The Evolution of a Creative Writing Major

Coming into college, I was very focused on a certain type of writing—fiction, particularly novels. In high school, I completed many Young Adult novels and had completed one novel for middle-school-aged children. Though I knew I’d have to stretch myself in terms of writing other kind of works during my four years at Susquehanna, I figured this would continue to be my creative focus.

Throughout most of my freshman year, I was pretty certain about my aims as a writer. I really enjoyed my Introduction to Fiction class, where we wrote short stories, but I knew it was no coincidence that most of my short stories were on the longer end of the spectrum. Even my professor seemed to recommend elaborating on my stories when they were already over ten pages long. The stories in my head just don’t seem to come out in short story form. I think this is one thing that has remained consistent for me as a writer.  I love fiction, but short story is not my forte. Next year, I need to take a class for my Advanced Writing requirement. I could take Advanced Short Story, but I much prefer the idea of taking the Novel Writing course instead.

However, I certainly haven’t worked on novels at college as much as I had anticipated as an incoming student. I have never been the best at time management, and I think college makes time management all the harder since there’s so much to do. In high school, I could have friends and activities to keep me busy, but ultimately, I went home at the end of the day. When college is your home (at least when school is in session), those things surround you.  Maybe this sounds like I'm making excuses. I might be to an extent. Though I love writing and do think I should be more disciplined, it’s hard to imagine regretting any of the times that I spent immersed in activities important to me or just chatting with friends. I have a whole life of writing ahead of me, but only four years of college.

When I do have time to write now, I usually end up writing poetry. This is not what I expected at all my freshman year. It’s funny that I'm so surprised by it, since looking back at high school, I definitely did write poetry. I never took it seriously, though. Poetry was this complicated thing that I just did poorly as an emotional release—not something I could master. Last school year, though, I began to write poetry more and more frequently and with a bit more seriousness. It especially helped that I began finding poetry that I liked to read. I was still not sure, however, if it was something I should think of as any more than a hobby. My Intro to Poetry class during the spring semester led me to produce some poetry that actually made me feel proud and gave me some validation that, even if I was far from where I wanted to be as a poet, I still had some talent—I had someplace I could start.

Poetry continues to be my genre of choice at the moment.  I am currently in an Intermediate Poetry workshop, where we are working on formulating chapbooks. Chapbooks are small collections of writing, typically under 40 pages. The topic that will tie together my chapbook is women in the Bible. So far I have worked on poetry that explores the perspectives of Mary, Martha, Yael, and Delilah and have also done some poetry that looks at reading the Bible as a woman.  I am very excited about this project and often very inspired by my Women in Biblical Tradition class.

I am interested in pursuing poetry and seeing where it takes me, but I also hope to make more returns, and soon, to fiction, the genre that  really kindled my passion for writing.

Belfast: Part 3



Mural in a Protestant neigh

The longest time I spent in Belfast was on a weekend trip, organized by my study abroad program. This trip was designed mostly with students studying in the Republic of Ireland in mind, so one of our days was spent exploring Northern Ireland through a bus drive along the coastal route and a visit to some of the main attractions on the coast.  

The time we did spend in Belfast, was great, my favorite part being the black taxi tour. The tour, guided by Northern Irish drivers, took us to some sights that illuminated the conflicts of The Troubles and its impact on Belfast. We saw both Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods and different murals and memorials pertaining to the conflicts. We also stopped at the Peace Wall, which was a wall constructed to separate Protestant and Catholic areas. It’s been signed by people all over the world, including celebrities and political figures such as Beyonce and Bill Clinton. Though I was aware of some of Northern Ireland’s tense history, it was still  sobering to hear about it from guides who lived in Belfast during the peak of violence there. Something I noticed that weekend in Belfast, from our black taxi tour guides and the guide who took us along the Northern Ireland coast, was a sense of pride in just how far Belfast has come. It’s now one of the top tourist destination cities in the world.



Memorial in a Catholic neighborhood

Later that same day, the director of IFSA Butler’s Ireland program led us on a bus tour around Belfast. One of the best parts of this tour was getting to stop outside of the Parliament building. It was not in the center of the city, so I doubt it was something I would have seen on my own.

