#there are two programs im looking at rn. i could just apply for both and see what happens

[hey-scully-itsme]

god help me i'm considering applying for masters programs

[formula-fun]

in the pacrim au, if lestappen do get a jeager, what are the vibes?? like in my imagination it's big and sleek and fast and red and has some cuntyass name, but what's your vision??

also i desperately need to know how all the other people in the shatterdome think of these two idiots doing everything to one up each other while being so obviously compatible but denying violently

my goddddddd i dont know how much is considered a spoiler but i want to talk about it SO bad so under the cut--

so they do eventually get a jaeger but it takes a LONG time. im literally gonna spoil the whole fic rn. charles works for the science division for a long time developing the Mark VI project, and the one they end up getting is the first Mark VI, but it's technically a Mark VI package applied to the jaeger that Max already had with Daniel. It's really old by that point but it has one of the highest kill counts in the entire program and got upgrades throughout the years so it's still very very good. Once charles becomes his copilot they give it a new paintjob and some new weapons and stuff, and the drift interface is completely different so it kind of feels like three people drifting together rather than two people drifting with a big robot. I haven't given it a name yet and idk if it gets a new one? it feels like it should. It was called Rogue Blue originally but they tend to just refer to it as Rogue, and Max calls it Rocky. in terms of build it's very similar to Striker Eureka

and sdfjkdsjkfd the lore about them in the shatterdome is soooo shrouded in mystery. Charles is already kind of an enigma so his friendship....? rivalry...?? with max is just the stuff of legends. They can both speak french and dutch fluently because of the phantom drift situation, and there are SO many rumors about it. like did they grow up together??? did they learn each others native languages so they could insult each other better??? we just dont know. Daniel feels like he knows Charles very well because he's been drifting with max for years, but charles does not know daniel AT ALL so the dynamic is bizarre to watch. Charles has this little troupe of rookies that are helping with the Mark VI project and they're all soooo confused about why max is in the lab all the time. the lab building isn't even connected to the Shatterdome, it's a separate old ass 50's bunker. how did max even find it and why is he in their boss' office arguing about whether a kaiju looks more like a fish or a bear??? does he not have better things to do???

[letstalkaboutfandomsbaby]

ok so basically mad at explaining so expect some basicallys and likes.

Im from the uk and i got to a grammar school, im in sixth form rn and i rlly want to be a docter (dont even get me started on that rant). i have an offer to go to Cambridge (rllyyyyyyyy good un but not the best for medicine?) but manchester is also on the table (not as good uni but alright for medicine) and ofc other unis but woth my like smarts theyre probs my best offer

so i need to know what u think 😭

and like a name bcus im here a lot just scared to talk

Oof, that's gonna be difficult bc im from the US and i have no clue how universities work in the UK or any other country for that matter 😬 when i was finishing high school and looking into colleges, i was looking for ones that would give me a decent education while also helping me prepare for the future. I want to be a vet, but i needed a bachelor's degree first in order to apply. Universities in the US are more likely to choose choose previous graduates when picking applicants for doctorate programs, so i chose a university that also had a vet school program so that i would be more likely to get in. I only applied to one college and i got accepted so i didn't really think about the rest 🤷‍♀️

Tbh i feel like you're stressing too much. Yes, this is a big decision, but there's no wrong answer and you will get an education either way. I know this is a very scary time in your life bc there's a lot of changes, but once the fear of change passes you'll feel so much lighter and realize that they're both good choices!!

Ig my advice would be to do more research into each university. Are you looking for a certain uni environment? Are you interested in clubs? What kinds of experiences did former students have with teachers and classes? Don't be afraid to get picky, you've got two universities that have already accepted you so you hold all the power now. Think about the little details that you want from a uni and look for those traits in your options

And the name is up to you!! You could choose an animal or fruit, even a color if you want :)

[tangerinegod]

Hello! I am sorry to bother you but I am a senior getting ready for college this year. I am in the US and I wanted to major in the same thing you did, do you have any possible tips for me? I still haven't even looked for colleges that would be best for animation majors so I figured if you were up to giving out any tips/saying any basic ideas if you wanted to/if you had the time to then maybe I'll have a better idea! I apologise for if I sound weird! I'm tried to word it correctly but I can't 😿

hi!! i’m totally down to share my experiences! someone else also had some questions so i’m going to put them all together in this post haha, hopefully this helps! it’ll get pretty long so apologies ahead of time but art school is a lot to think about so i wanna be as helpful as i can around it, its a lot of time and money. I’m gonna put it all under a read more cus it is really really long!

