This week is the calm before the storm, I just know it. Not much homework, catching up with old friends, hot, lazy weather. I can already tell that by about mid-next week, it'll hit me. I'll look up from my schoolwork and realize that I have arrived. It has begun.
Tomorrow we're going to the beach. I guess I should enjoy this calm while it lasts.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Back to the Beginning
It's beginning to sink in that I'm actually going to be starting school tomorrow. Although it's still weird. I didn't get fully settled into my new dorm until yesterday, and even now I still feel a little disoriented; I don't feel like I packed very well, I seem to have forgotten a lot of little things that I had last year. My external harddrive, a waste basket, a laundry basket, decorative things, etc. I tried to pack more lightly because we had less room in my car with Hannah and my mom accompanying me, plus their luggage. Oh well, most things I forgot can be bought or mailed.
It was hard saying goodbye to Hannah and Mom today. Being back at school will be surreal, even though I know I'll settle into a routine soon enough. Having been home all summer, I got re-used to my old house, my old habits, my old, comfortable places. New Mexico is my normal, not Biola, even though it gets more normal with time. I miss my family already, and Jordan. While I'm happy to see my good friends at school, I'm beginning to see that it's almost a little anti-climactic. Chelsea and I talked about it a little yesterday; this time last year, most of us were excited to go to college, to start that "experience" everyone talks about, at a new place and with new opportunities. This year, some of the novelty and mystery has worn off, and I think most of us are returning with an attitude more like, "Well, back to school."
I'm going to be doing some schedule orchestrating in the next few days. I'm half ready to drop a drama class I'm signed up for, mostly because I don't think I want to keep that major (Comm), and if I do, I may replace it with a music class, or I'm even considering an English class. Everyone keeps telling me that I'd be a good fit as an English major/teacher, so maybe I should try it out. Although I'm also considering just dropping the class (if I decide to, I'm going to the first day to get an idea of what it's like) and leaving myself with a lighter class load. That may be a good option because I want to be in the Torrey play this semester, and I don't know yet if I'll get paper credit for it; if I do, awesome, but if not, it'll be that much busier. Hopefully good busier, but busier nontheless.
My mind always goes into overdrive at the start of the semester, as I try to figure out classes, update schedules, and just get into the general swing of things. I keep feeling like there's more I have to do before school starts tomorrow, but I think I'm ok. Tonight I think I'll do some reading, read through the many policy updates from my Torrey mentor, and update my planner.
It was hard saying goodbye to Hannah and Mom today. Being back at school will be surreal, even though I know I'll settle into a routine soon enough. Having been home all summer, I got re-used to my old house, my old habits, my old, comfortable places. New Mexico is my normal, not Biola, even though it gets more normal with time. I miss my family already, and Jordan. While I'm happy to see my good friends at school, I'm beginning to see that it's almost a little anti-climactic. Chelsea and I talked about it a little yesterday; this time last year, most of us were excited to go to college, to start that "experience" everyone talks about, at a new place and with new opportunities. This year, some of the novelty and mystery has worn off, and I think most of us are returning with an attitude more like, "Well, back to school."
I'm going to be doing some schedule orchestrating in the next few days. I'm half ready to drop a drama class I'm signed up for, mostly because I don't think I want to keep that major (Comm), and if I do, I may replace it with a music class, or I'm even considering an English class. Everyone keeps telling me that I'd be a good fit as an English major/teacher, so maybe I should try it out. Although I'm also considering just dropping the class (if I decide to, I'm going to the first day to get an idea of what it's like) and leaving myself with a lighter class load. That may be a good option because I want to be in the Torrey play this semester, and I don't know yet if I'll get paper credit for it; if I do, awesome, but if not, it'll be that much busier. Hopefully good busier, but busier nontheless.
My mind always goes into overdrive at the start of the semester, as I try to figure out classes, update schedules, and just get into the general swing of things. I keep feeling like there's more I have to do before school starts tomorrow, but I think I'm ok. Tonight I think I'll do some reading, read through the many policy updates from my Torrey mentor, and update my planner.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Fragmented Communication
I just cleaned my car. Trust me, this is a big accomplishment. I still have stuff in there from driving home in May.
As I was stuffing old fast food receipts, MapQuest printouts, and leftover food from eating breakfast on the way to work into my trash bag, it came to me that a person's trash can say an awful lot about them, their life, their habits. Whenever I clean out my car, or my room, or an old school notebook, I begin to think like a CSI. What would I deduce about my life if I were sifting through these things with a stranger's eyes? Take my car, for instance. An outsider could probably easily see that I eat on the go a lot, and am therefore either very busy or very often running late (just so you know, it's the latter). There was an old Starbucks card under the front passenger seat, as well as an eyeliner pencil, a visitor's guide to Bakersfield, and a handful of almonds. At any given time I'll probably have at least four half-empty water bottles rolling around. On the front seat there was a small case of dental floss, and in the back, a bag of pool goodies: goggles, diving toys, and the like.
I'm fascinated by scenes like the one of my messy car. One can pull and piece together fragments of someone's life and try to make a cohesive statement out of it, but it's never the whole picture. I feel similarly about coffee shops, restaurants, or episodes of This American Life. They are all places where diverse, often unrelated lives collide in a common intersection, and strangers are given very little to form an impression or opinion of each other. A brief encounter, an exchange of words, a glance at what someone is reading or eating. Mere snippets of someone's life, which is what, it seems, so many of our day-to-day interactions are like, even with people we know well. Can we ever fully see or know someone? Can any form of communication ever be an adequate expression of what someone thinks, or feels, or is?
As I was stuffing old fast food receipts, MapQuest printouts, and leftover food from eating breakfast on the way to work into my trash bag, it came to me that a person's trash can say an awful lot about them, their life, their habits. Whenever I clean out my car, or my room, or an old school notebook, I begin to think like a CSI. What would I deduce about my life if I were sifting through these things with a stranger's eyes? Take my car, for instance. An outsider could probably easily see that I eat on the go a lot, and am therefore either very busy or very often running late (just so you know, it's the latter). There was an old Starbucks card under the front passenger seat, as well as an eyeliner pencil, a visitor's guide to Bakersfield, and a handful of almonds. At any given time I'll probably have at least four half-empty water bottles rolling around. On the front seat there was a small case of dental floss, and in the back, a bag of pool goodies: goggles, diving toys, and the like.
I'm fascinated by scenes like the one of my messy car. One can pull and piece together fragments of someone's life and try to make a cohesive statement out of it, but it's never the whole picture. I feel similarly about coffee shops, restaurants, or episodes of This American Life. They are all places where diverse, often unrelated lives collide in a common intersection, and strangers are given very little to form an impression or opinion of each other. A brief encounter, an exchange of words, a glance at what someone is reading or eating. Mere snippets of someone's life, which is what, it seems, so many of our day-to-day interactions are like, even with people we know well. Can we ever fully see or know someone? Can any form of communication ever be an adequate expression of what someone thinks, or feels, or is?
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