First Year Blog

Salvete, everyone!

Well, Spring Break is around the corner and I am very much looking forward to it. Although, when I come back, I will be staring a whole heap of assessments in the face. But it will be worth it to go home and see the family, visit friends who go to school in the area, and go visit my crazy all-girls high school. This week, however, I only have my standard Greek quiz on Friday and an Archaeology test on Thursday. My parents are leaving early Saturday morning to come pick me up, and then I’m home-free and homeward-bound!

For some reason, the last week and a half or so has been very slow with schoolwork. Don’t get me wrong — this has been really nice, but has left me a tad antsy and looking around for things to do. My friend sent me a Web site on which you can test yourself on all of the countries of the world (you are given a map and you have fifteen minutes to type all 195 countries in), and I’ve been working on that while everyone is slaving away at papers and for midterms. As my friends said, of course I wouldn’t spend the time watching TV or lounging around.

Saturday, after my friends overtook my room for the entire day and did homework, I took a fun adventure to Boston with my friend Tom to meet his sister and go out to dinner. I forgot how much I love to go to Boston. The city is so picturesque and the night was just warm enough where I could enjoy looking around and just being outside. As stunning as the Holy Cross campus is, there’s still something in me that yearns to see a city every once and a while. That probably stems from my usual habit of heading down to Philly every so often. Seeing the Boston skyline made me super excited to see Philadelphia’s once again!

I’m off to work on my heaping pile of laundry. Probably should not have let it get almost as big as Mt. St. James itself.

Happy Monday! Valete!

It’s really cliché to say this, but the wind is simply howling outside. I just got back from the outside coming in from O’Neil with my botany abstraction in hand, when the wind shoved me backwards. I held onto my assignment for dear life and trudged up the steps, hoping against hope that I’d survive to take my laundry out of the washer before someone else did.

Obviously, I did, otherwise I would not be writing this to you.

Saturday night was Hogwarts at Holy Cross, the main Science Ambassadors event of the year. I was doing the Iron Cereal experiment, which is moving the iron within cereal around with a magnet. Not going to lie, but a few days beforehand, I spent a good two hours in my room trying to figure out how to make it work (which is a little depressing in hindsight, but oh so entertaining). I finally figured out that if you placed the whole flakes in water, you could make the cereal move more visibly than if you just left them on a napkin. Also, I got to whip out the super strong neodymium magnets, which are a lot of fun. It was kind of cool watching some kids’ eyes bug out when they realized that the nasty grey iron fillings I showed them were mixed into their cereal.

And there was so much enthusiasm! Our Ron and Ginny Weasley, as well as the rest of the characters, did a great job running around and entertaining the little kids. I can’t wait to see how next year will turn out. My friend Tom suggested we try and get Venus Fly Traps for next time…

Xairete, everyone!

Well, I survived my week of absolute academic chaos. I had a debate in Montserrat and a Greek test on the same day (Friday), so I spent the week trying to get ready for both. They went well, despite my obvious time crunch, and I just have to write a paper for Montserrat for Wednesday. Otherwise, it’s a pretty quiet week. I expect to sleep in a few times (and by that, I mean until nine or ten), which will be amazing.

This weekend was a blast, despite the fact that almost every single one of my friends went home to spend Valentine’s Day with their significant others. Amy, whom I had claimed as my valentine in November (on a card to cheer her up one gloomy November afternoon), was actually in Ottawa and had to be my valentine in spirit. However, she sent me on a chase throughout our hall for my present, providing clues to keep me running around. Her gift ended up being a little book of poetry by Billy Collins, who is one of our favorite poets. Saturday night was our class dance, so that worked out nicely. My good friend Tom is our class president, and he coerced me and my other friends who were still on campus to come and dance the night away. I’m so glad I did, because it gave me the opportunity to hang out with girls on my hall that I have always been friendly with, but have never actually gotten the chance to do anything with. They were beyond sweet and provided fabulous dance partners in Hogan Ballroom!

I’m pretty sure that it is not going to last, but the weather lately has been divine. I am always in awe of the sheer power of a New England winter — the wind on this mountain has a knife-like ability to cut one to the core, negative temperatures bite at every exposed bit of skin, and piles of snow provide a most interesting hindrance to getting to class dry. In the last few days, I have barely had to don a jacket…and coming from Philadelphia, where I consider a temperature of thirty degrees to be bone-chilling, I am amazed at how I have adjusted to living in the hellish cold that New England throws at us. I just don’t think of cold the same way anymore. Nor do I think of sports devotion the same way (more like air and water than just a bunch of guys sweating on a court or field), but hey, that’s a different story…
And now, a much-needed nap before I tackle the last of this Montserrat article. Although, Billy Collins is  also a tempting option!

Ciao, Valete, and Xairete (which can apparently, as I learned today from Professor Joseph, be used as both greeting and goodbye)!

Montserrat has taken over my brain. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Almost every time I walk around campus, I keep wondering how I can apply what I see to that class. It’s so weird. My Montserrat seminar is called ‘Truth and Abstraction’ and this semester is basically talking about self portraits and what it really means to capture yourself in a photograph, or in a painting, or what have you. I’m finding it a bit frustrating because it’s not really straightforward. It requires a lot of introspection, and quite frankly, I don’t always have the time to ‘journal creatively’ everyday. On the other hand, because I am so keen on scenery, I have now walked around most of campus, and have seen some pretty cool sights.