i wanna start off with the fact that I had the privilege of attending school in a financially stable environment, my parents were/are really supportive so w merit scholarship i only came out with around 20-30k in debt and i also had housing support my entire time in school. they were ok with me focusing on academics so i didn’t hold a retail job unless i was out of school like summer/winter break. Ofc though i regularly take commissions/do merch/cons to try and pay for all bills that arent rent cus i did want to be financially independent where it was possible. I also did try and work during the semester but everytime i did my body would deff start to breakdown from the fact that i didnt wanna compromise schoolwork with jobs.. so just read ahead know this experience is from a student who was able to attend focusing only on school work for most of the time!

the biggest thing is knowing art school is not required to become a professional in either freelancing or industry! there are a huuuge amount of online tools and classes these days that provide the exact same education and for cheaper too. i think it depends on what experience you prefer/can handle/want but it’s definitely possible to make art/animation art your living without higher education. the thing that college will for sure give you though is the ability to meet deadlines, work even when you dont want to, and connections with peers+teachers. i think the connections part is invaluable because you’re basically coming out with a network of people you already know and who know you! 

also its good to know if you want to attend/can handle art school! it’s a lot of time and energy and students get burned out really fast. the best piece of advice i got before going was ‘if you draw every single day, even if its for only like 5-10 minutes or a doodle for a whole year you should be fine’ consistency is super key because you’re attending school to draw, and you’ll have to create work for stuff you aren’t excited for at some point or another. burnout is extremely real and the only reason i didn’t experience it was probably because i got super into drawing naruto fanart again inbetween sophomore and junior year! it helped give me something to draw seperated from school which is the only thing i was drawing for since i had entered rip. a heads up id also consider myself a workaholic so i fit in ok with the ‘art school’ environment but it is suuper unhealthy. if you are fantastic at managing your schedule then it’s definitely possible to take care of yourself! freshman year i got 8 hours a sleep a night and only pulled all nighters for some second semester finals at the end. sophomore year + up though i ended up prioritizing hw over sleep and like for sure, definitely shortened my life span. there’s another q down below where i’ll go more into detail but ya, be careful w ur work balance!

another tip especially for animation is knowing for a fact what type of animation you’re looking to go into, and what the school is offering. I didn’t think i’d get into art school at the time so i only applied to two places + decided if i didnt get into either id attend community to get credits out of the way while building portfolio. honestly? i did not do a lot of research LOL but like i did end up having the chance to tour and stuff! just know that each school will have a very different curriculum. The main differences are schools that prioritize 3D (cg animation, cg modeling, ect) and 2D/traditional (hand drawn, ‘oldschool’, digital or traditional based) this is a huge difference so make sure you do research for it! in most cases a 2D/traditional program will also offer 3D since it’s at the forefront of the industry animation wise rn. My school taught 2D but like hand drawn on physical paper 2D, frame by frame. while it was a good experience it’s super outdated because digital tools make it way faster + easier! i’d recommend looking for a program that is digital 2D over traditional 2D. 

if after your senior year covid is still affecting campuses in the US to keep them shut down i’d recommend attending a community college to get credits and then transferring into school. one of the negatives is paying money for gened classes when ur not there for them; if you can get them out of the way sooner and cheaper there is absolutely no negative + you could graduate earlier or use the extra time for better work or to work a job! 

these are all the general tips i think i’d give on like a broad basis of attending or not to think about? let me know if u have more q’s! someone asked q’s im answering below that go more into personal experiences + work culture so heres those:

- how many hours a week do u spend studying, in class, otherwise making art? like how much of ur life does it consume?

I was basically working on art.... 24/7! since i wasnt working a job at the same time i crammed as many credits as possible into my schedule so on avg i did 18 credit semesters (around 6 classes) art classes go for 6 hours and non art go for 3, so i’d spent around 30-35 hours in class a week! hw wise it varied on the class but combined it would be around 35-50 hours a week... im guessing? on average studio classes would have 8-10 hours of hw, maybe 5 for a light week, and gened classes 5 hours w them all combined. or this was probably how things were before junior year? junior+senior year i had thesis + everything else ontop.. i’d spend around 30-40 hours on thesis a week with other classes ontop of that bc my film was super long cus im a dummy! 

