I'm Megan, a senior at Susquehanna University. My hope is that this blog will cover my four years here, from the firsts to the lasts.

"
In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that." - Mary Oliver

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Winding Down

Classes are winding down now. I had my last Travel Writing course yesterday. Today is the last meeting of Tuesday/Thursday courses, and on Monday and Tuesday of next week, there will be two more days of Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes. After that, there’s a reading day on Wednesday, which is a day between classes and finals for studying, then finals.

I’ve been fortunate to have some really great courses this semester. I’m really happy creatively with the work I’ve been doing in Intermediate Poetry. I’ve absolutely loved my Women in Biblical Tradition class, which has been consistently engaging and has challenged my own views. My Fiction of C.S. Lewis class has also been filled with interesting conversations, and I’m so glad I’ve finally read these books that I kept meaning to read. Music in Christian Rituals has been good as well, and, again, gave me a lot to mull over.  What’s neat for me about my religion classes is that they’re not simply subjects I pick up in the classroom and forget about later. They bleed into the rest of my life. Often our conversations in classes intersect with things I’m working through in my own head or the conversations I’m having with friends and people in my community.

Despite having a nice schedule this semester, I have to admit that I’m excited for it to end. I’ve been pretty stressed the past few weeks. While I’ve been doing well in my classes, I have felt overwhelmed a lot this semester. Thankfully, a blissful, homework-free state is visible in the horizon, though I have to tackle end-of-the-year assignments before I can get there.

Tomorrow my friend Karen and I are presenting a hymn that we wrote for our Music in Christian Rituals class. It was an overwhelming assignment to receive, but I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished. She composed it, and I wrote the lyrics. After the presentation is out of the way, we have to write a joint paper on the project.

I also have to write a final paper for Women in Biblical Tradition, revise my Travel Writing essay and do a self-critique on it, take a final for Fiction of C.S. Lewis, and turn in a chapbook of poetry for Intermediate Poetry.

Once these are done, I’ll be spending a relaxing week on campus before heading to a week of camp in New York with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapters from around Pennsylvania. Those weeks will be a great break between my schoolwork this semester and my 40-hour work week here in Selinsgrove this summer.

Before I close out what is probably final blog entry for the school year, I should probably reflect on the year as a whole, but right now, the task seems too difficult. This year has been strange, with ups and downs, split between two continents.  One semester was filled with exciting firsts and the challenges of adjusting to a new place, but also happened at a more relaxed pace.  This semester has been cozier and homier but also much more stressful.  Perhaps it will be easier to look back at this year after I’ve gotten a little more distance from it.

For now, I’m excited for this academic year to draw to a close—even if it brings me closer to the terrifying reality of being a college senior.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Rivercraft, Grouplove, and Bongo Bongo Dip--An Overview of the Past Few Days

The past few days have been quite busy, but some fun and exciting things happened that I feel like sharing!

Last night was the launch of one of the main on-campus literary magazines, Rivercraft, which was exciting since I had my poem, “Wings,” published in it. I submitted to the magazine both my freshman and sophomore years, but this was my first year getting into the magazine. I was one of the students who read at the launch. I don’t know why I find it so nerve-wracking to read my poetry in front of other people, but it was—even though I had already read this poem previously at an open mic of a university poetry society while I was abroad. I now have a copy of the magazine, and I’m excited to be able to look through the work of my peers when I have the time.
The night before, Sunday, I joined the honor society for Religion students, Theta Alpha Kappa. Because the Religion major is small, the society itself is also very small, so we didn’t have a big initiation like some other honor societies have. Instead, we had something that I think was preferable. The new members, as well as the one previously inducted member, went to dinner with two members of the religion faculty.

We went to BJs, which is probably the most popular restaurant in downtown Selinsgrove. Students go there a lot, but I had actually never been there before. Everyone was astounded that it was my first time and made sure that we ordered Bongo Bongo dip, one of BJ’s signature foods, as an appetizer. It was delicious, as was the Club Chicken Sandwich I ordered. During the dinner, we were given certificates of membership for Theta Alpha Kappa. While we there, the university’s president, President Lemons, also happened to be at BJs for a dinner. He stopped by and congratulated us. All in all, it was really nice to be able to have this dinner (which was free—always a big plus for a college student) with some of my fellow Religion majors and two of my professors whose classes I really enjoy.
After the dinner, a friend and I headed over to Susquehanna’s spring concert at TRAX, the campus night club. The band performing was Grouplove, who is most known for their song “Tongue-Tied.” We missed the opening act, but I’m very glad that we went anyway. I didn’t know most of Grouplove’s songs, but I was very impressed with them and enjoyed myself a lot. It was also a free show for Susquehanna students, which made it even better.