I never really realized how pretty campus was until recently, when I was walking around and seeing how all the buildings popped out of the scenery.

In other news, we’re having a burst of warm weather! It’s so weird, considering that it’s the middle of February, but yesterday I walked outside without a coat on! Admittedly, it was only fifty degrees at most. Still, in comparison to the usual winter days here on the Hill, yesterday and today have been quite balmy.

Oh, well, until next time…Happy Early Valentine’s Day!

p.s.- Why yes, I did sketchily stand in front of buildings to take pictures for possible self portrait backgrounds…

Salvete, amici!

Hope everyone is doing well this lovely Friday in February. Today was the end of a very, very busy week for me. It was full to the brim with assessments, meetings, Kimball, and other general shenanigans that had me running around and studying for hours at a time. It’ll be nice to take a break this weekend and just hang out with the girls for some downtime. Although, I have a fair amount to get done in a short two days, so we’ll see just how quickly this weekend goes (the week has absolutely flown by!).

Today and last night I spent a lot of time just chatting with professors in the classics department. I love all of them, because they’re so enthusiastic about what they do and make you feel like they have the time to honestly get to know you. Especially nice was my chat with Professor Nagy, my advisor. We don’t see much of each other, so it was good to catch up and tell him about the semester that he had helped me plan in early November. I showed him some of my Greek script (apparently, Professor Joseph thinks it is neat…he should see my copybook…) and we laughed over the fact that I have pretty much become a “Joseph-ite” because I see Professor Joseph so often. Hey, I’ll take it!

Tonight I’m heading to Blackstone on the free shuttle to go out to dinner with a fellow blogger and dear friend, Colleen Curran. We still work on a shift together at Kimball, which has been our only real time to talk…so we should have a really fun time eating and hanging out without having to restock the pancakes or sort silverware.

For now, a nap. I stayed up really late studying for my Greek quiz today.

Xairete for now!

Egads! It’s been so long since my last update. I apologize for the sheer agony you all must have suffered while waiting for my next update. How horrible! There are many excuses I could give you for my late entry, including keeping up with work, attending various campus events, going off campus, and sleeping. However, I shall cut to the chase and tell you the most recent exciting things going on right now.

You may thank me later for saving you from the rambles of the past two weeks.

At any rate, I went to the Kimball Student Office today to pick up my Kimball Captain application. I have been looking forward to the application opening for the past few weeks (much to my friends’ annoyance) and was horrified when I realized on Friday that I had forgotten to get one! So today before lunch I ran down there to get one. I’m so excited about filling it out, and really hope I get a position. It may be rather surprising to some of you, but I had a lot of fun working both last semester and this semester, and I’d like the chance to do it again, from a Captain’s point of view. Wish me luck!

On Saturday, Gordon, Linh, and I went to Providence Place Mall. It was my first time down there, and it was amazing. The mall was gigantic. There were five floors, the first two devoted to parking, Old Navy, and Borders, and the top three floors devoted to other stores, an IMAX theater and a Dave and Buster’s. Linh and I were on a mission to get clothes that somewhat resembled Hogwarts uniforms. Since Hogwarts on the Hill is coming up (it’s the Science Ambassadors’ biggest event of the year), we both wanted to dress up like Hogwarts characters. Since J.C Penney was conveniently having a sale, we both got ties for our respective houses. Linh got a Slytherin tie, and I got one for Hufflepuff. Gordon made an attempt at teaching me how to tie a tie, but unfortunately, I’ll have to ask him for further lessons.

Since the deadline for applications was January 15th, I wish you all the best of luck. I remember how irritating it was checking the mailbox every day and seeing no responses from schools, but don’t worry. The mail will come eventually…

Salvete, all!

Last week was crazy, to say the least. Unfortunately, I had to go down to Philadelphia from Wednesday-Saturday for my Grandmother’s funeral. Everyone here, especially my friends and professors, were really supportive and are helping me get back into the swing of this still-new semester. I have a lot of work to make up, but I’m chiseling away at it and will be back on track very soon.

I just completed a really interesting assignment for Montserrat. We’re currently reading Vergil’s Aeneid — and I’m pretty much in heaven, since I’ve read it once already and translated it senior year of high school. The best part about discussing the book again is that my opinions of certain events and characters in the epic have had time to sink, and I have formed definite opinions about them. This was evident in class last Wednesday, when we were going over one of my favorite parts of the book and I could not keep my mouth shut. The Aeneid is basically a myth about the founding of Rome, and foreshadows all of its greatness to come. So for class, Professor Joseph is having us write our own myths explaining a natural phenomenon. I spent a happy two hours writing mine on the origin of an owl’s hoot, and look forward to sharing it with the class on Wednesday.

The weather has broken a bit lately. It’s around 40 degrees out, which is unheard of compared to some of the negative temperatures we endured not so long ago. However, it is apparently going to snow and ice tomorrow. Go figure. The joys of a New England winter!

Astronomy is calling my name. I have a test Wednesday for which I should probably start reviewing.

Xairete for now, and Happy February!