Musicians and athletes alike are tuning up their instruments and bikes as preparations begin for the 46th annual Athens Twilight festival. Fawney Rig, an Irish folk band, is prepping for their set at 5 p.m. at the intersection of East Washington and College. Fawney Rig practices before their set at Athens Twilight on April 17. Fawney Rig will be the first performance of the 2026 Athens Twilight Festival. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) Fawney Rig will be the first of six performances on the mainstage tonight. There will be performances from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Miki Lu, the accordionist for Fawney Rig, said she’s excited to feel the energy on a Friday night. Lu isn’t just a local musician. She’s an Athens resident who’s attending her fifth Athens Twilight festival this year. She usually watches the festivities from outside the Condor Chocolate’s building. “I’ll be playing and then quickly loading up our instruments and bringing all our instruments home and biking back down here just to kinda be part of that biking culture,” Lu said. Lu has previously been involved in the races, formerly participating in the “Gambler,” a race where bikers receive a playing card at frequent stops. Whoever has the best deck at the finish line wins. The advice she’d give to a first-time Twilight attendee? “Come on down here and hang out with people…It’s just a fun way to meet people because you can just stand around and talk,” Lu said. ----------- Why I wrote the Story: Screenshot of live blog post on Grady Newsource. I wrote this story as live event coverage for the 2026 Athens Twilight Criterium. This is a 2-day festival in Athens, GA, that brings athletes and attendee's from far and wide. As a journalism student at the University of Georgia, covering large events in the city is important for gaining skills.

The nameplates for the Athens-Clarke County commissioners sit on their workstations at City Hall. The regular voting session took place March 3, 2026. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) The Athens-Clarke County commission voted unanimously to extend the current data center moratorium on Tuesday. The moratorium delays further action on new data centers within the county until further research on the technology and environmental impacts can be conducted.  Athens residents spoke about their concerns pertaining to data centers in Athens-Clarke County.  Tawana Mattox, an Athens resident, raised concerns echoed by other residents about the harmful environmental effects on the county, particularly on low-income neighborhoods.  “We cannot trade our health, our water, our air, our neighborhoods for corporate profit…People over profits, please. Community over corporations. Health over harm,” Mattox said. While data centers are believed to generate revenue and boost the economy in their areas, for example, through  transmission costs , residents raise concerns about the real price of data centers in Athens communities.  “The tax revenue, roughly $200,000 so far, does little for the communities paying the true cost,” Mattox said. “Often owners get breaks and incentives while we shoulder higher energy bills, drained water, noise and environmental risk.” Athens-Clarke County residents weren’t the only ones in attendance; university students also spoke on their concerns for the proposed data center.  Athens residents line up to speak at the regular voting session on March 3, 2026. The regular voting session allowed residents to share comments and concerns with the mayor and commissioners. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) “Though they may seem like an economic gold mine, data center demand projections inherently contain uncertainty and systematic upward bias,” said Eli King, a member of the Young Democrats of UGA and Citizens Climate Education.  According to the Frontier Group, a U.S.-based non-profit research and policy organization, data centers are popping up across the U.S. as the popularity of generative AI  grows. These data centers place a unique burden on communities. Cooling systems consume millions  of gallons of water daily, according to Frontier Group. While Athens-Clarke County has proposed regulations requiring strict use of clean energy and closed-loop  cooling systems, these would require more land and be more expensive to build.  The moratorium was first enacted on Dec. 5, 2025, in response to Athena Studios' proposed switch to becoming a data center, following the film industry's move out of Georgia.  Athena Studios, opened in 2023, was supposed to bring revenue from the film industry into Athens with a 105-acre soundstage complex. Now, it sits empty.  “I think that just speaks to the volatile nature of our tax policy in the state of Georgia,” said King.  Athens-Clarke County's Clean and Renewable Energy Plan  lays out a future in which all community electricity demand is met with clean, equitable energy. This plan includes installing solar panels and replacing all fossil-fuel-burning vehicles used by Athens-Clarke County to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Reuters  reported that new data centers can use as much electricity as needed to power 750,000 homes. Data centers across the U.S. are primarily powered by fossil fuels and slow the transition to clean energy.  According to Frontier Group, 7 power plants with 17 fossil-fuel generating units have delayed closures due to concerns about increasing electricity demands.  Commissioner Melissa Link stated during discussions that the commission needs to move forward with caution, conducting thorough research to develop appropriate regulations with the county's safety in mind. --------------- Why I wrote this story: I wrote this story to cover the Athens-Clarke County commission meeting on March 3. This meeting covered prominent topics such as data-centers and ARPA funds. This story is meant to inform residents about what occurred during the meeting.

