Updates!

Since graduating from the Professional and Technical Communication program and leaving the University of North Texas, I have picked up a few new hobbies and a few jobs!

Hobbies

This summer, I finally put pen to paper (literally) and began practicing brush lettering and calligraphy. The most helpful tool was having a guide in the form of this book: Calligraphy Made Easy by Ashley Gardner. I’ve tinkered with the idea of creating a website of hand-written recipes that have a technical writer perspective on them (but with lovely hand-lettering!). Have you ever attempted to follow a recipe, only to find that there are four steps in one chunk of words that should really be divided into numbered steps that show a logical process? Yes. That problem is what I would be attempting to fix with my brush-lettered, re-organized recipes, thus, combining food, words, and art, some of my favorite things.

I’ve also started listening to “things” more. Self-reflectively, I’m always talking to myself, but I am referring to the world of radio shows and podcasts. I now commute to Dallas from Denton on the nightmare that is I35 twice a week. Krys Boyd and Terry Gross have kept me company the past ten weeks. Thank you, NPR. Secondly,

Work

I work for the University of Texas at Austin, supporting the sustainability office’s reporting efforts for STARS as their sustainability consultant. I work remotely and get to spend time in our home office (yay!), swatting the cats away and questioning whether I need that third cup of coffee.

I teach a developmental reading and writing course at Cedar Valley College in south Dallas (Lancaster) on a couple of weeknights, which has really helped me practice the instructional design + curriculum part of my graduate career. I’ve found that I really draw from my experiences as a learner in the classroom and what I found helpful in my professors’ and mentors’ teaching methods. Check out the tech comm department at UNT!

I plan to write more about what it’s been like to be a “young” professional, facing the fraud police and evading the impostor syndrome in both my roles as a sustainability consultant and as an adjunct professor at 24. We shall see what surfaces in the next few months and what changes in my voice. Join me! Laugh with me. Cry with me.

Lastly, I work on Fridays and every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday of the month at Dove Creek Animal Hospital in my town of residence, Denton, TX. Although it is a paying part-time gig, I enjoy it almost as if working as a receptionist there could be a hobby. I get to see puppies and kittens grow up and have met so many interesting pets and their humans.

Technical Communication/Writing Related Stuff

For one, I’m updating this blog with new projects, employing content strategy and integrated marketing and communications concepts.

More updates soon!