Verification & Introductory Post

Hello Steemit!   

My name is Shirley, and I’m super excited to be part of the Steemit community.   

I don’t know how much I should ramble about myself in this post, but lets start with the basics: I am an academic/nerd/geek/gamer and tech fan girl, who is currently living in San Juan, Puerto Rico.   

I have been a student most of my life. Learning, traveling and meeting new people are some of the things that fill my heart with joy. I hold an MA in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and am currently working on a thesis to finish a second MA in Comparative Literature. I have lived in different parts of the world, including Scandinavia and Central America.    

I am a medievalist, a comparatist, but first and foremost, a humanist. As much as I am fascinated by all sorts of tech (from robotics to AI, but especially
interactive/immersive media such as VR, AR and Videogames) I am even more so by people and everything they produce. So, as you can imagine all things sci-fi, and futuristic enthrall me, and I am currently (and always, really) looking for ways to bring my passion for history, fantasy, and technology together.   

I also love cats. And unicorns. And dragons. And all things pink and shinny.   

So, there you have it. That’s basically me in a nutshell =D   

Oh, and about what I’ll be blogging about in Steemit; as I mentioned above, I am currently a grad student in Puerto Rico. If you follow the news you may know that as recently as 21 days ago we were hit by category 4 Hurricane Maria, which caused so much damage that most of the island is still without electricity, many people lost their homes and many others their lives by incidents directly (and indirectly) related to the hurricane. Thankfully, my family and I are OK. The hurricane was a terrifying experience, but we have been luckier than most. Nonetheless, these days are extremely challenging as we are all looking to reestablish some sort of normality to our daily lives, and the hard truth is that as difficult as these times are, life goes on, and I refuse to let Maria slow me down. I’ve been using whatever few resources I have to keep moving forward, which in my case means helping others who are in a worse position than me, reading, and doing research for my thesis so I can (hopefully) graduate on time. Thus, life is complicated right now, especially for an academic whose research requires the internetz and access to information.     

BUT I SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED!!!    

Thus, I’ll be blogging about my research and whatever thought provoking idea I come-up with, mostly to find both motivation and solace to keep going :)   

Hope you all can find my posts about the humanities, ethics in technology, videogames, narrative and historical memory interesting and (or at the very least) insightful
and/or entertaining.   

Have a great day, and thank you for reading :)   



Oh! And you probably noticed that my picture’s date is wrong. Well, I took it two days ago, but because of the challenges I face in my current circumstances, I was unable to upload this post until today.   
Also, I'm currently working wherever I'm able to find WiFi and electricity. The day I took the picture, that place just so happened to be a research lab. Cuz, YOLO. #ChroniclesOfALifeWithoutElectricPower