blaugust #1 (2025-08-01)
despite being a part of the small web community for about two years, i've never actually maintained a blog before. upon hearing about blaugust, i realized there was no better time to actually start a blog! my main goal for blaugust is to do 5 blog posts in total, mainly because i'm just coming back from a very exhausting summer program and will pretty soon after be entering my sophomore year of college, but i'll try to maintain the pipe dream of doing one for each day (we'll see how long that lasts...). this information may just be a repeat of my about page, but this blog post can act as a bit of a snapshot on who aster is right now.
so hello! i'm aster, a twenty year old from the united states. i grew up in the city of fort wayne, the second largest city in indiana which might me something if there was really anything of note. the city has gone through some extensive downtown revitialization efforts, but given the terrible public transportation and not living in the downtown area, i haven't really experienced any of the changes. the festivals are actually quite nice, but i haven't been to many (and probably never will, given i won't have any more springs or summers in the city). my family however has been here for quite some time (most of my great-grandparents and some of my second great-grandparents were born in the fort) meaning the cemeteries have a lot of my family. as a result i still feel some affection for the city, even if my goal my whole life has been to leave forever.
i currently attend indiana university where i'm majoring in international law, philosophy and religious studies, and chinese, with a certificate in french studies. this means that i am busy 99% of the day as i deal with classes, three jobs, and clubs. i know i absolutely do not need to be doing all this, but my primary passion in life is honestly research and study, so it isn't too terribly bad (but it does mean that i need to keep a strict study schedule otherwise it will pile up horribly-- which doesn't always match well with the fact that i am consistently tired at any given point). my research interest is the interactions between chinese buddhist institutions and the chinese government, primarily through the framework of law. at large, my interest is on law and religion, so i also look at islam in france and indigenous religions in the united states. my interest in law also means i have an interest in trials, particularly show trials used to justify a regime change. finally, as some on the left my other research focuses on creating an equitable, solarpunk world. all of these i plan to at some point creating a blog post over to explain what exactly they mean. my language learning goals are native-like proficiency in mandarin, french, and japanese; high ability in spanish, german, thai, hokkien, and vietnamese; and reading ability in dutch, sanskrit, classical chinese, classical tibetan, pali, swedish, and latin.
my dream in life is to be a law/religious studies professor in my aforementioned field(s). following my undergrad dream, my pipeline goal is to get the rhodes scholarship and get an MPhil in buddhist studies. after that (or immediately after that if i don't get rhodes) would be to attend l'université de strasbourg for a master's in international law, and then a phd in international law at sciences po paris.
well i'm pretty tired from moving out of my summer school housing (more on that at a later point) but it was great meeting y'all!