During one of the evenings in Belfast, I went to the Belfast Christmas Market. This market was outside of Belfast City Hall and featured many international vendors. There were a lot of different foods and drinks from around the world. I treated myself to a delicious French baguette and a Belgian waffle and bought a wallet from London for my mom. The night we were there was also the night of the Christmas tree light-up. We weren’t sure what time the tree was being lit, and to our surprise, the lights went on just as we were leaving the market, which was nice to see.



Protestant neighborhood

I also got a bit of experience with Belfast night life that weekend. We went to one pub that I really liked. It was very crowded, but it had a great atmosphere anyway, mostly because of the live music. The singers performed  some songs that I didn’t know that I assume were from Northern Ireland or Ireland, as well as some folksy covers of current hits. There was also such a variety of people there in terms of ages. It felt very much like an authentic Irish pub.

 

Though I had a few other brief Belfast experiences (such as staying in a Belfast hostel before an early morning flight to Edinburgh), these blog entries have covered the main ones. I’ll be honest—Belfast, by appearance and atmosphere, did not capture my fancy with the immediacy that Dublin or Edinburg did, but I still think the city’s going to hold a warm place in my heart. It was my first European city, after all, and the capital of a country that I’ll always remember for being the first place--and a great place, at that--I ventured outside U.S. borders.

Belfast: Part 2

The Writer's Square

In the previous post, I mentioned my orientation in Belfast and how I didn’t exactly get the best taste of the city that I could have. Thankfully, I made another trip to Belfast fairly early on in the semester. Something really great about my schedule last semester was that I designed it so I had Fridays off to make traveling easier. My two flat mates from Hong Kong, Tiffany and Vicki, and my American friend, Zoe, also didn’t have class that Friday. We walked to the bus station in downtown Coleraine and bought tickets for the bus from Coleraine to Belfast.

On the bus, we looked through one of the pamphlets I had taken about Belfast from my first trip there, but we mostly went without any concrete plan. We were just going to see where the day took us! We weren’t even sure where to get off on the bus. I think one of my friends asked the driver who recommended a stop for us. We got out at what looked like a busy street for shopping.

Delicious lunch!

We wandered around for a while in search of someplace to eat lunch. I was so hungry after the long, slightly nauseating bus ride! I’ve come to realize, though, that finding a place everyone wants to eat is one of the most difficult parts of traveling with others. Eventually, we found a café that was appealing to all of us. I got a delicious baked potato with cheese and bacon. In the U.K., a baked potato is often a meal in itself, at least for lunch, whereas here I think it’s generally regarded as a side dish.




St. Anne's Cathedral

We spent a lot of time milling about stores in the big shopping area of Belfast, but we also visited some sights as well, my favorite being St. Anne’s Cathedral (also known as the Belfast Cathedral). Though I went into other cathedrals during my time abroad, I think this one was my favorite. Other cathedrals were very beautiful, but as my friends and I separated, wandering alone to look at these high ceilings, stained glass, crosses, etc., I had a sense of the profound at this one that is very hard to describe without being hokey. . I could have stayed there much longer, and I would have loved to have gone to a service there.



Pedestrian shopping area in Belfast

We kept seeing signs for the Writer’s Square, so we decided we wanted to check that out, especially because I’m a Creative Writing major and my friend Zoe is a poet. The Writer’s Square turned out to be a bit anti-climactic. It was just across from St. Anne’s Cathedral and was basically a square with quotes from writers on the ground. Most of the quotes were describing Belfast. All in all, not particularly exciting—but we were able to get a group picture there, which is probably one of my favorite photographs of the semester! We had a little bit of a funny moment there, as well, when we asked an older gentleman to take the picture. Someone first handed him their iPhone for the photograph. He handed it back asking if the photograph was good. None of our heads were in the picture. It was all from the shoulders down! He helped us out by taking another one for us, though.