Feb. 13, 2026 by Isabella De La Sierra Adam Fouche is the interim associate vice president of UGA Environmental Safety, Risk and Resiliency. Fouche discussed his role and the university’s actions and response to the recent ice storms in January.  Q: What were your motivations for the particular response to the storm on January 24th? A lot of students were recommended to go home. What motivated that? Adam Fouche, interim associate vice president for environmental safety, risk and resiliency, stands outside on UGA campus, Feb. 11, 2026. Fouche answered Reporting 1 student's questions about his role in the university's emergency response to recent ice storms. (Photo/Georgia Bosart) A: I inform the administration about what we can reasonably anticipate. And then the administration uses that to make decisions about whether we do or do not close. But what we were looking at, particularly with the ice storm, was the information we were getting from the National Weather Service, you should be prepared for widespread and prolonged power outages. That’s always a concern with ice. Trees fall, power lines can’t sustain the weight. So what we were worried about is if we lose power to a majority of campus, we do not have the ability to care for the people who are living here, not all 9,000-plus. And so that was part of what led to the, “It might be safer if you go home.” Then, when it looked like we had maybe a little less than half of our students staying on campus, we started looking at whether we had to move students around and where we could shelter them. Where can we get backup power, create an opportunity to at least have heat to keep them warm and then be able to get them from that location to the dining hall, for instance, where we can feed them? And that's what led to everything that you saw unfold during that.  Q: What, in the events of the recent winter storms, has maybe changed policies in your department?  A:  No, I won't say any policies changed. We have a virtual presence, which is in Microsoft Teams; the vast majority of the people were a part of the emergency operations center virtually. I’m leading team calls every 12 hours or so like, “Where are we right now?” After the first storm, though, there might be some groups we were missing that we want to be a part of this. Between the first storm and the second storm, we added a few people from different groups across campus. Even after the second one, we’ve added some people we probably want to have represented. We didn’t change any policies, but the actual operations.  Adam Fouche answers a question about changing procedures regarding hoax calls on Feb. 11, 2026. Fouche's department handles the UGA alert system that does after action reviews for each event. (Video/Cole Prewitt) Q: What do you see as the most prevalent future risk to campus safety?  A: Weather, 100%. You will 100% face a weather emergency. You have already, probably. So I see weather as being one of the biggest threats, just because we can't control it, we can prepare for it in some extent. What do you do when, at some point, your entire response system is completely overwhelmed? And so that, to me, is the biggest concern for campus.  Comments trimmed for length and clarity. -------------- Why I wrote this story: I wrote this story as a criminal justice and public safety beat reporter in Athens-Clarke County. At the time of this story, we has recently has 2 major ice-storms that led to class cancelation and road closures. I wrote this story to answer questions regarding UGA's emergency response and how they prepare for emergency situations on campus.

Left to right: Blaine Haynes, Angelus Pereira, Lady Denee and Amar Mollon stand by a storefront on March 29, 2026. All four are active members of the online civilian-led safety group Street Sweeperz TV. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) Street Sweeperz TV, an online vigilante group dedicated to protecting Athens youth, is in the spotlight following a viral confrontation on the University of Georgia campus during class with a former professor, who later fled the country, for alleged inappropriate online conduct with a minor.  Angelus “Godzillah” Pereira, an Athens-Clarke County resident, founded Street Sweeperz TV  to protect his community's youth. This viral group with over 20,000 followers on Instagram said they work to raise awareness in Athens-Clarke County about predatory behavior towards children and vulnerable people online.  “It was really just about letting the community know,” Pereira said. Lady Denee, a local entrepreneur in Athens who works with Street Sweeperz TV, said she believes their mission is important for stopping repeat offenders.  “I’m hoping that the people that we did confront, I think it was upwards of 30 people…hopefully they’re reluctant to continue to do what they’ve done,” Denee said.  