This is part of a writing exercise dictated by this list. It may benefit you to read it if you seek to know me (or merely someone) better; it may benefit me in the selfsame way. And if knowledge of others is your goal, seek out Anna, whose list prompted mine, and Kimi, whom Anna credits for said list.

Day 1
A little about you (age, occupation, story behind your URL, school major)

Fifty-two days from now, I will be twenty-three years old. I don’t know when that’s official — morning, midday, midnight — but then I’ve always been more in favor of broad strokes and themes than of minutiae; the grand narrative is what excites me.

Scholar and philosopher at heart, I’m tempted to glamorize my current unemployment with terms like “academic at large” or — more formally — pen for hire; the latter, anyway, is what graces my current business cards. Technically you can say I’m a freelance photographer, since I have been (and continue to be) contracted for various events in a photographer’s capacity (and even, to my delight, occasionally being paid for it). I am in the process of acquiring certification from the great Empire State (born and raised!) to render me eligible for substitute teaching lists in the coming academic year; long-term I’m hoping to dwell permanently in halls of knowledge — be they university, college, high school or otherwise — but for now my “occupation” is hearing and telling stories where I find them.

I suppose when the creator of this challenge wanted to know about URLs, he (or, more likely, she) expected something other than my name (and the title of the blog — my initials — how exhilarating!). Admittedly it’s basically as mundane as utilitarianism. After years plodding along under “theempyrealwordsmith.blogspot.com” (and then a short-lived iteration with a WordPress domain) I ascertained that people really struggled with Empyreal and couldn’t for the life of them find my Forge. So I made it as straightforward (and unpretentious) as possible, in hopes that the transition would serve as a bit of a check on what I wrote (because it’d be irrevocably tied to my actual name). Others can (and, i’m sure, do) judge the success thereof.

I majored in English and Communication Studies. Or at least, that’s how it turned out. I came in as an English major interested in writing, not reading. I accidentally ended up in a drama class, fell in love with theatre (which I’d never experienced before college), took a bunch of theatre and journalism classes and realized I was mostly in the Comm. department. So I switched majors. But then I began to take theory classes, panicked, rediscovered a love for reading, and became English major once more. Utilitarianism (it’s a theme, okay?) led me to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be worth graduating a few credits shy of a double major when I had plenty of time to take the remaining courses in both programs, ergo I picked back up the Comm. without dropping the English. Come graduation I’d failed to get into either honorary on sheer technicality of never being in the right major at the time of nominations; otherwise I’d doubtless have landed both. Not that I really care, but I’ve always wanted to say that out loud and now I have. Yay.

That’s the long of me, here’s the short:

My life can be summed up in this: I write
With words (in ink) and photographs (in light).