Another underwhelming attraction was one of Belfast’s libraries. I had read about it in my Belfast brochure, which was designed for tourists, so we figured it might be interesting to visit. It just seemed like a very ordinary library. While we were there, though, we stopped at the café on the lower level for some drinks to quench our thirst. I got an apple juice box.

I think we may have had one more tourist destination in mind when we happened upon a wonderful used bookstore. The place was overstuffed! It was a bit difficult to go through the books, even, because on each shelf, there would be books behind the first row of books. Nonetheless, I bought two books of poetry there, one an anthology of female poets writing about faith and the other a collection by Lucille Clifton.


Used bookstore called "The Bookstore"

After scrambling to find a bathroom (generally, it seems much more difficult to find bathrooms in the U.K.; a lot of stores that I’d assume would have their own bathrooms don’t, and some you have to pay to use), we made our way back to the bus station and headed back to Coleraine. I was able to read all of the Lucille Clifton collection during that bus ride. Overall, the day served as a much more leisurely (and awake!) taste of Belfast. We hadn’t crammed in a bunch of activities (there are still plenty of things to do in Belfast, following this semester, that I would love to do), but we had been able to walk around and explore the city to some extent. And maybe more importantly, I got to have this adventure with the new friends I was making that semester.

These are a few more pictures of this outing. This was not, however, my last adventure in Belfast. More will be featured soon!

Belfast: Part 1

Belfast!

Though I spent my semester abroad in a town instead of a major city, I did get quite a few opportunities to travel to the capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast.

My first experience there was for my orientation. I took a flight from Newark, New Jersey to the Belfast International airport. This was far from a highlight of my semester. I got sick on the plane, so I started out my Northern Ireland experience changing into fresh clothes in the airport, feeling tired, confused about where to go and honestly kind of miserable. . The Belfast International Airport is some distance outside the city of Belfast, so I had to take a cab to the hotel where I’d be meeting a staff member of my program for orientation. I had never gotten a cab before and was a bit nervous about that. Of course, that wasn’t hard at all since there was an area where cabs were waiting for people departing the airport. I remember sitting in the backseat and looking out the window at the beautiful green landscape. I was really there, in Northern Ireland—and I would be staying  there for a whole semester.

When I got to my hotel in Belfast, they told me that I wouldn’t be able to check in. I was, at that point, alone and exhausted (It was 9-something in the morning, maybe,  and I wouldn’t be meeting with someone from my study abroad program until around lunchtime), and that was just about the last thing I wanted to hear. Thankfully, I was able to clear up the misunderstanding and settle into my hotel room.

Because I took an overnight flight and hadn’t slept at all, I was way too tired to take full advantage of my orientation in Belfast, which was only me and my staff worker from IFSA-Butler. I was their only student that semester going to the University of Ulster. This meant the orientation was fairly low-key. My staff worker took me to a shopping area of Belfast. I bought a pay-to-go phone in one of the shopping centers and some towels from Primark, a department store that was in every major city I went to and that I came to love. We also went into a market with a lot of artsy products and different foods. I got tea while I was there—first of many teas I would drink in Northern Ireland; this is notable for me because I was not at all a tea drinker before I went abroad.

We also went to the Titanic Museum. This is a major tourist attraction in Belfast, which is the city where the Titantic was made. The parts of the museum I found most interesting were the replicas of the rooms passengers on the Titanic stayed in, depending by class. They also had costumes from the Titanic movie on display. Even though I’m not such a huge fan of the movie, it was still pretty cool to see the actual costumes Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet wore.  

This first time in Belfast was probably when the fashion differences between the United States and Northern Ireland hit me the most. This was most noticeable when it came to guys. Guys at the University of Ulster-Coleraine do dress differently than guys at Susquehanna, but guys in Belfast dress much more differently. They looked very European—much more attentive to fashion, more styled and less casual than American guys. The outfits of the younger guys, especially, reminded me of the boy band One Direction.

The staff person from IFSA-Butler was going to show me more of Belfast, but I was incredibly tired by dinnertime. We grabbed pizza, headed back to the hotel, and left the next day for Coleraine. It would’ve been pretty disappointing if my only time in Belfast had been in a post-travel whirlwind (I didn’t even get around to taking any pictures), but I thankfully had other opportunities to go to Belfast. Look forward to those in future posts!

