Yapping at a conference, being almost 29 and tricks up my sleeve

This is an update from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT!

Apr 12, 2025

Hi friends! It’s been a minute since I’ve posted. This semester has been a busy one, and as such, I’ve only been keeping up with my media database. Luckily, we are a month and two weeks from the end of my semester. More importantly, we are a month and six days from my birthday. I’ve known that 29 will be a good year for me because that’s the age that my dad, well into his 50s, always told people that he was. Alls this to say: GRIEF AND MEDIA is coming back soon, once my semester is over. I have some tricks up my sleeve. The birthday talk was just so you remember that my birthday is also coming soon.

School is going really well. I presented my research-in-progress at a conference in Las Vegas last weekend. No one told me how fun a poster presentation is. I get to stand there, yapping with people who come up to ME to talk about MY particular research interests? Sold. I could do this shit for the rest of my life.

My research is on how grief is performed as part of characters’ identities in coming-of-age television shows. You all know I go on and on about how grief IS SOMETHING PEOPLE NEED TO TALK ABOUT!!!! because grievers need to be able to make sense of their experiences. I’m pleased to have theoretical backing to the feelings I’ve already held: Robert A. Neimeyer’s Meaning Reconstruction Theory, stating people are permanently changed by their loss experience. This is why academia is so sick; I love having new ways of articulating and understanding concepts I already felt like I knew but couldn’t even begin to express. Here’s my poster:

not to be completely ridiculous but I do feel like this poster was missing a photo of the mascot of GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT

I don’t think I’ve shared this on the newsletter yet, but I’m so grateful I made the decision to go to grad school. I’m hoping to get my PhD after this. I don’t know how the state of education and funding and this country will be when I apply at the end of this year, but I hope by talking about it enough I’ll manifest a funded offer. As someone who went from slightly-above-average grades in high school to a state school, I have never before related to Never Have I Ever’s Devi and her pursuit of getting into Princeton. Now I totally get it. She wanted to get into Princeton and find a boyfriend; I want to get into a funded PhD program in Southern California and find a pair of jeans that fit really well. It’s important to have these sort of goals.

Anyway, I can’t wait to talk to you more this summer. The crazy thing about school is I have a lot of shit to say, like all of the time. I have the same amount of opinions that I’ve always had, but now I can articulate them better than ever. I can’t wait to share <3

Media I’ve been into lately:

Summer House, obviously. The Paige and Craig breakup of it all gets me so pissed off. The two celebrities that I will just simply never be mad at are Paige DeSorbo and Ariana Grande. I think it’s because we’re all Italian. But Craig is a menace, Bravo’s audience is full of misogynistic women, and you will never catch me supporting a relationship that depends on a woman conforming to the whims of the (annoying, btw) man. Fuck that. I’m looking forward to seeing where the season goes. And, also, I love Lindsay. Being pregnant in the Hamptons seems kind of fun, actually. But I’m not getting any ideas.
Eternal Sunshine Deluxe. As I said, love Ariana, and I love getting new music from her. I think some shit definitely went down with her and Dalton. I accidentally ended up in an Ariana Grande snark Reddit page trying to “research” details, which was a really horrible place to be. I think I want to write more about snark pages soon—isn’t it kind of wild how many women celebrities have snark pages, which are really some of the darkest places you can find yourself on the internet, or at least where I’ve found myself because I don’t like to enter horrible internet places, yet men don’t have snark pages? Sorry, I got sidetracked. I love Hampstead and warm and twilight zone and actually every song and also specifically that part in past life where she goes “phased me just like the moon aaaooohhhh”
Playing Sudoku on my iPad. I manifested an iPad this year, and I’m very thankful to have been gifted one. I try to play Sudoku on it every single day, and I typically have a slasher movie, or Never Have I Ever seasons three or four, on in the background. It’s a grounding experience, I swear.
Black Mirror!!!! The newest season just came out, and I’m obsessed. Every time a new season comes out, I remember how much I love this show. I’m currently rewatching Hang the DJ because I have to wait for husband of GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT to keep watching the new season.