Emily Rachelle Writes

"look out, 'cause here I come, and I'm marching on to the beat I drum. I'm not scared to be seen; I make no apologies. This is me" - "This Is Me," The Greatest Showman 05.19.2018 Me with the grandparents. Me with the parents.

#5 5/2/2018 Dear Freshman, This series didn't really go the way I expected. I had a lot of big, vague ideas with not a lot of direction. I 'planned' for several letters, meaning I made a list of one-word topics and assumed I'd remember what I meant months later. Let's just say that's not the most effective approach to blogging. But here we are. I've shared my senior year experiences and how they compare to the dreams and realities I had as a freshman. I told you about the types of friends I made in college, and how friendship doesn't fit into templates or rules. I listed the most important pieces to my (admittedly still developing) time management skills. And I narrated a few of the many, many pieces of identity that are often explored and discovered in college.

Don't forget: today is the last day to enter my Spring Cleaning Giveaway ! # 4 4/25/18 Dear Freshman, This year, I've heard the phrase "identity politics" a lot. I guess the idea is that people let their identities dictate their political stances and alliances instead of grouping together by party. I've never understood why saying something like "hey, LGBTQ people deal with unique problems everyone else doesn't, and I'm part of an LGBTQ group trying to do something about that" is so horrible, but political talk makes everyone jumpy and irrational, I guess. The concept of identity and how it shapes your opinions, worldview, lifestyle, and choices is nothing new, though. And it's a huge part of the college experience. Let's talk a little about some of the pieces that make up a person's identity, and how we think about them differently in a college environment. This letter is going to be limited in what I can teach based on my...

The series is finally back, with a few more letters before I graduate. I know it's been a while, so you can go back and read the beginning of the series if you'd like. # 3 4/11/18 Dear Freshman, There are a lot of sayings out there about time. Trust me, I'm as sick of them as you are, so let's skip the mottos and platitudes and get straight to the point. In college, your most hoarded resource, possibly even more than money, will be time. So if you know how to budget it from the start, life will be a whole lot easier as you go. Everyone in college talks about time management, but what does that really look like? Honestly, an effective system is different for every person. There is no one-size-fits-all. But there are a few common factors to successful time management and fitting your needs and your wants into a realistic schedule.

#2 10/4/17 Dear Freshman, When you come to college, you'll have a lot of ideas about friendship. I came to school with expectations. I would make friends with my orientation class. I would bond with the people in my dorm. Ten years from now, my roommate and I would still be talking every month. Life never meets expectations.

#1 9/27/17 Dear Freshman, It's been roughly a month since I started my senior year of college. I've been looking back on my college experience and doing the "self-reflecting" thing a lot. It's weird, being one of the older students on campus. I see the (many) freshmen on my floor. I notice the questions they ask me, how they listen to my stories, nod with alert eyes. They expect me to know the campus, to have an inside scoop on life here. It's an odd sort of respect, the kind you give to someone who is technically your peer but you view in a different position. I feel very strange to be on this end of it. How did I get here, and so fast?

Hello, my lovely readers! So, obviously, my plan to post about other students' take on "Focus 2014" didn't happen. Trying to interview fellow students as we all prepared for Thanksgiving break and then finals just wasn't a great idea. Sorry about that! I don't know what I was thinking when I signed up for NaNoWriMo, the day it started, on a whim. Actually, I do know what I was thinking: You're nuts. Yeah, but I haven't written anything lately. Not true! You've kept up with your blog, and your homework, and your poetry. Okay, yeah, but I've neither written nor edited any of my novels for months. ...you're in college. Amanda said she'd do it too! Okay, whatever, but you're still nuts. Amanda dropped out the next day. I had barely two paragraphs written two days later. I began to doubt. But I figured I could at least scrape a decent number of words together and lose with style. I had two big papers due in the same ...

I know most of my recent posts have just been updates, but I have a few more things to let you all know, lovely readers, before we move on to meatier posts. Thanks for having patience with me. :) The day I bought fake tattoos and Augusta and I made ourselves into The Chosen Ones First of all: don't forget to enter the giveaway for a paperback copy of Sixteen ! Open to all countries; ends on Saturday, November 8. Next up: so far, the Inkshares project for World of Shadows is not going well at all. It's disappointing, I'll admit, but I wasn't really sure what to expect, so it's not a huge deal. If I don't make it to my goal, I'll just go back to my original plan of self-publishing World of Shadows through the same process I used with Sixteen . Either way, it will be on virtual shelves before 2015 ends! Third: Disclaimer: Yes, I am completely mental. But I decided on the day it started to go ahead and try NaNoWriMo again this year. For those of...

The past near-month of internet silence in GIFs, because I hardly use them but actually really love them: School. Stress. Work. Exhaustion. Graduation (My Parents). Graduation (My Friends). Graduation (My Church). Graduation (Me). More School. Oh yeah, don't forget a lot of The Fault In Our Stars movie-hype YouTube videos. Aaaand... more school. I decided not to go on that missions trip... ...so I just opened an Etsy shop for my necklaces. Then I had one week left to finish one Literature test, two Chemistry tests, several Chemistry assignments, two Literature essays, and a Grand Research Paper. I could do this. Totally. Except then the Friday night before the bus left on Monday morning, Mom said the church had a camp scholarship for me and I should totally go I mean we can work out your job and get all that junk done right totally we can. The reac...

This is your chance to glimpse inside my biology book!  Okay, I admit that sounds really lame and unexciting, but these photos are really cool.  Like the title says, they're animals I'd never heard of until I saw them in my bio book.  Internet searches for photos led to more unusual animals, and this post kinda tapers into "World's Smallest Animals."  They're all really cool/cute though.  :) (Yes, this may partially be my personal attempt to turn off my instinct to fall asleep when reading textbooks.  Next up I might share something interesting from history class.) Duckbill Platypus.  Okay, I've heard of this one, but it's so cool!