According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's  most recent bi-monthly report, there are 130 registered sex offenders in Athens-Clarke County. If all alleged predators Street Sweeperz TV confronted were charged, that would be a roughly 23% increase in the sex offender registry in Athens-Clarke County.  Amar Mollon and Angelus Pereira stand in front of a storefront on March 29, 2026. Mollon is a member of Pereira's organization, Street Sweeperz TV. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) “How many people really check that registry?” said Amar Mollon, a member of Street Sweeperz TV and the Georgia National Guard. “It’s like Scooby-Doo, when they take off the mask, it’s another human being. It’s everyday people.”  Some in the community, like Aadit Shah, a UGA freshman finance major, say they feel safer with Street Sweeperz TV stepping forward. “Now that we know that people are taking charge to help sort out what’s going on, it’s a comforting feeling,” Shah said. Commenters online echoed their support for Street Sweeperz TV’s public confrontations in the comments on their Instagram page.  One user commented on Instagram, “I  think it’s disgusting but I love how this guy exposes him and I’ve been spreading it everywhere that people can see it too.”  Each post averages 1,500 likes, or 13.3% of their total following.  Lady Denee and Blaine Haynes pose in front of a storefront on March 29, 2026. Both Denee and Haynes are members of the online civilian-led safety group Street Sweeperz TV. (Photo/Isabella De La Sierra) “They’re doing it not only for the protection of their citizens, but also for those content reasons,” Shah said. “And so, like, they’re also monetizing off of that. So, like, if there’s funding issues and the community can get behind that, that would be perfect. But as it is right now, they’re also getting funding from the content that they upload due to what they do.”  However, Street Sweeperz TV is not monetized on any platform, meaning they don’t make any money from the posts and videos on their pages.  According to Pereira, the expenses necessary to make videos, gather information and confront predators are out-of-pocket costs for the Street Sweeperz, most of whom have day jobs.  Due to the recent uptick in viewership stemming from the viral confrontation between Street Sweeperz TV and a former UGA professor, Pereira and his team have received a large number of potential leads from the community; however, the resources needed to properly investigate these claims are hard to fund.  “You know a car doesn’t run on air, and I’ve been putting the gas in the car financially for the past six months, and we do get support sometimes, and we do get donations sometimes but it’s just not enough,” Pereira said.  Street Sweeperz TV cannot continue to look out for their fellow Athens-Clarke County residents, despite their passion for protecting vulnerable Athenians, without further community engagement and support.  “To the pedophiles, anything you do in this life, you’re gonna pay for that,” Pereira said. “Even the rich people, the billionaires, the institutions, the colleges, law enforcement, everybody.” ----------------- Budget Line: Street Sweeperz TV is an online civilian-led safety group dedicated to protecting children and vulnerable people in Athens-Clarke County. Civilian-led safety efforts are changing how residents protect their communities and feel safe within them. Street Sweeperz TV went over their operation, mission and goals in a profile.  Why I wrote this story: I wrote this story to align with my current beat (as of Spring 2026), criminal justice and public safety. While writing my story there was current buzz around an incident that occurred on campus. Street Sweeperz TV confronted a now-former UGA professor during class time on campus regarding his alleged inappropriate behavior with a minor online. I wanted to look closer at this group and how they (and other groups like them) operate within the Athens-Clarke County area to protect their communities.

Below is an essay that I wrote for my English 1102 class during my freshman year. The essay is an analysis of Troye Sivan’s song “One of Your Girls” from his third studio album, Something To Give Each Other . It explores the very nature of queer identity, which is central to the song. I made some minor adjustments, but the flow and structure are still a little wonky. I enjoy all the points I make, so I hope you do too.   Can a gay man ever be like “One of Your Girls?”             Troye Sivan’s third studio album, Something To Give Each Other, takes a more mature and developed route to explore ‘adult’ queerness. We see that the tracks are serious and explore the problems and emotions of queerness in a deeper and more mature way than his prior works. The pop tracks on Something to Give Each Other  tend to cover more serious ideas- namely the experimentation and sex culture that is central to queer culture- and this contrasts the upbeat sound and ‘head bopping’ beat of many of the tracks. Namely in the track,“One of Your Girls,” Sivan explores queer experimentation, its limits, and the emotional toll it takes on the one being ‘experimented’ on. In the song, Sivan creates a ‘straight’ male character to project the emptiness and vulnerability of the relationship onto.             