Top 10 Reasons I Love My SU Friends

Lindsey, me, and Alexis

Since this is most likely my last post of the semester, I wanted to post a little tribute to the people who have made it great, my friends.  I honestly didn't expect to have so many awesome people around this early on in my college experience.  I've included some pictures with a few of these people, as well as the top 10 reasons I love my SU friends.

1.  We are young.  Obviously we are literally young by virtue of our freshman status.  However, we're also young in spirit--and sometimes in behavior.  I particularly loved our coloring day towards the beginning of the year and hope we have a repeat soon.
2.  We fangirl.  We are not afraid to be enthusiastically in favor of something or someone, whether that's Jane Austen, Mr. Darcy, Harry Potter, Darren Criss, Tom Hardy, or Joseph Gordon-Leavitt.
3.  We love books!
4.  And writing too.  Well, some of us.
5.  We are those people.  Who sing in public.  Who giggle a lot in the middle of Benny's.  Who, if I wasn't a part of the "we", I might find a teensy bit obnoxious.
6.  We actually have things in common, enough that I can make "We" statements without engaging in drastically overblown generalizations.  The friends I hold most dear at Susquehanna so far are not friends of convenience or proximity,  even if they live conveniently close by (like in my room, for instance).  There are foundational commonalities.  These vary, of course, and can be any of the following and more: aforementioned love for writing and books, similar values, mindsets, or personalities, shared activities, shared commitment to God, shared support, etc.  I know that actually having things in common will make certain friendships last beyond relationships destined only for my freshman residence hall.
7.  We are different too.  Yet we have fun anyway.  We toss around disparate labels for ourselves, like "hipster," "Disney Princess," and "pessimistic panda," but that doesn't stop us from forming strong bonds.
8.  We can be ridiculous and deep.  In the course of one conversation. 
9.  We have seen a lot of each other.  Nobody has punched anyone yet.

Karen, me, and Kathleen

10. They let me eat their fries.  Enablers.

Me and Sarah

Minors!

I've been lucky to come to SU with a clear idea of what I wanted to major in: Creative Writing.  Unlike a lot of people, I'm not struggling with trying to decide what I want to study.  I am, however, considering what topics might merit minors.

Right now I'm a part of the Honors Program, which takes up a position of a minor.  I plan on adding at least one more minor.  Right now I'm thinking about adding an Editing & Publishing minor.  This minor is of practical interest to me, since as a Creative Writing major, one of the probable fields I'll look into for employment is publishing.  When I first started looking into the publishing of my own pieces, I discovered that I was interested in the industry itself, beyond merely a potential career as a writer.  I've also found, through critiquing in Introduction to Fiction, that I do have some skill at looking closely at a piece, ripping it apart, and having something valuable to say.

Another minor I'm considering is Religion.  I've yet to take a Religion course here at SU since I didn't get to form my first semester schedule.  However, I signed up for Applied Biblical Ethics not only because of my interest in the individual course, but to get an idea of the department as a whole.  I suspect I will probably end up adding this minor but 3 minors seems like an awfully lot.  Particularly, I'm interested in studying both Religion and Creative Writing since I hope to find a way to incorporate them. 

Perhaps the Honors Program will fall to the wayside.  Perhaps something differently will happen altogether.  Perhaps I'll be so enthusiastic about my religion courses that I'll want to double major.

There really is so much here at Susquehanna that I want to study.  I can only hope I have time to fit it all in!    

Things I've Learned From College #3

Buy rain boots.  You walk places a lot.  In the rain.  The very cold rain.  Which inevitably picks up at the most inconvenient moment, like when you and your friends walk out of your dorm to head to Deg for dinner.  Luckily, trekking all the way across campus at Susquehanna is not the same as, say, trekking all the way across campus at Penn State.  Still, it feels significant when your feet are soaked.  I never wore rain boots until I got to SU.  Now my rain boots and I are very close friends.

Plus, they even doubled as snow boots last night when those flurries finally stuck to the ground!

Winter Nearing, Fall Semester Disappearing!

The Fall Semester is wrapping up here at SU.  Meanwhile, December has arrived!  All of a sudden the weather has gone from manageably cold to numbingly so.  Last night, as friends and I left West Village, we were greeted by snowflakes!  Though not Winter yet, the various campus buildings sporting impressive Christmas trees have definitely given me that feel. I'm consistently struck by the immensity of the tree in the Blough-Weis Library.  My roommate Sarah brought a tiny, adorable fake tree for our room and a few Christmas decorations.  Likewise, many of my hallmates have also embraced the Christmas spirit when it comes to dorm decor.

As a freshman, I've heard about many Susquehanna traditions that I have not yet experienced for myself.  One such tradition I'm anticipating is the upcoming Annual Christmas Candlelight Service.  Chapel service this Sunday will be a dress-down day, and afterwords people will stay to help decorate for the service (and eat pizza-yay!).  I definitely want to attend this decorating as well as the candlelight service itself. Usually on Sundays, everyone who attends chapel is right there on the stage.  It'll be awesome to see Weber entirely full!  Another Christmas festivity I'm looking forward to is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Christmas Party.  Hopefully I'll also be attending Lutheran Student Movement's last meeting of the semester, which includes a gift exchange and caroling!

Though I'm so looking forward to break--I practically require it--I am going to miss my friends here a lot, so it's nice that I will be getting a little bit of Christmas here at SU, with them, before my Christmas at home.

The only thing dampering my holiday spirit is end of the semester work.

I have two final tests, Intermediate German and Colonial Latin America.  In Thought class, I have to edit my final paper, which must be at least 8 pages.  Mine is about social media in Iran.  So far I feel pretty good about my first draft.  It focuses on The Twitter Revolution and speaks a lot to the use of social media--like blogging, for instance!--in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election.  My Perspectives course wrapped up today, with a final class where we were treated to breakfast, but I still have to turn in a self-reflection about a group project we worked on. This, too, must be 8 pages, a seemingly magic number among college professors. 

The most important final project to me personally is my portfolio for Intro to Fiction.  Regrettably, I haven't been working on my two stories all that much since they've been workshopped, but I really hope to knock these revisions out of the park.  The rewrites are pretty extensive for both stories.  At the very least, I am starting and ending each story in a different place, even if I'm not quite sure where those ends are yet.  My first person story has evolved from a scene with a cheesy romance ending to a story that will be more real and messy and heartfelt.  My third person story received a much better reception, but it will change so as not to rely on a structural quirk.  Instead it will allow the reader to stay with the story and go forward.  It will begin right where the tension does, rather than taking the reader through background before letting them enter the conflict.  Perhaps this weekend I can lock myself away in my room and rewrite!

Frankly, just as I expressed in my previous blog entry, I still cannot believe this semester is almost complete.  I arrived here in August.  And now it's December!  The older I get, the more amazed and startled I seem to be by the passage of time.