The Midpoint

When this post goes up, I’ll be home for Spring Break. It’s so strange to think that I’ve been back at Susquehanna for half of a semester already.

In some ways, it’s like I never left, while in others, there was definitely a lot of adjusting to do. For the most part, it’s been pretty easy to transition back into the social setting at Susquehanna. My friends are still my friends, and that wasn’t going to change because we were apart for one semester. Transitioning back into the work load has been a bit more difficult. I’m far from being organized and effective at time management typically, but this semester I’ve felt a bit more frazzled than semesters past. I think this is due to my study abroad semester being very laidback. Though being abroad had its stresses, I think Susquehanna is ultimately more stressful. There’s much more of a sense of this is the real world, and things, to some extent, seem to matter a lot more here. There are more issues to face, relationships to maintain, etc.

I’ve been a bit more nostalgic for my study abroad experience than I expected I would be.  I had a good time abroad but dealt with some home (or Susquehanna) sickness at times. By the time December 15^th, my date of departure, rolled around, I was excited to go home and be reunited with my family. I thought this meant I wouldn’t spend that much time missing Northern Ireland. Whenever I look through photographs, though, or write up a reflection post for this blog, I do want to go back. It’s still so surreal that I got a chance to be in Northern Ireland for a semester and to see everything that I did! It makes me want to travel again—a part of the reason why I’ve been thinking about applying to graduate school fellowships abroad.

For me, though, this nostalgia doesn’t outweigh my enjoyment of being back at Susquehanna with my closest friends. I am glad to be back at this school that I love, even if it wasn’t completely seamless to return to it.

As I go into the next half of the semester, I hope that I can feel a bit more on top-of-things than I have this first half. Even more than that, though, I hope that I can create some valuable memories. This is my last semester before I’m a senior in college! I’m sure next year will bring plenty of its own hectic-ness as I take on a capstone project, a Novel writing course, my senior portfolio, etc.—and oh yeah, trying to determine some sort of post-graduation plan. I am sure senior year will brings its own joys, but I definitely want to make the most of this time I have left in my junior year…and not think about how, when it comes to my Susquehanna education as a whole, I am way past the midpoint.

Stretching

I rarely think of myself as a leader. It’s not that I think I’m much of a follower. I’ve always had too much of an independent streak for that. There, I think, lies the reason why I don’t usually see myself as a leader—too much independence. I like and am pretty good at working alone.  A plus for a Creative Writing major like myself. When it comes to school group projects—well, I must admit I groan a little, and while I do sometimes take charge, I rarely think of that as anything more than doing what I have to do to get things done. My natural inclination isn't usually to go after a leadership role.   

This year, though, I have a chance to be an actual leader.

I am a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of our Christian groups on campus, and I am now on our leadership board. I’m working with another student to organize our large group gatherings that happen every Thursday night. This involves a lot of planning, getting in contact with people, organizing, etc.

Tonight is the first large group meeting that I’ve had a part in planning, and I must admit I’m a little nervous. After a semester that was fairly care free when i was abroad (only three classes, little extracurricular responsibility, tons of free time), it’s a bit overwhelming to begin a new role with new responsibilities, especially since I feel very passionately about this group. I want to give them my best work.

Overall, though, I feel like my worries will be calmed once the event tonight happens. The first large group meeting may or may not run as smoothly as I hope it will, but it will happen, nonetheless. What needs to be done will get done, and I will know that can happen again, the next week and then all the week after that.  

And I will be stretched, just a bit, away from who I saw myself as when I entered college and towards the person who I can be. The leader that I may not have anticipated becoming back when I was in high school.

I suppose that’s one of the wonders of college: being stretched into someone that can offer a bit more than what you expected. In high school, I think a lot of people thought of me as a smart girl who writes a lot, and I thought of myself that way too. While I still hope that people think I’m smart, and while I do still love writing, college also seems like it’s been a time of expanding, both in terms of my identity and the possibilities that I see for myself.

Perhaps I'll really discover my inner-leader this semester at Susquehanna. Who knows what I may discover next?

