*waves* Hi there! And happy holidays to whoever is celebrating them!

It has come to another point in my life where I must throw in the towel and take a short hiatus from blog writing. Which, honestly, makes me really sad. Because this blog is something I take a lot of pride in and it’s become something I look forward to doing during the week! But lately, it’s been a bit difficult to write up quality posts on a weekly basis, while also keeping up with all the other things going on in my life right now. So, rather than forcing myself to churn out weekly material, I figured it was time for a break and for me to focus on, oh I don’t know, passing my candidacy exam.

Yup, that’s right. If you happen to follow me on Tumblr you might have seen my freak out announcement that the date for my candidacy exam has been officially set for February 22nd! So, while I have managed to survive grad school long enough to reach the first major milestone of my degree, I also must prepare like hell for it: reading, writing and analyzing data 25/7 in order to produce a research report and two separate proposals (for a total of 60 pages of pure science) that are worthy enough to defend to my three committee members. Though it doesn’t necessarily sound so bad when I write it out, the stress is getting so real and I am definitely starting to feel the time ticking by… (Not to mention, I also have a fellowship deadline due in the beginning of February, so… *sigh*)

So, like I said, I’m going to be taking a break from blog writing now until pretty much the end of February. For the sake of my sanity, among other things. Of course, if any of you happen to have any post ideas or general questions, feel free to let me know via my contact page or through any of my social media platforms (links in the sidebar).

Guess, I’ll see you all again in 2017… Wish me luck!