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Aside from the social stigmas of college, when all said and done, college is about the things we learn in the classroom. The academics are a big part of why we choose the schools we do. Because in the end, that degree is what we are here for. We are just lucky enough to gain so much more.

            Now that I have finished my first year of college academics, I can attest to whatever clichés high school teachers tell their students to scare them. I used to be the high school student so scared by the “college is going to be a lot harder,” talk from my teachers. But I guess I was well prepared, or maybe I chose a good major, because I didn’t find the academics much harder than some of my high school classes.

            Sure I had my challenges, but nothing I couldn’t handle. My first year was certainly a learning experience, especially in the classroom.

            I found my professors to be incredibly intelligent, hard working people who enjoy what they do. So in turn I enjoyed the courses I was taking.

            Of course I liked my journalism classes, but not because of the content. Actually the papers were my biggest challenge of the year. I loved my classes because I was learning from former and current journalists. My interpreting the day’s news professor can be watched on Boston’s nightly news as the investigative reporter. My journalism 1 professor wrote for The Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald, was an editor for The Hartford Courant and wrote a book about The New York Times coverage of the Holocaust during WWII.

            My history and psychology classes were interesting, and I learned something new.  My Black Popular Culture class was easy but incredibly fascinating.

            Now natural disasters sounds like an attractive class but think again. The lectures were quite boring even though the topic matter sounds exhilarating. But I am glad I took the class to get my science credit out of the way, and if I ever have to cover a natural disaster for the news, I will be knowledgeable enough to know what category of tornado can tear a roof off a house or level a building.

            And finally, I took my two math credits this year to get them out of the way. And for the first time since fourth grade I got an A. I actually somewhat enjoyed my math classes this year because of my clear and enthusiastic teachers. I won’t miss taking math by any means, but I’m glad Northeastern made it bearable for me.

            I am learning so much in college, but the things I came here to learn enriched my experience sevenfold. So I’m crossing my fingers for straight A’s again because that would simply be the cherry on top of my college academic sundae. 

Facing My Fears

Today I did something I’ve been scared of all year. Now you might think I’m crazy or delusional when you hear what my fear is, but I can proudly say, I’ve conquered it.

            I am afraid to interview random people for anything I’m writing. I think it is scary to approach someone unknown to ask them a seemingly irrelevant question.

            And the crazy part…my major is journalism. I should have expected to have to do this at some point. I knew it was coming. So the question is why did I pick a career path where I knew I could not avoid that. The answer: I have no idea.

            In high school it was easy to interview random people because I knew everyone in my tiny school, and no one thought it strange when you asked them questions for the school newspaper.

            As an introvert, I find it difficult to easily make conversation with someone. I also fear bad attitudes from people who I approach. Earlier this year, when I would get stories that required random interviews, the people I talked to were unreceptive and gave terrible quotes.

            So when my last assignment for journalism was assigned, I panicked. The paper is to be a reaction piece with ten “person-on-the-street” interviews.

            What I found was not as scary as I thought it would be. I made sure to approach with a smile, a friendly greeting and the understanding that the interview wouldn’t take long. I got great responses from willing people.

            Am I still afraid of random interviews? Absolutely, but at least now I know they aren’t terribly scary. I faced my fears, challenged myself and came out unscathed and that much prouder of myself.

            My freshman year of college is quickly coming to a close. With one weekend left in the city, three days of classes left and two weeks until I go home, I am looking back at everything that has happened this year.

            In the next three weeks, I will be writing a three part series focusing on the different aspects of my year. So coming soon will be the first part examining my academic year.

            I’m learning so much this year, and facing my fears is just one thing I can say I accomplished with pride.  

A Spring Awakening

Spring has finally arrived. It is 60 degrees and sunny today in Boston with the perfect spring breeze. The birds chirp, the skirts have come out of the bottom of the drawer from under all those sweaters, and the smiles have returned to the faces around me.

            I have always loved spring because it is not just a literal emergence from a cold, dark winter, but also a metaphorical rebirth of life and enthusiasm. That sentence of parallelism and rich vocabulary would have made my high school English teacher very happy. And it makes me happy too.

            Spring gives me the promise of a clean slate. I can start again with new motivation. I can have a new style, new opportunities and a new attitude. I am ready to forge through the busy springtime with my head held high, confident that I will finish my freshmen year of college strong.