- is it hard going to art school n realising that altho u were probably quite talented… so is everyone else? Like. all of a sudden. ur not special and everyone seems as good as u, you know? More generally, how do u deal with comparison?

kinda?? i think instead of the idea of like you vs others it feels more of like a competition at first to be the best. this varies hugely on school culture though; my animation year was really friendly with each other and get along extremely well, so my answer to this is v different than some others who attended different schools. i think that the idea of ‘comparison’ only lasts a portion of the first year because at some point you realize that it’s not a who’s better as much as its a ‘these are my coworkers��� type thing? like healthy competition 100% because we’re all working to improve but i think most of us learned pretty early on that viewing each other as peers going into the same workforce helped a lot. also at some point everyone develops their own style/starts to develop their artistic preferences so there isn’t a way to compare whos 'better’ anymore? i dont think there ever is tbh because style is appealing based off of an individuals preferences. If anything realizing everyone else is also amazing makes you wanna work harder ig? or thats how i felt! it’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who create such amazing work. 

- is there a lot of workaholic culture? all nighter culture?

100000% there can be a workaholic and all nighter culture. i know people who avoided it and thats honestly fantastic because i fall super easily into that pit. sometimes i’ll pull all nighters on a personal project just because i really want to finish it... i am definitely considered a workaholic all the way through and its not healthy rip... i’d estimate at the worst i was pulling 2-3 all nighters a week and only 4-5 hours of sleep on the nights i didn’t? that was only for one year tho, after that i was like yeah ok this is really bad for my health in the long run LOL so i tried to cut it down to one all nighter a week and around 5-6 hours of sleep the rest of the week! by senior year my decision to cram in full semesters paid off and i was able to consistently get around 7 hours of sleep a night + no all nighters minus finals since my schedule was lighter despite thesis 😭 while there is that culture i don’t think people view it as like a badge of honor or something to be proud of anymore which is good, we mostly view it as a flaw of the art school system and something that needs to be fixed!!

- are you glad u did it? how did u know it was what u wanted?

i am glad i did it! i’m definitely in a limbo right now of if it was worth both my time, money, and my parents money rip but i think with what i got out of it i definitely wouldn’t be as far skill wise or knowledge wise when it comes to the art industry. i would say it was only worth it for be because i had so much support going in though so i was able to focus so much on improving. if i had only been able to put in part of the effort and not make full use of the resources provided i would honestly have a different answer.. 

i knew it was what i wanted when i realized i really couldn’t see myself pursuing a different profession happily! despite all the bumps and stuff im fully in love with drawing still and feel honored that it’s a field that can provide a living. my second profession choice was to go into culinary school? and third option i think going was into music cus i was also a band kid hehe.  

- how do u cope with ur hobby becoming ur job? how do u deal with art going from something u do for fun to something u do on command constantly?

i think seperating work art from personal art is important! in my case im doubling naruto into being personal work so i have something to fall back onto that isn’t work related. its been a hyperfixation for 12+ years? so drawing it at this point is just like personal art imo. some people have hobbies outside of art and only draw for their job! i think after attending classes for so long the idea of hobby turning into job feels extremely natural? also i enjoy doing it so thats a huge plus! 

sorry this is SO long but i hope i answered your guys’ questions! if you have more just lmk!

[marshalldodger]

oh hi there, welcome to holiday, MARSHALL “DODGER” VAN DER BYL. you’ve been here for ONE MONTH? awesome! you look just like BERK CANKAT, it’s crazy. oh, so you’re a/an THIRTY-THREE year old AVIATION SYSTEMS TECHNICIAN. and you’re CISMALE and use HE/HIM? okay, just checking! oh, people say you’re QUICK-WITTED & TRUSTWORTHY but IMPULSIVE & STUBBORN? well, i’m sure that you can prove yourself here. you’re looking forward to the CHRISTMAS celebration? that’s a good one, you’ll love it. i have to get going now, bye!

Marshall Van Der Byl was one of those children who knew what he wanted to be the moment the question was presented to him. He adored planes, more than anything in the world and knew his future was in the sky. 

