Such a blessed life...
Life and everyone in it treats me amazingly well. Things land in my lap and they're amazing and... I dunno. I'm constantly amazed by the opportunities I've had, the peoiple I've worked with and the things I've been allowed to do. It's overwhelming and I often find myself wondering why they let me have it all. But, a little bit on what's been happening in my life as of late...
The semester went well. I got good grades, brought up my cumulative GPA .01 point... That made me smile a bit. I came out of it feeling like I had done well academically, plus I'd managed to balance my social life a bit. Astoundingly, I was out at parties or events of some sort EVERY night of finals week! I couldn't believe it. I even had seven finals and two final papers! I was exhausted by the end of the week, but it all turned out well. Two finals monday, then dinner out, three tuesday then a barbeque at Tim's (My teahcer, Dr. Deighton, for those of you who don't know who Tim is) then a movie with Elody, Sara and Michael. Wednesday I wrote a seven page paper in two hours, e-mailed it to a friend to proof read while I napped and met the Steves and Don for our end of the year pipe (what an... interesting pipe), and then handed it in and practiced for thursday! Wednesday night was a party, then stopping by Salsa night at the speak easy to say hi to Tai. Thursday was piano practice all day, followed by piano proficiency (which I passed most of! Just have to try again for sight reading hymns :oP). After piano proficiency I literally ran out the door to Elody's car and kept her company on her trip to Harrisburg, then El and I went to a party at Joes, then over to El's house for a camping trip with Aaron, Arvind and Steph. Camping was followed by gun fights with pellet guns and basketball in the morning, then some packing and a BBQ in the afternoon. Friday night I packing and hanging out, saturday morning El made me breakfast and my parents came, we packed and went home! So, that's finals week in a nutshell.
Work is good. I started back in on monday and it's really been fun so far. I love playing outside, I love working with kids, the weather's been beautiful and my coworkers are fantastic. I've got my independent study lined up for the summer too! I'm going to be working with the Kids at Milagro house (a shelter for abused women and children) and creating a summer camp of sorts for them, and then hanging out with them and interviewing them to look at perceptions of the environment and nature and how that translates into the individual's role in both local and global ecology, and then how that looks in terms of environmental ethics! It should be a blast. I'm also doing a CAS independent study looking at the citizen voice, public scholarship and the idea of citizen sovereignty. And on THAT topic (public scholarship) the assosciate dean of undergraduate studies just e-mailed me inviting me to a faculty retreat on public scholarship... Exciting stuff!
This summer I'll be playing at a music festival in Bordeaux for two weeks, with a few days in Paris before and a week of traveling around the south of france, Monaco and maybe into switzerland afterwards. We'll see where I decide to go, but it should be fun hosteling around for a while.
I've been invited by Gettysburg College's Philosophy department as a guest lecturer in the fall on the philosophy of food and the environment or something like that (I havn't gotten all the details yet). I've also just recieved a fellowship with the PSU Center for Ethics and REligious affairs that may very well lead to paid thesis research, but in the mean time will have be chairing the student advisory board for the spirituality center, having a seat on the student government, designing and implementing programs and some other stuff too. They also said they'd like me to look at my schedule for the possibility of flying out to California to attend (and maybe also present at...?) a conference at USC. I've also been invited back to the Rock Ethics insitute for next fall.
This semester I finished filing the paper work, filling out applications and going through interviews, and have officially created an Ethics major and will be recieving a BMA in viola performance and a B.Ph. in Ethics! I was particularly excited about that. Annnnnnd, I also was formally accepted as a BMA (Bacehlor of Musical Arts) student. Before I was just in the Arts and Arch. college with a focus in music, but I'm official for both my degrees now.
Generally that's life. I'm really glad to be home. Adam and Jo are coming this weekend and I plan to head to philly (maybe?) the next weekend. I'm finally getting around to getting a cell phone, so if you want the number, leave a note on this with your e-mail and I'll include you in my mass e-mail with the number annnnd... That's it! Oh! Also, another really exciting thing! I was one of the two students in the String department at the school of music to recieve honors for my jury this year :o) I was excited.