Back to Susquehanna

I had a window seat on my flight from Belfast to America. As we were getting close to the Newark airport, I looked down at the landscape and thought how American it all looked, compared to the Irish landscape I'd grown accustomed to for the past three months. I was excited and ready to go home to spend Christmas break with my family.

And I was ready for another semester at Susquehanna.

Friday my parents and I packed my things into a van and headed to Selinsgrove. It felt, and still very much feels, like the beginning of a new academic year, and it's easy for me to forget that it is, in fact, Spring semester and that mostly everyone else was here in the fall.

I moved into my single room in one of the Sassafrass townhouses. It's definitely the nicest room I've lived in here at Susquehanna! I have so much more space than I've had before, and I even have a walk-in closet. It's nice, after a semester abroad where I could only bring a suitcase, to have a homier room, with my nice bedding, pillows, lamps, chair, etc. Still, I don't have quite enough posters to fill up all the empty wall space.

Yesterday was my first day of classes. In Northern Ireland, I only took three courses, and they were structured so that I only had essays due during mid-terms and at the end of the semester. It will certainly be an adjustment to go back to a schedule that requires more time in class, more classes, and more assignments throughout the semester.

Thankfully, all of my courses seem really interesting this semester and worth the work. I got to experience my Intermediate Poetry, Fiction of C.S. Lewis, and Music in Christian Rituals classes yesterday, and later on today I'll be going to Women in Biblical Tradition, which might be the class I'm most excited to attend. 

The best part of being back on campus, of course, is seeing so many of the friends I missed last semester! I am so grateful I was able to work out a housing arrangement that meant I would be moving into a house with many of my close friends. Now people who I had to Skype last semester are just a flight of stairs away!

Despite how exciting it is to be back at Susquehanna, it's still a bit surreal that my study abroad experience is over. 

Though the experience was great, there were times I felt homesick when studying abroad, and by the time I was flying home, I felt like I was ready to leave. Once I got back, though, it became real that I don't know when I'll next travel out of the country and that I may never go back to Ireland. In the grand scheme of things, it was such a short experience, and I can't believe it's already gone.

It's left its imprint, though. Before last semester, I had never flown on a plane or left the country. Now, obviously, I have done both. I have gained so much more travel experience than I had and feel more capable of doing things like traveling independently. I've traveled by bus, train, taxi, ferry, plane, and subway (during a weekend in London, on the London Underground). I've been to Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and England. I've lived with girls from Hong Kong and Belgium. I've gone to a Northern Irish night club with a friend from Germany. I've heard people sing "God Save the Queen" in a church service. I've watched seals in the wild, shopped at the Belfast Christmas Market, gone to museums in Dublin, stood on the distinctive rocks of the Causeway Coast, and walked to the beach on a frosty day in a coastal town called Portstewart. I've started liking tea, enjoyed cider, ate some delicious "chips," and managed to feed myself for a whole semester by buying groceries at Tesco, a big, British chain of grocery stores. I've stayed in a hostel in Edinburgh with some of my best friends. I've read my poetry aloud at a Poetry Society meeting at the University of Ulster and talked a lot in class discussion of love poetry and twentieth-century women writers. And I had some great conversations with great people. 

Though, over time, last semester will become more distant--just some far-off experience that I had, maybe--that won't change how big of a deal it was for me. I left my comfort zone and went off to a college across the ocean without any classmates from Susquehanna coming with me--without knowing a soul.  While I could analyze what I should've done to make more of the semester or feel regret over not getting to X or Y, I'm pleased looking back on my experience.

I certainly feel as if I made the right choice to go away for a semester and to go where I did--Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Now I just need to enjoy this semester here at Susquehanna University, a school that is one of my other best choices.  

What I've Learned My Sophomore Year

College is supposed to be a time for learning, self discovery, etc. Though it will always sound cliche to talk about what you learned about yourself and life at college, I think there's a lot of truth to that. I tried to reflect on some of the things that I have learned this year. This is by no means an extensive list but is, at least, a little glimpse of what I've been discovering this year.

