beginnings

I wonder how many first blog posts are some variation on "new beginnings"... In any case, I am about to basically start a new life on the East Coast, and I want to be able to document it well. This is not my first venture into blogging. In fact, I was a blogger WAY before it was cool; over 12 years ago back when I was 11 I had all kinds of blogs/journals floating around on the interwebs. (I've actually been journaling in some capacity since I was 8.) HTML was my thing and I designed websites for myself like mad. I had accounts on all sorts of hosting sites that don't exist anymore, like GeoCities, Expages, and I don't even know what else. Tons. I wanted to try out all the different hosts to see who was the best, and as I learned about new things like PHP I had to find hosts that would support my coding habits. I should mention here that I had my own computer (a PC running Windows 95 that was given to me when my dad got a PC running Windows 98), my dad was/is really into computers/technology/gadgets, and I had no restrictions on what I could do with it (physically or online) - essentially, my parents were awesome and trusted me to not do anything stupid, for which I am really grateful to them. I really got to understand computers, programming, and the Internet during those middle school summers, and I know all that has influenced me today and is one of the reasons this new beginning is even taking place. So now that I have been thoroughly sidetracked, although I do think it's really important for me to remember my background in this documentation, the reason for the new beginning is that I'm about to move to Washington, DC (well actually Maryland) to go to grad school at George Washington University.

A gate into a courtyard at GW

There's a whole lot more depth to this than meets the eye. The this-is-the-shortest-I-can-make-it-without-really-confusing-you-sorry story is that I played around with all this computer stuff throughout middle school and high school, but never really thought about studying it in college. In fact, I was REALLY into foreign languages (my dad is actually from Russia) and by the end of high school I also really liked economics, but I also am one of those kinds of people who is interested in simply everything and I want to do everything all at once. So I decided to study Econ and Spanish/German/Russian at DePauw. Well, after one semester I didn't like Econ anymore, so then I was a Spanish major with a Russian minor, about to have a German minor tacked on. (I wanted to do a crazy triple major thing but luckily the language department head talked me out of it.) But I wound up taking a computer science class just for fun freshman year, and then wound up becoming a CS tutor, and then sophomore year I happened to be in the right place at the right time at a career fair and landed an internship in California doing computer science-y things.

Point Vicente Lighthouse, Palos Verdes, CA

This is going somewhere, I promise. I loved it so much I switched majors again at the beginning of my junior year (I honestly don't recommend doing this; I was really lucky that I had almost all of my pre-reqs out of the way), majoring in computer science and minoring in Spanish and Russian. I eventually had to kill my Russian minor because I couldn't fit in all my CS classes and be able to take Russian as well. So anyway, flash forward to senior year where I am completely burned out on CS because I've been taking all computer science classes all the time with no reprieve. After a long convo with my dad I decided I should go to grad school, but I didn't know what to go for, so after a lot of research I decided on something called Public History, which is one thing that people who work in museums can study. I had this idea of bringing technology into museums on a large scale (not just big guys like the Smithsonian), and not just for exhibits, but how they actually manage collections and all sorts of neat stuff like that. Well, although I took a ton of history classes back in high school, I only had one in college, so I was at a severe disadvantage (and had no idea what I was getting into), and only got into half the schools I applied to. I wound up at Appalachian St in Boone, NC,

The gorgeous Appalachian Mountains near Boone, NC

 where I thought the program was best suited for me (and conveniently located closer to my boyfriend who was at UNC, who I happened to meet in California in the second of the three summers I interned out there), but it really didn't work out. Turns out most history people are terrified of computers. So I quit. It was the only thing I've ever quit in my whole life besides the basketball team in 7th grade, and it was definitely the hardest decision I have ever had to make. Anyway, after a lot of soul searching I realized that the thing I was actually interested in with the history stuff is the managing-data part of it, so I decided to reapply to other grad schools for a program in information systems. It lets me get back to my computer roots (where I am now positive I belong) and blends in business aspects I've always been interested in, plus lets me take my knowledge to any field that needs or interests me.

Anyway, there's the long explanation of how I ended up about to be in DC/MD going to GW, luckily still with my boyfriend, since upon his master's graduation he had a job lined up in MD. This blog is going to document all sorts of things ranging from organizing our new apartment to cooking adventures to gardening indoor/balcony style to school/work/life balance to exploring our new home. I am mega excited for everything that's coming up and I can't wait to get out to DC to start everything!