Keep on moving through all this hustle

Today I fell in love with a new album.  It is Katie Costello's Lamplight and although I am a little behind on the times, her EP Cityscape.  There are very few albums I can listen to from beginning to end without skipping any tracks partway through even on the first listen but hers has been the perfect soundtrack to my day from start to finish.  I haven't flipped past a song yet which is mostly due to the amazing music and partly due to the desire to protect my hands from the freezing temperatures outside.  I have heard Katie perform in person at a benefit my sister put on when Katie was a Junior in high school at my alma mater.   It's hard to find artists these day who sound just as good in person as they do in their recorded music but she is one of those hard to find artists.  From Facebook, it's obvious that her growing fame has not caused her to forget who she is as an artist and a person and she has kept her friends close even though she splits her time between two very distant cities.  While I cannot claim to be a friend by any means, it's still pretty cool that we went to the same high school and I did have the pleasure of passing her in the halls during the two years we overlapped.

On to my life.  I am finished with classes until after Spring Break which would normally be a liberating feeling but I have soooo much laundry to do (I have been pushing it off for a while...) that I won't have a chance to enjoy the freedom until all that and the packing gets done.  Along with what seems to be half the school, my best friend and I are headed off on a cruise to get some sun.  The dilemma with second semester is that we only get spring break meaning that we have to wait through seven weeks of class to get a break which is not a natural break in the semester to then come back and go back to full steam ahead for the next seven weeks before finals.  I am convinced that this is a good portion of the reason second semester drags far more than first semester.  The other reason is of course the weather but I will get to that in a minute.  First semester, we get pacing break at the beginning of October and Thanksgiving at the end of November which splits the semester into three roughly equal parts which works with the testing system most teachers utilize.  I got lucky and had no tests this week and none the week we get back so I sort of get away with not doing anything over the break.  I will admit to having some classwork to finish but the likelihood of it getting done while I am on the boat is minimal.

Spring break seems to split students into two groups, the ones who head south with friends for what they hope to be a crazy week and the other who head home or to a friends with the intent of re-cooperating and refreshing for the rest of the semester, some of the latter group tries to get ahead or catch up on more independent work.  I am happy to say that I think I fall in between the groups, I am going to get some sun but also get some rest.

Okay back to the weather.  It has been a very tricky thing of late.  Today, it was freezing, last week it was nice and sunny.  I would like it to sort itself out.  Almost all of the snow and ice has melted from the warmth of last week but it's time for winter to be over and for spring to come.  It would be nice not to have to pile on a million layers to walk to class.  I have shorts that I would really like to wear when I get back from spring break.

I think I have made up for the lag in posts with this monster post.  Be back after spring break!

So here we are, fall semester finals again. Hard to believe that I started writing this two years ago.

Well, the weather is a little cold, snow has been coming on and off but nothing stuck yet so I feel like we are probably in for a bad winter when I get back in January through sometime around Spring Break. I am just hoping that the weather holds long enough for me to get home without too many delays.

This might be the least stressful finals period I have ever had in my life. I only have a paper and one test spread out over a week. Despite finals being a week later than they used to be, I get to get home before too much of the Christmas travel hits. My last test is Friday night and the paper I am supposed to be working on right now (I have been surprisingly productive today) is due tomorrow so they are nicely spaced.

Linderman is incredibly crowded right now but I have my coffee and a comfy chair so I should be good to go for another few hours of work before dinner with a friend and video games. That's not true... I will probably take an extended break soon and finish this paper between dinner and video games. I only have two pages to go. Remember when that used to be long paper? I also remember when all my teachers told me that I would always write papers that were at least 10 pages long plus citations in college. Truth: I can count the number of papers I have written solo of that length or longer on one hand. No teacher wants to grade a full classroom's worth of really long papers. The only type of paper I have worked on that was consistently longer than ten pages would be group papers because there was maybe only four to eight groups in the class. I love all of the strange things that teachers tell you about the next school you get to ie when you learn cursive, the teachers tell you that you will always use it but in fact it's nice to know but it is rarely used.

Okay enough distraction. Back to work.

Happy Holidays!

There's No Place I'd Rather Be

So I was sitting in the same library when I started writing this blog about a year ago. I discussed the first big snow of the year and it just so happens, that might be today since it has been snowing for the last few hours. It's weird though since it hasn't been that cold this week which was nice for the last week of classes. But here we are, getting ready for finals, two very odd weeks. There are some really great things that happen during this period of time like my house's traditional Christmas dinner where our chef dresses up as Santa and gives gifts to all of the sisters or the simple fact that we have no school for a month. This year though is very bittersweet for me since I am taking next semester to participate in a different kind of adventure.

I chose to leave Lehigh for next semester knowing that I would miss things like the new pledge class that would enter my sorority, all of the fun things my friends and I would usually do in the spring as well as some of the interesting classes that may not be offered at another feasible time. On the other hand, I also have friends who are going abroad to study in interesting place like Prague and have their own set of interesting adventures and I don't know what Lehigh would be like without my complete set of friends.

It's a little bit scary, the prospect of leaving Lehigh for a short taste of the real world even knowing that I will be back in about six months but since I don't want to think about it anymore, I will think about new things, like the paper I should be writing right now.

I Can Take Most Anything

So I have been lacking on the updates lately but I guess I just haven't had anything really good to say lately. Right now, I am using this post to push off studying for my test tomorrow for a little while but it's all good since I worked ahead in my other classes over break to make this week easier. I guess we do learn more from past experiences. Last spring break, I remember coming back from Spring Break and feeling swamped but this year I did more work than I would have liked over break but I am back and more relaxed than I expected to be. I'm glad that I used all the travel time to get ahead. Plus, it gave me time to actually think my homework all the way through. I always have to really think though my reading responses, but this week felt different since I had hours and hours between reading the prompt and then actually writing rather then prompt only being release the day before I have to write the response and not having the time to ponder. So today, the post was a little short, but as I said, I still have a test tomorrow.