Contemplating Calling

This weekend I attended a workshop called “Discovering Your Passions-Discerning Your Callings” that was co-sponsored by the Chaplain’s Office, Center for Career Services and the Counseling Center. It was designed for students who wanted to explore the concept of calling and what God might want them to do with their lives.  

The students attending represented many different majors and were in many different places when it came to consideration of careers. Some didn’t know much about what they wanted to do next or just had a few ideas, while others were trying to evaluate the more specific plans they had in mind or were reflecting on how God and the concept of vocation  fit into the jobs they already had lined up after graduation.

At the beginning of the workshop, we explored personality and how it relates to careers by examining Myers-Brigg personality types. Before the workshop, we had to go to the Center for Career Services to take the assessment. I had taken versions of the assessment online before and had always tested as an INFJ. I was surprised to find that I was classified as something else based on this test—an INFP.

“I” stands for Introversion. Introversion is not about how quiet or shy you are, as some people think, but rather about how you get energized. Introverts are stimulated by internal reflection and time alone. “N” means Intuition. Looking at things intuitively means tending to be more abstract and looking at the big picture rather than smaller details. “F” stands for feeling, which means being more likely to value personal considerations, emotions, and the subjective over logic and other objective criteria when making decisions. “P” is the letter that’s different than what I’d been classified as before. “P” stands for perceiving. The other option for this last letter is “J,” meaning judging. A person with a “P” personality is more flexible  than a J.

The speaker from the Center for Career Services emphasized many people have to learn, and can learn, to work in the opposite characteristics. For example, introverts can take on extroverted qualities in the workplace. However, the preferences that result from personality types are something to keep in mind when examining potential career paths.

During the workshop, we also did some exercises to help us better understand ourselves. For example, the leaders of our workshop had us write down answers to what seemed like very random, very open-ended questions. Once the questions were finished, we were encouraged to look through our answers to see any patterns about what we valued or what kept coming into our brains. I had quite a few answers about the study of religion, for instance.

Another exercise involved writing down some activities or accomplishments from our past that were particularly meaningful or exciting to us and then sharing those with other students. The other students in our groups then told us what skills they perceived in those stories. What I took from this activity was just how important creativity is to so many of my meaningful experiences.

Through this workshop, I think I have a few more ways to examine myself and different vocational options in terms of my priorities and what might suit me well. I also took away that concept that we should listen to what our lives are speaking to us about what we may be called to do and that the pathway to the fulfillment of (or finding of) our calling may be a lengthy one. Chaplain Radecke expressed that those steps along the way are not just treading water.

Something else I appreciated is that the workshop leaders said that they wanted to be available to us to talk through these issues. I look forward to taking advantage of that as I move forward in trying to figure out my direction for post-graduation.

The "Study" in Study Abroad

If you go back through my blog entries from my freshman and sophomore years, you’ll see that I wrote a lot about the different courses I had each semester. While I was abroad, I didn’t keep this blog up to date about my academics, so I thought I’d use this post to reflect on the courses I had while I was abroad. An easy enough feat since I only had three classes: History of Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Britain and Ireland, Love Poetry, and From the Vote to the Pill: Twentieth Century Women Writers.

In History of Magic, I learned that Ireland had really low rates of witchcraft trials compared to Scotland and England. These low prosecution rates didn’t necessarily correlate to lack of magical belief, though. Often, Celtic areas, such as Ireland, that did not have very fervent witch-hunts still had strong belief in magic. Some places that emphasized belief in malevolent fairies, for instance, saw less need to blame misfortunes on witches; this was particularly true for the Highlands of Scotland. Some areas also believed in more benign versions of witches, such as “butter witches,” which usually only did smaller evils like messing with crops, and in the evil eye, which was when someone’s glance (usually unintentionally) cursed someone.