The emotional focus of “One of Your Girls” juxtaposes the upbeat nature of pop; it's slower and uses the electronic focus of the genre to convey Sivan's emotions in the situation. Queer pop is a subgenre of the larger pop music scene known for exploring queer life and engaging with the aesthetics of queer living, as well as the problems that come with it (Papenburg 1). This is exactly what we see in Sivan's “One of Your Girls.” Sivan is detailing his experiences as a queer man navigating a culture that continues to show contempt for his existence, despite surface-level progress. Contrasting this is the parallel experience of the idealized ‘straight’ guy who often participates in a conservative culture. Despite these hurdles that the ‘straight’ guy faces in relation to his acceptance and expression, we see that the adverse effect on Sivan is loneliness and emptiness caused by the ‘straight’ guy’s inability to be emotionally available (Factora). Sivan says that he feels as though his willingness to build relationships with these kinds of men stems from “internalized homophobia”- a feeling that occurs when a queer person adopts society’s negative perception, intolerance, and stigma and turns it towards themself. Sivan also says that there is a sort of bliss that comes from someone who might have bullied you or looked down on you, pursuing you in some way, but who will inevitably no longer want you, leaving you with a pressing sense of emptiness and raw vulnerability.             The ‘straight’ man at the center of the story is meant to represent the feelings many queer people have- life would be easier if they could hide their identities. Before the Cold War, the concept of a “heterosexual” person was not a monolithic idea, but during and after the Lavendar Scare, “both men and women were [are are] compelled to display perfect gender conformity in their mannerisms, appearance, and institutional position” (Romesburg, Littauer 70). We find that this same idea has continued to plague our culture, despite entering what many consider a new progressive era. By concealing their identity, a ‘straight-passing’ queer person abuses their proximity to heteronormativity and benefits from a system that seeks to put down their queer brethren. What Sivan is presenting is a man has no reason to present himself as queer because he can garner both the support of women in sexual relationships, despite not feeling romantically attracted to them, and queer men willingly to engage in discrete relationships with him. In all, the story of the ‘straight’ guy is one against queer suppression. No matter how the ‘straight’ man feels towards Sivan, he will never be open about who he is, and in all, “One of Your Girls” warns young queer men of these relationships. Queer slang and numerous pop culture references are employed throughout “One of Your Girls” to demonstrate Sivan’s emotions and the beauty he sees in the ‘straight’ guy. “You should trademark your face” and “[f]ace card, no cash, no credit” are both lines that present the beauty of the ‘straight’ guy as extreme and put the ‘straight’ guy out of reach for Sivan (Sivan 0:14, 00:31). Sivan saying that the ‘straight’ guy should “trademark [his] face” is really telling him that he should not let others imitate his beauty, because anyone else would just be a cheap knockoff. A “face card” refers to someone’s objective beauty, and one that requires “no cash [or] no credit” is one that is so stunning that it would be accepted as payment and is also universally accepted (Sivan 00:31). Sivan continues to say that the ‘straight’ guy could “skip the application [and] interview” (Sivan 00:42). Essentially saying this man is so lusted after and desired that he could be fast tracked to wherever he pleases. Driving home this point that a beautiful, straight man is at the top of society, and the queer individual, no matter how attractive, will be seen as lower. (We see this perfectly in how women respond to finding out that a popular actor or similar is gay. Take, for example, Jonathan Bailey, Matt Bomer, or even Troye Sivan. Women often leave comments under videos that are in the same vein as “what did men do to deserve him.”) [CJ14]   But a man so far above the rest and so beautiful must be reserved for women only. Sivan admits that “[e]verybody wants you, baby,” but “nobody wants you as bad as I do” (Sivan 01:23, 01:32). He is willing to keep pining even though he knows that what he truly desires is impossible. How can a gay man possibly compete for the attention of a ‘straight’ guy in a heteronormative society?             