            This weather and season makes me want to pick some flowers, go to a baseball game, run through a park, go for a hike and sing at the top of my lungs. The spring rain makes me want to splash through the puddles in my Wellies.

            Whether I do these things or not, I am ready to start anew and welcome the summer with all my heart.  

A Spring Slump

I’m finally starting to feel the stresses of college. Maybe it’s just this time of year when everything is starting to wrap up that everything gets crazy, but I am in a spring slump.

            With just four weeks left in the semester, I have to cram nine papers, two quizzes, four finals and packing up into my final moments as a college freshman. Not to mention registering for next fall’s classes, applying for housing with five other girls and finding a summer internship. 

            I am incredibly overwhelmed and stressed. As fast as I want the next four weeks to go, I know they will be over in the blink of an eye. Time flies even when you’re stressed.

            The past weeks have been wearing on me and with so much on the horizon I miss home more than I have all year. I’ve discovered there are three stages of homesickness.

            The first stage is when you unconsciously miss things about home. For instance, saying, “I miss eating Which Wich.” Missing the people you love and are used to seeing so frequently also comes with this stage.

Then comes the aching stage. This is when you ache right down to the bones to go home. You don’t voice how you are feeling because most of the time you feel fine, but then it hits you like a pile of bricks, and you just ache.

Next comes the full on melt down. Crying into the phone because you are sick of living with a roommate, you are sick of school, and you just want to go home where your mom can make your favorite dinner, and you can watch your favorite episode of Gilmore Girls.

Needless to say, I reached all three stages this year. I unconsciously missed my home state for the first semester and first half of second semester. Next I ached to go home, but with everything piling up, I reached melt down stage this week.

But I think I was pretty lucky to escape from the condition for so long. I knew the crying would come, and to be frank I thought it would be a lot sooner than April.

I guess I got lucky, but I’m pretty sure that the only cure for homesickness is home. So I can’t wait to get home to the gorgeous Colorado weather, no more of this snow in April nonsense, Boston. I can’t wait to not have a million things on my mind. I can’t wait to go home.

But don’t get me wrong. Just because I miss home doesn’t mean I hate it here. I’m just ready to free myself of stress and missing that place that makes me who I am. 

Birds of a feather

College is all about change, right? Well, I’ve quickly found that to be the number one truth of this whole first year of college experience. And rather than point and criticize and get stuck in a rut, might as well join them.

            So this weekend, I made a change. This is pretty radical for me, and if you know me, you know that means it’s not very radical at all. And of course after about six opinions I took the dive.

            I got feather extensions added to my hair.

            This new trend has been taking the West coast by storm the past few months, and is barely getting off the ground here in the East coast.

            I first heard of them when I went to Boise, Idaho, for spring break. I thought they were an interesting thing that I didn’t even consider for myself.

            Some people pierce their belly buttons; some get tattoos; some dye their hair; but I get feathers in my hair.

            And so far, I love them. I have two red and one orange with black dots in the under layers of my hair, so if I’m feeling crazy one day I can proudly display them by pulling my hair back, or if I am feeling a little more conservative, I can hide them in the thick layers of my red hair.

            The great thing is that these feathers can be treated just like my natural hair. I can wash them, blow dry them, and curl them. And in two weeks to seven months I can take them out.

            So let the craziness begin. Well, as crazy as I can get.

One year later...

DISCLAIMER: Not that I have any readers from Holy Family younger than me, but if you are from HF and have not attended Kairos yet, please don’t read this.

I already did a blog post about my year 2010 wrapping it up and reflecting on the year as a whole. But I want to reflect again. Today two years ago, I was on my first Kairos experience. And one year ago, I was on Kairos as a leader.

            For most of my readers who are unfamiliar with Kairos, let me give you a quick run down of what it is. Kairos is a religious retreat that many schools put on. At Holy Family, traditionally seniors would attend Kairos, with a select few juniors who went in the spring of junior year. Kairos is more than just a retreat though. It really changes lives. I’m not really sure what it is about Kairos that can make even the most skeptical kids break down to all their raw feelings, but it does, and that is why it is so powerful.

            On Kairos there are ten “talks.” These talks are speeches around a basic theme given by each of the six student and four adult leaders. Last year I gave a talk about values.

