Yet Another Eventful Weekend

This weekend has, again, been action-packed, so to speak. Friday I went right from class to a service project with my Alpha Phi Omega pledge class. We hosted a prom at Graysonview, a nearby senior assisted living community. A group of us had to go a bit late since we didn’t get out of class yet. I didn’t get to help that much with dinner, but I did get to make a fool of myself dancing. Some of the residents who weren’t dancing said they just enjoyed watching, so I hope my poor moves entertained them.

Saturday my pledge class had our second group service project at the Campus Gardens, located at Susquehanna University’s Center for Environmental and Educational Research. The group of us met at the back of Degenstein, the student center, and walked to the gardens together. We spent about four hours de-weeding the garden beds so things can later be planted there. I focused on pulling out grass. It’s quite tricky to get grass out, including the root, so it was quite a triumph every time I succeeded. I was actually pretty into the gardening and would totally consider going back to volunteer when it’s a bit warmer.

Later that day my friends and I met up with Madison, the prospective student my roommate and I hosted overnight in the beginning of the year. She’s attending next year and was on campus for Accepted Students Day. We, then, headed over to the dance showcase, which featured dances by the SU Dance Corps and by different dance classes. One of my friends from my dorm, Hass, was in it, and it was great to get be there and see her perform. It was a very good show and made me wish I knew how to dance.

Sunday Weber Chapel hosted a Taizé service. Taizé is a style of worship involving meditative singing and centering prayer. There are many short, simple songs that are repeated, and there are many times of silence within the service. This type of service is based off the Taizé community in France, where thousands, mostly young people, make pilgrimages. During communion, we went up to kneelers, which is not normal procedure. There were also candles on the altar that could be lit as a prayer, an act of commitment, in remembrance, etc. I absolutely loved this service. It was very refreshing and unique. I would love to visit the original Taizé community one day—maybe when I’m studying abroad!

Immediately after chapel, I met with my parents and my brother for lunch. They came to visit for my induction to Alpha Lambda Delta, the freshman honor society. We had brunch at the cafeteria, and then we went to the ceremony. Afterwards my family and I went shopping, then had dinner at Red Robin. When I got back to campus, I headed to a biweekly bible study with two of the religion professors, then crashed in my room for the night with TLC and The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, a book for my Romantic Novels course.

Next weekend will also be busy because my entire Saturday is going to be taken up by volunteering at Lutheran Youth Day. I think the weekend after that is the Relay for Life. Hopefully I will able to find some time this week and the next for some ample relaxing!

Time Management

One of the trickiest aspects of being a college student is time management. It’s certainly something I deal with and it appears to be a struggle, to some degree, for almost all of my friends. College just feels busier than high school. Sure, during high school I got up by 6:45 a.m. (EEK!) and was stuck within school walls from 7-something in the morning to 2:45 p.m., no escape, no gap between classes except for that 4 minute walk through the halls, but after that I went home. Even if I had something after school, like musical rehearsal, I’d usually be home by 5:30.  My days start later here—thankfully—but end later as well. Mondays and Wednesdays, for instance, I’m busy from 9 to 4:05, with only a break from 1:00 to 1:45 for lunch.

There’s so much more to do after your school day is over as well. There are social distractions, for instance. Why read The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles for your Romantic Novels class, for instance, when you could be playing MASH with some of your friends? Yes, that may have happened just yesterday—though I did get my reading done, I promise!  There are a lot of very active extracurricular groups that can keep your schedule full as well. Tonight for instance, I hope to be able to go to an InterVarsity Life Group, which is a Bible Study at 7:30 (I've been skipping lately because I haven't been able to manage the time well enough to go), followed directly by pledge class and a chapter meeting for Alpha Phi Omega. There’s also that pesky issue of fitting some homework into that lineup.

Though I’m far from a time management expert, I think prioritizing is definitely helpful when it comes to time management. My strategy usually ends up being getting done what absolutely has to get done. A strategy to get ahead on my work over the weekends, however, might be a bit more practical, though it would seem awfully painful as I stowed myself away on a Saturday afternoon.

Typically, however, getting schoolwork done isn’t the issue for me. Pesky things like laundry are what fall to the wayside. I’ve been saying I need to do laundry since last week, and yet the clothing is piling up in my closet.  I really need to buckle down and get some done tonight. My pledge class’s group service project on Friday is an intergenerational prom at the Graysonview Assisted Living Community, and I have induction to the freshman academic honor society Alpha Lambda Delta on Sunday.  Both require nice clothes which, as of now, are wrinkled at the bottom of my hamper. 

I think tonight I may just skip dinner with my pals to get that laundry done and start doing research for my group project in Applied Biblical Ethics.  Then, before Life Group, I'll grab some Benny's dinner to go.  This actually sounds like a really good idea.  Maybe I should start planning things more often!