His father was a military man and brought home with him a sense of national pride that he instilled in his son. Though his words always came with a warning: Marshall was too young to understand what service meant, and would not be permitted to serve until he had ( at the very least ) completed university.

So the idea floated from Marshall’s head for a number of years. The passion for aviation was still there, but he allowed himself to explore other options. He wasn’t dead set until he was forced to watch Wings (1927) in his history class. It seemed he was the only kid in class that actually picked up on the movie’s meaning, That it was a love story between two pilots -- even going so far as to show the first gay kiss ever in american cinema. ( receipts -- this shit is gay ).

but Marshall’s dad was still against it. He didn’t think his son would have the stomach to serve when the going got tough. He managed to get into his head.

The thing was, Marshall was just as passionate about the mechanics of the planes as he was about flying them. When it came time for university, he enrolled himself in two programs at two schools. One for piloting, and the other for aviation systems management at a local college. To fall back on, as he explained to his family. It was hell for four years, doing night classes and getting his courses cut down to the minimum so he could handle his work load. He managed to pass both, somehow. 

When he was ready, after a year off to rest, he joined the military. Aged 23. He was a member of the air force, enlisting for a six year run.

The badge almost went to his head. He got cocky and brash, pressed on by his fellows, who had much the same attitude. In time he thought he was beginning to loose his sense of self. not to mention how...hard it was too see hardships of war. He couldn’t help but think that what he had seen wasn’t even been the worst of it. That every day he might be put into a situation -- a dog fight, a rescue mission -- that might really fuck him up. He wanted to preserve his sense of self.

When his six years were up, Marshall applied to be an AST instead. A year later, he was running out to the planes to do maintenance as the pilots climbed out of their seats. 

that’s all i have for backstory rn. there’s def something else there but.....i don’t know what yet. maybe he gets conned. maybe he has a scandal idk

HEAVILY subject to editing when i’m less tired/have his back story sorted out better!! and i’ll....rb it when i do that

Marshall still uses the hanky code in the year of our lord 2k19

def part of the NGPA (National Gay Pilots Association) man he’s j like that

his callsign: “dodger” is a play on “dodge her” because there was a girl lusting after him first year that he avoided like all hell

but now they’re besties 

has a pet cat! his name is Wilbur and he’s actually evil. will sit on his chest and knead if he sleeps in

big yes to coffee big no to tea

can drink a leprechaun under a table

beard vs. no beard are different moods for him

has so many tattoos but some include: a triangle with a depiction of the sky, a bar code on his thigh, a sound wave and a compass on his right breast.

this is........a mess.....im working on it ok

[uniformbravo]

me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

ha

haha

hoooo oo  o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

[mkm49]

2017

My 2017 was a long year. One filled with changes, hard work, tears, and many lessons learned. To set up this story, I have to go back to 2014, my first year at college.

I came into VCU as a freshman wide-eyed to try to get one of 60 spots in their Nursing Program. My journey to VCU was an easy one, considering my dad had gone here for undergrad before he pursued Medical school at MCV. Wishing to follow in his footsteps of pursuing a medical career, I saw that dream within reach when I received this email :

I was beyond excited. Not only did I get accepted into their program after applying once, this meant that within 4 years of college, I would graduate with my RN BSN!!! I became overwhelmed with excitement, to think I would have that title at the age of 22.

I started the nursing program my second year of college, fall 2015. I met the other 59 students I would be spending the next 3 years with, and found some of my closest friends during this time.

After my first semester of nursing, I was certified to work as a CNA. Once I learned I could, I eagerly applied for jobs. I got asked for an interview and offered a job in MCV’s Transplant unit and Cardiothoracic Surgery unit. I chose to take the Cardiothoracic unit’s offer, excited to begin working in the medical field.

Going into my junior year, classes got more difficult, more specialized, and I took the dreaded Pathophysiology and Pharmacology (Which i passed both parts!!). I loved it, every aspect of it. Taking classes with others as passionate, as driven, as eager as I was to start our careers.

My second semester of Junior year was not one of my best semesters. I began trying to take on more than I could handle. I was (and still am) an active student leader for an organization called Christian Student Fellowship at VCU, along with trying to juggle relationships, and personal life mishaps with nursing school can be extremely overwhelming.