In the “One of Your Girls” music video, Sivan casts a variety of men in the role of the ‘straight’ guy and tries to present this guy as one who is conventionally attractive. The titular role of the music video is played by Ross Lynch (known for his role as Austin in Austin & Ally on Disney Channel). Lynch is very detached and ‘nonchalant,’ appearing to be unaware of the sexuality displayed in the choreography. This directly reflects Sivan’s true experience with this type of man in relationships. He wants Sivan and is willing to hookup discreetly, but he refuses to acknowledge the attraction he feels for Sivan, or broadly, queer men in general. Further exemplifying this point is the live concert choreography, which is much more intimate and sexual, and portrays the idea of a relationship filled with lust and desire coupled with stints of detachment.             Sivan’s only desire, to “be like one of your girls,” is the title and main sentiment of the song (Sivan 01:17). He knows that his man will never want him back, but he continues to wish for a deeper connection. He knows that this man has the “key to [his] heart,” but that their relationship can never be made public (Sivan 02:19). Despite the negative impact this relationship will have on his life, he clings to it, refusing to let it go. He is willing to “keep it a secret” in exchange for the ‘straight’ guy’s attention (Sivan 2:15). Sivan wishes that the ‘straight’ guy will “give [him] a call if [he] ever gets lonely,” and he doesn’t really care if their meetup involves a hookup-being like “one of your girls”- or just a hangout-being like one of “your homies” (Sivan 00:52, 00:57). Later he alters the lyric, saying “[g]ive me a call if you ever get desperate/I’ll be like one of your girls” (Sivan 1:12). He knows that the ‘straight’ guy will only every reach out if he is desperate for sex, and a fact, that despite its emotional toll, he will accept, just so that there is a relationship. Even if this relationship is to stand in as ‘one of his girls.’ Drag is a performance art employed by queer men and women that involves crossdressing, and scholars of queer history view these performances as ironic representations of the other gender. The word that is often used to describe drag is “camp” – associated with “artistic sensibility, satire and mockery, theatricality, artifice, ironic respectability, skepticism, insistent uncertainty, fantasy, and the suspension of belief and disbelief” (Romesburg, Littauer 74). In the “One of Your Girls” music video, Sivan dresses in drag, not in a conventional camp performance, but in a more serious crossdressing: he transforms himself into a woman. This is an act for the ‘straight’ guy, even if this doesn’t reflect his truth. Sivan says a key detail for the song was his willingness to change “[his] values or [his] self-worth to bend to be this thing that [the ‘straight’ guy] might want.” (Factora) Realistically, “this thing” is a hookup, but in the music video, “this thing” is a woman. Sivan knows the only way to be desired is to destroy who he is and recreate himself in the gaze of the straight man. The drag is a representation of the destruction of the masculine side of Sivan and the birth of the explicitly feminine side, something that the ‘straight’ guy will hopefully want.             By the end of the song, Sivan has adopted a slower, somber sound, reflecting how his feelings about the situation have changed from acceptance to a conscious understanding that a relationship that belittles him cannot turn out well. “One of Your Girls” receives praise and love from lots of queer men who have a similar experience. We see how the shared experiences can bring groups together, but it is through the pop genre, one whose fan base has a strong queer presence, that this message is delivered. In this case, queer pop serves as a medium through which Sivan can explore the harsh realities of queer life and express his emotions to an audience that understands him and his struggles.   WORK CITED “One of Your Girls.” Something to Give Each Other , Capitol Records: EMI. Papenburg, Bettina and Dreckmann, Kathrin. "Introducing Queer Pop". Queer Pop: Aesthetic Interventions in Contemporary Culture , edited by Bettina Papenburg and Kathrin Dreckmann, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2024, pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111013435-001 Factora, James. “Troye Sivan’s ‘One of Your Girls’ Was Inspired by Sleeping with Questioning Guys.” Them , Them., 13 Oct. 2023, www.them.us/story/troye-sivan-one-of-your-girls-inspiration Romesburg, Don. The Routledge History of Queer America . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.   [CJ14] I want to add this in because I think it adds a good example that backs up the point of an attractive queer person being viewed as being underneath an attractive straight person, but I feel like it derails the flow.

