So this is the new year!
J-term! It sounds odd to have one class for a month, three hours a day, but I’m unabashedly enthusiastic about January term. Focusing on one class means that you can really devote yourself to the subject matter. In past years I’ve taken Intro to Graphic Design and Intro to Creative Writing (and really liked both!). For creative classes, where the focus is on spending large quantities of time making things, I love the mandate to spend all your time practicing your craft. And without the need to juggle work for five or six classes, I almost always do a lot more socializing and sleeping in J-term.
I did take full advantage of Christmas break while I had it, though! I watched a lot of old westerns with my dad, had a bonfire and de-veined shrimp on New Year’s Eve, caught up on sleep, decorated and then took down the Christmas tree, watched Pride and Prejudice (the 6 hour BBC version) with my mom, found out my brother spent his first semester in college being hilariously social and upholding the (absurd and wonderful) traditions of his dorm, and got to see my youngest brother do responsible things like drive and go to work.
What? My youngest brother is old enough to drive?! My other brother is old enough to be in college?! And my mom is (apparently) old enough to go back to school to get her master’s degree in nursing?!
All in all, I think this will be an eventful new year for my family. With three of its members enrolled full-time in college, it will undoubtedly be a challenge.
Thinking back on New Year’s Eve, though, the bonfire keeping away the cold, the fireworks’ cacophony suddenly disrupting the quiet of the middle of nowhere, and the stars slowly becoming visible after the fireworks’ glow faded, I think I’m ready. The year will undoubtedly also include a few beautiful things.
Filed under general, fish-eating, Christmas, food | Comment (1)“and now good morrow to our waking souls.”
This semester has been the weirdest semester of my entire life.
I have never spent more of a semester fighting mad, I have never felt so socially displaced, strengthened a relationship so much, I have never written better poetry, enjoyed a class more, hated a class so much, been more outgoing, been more awkward, made better work, worked less in the studio, worked so hard, enjoyed my job so much, had so many possessions break in a week’s time span, written so many letters, gotten so many letters, learned so much about myself, confused myself more, looked forward to graduation more, and hated the idea of graduation so much.
You begin to understand the jumble?
I never wait until New Year’s to make my resolutions. By the end of the semester, I’m all full of resolutions like “I’m going to work harder, get all A’s, sleep more, eat more healthily, make more friends, and generally kick butt at my life.”
Then I spend the first three days of Christmas break unconscious, waking just in time to celebrate the Advent with my family in fine fashion.
This year, the older of my two brothers is a freshman at Hope College, in Michigan, so I’m looking forward to hearing how his first semester went and whether he will honest-to-goodness be an engineering major. Also, my mom just finished her first semester of grad school (she’s going back to get a master’s in nursing to become a nurse practitioner). I’m sure the break will be full of both academic anecdotes and amazing culinary achievements. I’m going to make an Italian meal, complete with tiramisu, for my family, and we have a traditional new year’s meal with excellent crackers, exotic cheeses, smoked oysters, shrimp, summer sausage, and whatever other delicious delicacy we can think of and pile together. Sometimes we have fondue, since my mom came to love it while she studied abroad in Switzerland.
You know what’s bizarre sounding but delicious? Boursin cheese and grapes. No really. I don’t lie. If you try some, you’ll be glad.
I don’t know if I will post next week, since on Friday I’ll be on the plane toward home, but I will certainly be back with holiday updates on January 11. I only have five finals, and then freedom. . . for two weeks!
Merry Christmas!
Filed under general, fish-eating, winter, Christmas, food | Comments (2)“ptolemy may have a difficult name, but he was no dummy.”
– my world views professor
I think early-morning classes make even professors a little bit punchy. I never, for instance, thought I would hear the word “dummy” coming out of a professor’s mouth, let alone a professor teaching an honors course about diverse and intellectually challenging world views.
