"Have a Good Summer!"

In middle school, my classmates and I decided we were cool because we wrote in acronyms. “Have a good summer” became “HAGS” and it was not uncommon for classmates to scribble “LYLAS” or “love you like a sister” during yearbook signing day.

As a kid, when the school year ended, I looked forward to filling my time with Sonic the Hedgehog, summer camps, and other fun stuff. Yay! I have that same feeling of excitement about being able to do fun stuff this summer, especially since I work in the education sector in two of my three part-time jobs and am therefore in tune with the school schedule.

This is the first summer since I became a freelance writer over 10 years ago that I’m not feeling broke, stressed out, and working feverishly to catch up on life. Part of the reason is that the science manuscripts that I was working on last summer (and that I thought would never get done) are written, and another reason is that I’ve streamlined my work hours and activities now that I am a more established freelancer - I’ve been so busy with life in the past months that it’s forced me to work on Fancy Comma stuff for only two or three days a week most weeks.

Working so much, my bills are, increasingly, paid. So, now, I find myself with small stretches of time that I would have spent working that I forgot what to do with. I’m figuring out that part — it’s nice to have free time again, even if in small increments! Small, deliberate efforts — so small that they did not even really feel like actual work — got me here. I love that working on something in tiny increments day after day, and week after week, can lead to big things.

This summer, we also hope to have interns from Georgetown University joining Fancy Comma who were unable to complete their federal internships due to budget cuts in the federal government. I am so excited about working with them!

So, yeah, I’m going to have a good summer. I hope you have a good summer, too.

What we’ve been working on this month

Despite it being a hectic few weeks, I wrote a day-in-the-life as a Congressional intern, following it up with an article on my work/life balance in Congress. I also wrote about winning presidential campaigns with data and ways that scientists can fearlessly shape policy.

That’s all for this month! If you liked this month’s newsletter, please share it!