On Saturday I was a small group leader in Lutheran Youth Day, an annual event where Lutheran middle and high school students visit campus to study the Bible, worship, etc. This was my third year volunteering at Lutheran Youth Day and it was a fun experience, just like the two previous years. It was also exhausting since the day runs from about 10 a.m. to past 5 p.m. In addition to leading a small group of high school students, I was also a part of a skit with a religious life group called Acts 29 that does drama and children’s ministry.
Other than some fun events here and there, it’s that time of semester where there’s just a ton of work! Hopefully that won’t get too heavy and I’ll be able to enjoy the last few weeks as a college junior.

Porstewart, Northern Ireland

Portstewart, Northern Ireland
While taking trips with other people is great, I think there’s something special about taking a trip—even a trip of a few hours—by yourself.

Towards the end of my time abroad, I realized that I had never been to Portstewart, Northern Ireland. The town where I was studying in Northern Ireland, Coleraine, was very close to two coastal tourist towns, Portrush and Portstewart, where many students from the University of Ulster-Coleraine lived. Despite being nearby, I had only been to Portrush, not Portstewart.


Initially, I didn’t care all that much about missing out on Portstewart, but a friend encouraged me to go by emphasizing how beautiful it was. I had a free day so I decided to take the trek to Portstewart by myself. I didn’t ride the busses in Northern Ireland very often—at least, not the busses with local routes. I had used busses a lot for trips of a longer length, such as journeys to Belfast, but this trip by bus was about fifteen minutes. 

Cliff path
I knew I wanted to go to the promenade in Portstewart and then walk to the beach, but I wasn’t quite sure where the promenade was or when to get off the bus. At some point, I spotted a sign for the promenade and a minute or two later realized the bus was taking me away from the promenade instead of towards it. Thankfully, I noticed quickly enough that I was only walking about five more minutes than I would’ve had to otherwise. Though it was cold that day, I didn’t mind the walk. I had my digital camera with me and nothing distracting me from snapping tons of photographs.

At the promenade, I checked out a few of the shops.  I finally was able to find some gifts for Susquehanna friends at one of the stores.  They were little trinkets—a pretty key chain, a button my friend now has on her backpack, a cute mirror with a floral print on the back—and not particularly Irish, but I liked them a lot.


Short stretch of beach along the scenic walk

After wandering the promenade, I headed over to the cliff path. The cliff path took me by the former Dominican convent and gave me a great view of the water and of Portstewart. This cliff path turned into a scenic walk to the beach. It was a longer walk from the start of the cliff path to the beach than I expected. Though it was peaceful and the views were gorgeous, I was also quite cold, so I was excited when the beach was finally in sight. 

One downside of taking trips by yourself is not getting to be in your own photographs. I tried my best to take some pictures of myself with the ocean behind me, though doing so felt pretty ridiculous. 

It was getting dark as I made my way back to the promenade. When I checked the bus times at the bus stop, I had some time to spare before I had to head back to Coleraine. Portstewart has a famous ice cream place with some of the best ice cream in Northern Ireland. I felt like I should’ve taken advantage of it but I was way too cold to think about ice cream. Instead, I went into a cafĂ© and enjoyed a warm, tasty Belgian waffle before catching the bus back to Coleraine.

Sad about walking back to town

Though I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed going to Portstewart with friends, it was also great to experience it by myself. The main attraction of Portstewart is its wonderful natural beauty, and I was able to enjoy that at my own pace. There is also a feeling of independence that comes with tackling one of the places to go on your To Do List by yourself. I was really glad that I ended up taking that friend’s advice.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Return and Reflect

A unique aspect of Susquehanna’s GO (Global Opportunities) program is the required reflection course after the cross-cultural experience. For my reflection course, I am taking Self Exploration through Travel Writing. During this class, every student writes a creative travel essay about their experience or an aspect of their experience.  The students in my course completed different programs. Many studied for a semester in London, but there are also people whose GO programs were in Costa Rica, South Africa, New York City, and Spain.

Last night, the draft of my travel writing essay was up for discussion. My essay attempted to explore the dangers and risk-taking that are involved with studying abroad and the ways in which the experience pushed me out of my comfort zone. I talked about traveling alone, a night out in Dublin, my experience at Northern Ireland’s biggest night club Kelly’s, the Halloween parade I attended in Derry-Londonderry, and the news that a car bomb had been found in a city I was planning on visiting the next day, among a few other things. Though I loved my study abroad experience, the essay focused in on some of those moments of anxiousness that came with it.
I do not consider myself a creative nonfiction writer and find it awkward to hear people talking about me and what happened in my life during a workshop, but it went better than I expected it had. The class and professor pushed me to convey more about how these experiences impacted me, especially my personal growth or development during my time abroad. Of course, to convey this I really have to think about it, which I'm not sure I’ve fully done before.