For a long time, “fitness” meant being as skinny as possible and appealing to the extreme standard of beauty presented to me by social media and influencers. A standard of beauty that, despite being so normalized, is entirely unrealistic. In my efforts to achieve perfection, working out became a form of self-punishment for not meeting my ideal body standards. I was always left feeling worse than when I started. I was sore, tired, and sweaty, and there was no visible change to tie my self-worth to. I was disappointed by the lack of results I hadn’t worked for yet. Never giving my body the chance to recover and develop before writing it off as a failure. This lack of instant gratification left me sorely disappointed and wallowing in self-pity each time. This is the ugly truth for lots of teenage girls growing up in the age of social media and global trends. As many people will tell you, the gym isn’t a one-time thing. You have to be consistent, and you have to care to get results you are going to be proud of. This was something I failed to take to heart despite understanding the science perfectly. I simply wanted to look as “hot and sexy” as possible, as fast as I could. Another negative side-effect of social media exposure at a young age, worrying about my looks instead of worrying about school in the morning.  I had an extremely unhealthy mindset. I wouldn’t work out for weeks, then cry and cry about how I hated my lack of commitment and inability to push myself. To counteract this, I’d wake up early the next day and go to the gym for hours, altering my schedule to fit around the gym, rather than the gym fitting around my schedule.  My fitness and health have been something I’ve concerned myself with since middle school; however, I made that first serious step in January 2025. If I’m being entirely truthful, I was never unhealthy. I was an active child and teenager, attending dance rehearsals that would give me 2-3 hours of cardio a day. Eating 3 meals a day and drinking water. But my negative self-image made everything in the mirror look distorted and fake. I was a general high school student, overworked and tired. I had a body curated by my day-to-day life, a body that served my needs efficiently, yet I hated it.  Disliking my body didn’t mean constantly hating how I looked. There were days when I believed I was beautiful and loved my body and what it provided me, what it allowed me to do. But there were an equal number of days when a crippling sense of self-doubt would occupy my mind and I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. Reassuring myself was impossible because I knew that I wasn’t doing everything I should to take care of myself. These past few months, I’ve been on a journey of extreme self-discovery. What I know now is that it’s extremely harmful to put these levels of expectations on yourself. I don’t believe in the “you’re your own harshest critic” spoof. If anything, we should be our own biggest supporters. A healthy lifestyle starts from within. In high school, I wasn’t making these trips to the gym to create a healthier version of myself; I believed I needed to be punished. That I was fat, ugly, and undesirable. And I desperately wanted to change that. Yet I didn’t know how.  Truthfully, it was my best friend Chloe who changed my mindset. Listening to my thoughtless ramblings, she didn’t tell me I was just insecure or in my head; instead, she showed me how to be better. She didn’t agree with what I was saying about myself; however, she knew she wouldn’t be able to change my mind. Rather, she gave me the tools to make the change I so desperately craved.  Armed with this newfound knowledge and an exercise app, I stepped foot in the gym with achievable goals and a sense of contentment that I was making a step in the right direction. I was actively deciding to change and put myself and my health first. That if I wanted to feel good in my skin, I was the only one who could make that happen.  In January, I signed up for a Planet Fitness membership. Over the years, I’d take part in their free summer memberships for teenagers, meaning I went 3 times in the first week and never again. But this time was going to be different because I was determined to help myself be the best version of me. A version of me who always put her best foot forward.  My first step was truthfully looking at how often I could commit to the gym. Not idealizing my schedule or sacrificing sleep or meals. As a college student with an active internship, classes, and rehearsals, time was scarce. I knew that, realistically, the gym would only be a viable option for me 2-3 times a week. A slow start, sure, but a manageable goal that I could meet. So that’s what I did. 2-3 times during the week, usually every other day, I’d be in the gym working on strength training. My goal was not to lose weight, but rather to gain muscle while burning fat. While those may seem similar, they mean very different things. It was the difference between changing myself for others versus changing myself for me.  I also vowed not to stop eating. A body that is not fueled properly cannot function properly. I didn’t want to diet; I wasn’t eating an unhealthy amount of calories to begin with. I didn’t want to change what I was eating; I just wanted to make sure that I was supporting my diet with exercise and movement. However, I have noticed myself naturally opting for healthier options. In the dining hall, craving a salad rather than ketchup and fries. These choices allow me to feel good, as I’m not just eating empty calories. This isn’t to say I don’t have my fair share of dessert, but I find myself being more conscious of my choices.  Continuing this pattern, eating regularly and working out regularly. I have begun to notice results. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to just quit on this journey. The vision of health and wellness does not go away just because I see a change in the mirror; it will stay with me for the rest of my life. Which is exciting! I am so happy to be taking care of my body, and I am so proud that I stuck with my goals and worked hard to achieve them.  I have lots more work to do, and I still get shy when attempting new machines, opting to do an “at-home” workout with dumbbells despite physically being at the gym. Progress isn’t linear, and there will always be more to learn, but there is progress. For the first time in my life, I can confidently tell myself that I’m doing my best and mean it.

Welcome to Izzy, In Theory! I’m Izzy, and this is my humble corner of the internet—a blog where I can share my thoughts, feelings, and ideas.  I wanted an online space where I could be myself, without the pressures of social media. I’m not trying to influence anyone, nor am I trying to convince you that I’m right about, well, anything. I simply want to share my stories as I gain new experiences and journey through life.  Clayton, one of my closest friends and my roommate, joins me here! He offers music commentary and analysis on his column, Clayton’s Corner!  We’re so excited for you to get to know us and to get to know all of you in turn! Enjoy! Izzy and Clayton