Presenting... A College Graduate! Now What?
a short catch up and love for animal crossing: new horizons
It finally happened! I graduated college😎
A few weeks ago, my family flew out to Boston for the ceremonies that marked the end of four years of my life dedicated to growing older into adulthood and fostering my future career.
I don’t want this post to be some sappy LinkedIn-esque lament about what my plans are post grad (spoiler alert: there’s not much. More to come in a later post). Rather, this is just a catch-up from my time away as I finished my last semester.
Last semester?
Yup, the last semester of college. Currently, I will not be going to grad school any time soon, so that could’ve been my last semester of my entire lifetime. A bit crazy to think about considering I’ve been in a school setting since I was 5 years old. How do you not be a student anymore? How do you not cling onto what it was like being a student while having to navigate other parts of the responsibilities of life, both career and personal-wise?
While I try to figure out the answers to those questions on my own, let me let you in on something. I made a podcast!
Now this isn’t some random YouTuber announcing that they started a podcast because everyone else was doing it (though I’m not discrediting those because I listen to them too lol). This is just me saying that I’m going to be publishing a three-part podcast I produced as part of one of my journalism classes this spring. Think of it as me just publishing a portfolio piece.
It’s about the graphic design scene in Boston. I interviewed professors, students, design firm owners, and I’m really proud of the show I’ve created. The podcast gave me a great opportunity to do a deep dive into design history and hyperfixate on reading so many documents and books before and after talking to all of my interviewees.
I’ve gotten really into audio production ever since I had an internship at a radio station and then took a couple classes related to audio news, so I want to continue to cultivate that interest before it flies away from me. Maybe I’ll start another short series or audio postcard-type series in conjunction with the writing in this substack.
I’m going to be posting the three episodes weekly starting June 10, and I hope whoever wants to listen likes it too.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
On a note unrelated to school, I finally started playing ACNH back in February, I’m late I know, and since I’ve had more time to myself again, I’ve been even more obsessed. Decorating my island, talking to my villagers, doing my daily Nook Miles tasks … It's so much fun and brings me so much joy.
I’ve been going through these different gaming phases for the last year or so since my boyfriend got me into gaming. I didn’t game much when I was younger aside from the Animal Jam/Club Penguin-type online games. My parents were the type to not buy consoles and instead get physical toys for my siblings and I, so we were big LEGO fans. But now, I’m a LEGO fan and a casual gamer.
Right now, it’s ACNH, before it was Bloons TD6, Minecraft, Fortnite, others. And while I still play most of those games now, ACNH has taken up the majority of my time. I love the freedom of adding flowers and furniture and giving new clothes to my villagers. Maybe when I’m done I’ll post an island tour. I think my favorite is Cephalobot at the moment. The idea of a robot octopus is so funny to me for some reason and I like giving him funny clothes, like a cowboy hat, because of how it contrasts his whole personality and aesthetic.
What’s bringing me joy:
Journaling and scrapbooking!
My stationery collection keeps growing as does my love for journaling. I keep a sort of art/bullet journal-style notebook that I hope to keep filling up through the summer and the rest of my life. Here was my latest spread for the June calendar, my first spread in a while because I got so busy with the end of the semester.
my june 2024 spread!!
Watching those TikToks of people who cover pop music in the style of musical theater
These really bring out my inner theater kid. I love the ones in the style of Dear Evan Hansen especially because I, kinda embarrassingly, was such a big fan in high school. Examples:
Also the ones in other artist’s styles. Gets me every time🤭 Examples:
ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS
This really deserves a second mention because of how much I’ve been playing this game. The best investment I made last summer was buying a Switch, and I’m so happy I did so I can play this masterpiece of a game lol. I’m also interested in playing New Leaf because it seems like there are more mechanics that Nintendo didn’t bring into New Horizons, so I need to download an emulator or find a 3DS somewhere to try it out.
Even though I feel like I say this in the post or to myself any time I write on the internet, I’ll say it again. I’m going to try to stick to a consistent newsletter release schedule: a post every Monday and Thursday. And in order to do this, I’m working on finding my niche in writing and sharing information. While I call this substack a “brain dump” for my own thoughts, I want it to be more than that. So, I hope you stick around for the ride of me taking this newsletter to bigger and better heights.
Until next time,
Madison💌
brain dump goes hard