Dumping my thoughts
End of junior year. So, I'm a senior in college now? Whoa. Putting these things in fractions always scares me. My suite of 6 buddies is splitting up-- two are freshmen counselors, one is taking a year abroad in Taiwan, two are living together in JE proper, and I'm living off campus in the Sigma Chi house. It's sad that this group is going their separate ways, but the last couple of hours we spent all together as The Toolbox (the name of our suite) are beautiful memories. A great dinner at Lallibella, followed by ice cream, playing CatchPhrase until the wee hours of the morning and drinking wine on our dirty floor once all the couches were moved out, waking up early on move-out day to eat Special K out of solo cups because all our dishes were packed. This year I've come to feel increasingly separated and distant from the community of Jonathan Edwards college that used to be so shiny and magical for me, but I think that's okay. The broad connection to so many people at a superficial level of comradery doesn't compare to concentrating my time on the select friends.
Academically, things are good. This year I've had the most direction and the most excitement about what I'm doing, finally getting beyond the fear of specializing at the expense of breadth. And I've done well: three A's and two A-'s first semester, and three A's and an A- this semester. It's a good thing I gave up on that high school dream of a 4.0 early in freshmen year, but this semester especially I really thought I had a shot at it. I worked damn hard and my toughest classes all came back with the top grades; it's just the terrible lecture class on China in World Politics that gave me an A- to fulfill the curve distribution or something silly like that.
Since I'm not actually that great at writing papers, my secret has always been to write on something I get a kick out of. Sometimes these means experimental proposals on great tits (the birds!) or analyses of the French Surrealist play Breasts of Tyresius. This year, it was gay papers. In the fall I got really into a polisci paper I wrote on how there isn't a "gay movement" in Japan, comparing the politicization of groups of sexual minorities (gay men versus unmarried women, who are disadvantaged but have slightly more political clout). This spring, in a seminar on Japanese Postwar Culture, I got really excited about my paper comparing the influences of both traditional family-nation-state conservative ideology and American sexual values shaped notions of queer masculinity. Big ass paper, with this and two other classes leading me to write 30 pages in two days. Da-aamn. And even though the professor was a hard-ass, and the final paper (which determines most of the grade) was an A-, the class overall came out as an A, so I'm pretty pleased with that.
KNOCK ON WOOD I'm begging the gods of karma not to let my computer crash within the next week. I had to reformat my 500 GB external hard drive to fit the Oh Lev Deadweek movie while we work on it, which required me to delete all the backups I have. Anxiety. Fingers crossed.
This deadweek hasn't been quite what I was expecting. The past two years, Deadweek has been one of the most incredible condensed periods of my life- all the fun things about college and living with my best friends without all the silly things about college like classes and learning and obligations. But as an upperclassmen and the drum major of the marching band, suddenly i feel like I've taken on a lot of the fun stuff as something I'm obligated to micro manage. At least I've taught the band the joys of DUBES TO THE FACE, and am a founding member of the not-so-secret society Dubes and Pickles. The band goes on adventures to rooftops and party in libraries and encounter shenanigans wherever we go. I just need to focus on all those great things more and stress less about being responsible for every single moment for every single person.
The senior class graduating has been progressively harder each year as I have more and closer friends in the graduating class year. Not really sure how I'm gonna deal with this. More close friends, and people that have been around the entirety of my college experience. Still haven't had the "what happens after graduation" talk with my senior boyfriend. Guh.
In 8 days I leave for Japan. Shit that's soon. I won't even make it home before the program starts. Going nearly straight from playing with the concert band in commencement ceremonies (and seeing Bill Clinton talk! Just got my ticket today.) to flying out to Osaka on the 27th. My plans of studying Japanese continuously over deadweek have fallen through. This will be 8 months without having gone home, to date the longest period away.
Academically, things are good. This year I've had the most direction and the most excitement about what I'm doing, finally getting beyond the fear of specializing at the expense of breadth. And I've done well: three A's and two A-'s first semester, and three A's and an A- this semester. It's a good thing I gave up on that high school dream of a 4.0 early in freshmen year, but this semester especially I really thought I had a shot at it. I worked damn hard and my toughest classes all came back with the top grades; it's just the terrible lecture class on China in World Politics that gave me an A- to fulfill the curve distribution or something silly like that.
Since I'm not actually that great at writing papers, my secret has always been to write on something I get a kick out of. Sometimes these means experimental proposals on great tits (the birds!) or analyses of the French Surrealist play Breasts of Tyresius. This year, it was gay papers. In the fall I got really into a polisci paper I wrote on how there isn't a "gay movement" in Japan, comparing the politicization of groups of sexual minorities (gay men versus unmarried women, who are disadvantaged but have slightly more political clout). This spring, in a seminar on Japanese Postwar Culture, I got really excited about my paper comparing the influences of both traditional family-nation-state conservative ideology and American sexual values shaped notions of queer masculinity. Big ass paper, with this and two other classes leading me to write 30 pages in two days. Da-aamn. And even though the professor was a hard-ass, and the final paper (which determines most of the grade) was an A-, the class overall came out as an A, so I'm pretty pleased with that.
KNOCK ON WOOD I'm begging the gods of karma not to let my computer crash within the next week. I had to reformat my 500 GB external hard drive to fit the Oh Lev Deadweek movie while we work on it, which required me to delete all the backups I have. Anxiety. Fingers crossed.
This deadweek hasn't been quite what I was expecting. The past two years, Deadweek has been one of the most incredible condensed periods of my life- all the fun things about college and living with my best friends without all the silly things about college like classes and learning and obligations. But as an upperclassmen and the drum major of the marching band, suddenly i feel like I've taken on a lot of the fun stuff as something I'm obligated to micro manage. At least I've taught the band the joys of DUBES TO THE FACE, and am a founding member of the not-so-secret society Dubes and Pickles. The band goes on adventures to rooftops and party in libraries and encounter shenanigans wherever we go. I just need to focus on all those great things more and stress less about being responsible for every single moment for every single person.
The senior class graduating has been progressively harder each year as I have more and closer friends in the graduating class year. Not really sure how I'm gonna deal with this. More close friends, and people that have been around the entirety of my college experience. Still haven't had the "what happens after graduation" talk with my senior boyfriend. Guh.
In 8 days I leave for Japan. Shit that's soon. I won't even make it home before the program starts. Going nearly straight from playing with the concert band in commencement ceremonies (and seeing Bill Clinton talk! Just got my ticket today.) to flying out to Osaka on the 27th. My plans of studying Japanese continuously over deadweek have fallen through. This will be 8 months without having gone home, to date the longest period away.