            I can’t believe that one year ago I was sitting in the beautiful Colorado mountains with a group of people I barely knew, on a mission to change their lives and experience the magic of Kairos. Now here I am, sitting in my dorm room in Boston experiencing the thrill and exhilaration of college.

            I reread my Kairos talk recently to see just who I was and what was important to me one year ago. The change in me is undeniably remarkable. As a self-study, the things I included in the talk (and the things I remember consciously leaving out) intrigued me.

            Only those people I shared Kairos with and a few close friends have read or heard my talk. I hope those people know what a true gift they have, because what I put in that talk is not something I share with everyone. The talk was “me” in words. I was exposed right down to the emotions and thoughts that made me who I was then.

            The best thing about looking back and reading my talk was seeing what was important to me at the time. Everyone used to tell me that ten years after high school no one would care who was class president, who got what superlative in the yearbook or who gave the speech at graduation. What I know now is that they lied. No one cares about that even ten months after high school.

            My talk addressed the devastation I felt when I didn’t get into Northwestern, the relationships I have with my best friends and my parents and the obstacle I overcame when I didn’t win class president, among other things.

            The truth is that everything has changed. Most of the things I wrote about don’t matter anymore. I still love my parents and best friends, but to say our relationships haven’t changed would be naïve. Both obstacles I faced in student council and not getting into Northwestern shaped who I became last year, but now I can simply call them hurdles I cleared, and in hindsight they don’t look so big.

            The most interesting thing I stated in my talk was “I don’t have any idea where I’ll be a year from now, but I’m ok with that because I trust it is exactly where I am supposed to be.”

            Well, here I am, and that is the absolute truth. I really do feel I am where I am supposed to be now. But the crazy thing is I can still say that.

            There is something about being in this formative stage of life that is scary and uncertain. I really don’t know where I’ll be next year, what I’ll be doing, where I’ll be living and who I will be. But it is safe to bet, it will be very different from who I am in this very moment.

            I’m glad I have my Kairos talk as a time capsule of who I was as a senior in high school. It is a good way to track my progress as I grow into a young adult.

            And now I have this blog to archive my first year in college. Thanks for reading this much this time around. I hope you enjoyed my reflections.

P.S. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The best holiday of the year. ;)

The Kairos leaders of Kairos 32 on Mar. 16, 2010. 

My Lenten Resolution

Tomorrow begins one of the most dreaded seasons of the year for Catholics: Lent. Sure it’s a great time to self-reflect, and to challenge ourselves to go without some things that make life a little more enjoyable, but I still dread the somber season.

            During my childhood it was always a true test to give up sweets for 40 days. The task made Easter morning that much sweeter to see a basket full of Peeps and a chocolate bunny since it had been such a long time since I had consumed processed sugar.

            I still like to give up sweets just for that reason, and it is still difficult to go without the occasional mindless dessert.

            Last year I wanted to try something even harder. Try and guess what it was. I’ll give you a few hints first. What do teenagers spend most of their time doing? What is important to a high schooler? What would most teenagers do without this particular thing?

            Before I give you the answer, I’ll answer those questions for you. Teenagers spend their time on the Internet. A social life may be the most important thing when you’re 17. And most teenagers I know would self-destruct without this precious commodity in their life.

            You guessed it…Facebook. I gave up Facebook last year, and am attempting to try it again this year.

            It was hard to resist the temptation of one small click on the computer to see what everyone in my inner and outer social circles were up to. I slipped a couple of times in the first few weeks, but I got a little better as the 40 days went on. I did however spend a lot of time on the site on Sundays (which don’t count towards the 40 days).

            I love this challenge. As a college student I spend a superfluous amount of my time on my computer. As unwilling as I am to admit this, I probably spend at least an hour of my time a day on Facebook, and much more on other various sites.

            I think the next 40 days will be a good cleanse of my horrible habit of Facebook creeping, playing Family Feud and browsing the news feed. Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for such a great time waster, social connection, game forum and small visual model of my world. But I need a break from my silly and harmless addiction. Lent is the perfect opportunity.

            So goodbye, Facebook, I’ll see you on Sundays and we will be fully reunited on Easter.

            Maybe God didn’t have these kinds of sacrifices in mind when He sent His Son to die for our sins, but in my mind this is a big sacrifice that will be good for me.

P.S. Since most of you read my blog from the posts I put on Facebook, I might sneak on to put up my newest posts in the next 40 days.