[a.n. i hope it’s alright that i type this all in lowercase for my own personal aesthetic purposes; worry not, the rest of my posts that i write will have correct capitalization and grammar, i promise]
hi y’all, my name’s jessica baxter, but please feel free to call me jess (i’ll respond to either). i’m a senior creative writing major from fort wayne, indiana, about 2 hours from indianapolis and 2.5 from here in valpo. i just turned 22 a few weeks ago, and have had taylor swift stuck in my head every time i think of it. i also tend to ramble, especially in writing, so fair warning.
as you may have noticed above, that is one of my favorite selfies from spring of 2017 when i studied abroad in cambridge, england. big ben was a lovely photobomb and totally not intentended to be in the photo at all, nope. [it was my first time ever in london (not counting when i landed in london-heathrow airport) let me live] i love to travel and was so, so, so unbelievably grateful to have been accepted and to have been a part of cohort 99 aka c-99. that semester honest to buddha saved my life, both personally and academically.
tumblr → despite it’s notorious reputation, i have actually been apart of the tumblr community for a good number of years; i believe i signed up with my first blog when i was obsessed with the tv show, glee, circa 2009-10 and then made a new one that i’ve had ever since 2012, i wanna say. [safe to say that i haven’t been this excited and comfortable with an assignment in a long time.
facebook → i’ve had a facebook since middle school and i cringe at what i used to post, how i used to talk/type, etc. etc. nowadays i use it to stay in touch with close friends and family that i can’t see face to face due to distance + college, and i mostly just share memes and quotes and lyrics and funny pictures for them to make them smile or laugh. most of what i post on there comes from tumblr and twitter, various news sites, websites and other facebook pages that i follow.
twitter → i made one in middle school as well, and pretty much abandoned it for quite a number of years until... this past year, to be honest. a lot of the people and organizations i follow on there provide more news and information/what’s going on in the world that i otherwise would not have even known or heard about. i use it for sharing important information and spreading awareness, but i also use it to decompress and retweet funny or relatable tweets or pictures of cute animals or places to visit and so on.
instagram → i love instagram and i don’t care who hates it, i love sharing pictures of my life, my food, my pets, things i find beautiful or interesting. and i love seeing my friends’ photos and celebrities/authors/idols that i look up to share their life, i love the aesthetics and the photography and the art that you can find featured on there.
snapchat → this counts as social media, right? who’s to say. one of my best friends got one when it was first released and convinced our group of friends to make one so we could more easily chat as a group in a more fun way. nowadays it helps us keep track of each other, check in with each other, all that good stuff, which is great now that we’re not always able to even be in the same place. the filters keep getting weirder and yet better and it’s a fun way to communicate with friends.
wow for such a shy, introverted person i sure have a lot of social media platforms. (not even including myspace. but damn i miss having music on my profile.)
to wrap this up: one way that i’ve noticed technology changing my reading habits is that... well ever since i got my first ipod touch with access to the internet via wifi, i’ve noticed a decline in my reading actual, physical books. not to say that it has completely put me off from reading books for pleasure, it’s just as i grew up and got a smartphone with even better access to the internet and apps at my fingertips, i’ve been reading a lot of fanfiction and online works of fiction and nonfiction from published or unpublished authors. i still have a heavy need to carry at least one book, usually one i’ve been stuck reading for months now, with me just in case i find the time or place to sit back and read it.
the technology that we have now and continue to improve upon or innovate is beautiful and worriesome and all-consuming, especially in this digital age, and i love it, i really do. but my generation, and the way i grew up, i was right in the middle of when said technology [i.e. the internet, cell phones, dvds, computers, etc.] started to really come about, and still having had the knowledge and access to pre-technological resources like vhs, print books, dial-up internet, newspapers and magazines in print-form only. so it’s definitely changed my reading habits as well as my routine and way of life. it comes with its own pros and cons, but i’m glad that i’ve had a foot in both worlds and still can and do advocate for physical hard-or-paper-back copies of books. it’s just not the same reading novels, short stories, biographies, memoirs, etc. on my phone or computer, y’know.
okay i’ve rambled enough. this was supposed to be brief but hey. i gave fair warning. i’m excited for the rest of this semester with y’all and hope we can have fun and learn things that we may not have known before. :)