• Having a single is not the worst thing ever. It’s actually kind of nice. At the beginning of the year, I struggled a lot with not having a roommate, but there really are some advantages to having a single.  You don’t have to worry about keeping someone up, for instance, when you want to stay up late. I’ll be having a single again next year. I’ll be switching single rooms with someone else when I come back from being abroad. I'm hoping to have a roommate senior year, but it may be a bit of an adjustment after living so long by myself!
  

• Academically, I have more interests than just creative writing! Coming into college, I assumed I was going to be an editor when I grew up, that I'd be an editing and publishing minor, that I would be deeply immersed in this department, that I'd be involved in editorial boards all the time, etc. After all, I'd always been the "writing girl" at school, and being well-rounded isn't really my strong suit. While Creative Writing is still very important to me, my involvement is not looking the way I had imagined it would at the beginning of freshman year, and it's not my only pursuit at this school.  My religion minor turned into a religion major this year, and I am so glad it did. I’ve really enjoyed studying Luther and the Reformation this semester, and I am looking forward to continuing my religious studies during the next two years.

• It’s actually true—you don’t have to live with people in order to maintain your friendships! This is something I believed all along, of course, but there was a certain level of nervousness and adjustment that came from living in the same dorm with all of my friends to having some of them live elsewhere. I’m happy to say that I feel like some of those friendships with people in my freshman residence hall  have even strengthened this year, without us living together! And I'm excited that I'll get to be living with them again next year (though that means not living with some other friends I've been with the past two years).

•  I like poetry. Writing it and reading it. I’ve always known that I liked poetry in a vague, I’ll-do-this-sometimes-for-fun-but-not-seriously way, but now I know that I like it in the way that I’d like to dedicate some time to writing it and actually becoming good. As for reading it, I have found that I love the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Sara Teasdale. I also like some poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I have a lot more reading to do on this front, though.

• Reflecting on the past two years, I think this year I've been a lot more comfortable with being outspoken. I’ve been a lot more willing to speak my mind in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship activities for instance, like Bible studies or large group discussions. I’ve also taken risks with talking to people I don’t know, through our spiritual survey questions called Soularium and an activity where we give out free cookies and iced tea or lemonade to people on Friday nights. I’ve also made some new friendships this year or bolstered ones that weren’t so strong last year. 

• To get a bit deeper, I’ve learned that progress does not always come in a straight, upward line. And that’s okay. Progress, in anything, will still involve bouts of struggle, backtracking, etc.

The Happy Kind

It’s the second day of classes, and I still feel quite optimistic about this semester. This schedule is more tailored to my interests than any other semester. All four of my courses apply to my two majors. Aesthetics and Interpretation and Intro to Poetry go toward Creative Writing, while Intro to Asian Religions and Luther: Life and Thought obviously go toward Religion.

So far, I’ve liked all the classes I’ve had. The only thing left to experience is my Intro to Poetry class. That class is as night class, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I haven’t had any night classes yet so it’ll be interesting to see how I like that. I’m guessing it’ll be good that, out of all classes to have at night, I have poetry—something creative that I’m interested in, and something that will often be interactive because it’s a workshop course. One of the big problems I’ve heard from those who have taken night classes is that it’s difficult to pay attention, especially towards the end of class and especially if the subject matter doesn’t interest you.

Other than that, I’m still in that period of adjusting back to school life. I think I’ll feel like things are back to normal once the activities I’m involved in restart. Beyond changing classes, there are a few other differences between this semester and the last. Some people I know have gone abroad this semester, while other people have returned. Our dorm got new mattresses which I’m still getting used to as I fall asleep, though when I wake up it feels perfectly comfortable (though, then, getting up and going to class is the alternative). Speaking of my room, it’s, as always, in a bit of disarray—this time from half-unpacked bags strewn all over my floor; I mean, I’ll get to them eventually. I’m also still working out a lunch routine since last semester I had pretty standard days of who I ate with and when.

Mostly, though, being back at school requires a completely different mindset from over winter break. I spent 30 plus hours at work each week at home, hanging up clothing at a thrift store—hard work, but not mentally challenging. The rest of my time I spent relaxing and watching a lot of television—some Parks and Recreation on DVD with my brother, and some Friday Night Lights, one of my new favorite shows, on Netflix on my own.  Though I saw my friends a few times over break, generally it was a break from a lot of social activity—and I’m definitely ready for that break to be over!

