As most of you guys know, I’m headed back to school (again) this fall. Yay! It’s been a busy time these past few months; getting all the stuff figured out with financial aid, my hubs’ (third) deployment, and my two-year-old being…a two-year-old. It’s been EXHAUSTING. But, as I wrote in my November Struggles blog, two of my goals were to stream more, and get the hell out of retail. Not long after writing that blog, work flipped me to practically 40-hour weeks so streaming was out of the question, but, as of May 26th…
(Drumroll please!)
For the first time in ten years, I’m NOT WORKING RETAIL. And it’s been wonderful for my mental health. I’m not working at all at the moment, actually, but I’m open to the right opportunity who can work with my schedule. My husband deployed with his Guard Unit the first week of June, and then the kiddo and I each dealt with what I’m calling Con Crud. There were a few hundred of us jammed in a room during their send-off ceremony, so I’m not surprised, I guess.
Summer Game Fest and E3 both happened, and doing Social/News for Gaming Access Weekly kept me super-busy last week and the beginning of this week. Last week, however, on the 11th I got some stellar news that’ll help even more with going back to school and gave me some inspiration I’d been lacking.
And now, the main reason for this post!
Honestly, I almost forgot that I had applied for this scholarship. Maybe it was because I didn’t think I’d get it? I wasn’t in a great spot when I applied, and that was mainly because of WORK. I’d neglected my Twitch channel, but I wrote about it in my application and my reasons why, and my drive to get back to it again. I also wrote about what I was passionate about – the under-representation of women in gaming/technology media. I was so surprised to see my name pop on the screen that I almost dropped a “Holy Shit” in chat. (That would have been memorable, though!)
The 1,000 Dreams Fund Twitch Student Scholarship granted $1,000 micro-grants to 24 awesome “women and non-men student content creators on Twitch who have career goals of working in the broadcasting industry – whether in-front or behind the camera.” That’s exactly what I want to do. I’d love to work at Game Informer or Rooster Teeth one day or start my own outlet like What’s Good Games, Kinda Funny, or MinnMax. So, honestly, my future will probably include a mix of in-front of and behind the camera.
What am I planning on using my grant on? I’d like to upgrade my setup for better editing/podcasting, and if there’s anything left over from that, I’ve been looking at writing classes from the Gotham Writers Workshop to improve my craft. We’ll see how this Fall goes!
I’ve gotten to chat with my fellow recipients over the past few days, and we’re a heck of a geographically diverse bunch! Me in North Dakota, someone’s from Africa (so freaking cool!), and a few from places like California, and down south like Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia. I can’t wait to get to know them more.
I’m so inspired to kick ass this Fall.
And finally, if you’ve read to the end, more news! I have a streaming schedule now, and you can find it by clicking HERE. I’ll be adding an extension to my Twitch page soon with the link as well.