I Need to Find a Place Where I Can Breathe...

I should probably take the time to mention that the titles of all of my blog posts are all song lyrics. Some relate to what I am thinking about and others are just parts of the songs stuck in my head.

So as usual, I am writing here to take a little time to myself while I push off other work that needs to get done. Today, I have to write a paper. I was thinking about where I would write this paper when I realized how much times change when you get older. I have a five to seven page paper due tomorrow. I am not worried and have no doubt in my mind that I will be able to finish it and have it not be the worst thing that I have ever written. One of my favorites? Probably not, but it won't be horrible.

When I was younger and things had to be typed, that was the hardest part for me. I could hand write a page but then the typing was like torture. This was back when rough drafts were written on paper and the final drafts were typed. That was also the formula, one rough draft, one final draft and that is it. You only edited the rough draft to make it the final draft. But back the typing. My mom used to type my papers, but not like other parents that typed the whole paper and would make corrections as they went, no, my mother typed in all of my grammatical and spelling errors so that I would have to learn to correct them.

In the years that followed as I learned to type my own papers, I discovered that each version was different from the others, not just in the grammar but in the way that I wanted to express myself. I realized that each time I sat down to write left me in a different mind frame than every other time. It still tends to be fairly obvious to see that I have stopped working on a paper for a while and then come back to it because the writing is more strained. I could start working on this paper and with the twenty minutes I have right now but the reality is that I will end up rewriting everything I had so it's not worth it. There are countless drafts that started out as one thing and became something different entirely as I gave myself time to think about exactly what I wanted to say and gave myself some idea of the contents of the paper.

I was also never one of this kids who could write off an outline. That was miserable. Making outlines for things that were already written, fine but trying to use them to guide what I wanted to say was impossible and any good essay I ever wrote was never off an outline. Writing is something that requires mechanics and creativity, but early on, we get the mechanics and it's time to just work the creativity, especially in thinking for yourself while analyzing.

The expectations of us changed all the time throughout our schooling. We went from being worried about our spelling and trying to just write a few sentences, to trying to write a whole page skipping lines in cursive to now, where we think about five-ish pages being no big deal. When did this happen?

My seventh grade English teacher may have been the only one to push us with us actually realizing that he was making our writing better. From my class of thirty, he gave about ten of us a separate project. This was a project more like the ones that I have now in college. It was a fairly open ended prompt about xenophobia. It was supposed to be ten pages long. Granted, at that time, we had a few weeks to do this rather then the days we have to do the same type of paper now, but I remember struggling to understand what he wanted from me since it wasn't spelled out exactly but with time, I realize that that forced me to be a better writer. It was a constant battle after that with every English teacher being different, some helped the creative part and wanted us to learn for ourselves. Others were very specific in what they wanted and grades reflected sticking to that.

So, I would love to keep talking about this but alas, I must go and take care of some things before I start my paper.

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.

You May Say I'm A Dreamer...

The last few weeks have been insane. My entire house is getting to know our new girls which has been all sorts of fun. Plus, it's the time of the semester where tests start. I honestly think I have a test just about every week of the semester until after finals. I guess it's better this way though because that means that I have more time to focus on each class individually rather than trying to cram information for all of my classes into my head for all sorts of tests in one week and instead I have time to put into really studying to understand the information.
I feel like second semester this year is going by a lot faster than it did last year. I will admit that this time last year, everything was still really overwhelming, trying to balance all of my activities from first semester, and classes and Greek Life. But now, I am so glad I learned to manage everything because I really do love everything I am doing here. I am soo excited for Greek Week and for the weather to get warmer. The more time I spend here, the more I realize that I am a West Coast girl through and through. If given the chance, I would continue to choose Lehigh as the institution at which to further my education, but after this, I will probably head back to the sunshine (I'm not such a fan of the cold) and just come back to visit. Plus, then all of my friends who live in cold places will all have an excuse to come visit.
I now have to get going. I have a paper due tomorrow that I really need to finish up before I can study for my test Friday. I'm excited to have less tests next week but honestly am not that stressed about all of it right now.

I was sitting in the classroom...