And now, I'm off for a run.
The semester went well. I got good grades, brought up my cumulative GPA .01 point... That made me smile a bit. I came out of it feeling like I had done well academically, plus I'd managed to balance my social life a bit. Astoundingly, I was out at parties or events of some sort EVERY night of finals week! I couldn't believe it. I even had seven finals and two final papers! I was exhausted by the end of the week, but it all turned out well. Two finals monday, then dinner out, three tuesday then a barbeque at Tim's (My teahcer, Dr. Deighton, for those of you who don't know who Tim is) then a movie with Elody, Sara and Michael. Wednesday I wrote a seven page paper in two hours, e-mailed it to a friend to proof read while I napped and met the Steves and Don for our end of the year pipe (what an... interesting pipe), and then handed it in and practiced for thursday! Wednesday night was a party, then stopping by Salsa night at the speak easy to say hi to Tai. Thursday was piano practice all day, followed by piano proficiency (which I passed most of! Just have to try again for sight reading hymns :oP). After piano proficiency I literally ran out the door to Elody's car and kept her company on her trip to Harrisburg, then El and I went to a party at Joes, then over to El's house for a camping trip with Aaron, Arvind and Steph. Camping was followed by gun fights with pellet guns and basketball in the morning, then some packing and a BBQ in the afternoon. Friday night I packing and hanging out, saturday morning El made me breakfast and my parents came, we packed and went home! So, that's finals week in a nutshell.
Work is good. I started back in on monday and it's really been fun so far. I love playing outside, I love working with kids, the weather's been beautiful and my coworkers are fantastic. I've got my independent study lined up for the summer too! I'm going to be working with the Kids at Milagro house (a shelter for abused women and children) and creating a summer camp of sorts for them, and then hanging out with them and interviewing them to look at perceptions of the environment and nature and how that translates into the individual's role in both local and global ecology, and then how that looks in terms of environmental ethics! It should be a blast. I'm also doing a CAS independent study looking at the citizen voice, public scholarship and the idea of citizen sovereignty. And on THAT topic (public scholarship) the assosciate dean of undergraduate studies just e-mailed me inviting me to a faculty retreat on public scholarship... Exciting stuff!
This summer I'll be playing at a music festival in Bordeaux for two weeks, with a few days in Paris before and a week of traveling around the south of france, Monaco and maybe into switzerland afterwards. We'll see where I decide to go, but it should be fun hosteling around for a while.
I've been invited by Gettysburg College's Philosophy department as a guest lecturer in the fall on the philosophy of food and the environment or something like that (I havn't gotten all the details yet). I've also just recieved a fellowship with the PSU Center for Ethics and REligious affairs that may very well lead to paid thesis research, but in the mean time will have be chairing the student advisory board for the spirituality center, having a seat on the student government, designing and implementing programs and some other stuff too. They also said they'd like me to look at my schedule for the possibility of flying out to California to attend (and maybe also present at...?) a conference at USC. I've also been invited back to the Rock Ethics insitute for next fall.
This semester I finished filing the paper work, filling out applications and going through interviews, and have officially created an Ethics major and will be recieving a BMA in viola performance and a B.Ph. in Ethics! I was particularly excited about that. Annnnnnd, I also was formally accepted as a BMA (Bacehlor of Musical Arts) student. Before I was just in the Arts and Arch. college with a focus in music, but I'm official for both my degrees now.
Generally that's life. I'm really glad to be home. Adam and Jo are coming this weekend and I plan to head to philly (maybe?) the next weekend. I'm finally getting around to getting a cell phone, so if you want the number, leave a note on this with your e-mail and I'll include you in my mass e-mail with the number annnnd... That's it! Oh! Also, another really exciting thing! I was one of the two students in the String department at the school of music to recieve honors for my jury this year :o) I was excited.
And now, I'm off for a run.