World views is a fun class, but not because of the course’s content (frankly, I am only interested in dismantling the parts of my world view which relate directly to the production of poetry or art; philosophy classes and theology classes have thorougly exhausted my general-dismantling-of-views energy). It is fun because I am close friends with four people in that class and know most of the other 9-9:50 a.m. inhabitants of Boyer 136 through first-year seminar or other honors classes. We have great discussions because we are already acquainted — and I experience an astounding sense of well-being when I walk into that classroom with coffee cup in hand (lo, caffeine is indeed the nectar of the gods) and see people that I love arrayed around the classroom.
Matt, one of my close friends since freshman year, mentioned to me yesterday that he is graduating early from Messiah; he will be done this December. It made me realize: this semester is the last time we will all be together, for sure, everyone.
Maybe I take this sense of well-being for granted?
I am most emphatically of the opinion that one should be at college to work, and not to goof off or find a spouse. But I am also formulating to myself this fact: it is in the realm of relationships that one is able to internalize and apply the material one is learning so assiduously in class. If it does not apply to these, the community — maybe I will even go so far as to say the kingdom of God? — then is it really of use?
It is going to storm tonight — but I am so all about going to get sushi with my boyfriend that it will not even bother me if ten tons of water dump to earth.
I hope you have a lovely Friday afternoon.
Filed under general, random quotes, fish-eating, agape | Comment (1)the summer campus
In the summer the Yellow Breeches is full of ducks (I’m delighted by this discovery). Last weekend Liz, my best theatre major, came down to visit from New York City, where she’s rocking an eight-week summer acting program. We decided to indulge nostalgia and take our favorite walk – since first semester freshman year, starting to cope with the first pangs of essay anxiety, we’ve been strolling down to the Swinging Bridge and relaxing to watch the water go by.
Feeding ducks are hysterical. They paddle into the current, build up a little speed, and suddenly they’re upside down, bums in the air and feet finning desperately just under the surface to keep them head-down at the bottom of the stream. Then they burst back upright, too buoyant for their own good, shake their heads, and repeat.
Did you know that ducks feed in large groups? These did – all but three.
These three ducks stayed off to the left of the others, closer to the bank. One, who looked like the youngest, didn’t eat at all – he checked out his surroundings, paddled in circles, and looked confused (I sympathized. That completely confused look describes me when I first arrived in Italy and realized the full extent of the language barrier). Another had the hang of diving underwater – in fact, he dove entirely under the water, wiggling like crazy; he’d gotten confused and thought instead of eating fish he ought to be one.
“That one’s my favorite,” said Liz. “He’s waaaaaaay enthusiastic.”
“That third one’s kind of demented,” I said, pointing to the other duck near the bank. “Look at him – he can’t get his bum in the air to get down to the fish!”
“Um. . . do ducks even eat fish?” Liz asked. I shrugged.
“I totally feel like that duck after Orvieto.” I said. “I mean, he’s trying really hard. . . he’s not as confused as that one, like, he’s got a better grip on the way he wants things to be, but he still doesn’t quite have the hang of it.”
Welcome to Messiah’s summer campus (it’s kind of rainy lately). Welcome also to my blog. It’s not as good as an ice-cream cone, but is undeniably better than a sharp stick in the eye (so on the scale of drug use to fairy tales, consumption of this blog is pretty healthy). This year means a lot of firsts for me: I spent a lot of time outside the United States for the first time, I’m not going home for the summer, and I’m actually working at a job like the one I want to have when I grow up (as opposed to, say, working at a coffee shop or fast food restaurant).
Like the third demented duck, I haven’t gotten the hang of all these new experiences yet - this whole fish-eating deal - but I hope to report positive summer discoveries. And maybe, as I’m figuring out what, exactly, my voice sounds like after all these firsts are blended together and shaken out into something new, you’ll get a better idea of the challenges and satisfactions of student life at Messiah.
Filed under general, introduction, ducks, fish-eating | Comment (1)