In some ways, my first intuition is to say that I didn’t change all that much, particularly in my attitude towards risk-taking, but I think that might be because I’m not giving the matter deep enough consideration. I need to set aside some time to think about the ways I’m different after that semester abroad and then explore those in the subsequent drafts.
I am also going to have to revisit some of the experiences I talked about more closely, since I mostly wrote in a reflective, summarization mode and people wanted to see it be more scene-like, with more dialogue. This is going to call for much more recall of detail than this initial draft did.

Despite how much work I have left to do on this essay, I think it has potential and I hope to submit it to next year’s Essay magazine. Essay is the on-campus literary magazine exclusively dedicated to creative nonfiction.  In addition to wanting a polished essay ready for submission by the end of the semester, I hope I can also have some answers to those questions about growth and change over my time abroad.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Nostalgia

At the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland
To be honest, this semester has been pretty stressful. Going from the easy pace of a semester abroad to my regular, full Susquehanna schedule would have been hard enough, but I think this semester has been particularly busy.

I've been doing a lot of work since I've come back from Easter break--a travel writing essay, a term paper for my C.S. Lewis course, and a group presentation for Women in Biblical Tradition. In the midst of these late nights, I have felt particularly nostalgic my semester in Northern Ireland. I only had three courses, none of which started before noon. I had very little homework. I had time to just hang out, as well as time to travel. So often I was seeing beautiful things, and I was consistently surrounded by stunning landscapes.

The fact that I was working on my travel writing essay, a creative piece that is supposed to reflect on my time abroad, did not help matters at all in terms of nostalgia—especially when I was going through my photographs to help write up some descriptions.
Though I really miss that time abroad now, I should probably also remember how much I missed Susquehanna while I was abroad. I missed my friends most of all, but I also missed the familiarity. I missed not having to pay for printing and a campus that was sensibly organized. I even missed Susquehanna’s cafeteria.


Gorgeous sight in Republic of Ireland
It's really hard to ever be fully content in one place—or at least it is for me. On my Northern Irish adventure, some part of me wanted to be home, while here some part of me wants to go back to Northern Ireland for more adventures. Maybe the key here is that nothing is going to be perfect. My semester abroad was great, but I was homesick at times and it didn’t feel like the same ideal, never-want-to-leave experience many of my classmates have had. At the beginning of this semester, I remember people who studied away commenting how much they didn’t want to be back at Susquehanna and how sad it was to come home, while I was thrilled to be back at SU. Being back at SU is great in its own ways, but like almost everything else in life, it’s not fun all the time.
I hope that I will eventually be able to spend some time abroad after graduation. It certainly fuels the nostalgia that I had a little less than three months in Northern Ireland and I have no guarantee that I’ll ever make it out to Europe again! I’d love to spend some more time in Edinburgh or Dublin, two of the cities I visited. Maybe I should start viewing my Northern Ireland experience as if I am anticipating those future travels. 

A semester away doesn't have to be a finished story. It can be chapter one.


Approaching Senior Year

I recently completed registration for Fall 2013, the first semester of my last year at Susquehanna. Though facing senior year is terrifying and I am not at all ready for my college experience to end, I’m also excited for next year as well.

In the fall, I’ll be taking my Senior Writing Portfolio course, which is a course all Creative Writing majors must take. It’ll be interesting to have the opportunity to look at how I’ve changed as a writer and what I’ve accomplished writing-wise over my college career.  I’ll also be taking an advanced writing course. I was torn between Advanced Poetry in the fall and Advanced Fiction: Novel in the spring, but I’ve ultimately decided on Advanced Poetry. I feel like my poetry has grown much more while at Susquehanna than my fiction and that taking another poetry course will be more fruitful in developing my skills as a writer.
I will also be finishing up my requirements for the Religion major in the fall semester. It’s so strange to think about how this major is not something I had ever intended on pursuing when I entered college, considering how much I’ve enjoyed it and gained from it. My two classes left to take are actually 100-level courses. Because I didn’t plan on taking the major initially, I ended up taking a lot of upper-level classes that interested me before taking introductory courses. The two courses will be Intro to Judaism and Faiths and Values.

Beyond these courses for my majors, I still have some Central Curriculum requirements to complete. The Central Curriculum requires certain classes in different areas to ensure a well-rounded liberal arts education. One of the requirements is “Analytical Thought,” which typically means some sort of math course. I’ll admit that has been something I’ve been delaying purely because I don’t really enjoy math.  I couldn’t run away from it forever, though, so I’ll finally be taking Intro to Statistics.
During the Spring, I’ll be doing a Capstone project (a final project) for my Religion major. Because I’m a double major this isn’t technically required, but I’m really interested in undertaking a Religion project. I’ve already talked to my Religion major advisor who’s agreed to advise my independent project as well. Right now I’m considering doing something on attitudes towards and alternatives to dating in some subsets of Christian culture—specifically the idea of “courtship”—and analyzing how people apply the Bible, which was written in a culture so far off from any of our romantic norms, to present-day relationships. I’m really excited about this project. Over break I already started compiling a reading list for it, even though I have much more immediate work that needs to be done.