Overall, this week is a week of adjusting, but so far, it’s proving to be the happy kind.

Back to What?

Coming back to Susquehanna was very exciting, but I think I need to make it clear, to both my readers and myself, that coming back to Susquehanna is exactly that: coming back to Susquehanna. I didn’t come back to my freshman year, to Hassinger Hall, or to a top bunk. I didn’t come back to pick things up as they left off—not exactly. This year is new.

My room this year--before it got messy!

Not as new as coming into Susquehanna as a nervous freshman wondering what college will entail.

But still new. New enough that I am curious to see where this year takes me. New enough , even though I’m familiar with my friends, this campus, and the routine of work and classes,  that it’s taking a bit of adjustment to get back into the swing of things.

Or more accurately, to start a new swing of things.

Something I have to tackle this year is how to maintain and balance friendships with people who I used to live with but now don’t get to see on that same, day-to-day basis.  Only a certain set of my friends have that same right-down-the-hall status. Also, I’m still acclimating  to living alone. I definitely need to work out a cleaning routine because, without a roommate to consider, I’ve let things get a bit disheveled. Clearly, this isn’t the biggest issue with living alone, but it’s something I should probably work on!   

In another entry, I talked about how being a sophomore was good because I had a comfort zone from which to start. That’s still true. However, that comfort zone has had to shift and budge a little. It’s been altered—it’s been pinched by some discomforts, forces of change. Discomfort isn’t a negative, though.  No year can be the same as the one before. And next year I may, all over again, be contemplating on how to adapt to the changes of a different academic year.

 I’ll admit that, right now, I have a bit of nostalgic longing for my freshman year. I see people enter Hassinger—people that aren’t me—and go a bit gooey on the inside. Facebook shows me status updates from “this day in 2010,” and I relive that fresh, exciting period of time where I was just really discovering and getting to know the friends I have now.

I’m hoping that next year my time as a sophomore will elicit the same feelings.

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! 

School Size

I know many people who were, or still are, desperate to go to big school. Colleges of Susquehanna’s size I’ve often heard derided as too small. Perhaps my feelings will change senior year if I know just about everybody in my class (as a freshman, I’m far from that), but for now, I am very thankful for the size of Susquehanna’s institution. For me, it’s a perfect fit.

This size impacts a lot of different facets of Susquehanna. One of these is housing. I live in the smallest residence hall for freshmen, Hassinger Hall, and if you couldn’t already tell through my earlier posts, I absolutely love it! The floors in Hass are divided into wings by gender. I know the names of everybody who lives on my floor, am pretty friendly with all the girls in my wing, and have gotten my core of Susquehanna friends there.

It’s hard for me to imagine living in one of the bigger freshman dorms, much less a freshman dorm at a large university. One of my best friends from home lives in a building that is, I believe, 23 floors. She must endure long waits for the elevator and lines for signing in with building security.

Another area that’s obviously affected is class size. This semester, my Tuesday/Thursday classes, Applied Biblical Ethics and Principles of Sociology, are significantly bigger than my Monday/Wednesday/Friday ones, Introduction to Creative Nonfiction and Thought & Civilization. The first is a workshop class with about 16 people. The latter has a few less than that. The great thing is that even my “big” classes must be around 30-something people. This pales in comparison to big classes at other school where hundreds of students are crowded into a lecture hall, basically going anonymous to their classmates and professors.

Also, I like that the campus is small enough that I will see people I meet around school! For example, one of the activities I’m involved in is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. At a bigger school I might not see people I know from that activity around campus, unless I specifically made plans with them, but here it’s very likely I might see someone during my everyday routine and say hi in passing.

For me, a smaller school has always been my ideal, and I’ve been very grateful to find that what I suspected would suit me actually does. It may not be for everyone, but I still feel that as if people who write off smaller schools should definitely consider their virtues, especially for ease in adjusting to the college experience.