“Diversions” September 23, 2010

Miriam and I take a break from baking to dance around to bad '90s pop songs

Hannah goes to a toga party–– I wear a t-shirt with a Roman on it and then sleep.

First off, I swear I’m not going to let this turn into “The Fortnight, in a Word.” I’m just still in that tricky, beginning of the semester phase where everything is still kind of crazy and there’s not a lot of free time.

The past two weeks have been really hectic, if only because my classes have been throwing so much information at me I can hardly see straight. Add in the 20 hours a week of The Phoenix, and you’d already have a pretty tired girl. But there’s still more! The archbishop of Philadelphia reassigned the Catholic priest who was chaplain to Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr, and the past two weeks have been a flurry of good bye parties for him and getting acquainted with the new priest, Father Tom. On top of that, I’ve recently been deluding myself into believing that I have domestic talents like baking, and have spent entirely too much time making scones for the priests and myself, and brownies and cookies for my copy editors.

See what I did there? I spun the list of things I do into a really impressive and exhausting-sounding paragraph. And all of that’s true. I’ve been a bit sleep deprived for two weeks, especially the last few days. But I’d be lying if I made it sound like I somehow un-distractable.

For one thing, the more tired I get, the more likely I am to join my friends in a spontaneous dance party. These tend to break out while waiting for things to bake, or when a majority of people in the room are failing to concentrate on their studying. Usually Miriam will comment on how fierce Beyonce is, or how much she hates having “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” stuck in her head, and then someone else will find a song on youtube. Before long, we’re marveling at my inability to move my hips and laughing til we have hiccups.

Then there’s television. Usually I’m good at avoiding it, but I knew that tonight I just needed to make time to watch the first episode of House with Mariah, thereby having my first hour of “Shut up, brain”-time in close to a month.

And of course, we can’t forget parties. I’m sure I’ve mentioned how disinclined I am towards actually going out, but I manage to have my share of fun, even if it is a bit unconventional. For example, a week ago, we threw a teddy bear wedding to celebrate Linda’s birthday. She always wanted to be a flower girl, so Miriam’s Darth Vader bear and my Pinky the bear were married in the Rose Garden so that her childhood dream could be achieved.

Between helping Hannah get ready for a party (utilizing my knowledge of toga-making for the first time since Latin II) and riding the shuttle for much longer than necessary so that Mariah and I can continue our conversation, I suppose I’ve squandered a good deal of time. I could have been memorizing Hebrew vocabulary, getting around to the optional readings in Sociology, or even updating this blog.

Call me an underachiever, though, but I have no regrets. My work, in and out of academics, is still getting done, even if it’s sometimes through divine intervention, and I’m learning a lot.  And if I have to give my work ethic a bit of slack to have time to laugh and talk with my friends, I can’t complain.

“Refreshed” September 9, 2010

My new dorm, Woolman

By the bell tower with Mariah and Miriam the first night back

It’s started again. My second year here is already a week and a half through, and I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to keep this blog updated! Shame on me.

On the bright side, although it’s been fast-paced, the first week and a half has been wonderfully fun, intellectually stimulating, and challenging. Swarthmore didn’t change over the summer, it seems.

When I was choosing classes last semester, it didn’t occur to me that taking two introductory language courses would be hugely time-consuming. It seems that I know more Spanish than I thought I did, which I suppose is a product of living with my mom, who’s from Buenos Aires, and being from the greater New York area, which requires a sort of general knowledge of basic Spanglish. So thus far, Spanish I is going well–– I love my professors (one is from the same city as my mom, and the other goes to the same Mass I do every Sunday) and it’s great to take a class that I have a sort of intuition about.

Hebrew is a bit of a different story, in that there’s nothing intuitive about it for me. Reading from right to left in a language with different characters (entirely too many of which are nearly identical, by the way) is intimidating. It is similar to Spanish in two ways, though: The professor is hilarious and personable, and I love working on it. I can’t pretend it isn’t difficult, but after just 5 classes I can read simple sentences. At the end of the summer, I didn’t know the difference between a gimmel and a dalet, now I see them and all the other letters when I close my eyes, and I could theoretically write a plotless story about Abraham and Sarah guarding cattle and remembering houses. It’s kind of shocking to feel myself learning so much so quickly… I can practically feel my brain growing… or I could, if that were possible.

My other two classes are also lots of fun and interesting, but they’re more reading intensive and tend to be similar to the kinds of classes I’m used to taking. Still, I like them very much and am glad about the decisions I made to take them.

Outside of classes, I’ve been back to my sophomoric hijinks in general.  My quadmates and I stayed up late one night discussing the fine points of our roommate contracts. We discussed everything from putting away food and cleaning hair out of the bathroom drain, to vowing not to bring feral animals back to the room, unless they were anthropomorphic and/or magical. Mariah, Hannah, Miriam and I spent far more time and energy than necessary baking cookies for my copy editors at The Phoenix. (Now that I have people working under me–– minions, if you will–– I feel compelled to reward them for doing their job by giving them baked goods.) Linda, Miriam and I have been trying to coordinate a time to go into Philadelphia to eat relatively cheap, fancy food during Restaurant Week, sitting in my RA’s room agonizing about the upcoming week, and having ridiculously long conversations over lunch and dinner.

In short, Swarthmore is just as I remembered it. Exhausting, of course, but also full of hilarious and clever people who keep me sane and busy.