As a Religion major, I was interested in the religious component of witchcraft belief. In particular, the demonic view of witchcraft focused on a witch’s pact with the devil. In witchcraft trials, those prosecuted were sometimes made to say the Lord’s Prayer as a test. Not being able to say the Lord’s Prayer was a sign of that pact with the devil. Some clergy seemed to believe it was necessary to uphold witchcraft belief in order to sustain a supernatural worldview that allowed for the existence of God. While some churches took on the main responsibility for prosecuting witches, it’s also interesting to note that some churches discouraged witch-hunts. For example, some churches would decrease the amount of witchcraft accusations by charging the accuser with slander, rather than going after the witch. Protestant-Catholic conflict could also be seen in witch-hunts, since suspected witches, particularly in England, were often “papists,” or Catholics, being accused by Protestant officials or neighbors. 

Love Poetry gave an overview of different periods and kinds of love poetry, including ancient, Victorian, marital, and Sapphic. The best part of this class was the exposure I received to all different sorts of poetry. One poet I was introduced to during the class was D.H. Lawrence. I went on to read his collection of love poetry on my own, which I really enjoyed. I hope to go back to some of the other poets I liked when I have more free time to read. For this course, we had seminars where we discussed in closer detail the poetry we read. One of my favorite aspects of this course was preparing for seminars with my friend Zoe. We would choose a poem to focus on and discuss it together, and I feel like we really learned a lot from each other.

From the Vote to the Pill: Twentieth Century Women Writers was probably my most interesting course. In that class, we looked at the work of female writers through the twentieth century, and even into the present-day, through a feminist interpretive lens. One of the books we read was Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, which I absolutely loved. I think, in this course, I did the academic work of the semester that makes me most proud. For my first essay, I wrote about Margaret Atwood’s novel Surfacing and its portrayal of a crisis of masculinity, and for my second essay, I wrote about Bella’s quest for family and Edward as a father-figure in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

While the courses—or “modules,” in keeping with the terms used at the University of Ulster—fell a bit short of my expectations, probably because I’m used to Americans’ more active class participation, I got a chance to study a lot that I wouldn’t have learned about otherwise.

"Mystical Music of the Middle East"

Last week, I was able to attend a really awesome event on campus. Every year, Susquehanna has a lecture or presentation on campus concerning religion, called the Alice Pope Shade lecture. This year was the presentation “Mystical Music of the Middle East,” a performance by the Yuval Ron Ensemble. The ensemble performed music from Jewish, Christian and Muslim (particularly Sufi) traditions and included performers of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. The Yuval Ron Ensemble was very passionate about bridging divides through music. They applied this to their audience, as well, as they encouraged us to sing or dance along to certain songs.

It was very interesting to hear spiritual music from another part of the world. This semester I am taking a course called Music in Christian Rituals, so the idea of worship music has been on my mind a lot. It was really fascinating to hear Yuval Ron talk about how, in the Hasidic Jewish tradition, they will sometimes just sing songs on a certain syllable, instead of any meaningful words, to connect with God. This is so counter-intuitive to me because I’m used to thinking very seriously about the words of a worship song. Often times, I think the lyrics are the point.

Watching the ensemble then sing in that manner, though, I definitely came to see how that could be a way of connecting with God. There are some situations where words just fail to capture the immensity or complexity of something, and worship certainly seems like a situation that fits the bill.

The best part of the performance was definitely the whirling dervish. “Whirling dervish” is a term I had heard about before, but it's a completely different experience to see one. Basically, a whirling dervish is a Sufi mystic who does a spinning dance that is meant to bring the mystic into a religious state. This description or any description cannot really capture how enchanting that whirling is. The dervish spun with such speed, ease, and grace that it almost seemed physically impossible. While I am not about to become a dervish myself anytime soon, I can definitely see how that would be a transcendent, spiritual experience for the whirling dervish--especially since I think even those watching get a little taste of that.

In addition to promoting cross-cultural experiences through it GO program and study abroad opportunity, Susquehanna is delivering those breathtaking encounters with other cultures right on campus. I was a bit tired the night of this event, and I easily could not have gone. In retrospect, I am very glad that I did.