As my semester continued, I came to a realization regarding an assignment for one of my courses. In my Nursing of Women’s course, we had a group of assignments called HESI case studies. These were online patient case-scenarios with practice questions following the case. All of which allowed multiple attempts, and answers and questions easily available online for review. We had many of these assigned in several of our other nursing courses. For many of our other courses, at the beginning of the semester you were assigned an allotted amount of HESI case studies to do or topic case studies to complete, and were typically told to complete these on our own time, but before the final exam. For my women’s class, I had thought it was under the same direction. I was wrong. Our professor had assigned dates for certain case studies to be due via our syllabus. And had missed them.

I quickly did the math, and realized that without credit for those assignments (which were worth 5% of my grade for the course), I would not obtain a passing grade of 79.5% in the course. I met with my professor, hoping to receive any partial credit toward this late homework assignment that I completed. The sum of our conversation resulted in her hands being tied due to the due dates being stated in our syllabus. My heart was broken, I was devastated at the idea that these homework assignments would cause me to fail a course.. I tried to study as much as I could for the final exam, and hoped that would be enough to account for something. I got a 96% on the final, but unfortunately that still wasn’t enough. I was sitting at exactly an 83.2% after the final exam, and when she added those 0′s, it dropped to a 78.2%. I was so close to passing, but not quite.

After i realized I was not going to pass my course, I reached out to my nursing advisor to set up an appointment to discuss what would happen as a result. When I went in, I was reminded of a course I took a year back.

Spring 2016 I took a course called microbiology. For some reason VCU only has one professor for micro, and he is HARD. Since I was in the nursing program while I was taking micro, when I didn’t pass, that counted as my first strike, out of two, for not passing courses. Even though this wasn’t a nursing course, it counted against me due to me being in the program when I took the class. So moving forward to Spring 2017, when I got the word that I had not passed women’s, I realized that’s two strikes:

im out.

Thankfully, I was told about their readmission process. I would have to change my major, take 9 credits, get a student academic evaluation, write a personal statement regarding dismissal and a plan for success if readmitted, and a reference from a professor I was taking from my semester out of the nursing major. It was also emphasized that I would have to get all A’s if I wanted a good chance to be readmitted.

So with that, I walked out of the nursing building into an anxiety-filled summer.

I have never dealt with anxiety before, until this moment. There would be nights I would lay in bed, kicking myself on how I should have read the syllabus more carefully, should have studied harder, should have done the case studies sooner.

Nights I would lay there and just have all of these thoughts rushing through my head, unable to sleep, hours on end. I wasn’t giving up by any means, but I was beyond disappointed and exhausted.

My dad called me one day during the summer, and told me he had a package coming for me in the mail. I went to the stoop of the condominium building I live in, and opened an amazon package containing a book titled,

Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado

This book, that I am still reading, has been such a blessing throughout dealing with everything I had been facing. Anxiety is not something I have really ever dealt with to this degree, and this book provided a lot of relief when I felt overwhelmed.

Some of my favorite quotes include:

“Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one”

“Anxiety is not a sin; it is an emotion. Don’t be anxious about your anxiousness”

“Your anxiety decreases as your understanding of your father increases”

The best I could do, was trust in God. All I have to say, is without God I wouldn’t have been able to move forward as quickly as I did. I couldn’t do it without my faith.

During this time, I tried to do my best to lean on God and the support system that surrounded me as I continued into the readmission process.

Going into the semester in which I had to change my major was hard. Taking classes of a major I wasn’t familiar with, much less wanting to be in was hard to accept. All I wanted was to be back in nursing.

With that, I worked hard. I put forth the effort to obtain all A’s, something I’ve never done. I always, have had a semester with AT LEAST 1 B (damn you BIO 101 with Carr), but never straight A’s. So with that as my goal, I didn’t give up..

I got a reference from a professor who has history as a nurse, and went back to teaching. I received a promising student academic evaluation. I worked hard, and achieved my 4.0

I got denied my readmittance.. 

I was heart-broken. 2/3 done with a Baccalaureate program for nursing. I was going to be graduated this spring of 2018. Once dismissed, my vision to graduate became spring of 2019. Now denied re-admittance, I don’t know exactly when that date will be, but i’ll keep you posted haha ;)

But, one thing I do know, there will be a graduation date.

I could never give up on this. Nursing is more than a career, it’s a passion. One that will leave your life changed, in hopes that you’ve touched the life of another. I’ve never felt God so present in my life. I am more than sure that this is what God has planned for me, but just in different timing.