I’ll also be finishing off my final Central Curriculum requirement, an “Oral Intensive” course. I thought I was going to have to take Public Speaking, but I found out that Modern Philosophy also counts towards this requirement. I think that should be really interesting since I haven’t taken a philosophy course yet at SU, even though I’m really intrigued by the subject.  

I’ll also be completing some of the requirements for the Honors program, taking an English class called Forms of Writing to fulfill my final Creative Writing requirement, and taking the Religion department’s New Testament class for fun.

Next year is definitely bound to be busy, but I think there will be some interesting academic highlights within all that work!
Another thing I’ve had to arrange for senior year is housing. As I’m writing this, two friends and I are still awaiting word on our application for a a 3-person townhouse in 18th Street Commons, Susquehanna’s newest housing development. It’s technically on-campus housing but is designed to have a more off-campus feel.  I really hope we get a space at one of these townhouses.

Both my freshman and sophomore years, it felt strange planning for the next year because time had gone so fast. It has definitely felt that way again this year, but now it’s even stranger since I’m entering my final year as a Susquehanna student.  It’s easy to jump ahead of myself and start wailing about how I don’t want to graduate, this is too soon, etc., that I sometimes forget I do have a whole year left here. Maybe it’ll be the best one yet.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Schoolwork, Summer, and Seder

After what felt like a cruelly short Easter Break, I am back at Susquehanna for the last stretch of the school year. Unfortunately, I have a lot of work coming my way during this final month or so of school. Later today, I have a dramatic group presentation in my Women in Biblical Tradition course about the story of Rachel and Leah. I will be playing the role of Rachel and Leah’s father, Laban. Tomorrow I have a term paper on C.S. Lewis due, as well as a draft of an essay due to my whole Travel Writing class. I’ll be relieved once these few assignments are out of the way, though there will definitely be more to replace them soon.

After the academic year finishes, I am looking forward to spending the summer in Selinsgrove. I will be living on campus and working in the University Communications office, which I think will be a great professional experience. I also am excited to spend time with friends here in the summer and enjoy the campus and town as much as I can. I’ve already started thinking about going on walks by the river and taking lots of photographs, neither of which I manage to do during the school year.

Of course, thinking so much of summer is getting a little ahead of myself. I still hope there’s plenty of time for interesting and fun events during the school year. Before Easter Break, I was able to experience  one such event for the first time—Susquehanna’s Passover Seder.
I was somewhat familiar with the Jewish holiday of Passover but I had never experienced the celebration before. Many people attended the event, which was held in the university’s cafeteria. There were almost 30 tables set up. A table with Rabbi Palley, Susquehanna’s Director of Jewish Life, and students from Hillel was elevated so we could follow their lead throughout the Seder.  Rabbi Palley explained that our tables would be our “Passover families” for the night and said that she especially enjoyed the celebration of Passover because it was something celebrated in the home.  Throughout the Seder, we were encouraged to talk to our tables about issues relevant to Passover. For example, we talked about oppression because the Passover celebration is about God taking the Jewish people out of slavery and into freedom.  

The Seder was filled with prayers and singing, much of which was in Hebrew. We read from our yellow Haggadahs, the texts for the Passover Seder, and tried to keep up as much as possible. The most striking aspect of the Seder was how almost every aspect was rich in symbolism. For instance, there was a bowl with a pitcher of water in it. We used that pitcher and bowl to clean each other’s hands and were told to talk about any cleansing going on in our lives. Almost of the food on the table initially had some sort of meaning, which made it important to eat and drink at certain times and in certain ways. Mostly, we followed along pretty well, though there were a couple of times our table got lost during the ceremony. At one point, I realized I drank my second cup of “wine”—for the purposes of Susquehanna's Seder, it was grape juice—way too early, but after that, I managed to avoid making the same faux paus.  
Though the Seder started around 7:30 p.m., we didn’t get to the main meal until past 9 p.m. The delicious food was worth the wait! It also gave me a chance to try foods I hadn’t before, like matzo ball soup. After dinner, the Seder continued with a bit more singing and prayer before letting out around 10 p.m.

I’m very glad I took the opportunity to go to the Seder this year. As someone who studies religion academically, I’m interested in understanding different religions and their celebrations. As a Christian, I think learning about Passover and the Passover Seder gives important context to my beliefs; it also cultivates better interfaith dialogue and understanding.
Events like the Seder bring together the learning and fun, social aspects of my college life, and I hope to experience some more events like that before the school year is over.