So there are things that I really don't understand. Why people wear high heels on cross country flights is one thing, but the one I was thinking about today was how all of the professors I end up loving end up getting chalk all over themselves during class. In high school, my classrooms all had whiteboards so we used the stinky markers rather than chalk. Granted some teachers ended up with marker all over their hands, but it is nothing compared to how covered in chalk my teachers can be now. Last spring, I had one professor who always wore dark colored clothes, she had to jump to reach the string to pull the screen down and by the end of every class, her clothing was covered in chalk. Having her, lead me to finding my major. One of my current professors is even worse. He gets so into his lecture that he will touch his clothing (today a dark colored zip up sweater) or his face. So, yes, he ends up with chalk all over his face and in perfect finger marks across his sweater. I feel like I really going to get a lot out of his class. Maybe that should be how I find professors in the future, based on how much chalk they can accumulate on themselves by the end of class. I really feel like they let it happen without knowing because they get really into what they are saying and trying to explain. These professors are passionate people, if they weren't they wouldn't be teaching.

The Dawn is Breaking

Today is the start of all sorts of things. Today is bid day. Today is the first day of classes of my fourth semester at Lehigh.

Today being bid day is bittersweet. We have some really great girls joining our house but at the same time, we know that others were disappointed. My pledge class is no longer the "newbies" or the babies as the older girls used to call us. I will no longer be the youngest in my family. Our pledge class really realized how far we have come in the last year this week. With recruitment, everyone was in the house working on putting together the various rounds so our house spent a lot of time together. We realized how different we were now both individually and as a collective pledge class from when we joined a year ago. I realized that the Greek system, specifically my house, has altered me in ways that I know I can never truly understand or appreciate. When I started at Lehigh, I felt like a very small part of a very very big place. Campus doesn't feel so big anymore when I always see girls from my house everywhere and am only without them in one of my five classes (and no I did not intentionally plan my schedule to be with them :)) Some of my best friends have come from this last year in the house. I have no idea if these girls have any concept of what they will realize that they are missing. I know I didn't. I didn't have any clue how many fantastic friendships and other opportunities I was missing until I realized this week that I had them already.

On the other hand, today was also the first day of classes. This is the last semester in my first half of college. Scary thought. It's going by so quickly. This semester's classes offer new challenges, the question is, can I meet them? Some are going to be less interesting but unfortunately completely necessary while others are more for fun and maybe filling a random requirement. It will be an interesting semester to say the least.

Now I have to go do my homework that is due for the second day of classes.

If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

Finals time is a bittersweet time for everyone. Classes are over and we are about to have a nice long break to recharge for the next semester but on the other hand, they are an incredibly stressful time period as we try to recall everything we learned in fifteen weeks for a three hour test.For me, I actually don’t mind the finals period; I actually kind of look forward to it.Rather than having classes and club meetings take up all my time and dedicating any leftover time to homework, I have time to focus and study. During finals, I spend substantially more time with friends who I would not normally have the chance to spend time with beyond our weekly lunches since we have no common classes. Now, we can sit together in the library for hours, doing our own work but enjoying each others company at the same time. Without classes, we can choose where we want to be and when so we have the opportunity to see more people without scheduling conflicts.

Yes, there is the studying aspect too, but even that isn’t so bad.Time management becomes more important but for the most part, it comes down to recall rather than learning.If a student does all their work all semester and understands the material for each four o’clock then it becomes easier to study for finals since it is a matter of remember thing little nuances of a subject rather than the big picture.

Like many others, I get substantially more sleep during this time than I do almost any other point in the year, including vacations and weekends.Sometimes it just gets to the point where I have been studying for hours and I feel as if my brain can’t hold anymore so rather than waste time, I just go to sleep. Of course, I usually wake up about ten hours later, but I feel this is my body’s way of telling me to chill out.Being friends with people on block meal plans also means lots of gifts of food ;) as they try to use all the extra meals they have left over from the semester.As much as Lehigh becomes a community during spirit week, finals is a less obvious time that the Lehigh community is strong as ever.

Rather than everyone being all over the place all the time, everyone tends to be in the most public places like the libraries or getting food.It is always easy to run into someone you know here but the fact that everyone is in the library makes it all the more pleasant to take a break to say hi to some other friends who are also studying here.I feel like everyone becomes just a little bit nicer during this time, maybe because of the holidays, or maybe because of the anticipation of winter break, but whatever it is, it’s really nice.

The other day, we had our first snow of the year that actually stuck to the ground.None of the roads had been presalted so driving up the hill was difficult if not impossible for many.It was a good show of the community spirit though because tons of people were outside of their respective Greek houses helping to dig out cars, push people home or directing traffic into their own lot if it was going to prove impossible for someone to get all the way home.>Rather than just friends helping friends, it was everyone helping the community.Without things like the snow to bring us all together from time to time, we sometimes forget to look outside our own groups.

Well, I am a student about to start finals, so I should probably get back to my studying so I can get things done before I get distracted by my friends again.