I am looking into other programs in the Richmond area to continue my education for Nursing. I’ll get there. I won’t ever give up.

I am a firm believer that God has a plan for me. One better than I could ever make for myself. I have to trust that. I can’t wait for the day that I am standing in my scrubs, RN badge on, and am able to look back and go, “ah, I see what you were doing there God. Thank you”. I look forward to that day.

I will be a nurse. One day. In his timing. And i will be better because of it.

Never give up on your dreams. Ever.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:5-6

[spnife]

91 question tag

Tagged by @vanillabeanniall​ and then @uswntinharmony​

More below the cut bc that’s how I roll

the last – 

1. drink: Arizona Tea

2. phone call: my mom

3. text message: my mom - she sent me two climbing videos. Or I sent them to me, from her phone

4. song i listened to: What a feeling, but I was asleep (i checked the music app just now), so the last song I remember hearing is Ray of Light by Madonna

5. time you cried: wednesday. First day of school was today so it was some stress

have you ever – 6. dated someone twice: yeah

7. been cheated on: yeah. I became friends with the guy though. Similar tastes I guess???  (( Actually I blocked him on snapchat last year bc he was talking some bs on his story but in eigth grade he wasn’t awful))  She lied abt it though and then talked to me two years later and still lied like okay

8. kissed someone and regretted it: no ragrets

9. lost someone special: not really

10. been depressed: fuck hell yep

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: no. I had like a sip of beer on a trip but it was just to mess with a dude while he was in the porta potty

list 3 favorite colors – 12. light blue

13. orangish pink

14. dark purple

in the last year have you – 15. made new friends: heck yeah. I switched schools and found a really good group of people there already. It’s been alright

16. fallen out of love: not in the last year. gotta be in love first

17. laughed until you cried: probably but I don’t remember rn

18. found out someone was talking about you: I think? I found out parents were saying nice things about me. Mean wise maybe? I’m not really sure. Probably

19. met someone who changed you: at least one. a teacher last year

20. found out who your true friends were: i think? 

more –  21. kissed someone on your facebook? alas, i do not have a facebook

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life? see 21

23. do you have any pets? A super sweet black lab named FeeBee, a kitten named Mulder and a cat named Milo, and a hedgehog named Wembly

24. do you want to change your name? i like my name. My last name bothers me sometimes bc dad stuff but it’s gotten better

25. what did you do on your last birthday? I had a chill day at school, got a nice car, got a card from all of the kids on the climbing team. One of them said “Wow Coach Ella, you only have two more years til you can drink,” like i’m sorry kid I’m only 16

26. what time did you wake up? 7. first day of school

27. what were you doing at midnight? crying and putting school stuff in my backpack and watching VEEP

28. name something you can’t wait for: to keep getting better at climbing, the Harry Styles concert on oct 11, my birthday on oct 13 bc it should be fun and I hope I’ll get another card from the climbing team bc they’re all lovely

29. when was the last time you saw your mother? today

30. what is one thing you wish you could change about your life? i want to know that I’ll be able to be happy

31. what are you listening to right now? watching Raising Hope

32. have you ever talked to a person named tom? yep

33. something that is getting on your nerves? I keep getting anxiety while I’m at climbing practice and that’s one of my most comfortable places. it feels like im going downhill with climbing even though I know im getting better

34. most visited site: netflix

school –  35. elementary: i loved my elementary school. every teacher i had was amazing, small school in austin and a good community and i still talk to my friends from there. so when i moved to the new school in fifth grade and depression was already showing up, the differences made it literally hell. it was awful. i didnt like my teachers and i didnt know people

36. middle: 6th grade was hell, 7th grade was even fuckin worse, 8th was still pretty bad. All the worst years of my life so far, and tbh it’s gonna be hard to top them

37. high: better than middle school but thats a really fucking low bar. like incredibly low.

38. college: planning for ACC for two years to get base courses, dream school UT in an engineering major. I love the school and the program there, but I worry if I could barely get through middle school, how tf am I supposed to survive college. Also it didn’t feel great when I was talking to a friend and I was like “yeah ut is tbh my dream school, if I can get in” and she was like “oh that’s one my last choice colleges” like fucking okay love you thanks for telling me that makes me feel real good about my intelligence and how you view me

me –  39. hair color: brown

40. long or short hair? shoulder length

41. do you have a crush on someone? yep. according to a friend i am “so gone for this girl” but um. oka y what if she doesn’t like me? I feel good around her though and she likes being around me and we work well together I think. She’s lovely and I wouldn’t want to make things weird by asking her out if I don’t know she feels that way too.

42. what do you like about yourself? I am able to figure things out and I work with kids really well. I’ve also been getting better at climbing again so I’m proud of myself for that

43. piercings? just my ears

44. blood type: lol yeah like i know?

45. nickname: ellallalala is something I’m getting from people at the new school, and I’ve had some climbing nicknames over the years but Coachella is sticking. I coach and my name is Ella it’s great

46. relationship status: nope

47. zodiac sign: libra

48. pronouns: she/her

49. favorite tv show(s): always sunny, parks and rec, my name is earl, curious george

50. tattoos: soon

51. right, ambidextrous, or left-handed? right

first –  52. surgery: i had one on my pelvis in 2013? i was in preschool and it was for this weird group of veins on the side of my leg. We’d always called it a birthmark and after the surgery the scar looked like a sunset over water but the sun is purple (still looks like that it’s rad) and the first time someone showed me a birthmark i was like??? Um no thats just a little dark bit of skin?? my birthmark is purple what is this shit

53. piercing: ears

54. sport: rock climbing. found it early and still love it

55. vacation: no idea

56. pair of trainers: first i remember are a PAIR OF DORA LIGHT UP SHOES

current –  57. eating: nothing

58. drinking: arizona tea

59. i’m about to: finish my arizona tea

60. listening to: the episode ended so me typing and the clock my great grandmother gave is

future –  61. waiting for: me to feel alright

62. want: to like what i’m doing and to know i’m able to be happy doing it. I wish I could just skip to being married with kids and a dog and everything.

63. married: oh for sure

64. career: astronaut has always been my dream career but with this level of anxiety it’s probably a no go. I am not over it. I’m def gonna cry abt it in a couple of minutes bc thats how it goes, ya know. The last astronaut I talked to though said “the biggest disqualifier is not applying” so i’m still going to try my hardest. I also love engineering and physics and space and science and education and would love to be a librarian, so we’ll see

your type – 
 65. hugs or kisses? depends

66. lips or eyes? eyes, i guess. There’s more character there

67. shorter or taller? in my head i’m always like oh taller but really it doesn’t matter. as long as i can be little spoon im good to go

68. older or younger? doesn’t matter

69. nice arms or nice stomach? tummies are cute i guess. 

70. sensitive or loud? i don’t know

71. hook-up or relationship? right now relationship and at some point relationship but ask me a couple months ago and it would have been different

72. troublemaker or hesitant? both. troublemaker with a lot of decisions but in fun ways, but hesitant when it comes to talking to new people that i want to be good friends with. and asking people out

73. kissed a stranger? yep. on a bet

74. drank hard liquor? had some jack daniels mixed with coffee and it tasted like cinnamon toast crunch

75. lost contact lenses/glasses? my glasses always turn up

76. turned someone down? yeah. accidentally on a few though lol. As i had a crush on someone i went out with for a little while last yeah legit three other people liked me and i guess im oblivious bc i had no fucking idea

77. sex on first date? depends

78. broken someone’s heart? i don’t think so

79. had your heart broken? yes but in a friendship way along with the relationship. it goes back to the you should kill yourself stuff

80. been arrested? nope

81. cried when someone died? no one i’ve known closely has died. My great-great grandmother died when i was fiveish but she was really old. There have been a few suicides at my old school (i switched 2 months before end of last year) and those hit hard, just knowing that there are so many people here dealing with that stuff and me relating to it. I didn’t know the people well but we’d spoken and I knew them some, but I had some friends who were much closer and really affected

82. fallen for a friend? yeah

do you believe in –  83. yourself? i try

84. miracles? shit happens, and sometimes it’s good

85. love at first sight? who am i to say tbh

86. santa claus? no

87. kiss on first date? if i like them

88. angels? no

other –  89. current best friend’s name: skip

90. eye color: hazel

91. favorite movie: i dont know im tired and want to cry sort of so maybe i shouldnt think about this stuff as much when im already stressed im going to go drink more tea and eat some soup

Anway

I’m tagging anyone who reads this far. gotcha