My First Applications

I thought getting in to college was the hard part. Getting good grades, writing a great essay, filling up a resume with thousands of extracurricular activities. Some part of me mistakenly believed that once I got here I'd be home free to pursue whatever I wanted, from classes to extracurriculars. But, as it turns out, there are still more things I have to apply to once I'm here.

In the past week I've filed one application and am waiting on another to be posted. 

The first was for a spring creative writing seminar. I'm really interested in creative writing and would love to take a class on it here, but, as it turns out, you have to apply. It's pretty straightforward, just a writing sample (what else could I expect? performing an interpretive dance wouldn't make much sense....). But the high pressure situation reminds me of last fall all over again. A crush of students filled the English department yesterday afternoon trying to ensure that their newly minted application made it into the right box. And to think that out of all those students, there is only room for 12 poetry kids and 12 fiction kids. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And there's always next year.

The second application I learned about won't be available until November 15th. It's for The Village Education Project summer program, which is a Swarthmore based organization that sends students to Ecuador for several weeks over the summer to teach. In Ecuador it's very hard for rural kids to go to secondary school because of the transportation and enrollment costs. The program gives the kids a chance to take english and math classes over the summer to improve their skills. Those kids that get a B average in both classes get funded by the program to go to secondary school.

I'm seriously considering going. The application doesn't sound too hard core because they probably need as many volunteers as they can get. It sounds as thought its just to make sure people are serious about committing to learning Spanish and have the funds to support themselves in Ecuador. 

I also want to get involved with the aspects of the organization that are grounded here. They spend the year raising money to fund the kids' secondary education and recruiting volunteers. It sounds as though there are lots of opportunities for me to use writing to get across the message of the program (yay!).

Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.

My First Job

They (those mysterious upperclassmen) always said that everyone at Swat does everything. I'm sure this doesn't work out (on many levels, but most prominently, mathematically), but I'm starting to see the truth in it.

In addition to swimming and writing for the Phoenix, I've now added a job. I work at the Lang Performing Arts Center, or LPAC for ease of speech. Today I went in for the first time.

I spent the majority of two hours sitting on the floor with a girl who graduated from an arts school in 2007 crimping slings. Before that session, I hadn't even known what crimping slings meant. But now I'm familiar with the intricate, repetitive process. I'm also more familiar with this girl, Emily, who was hired for a technical theater job this week at Swarthmore. 

Yeah, it takes up time that I could be using to do work. But at the same time, I loved being able work with my hands rather than my mind. 

My First Break (continued)

At my high school, they always had a section in the newspaper called "Hot or Not." It's difficult to explain, especially since I never really liked it, but in essence it was an attempt to reflect on changes in the world or in the community. In one column there would be "hot" and, to the left of that, there would be a column labeled "not." An example would be something like Hot: Warm Weather; Not: Measuring the Length of Your Skirt. (Maybe I never liked it because I was really awful at writing them).

Anyway. It feels so surreal being home (at times, it feels like I never left) that I thought I ought to give Hot or Not a try to truly analyze the situation.

Hot: Actually having time to do the New York Times crossword puzzle. 

Not: Not getting the NYT for free everyday. And not being surrounded by a bunch of smart kids to help you with the clues.

Hot: Real food!

Not: Having to prepare it yourself, especially when you end up burning it, or worse, burning yourself.

Hot: Washing clothes for free.

Not: Living out of a suitcase.

Hot: Driving the car with the music turned up really loud.

Not: Wasting gas and contributing to global warming.

Hot: Watching movies on a screen with real speakers.

Not: Cringing at all the mushy scenes because you know your parents are watching too.

To sum up:

Hot: Lots of free time.

Not: Little independence to enjoy it with.

My Frist Break

Initially looking at the Swarthmore calendar, I was a bit confused when I saw that students had a ten day break just six weeks into classes. My dad is a professor at a state university, and their fall break is just one day. Students even have to make up the classes they miss on their day off. So, needless to say, he sees my Fall Break as a luxury, if not a flat out extravagance.

I could fight back, tell him I have a paper to write, a math problem set, and some econ reading (and sleep!) to catch up on. But I would have the same workload in a week even if I had classes, so I shouldn't be complaining. So he's right. I'm free.

What will I do with my week? The first thing that pops into mind is working on my own projects. The deadline for submitting to Small Craft Warnings, one of the literary magazines, is coming up after break, as is the deadline for submitting an application for taking a creative writing seminar. I also want to catch up with my high school friends: visit those who go to local colleges and hold video chat sessions with those whose hectic schedules never mesh with mine.

I also want to look at the leaves, carve a pumpkin, cook a meal with my parents, sleep in a really soft bed.

I'll let you know when all these luxuries wear off, and I start missing school.

My First Spec

These past two days I've been seeing my life from an outsiders perspective. 

I hosted a prospective student (we all call them specs) for a night. She ate dinner with the swim team, watched the VP debate in Shane Lounge with some people who live on my hall, and slept cocooned in a sleeping bag atop an air mattress on my floor.

I tried desperately to instill in her those things which I find to be so wonderful about Swat. But I'm still not quite sure exactly what it is that I like, and I have not yet found a way to articulate the things I do like (if I ever did, I would write it here first). 

But trying to explain to her our way of life here (it's best to take two cups at Sharples, the dining hall, because one just doesn't hold enough liquid) was an interesting exercise. Things that I take for granted, like the free New York Times each weekday morning, have already become such a central part of my life that I don't take the time to think that just a short while ago life wasn't like this (I was reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a local paper that hardly compares to the NYT in scope).

So this is just to say (to steal a line from William Carlos Williams) THANK YOU SPEC!

My First Missed Alarm

I knew it was bound to happen at college, what with no parental safety net if I decided to switch off the alarm and then promptly fall back asleep.  And this morning, I did just that.

At 9:15 I woke up, marveled at how good it felt to have slept. Then I noticed that the quality of light in the room (a little too light) suggested that it was far past 8:30. I hopped out of bed, looked at the clock, shouted a few benign profanities, and then proceeded to throw on my clothes.

I had 15 minutes to get to class. I stomped through my morning routine: getting dressed, going to the bathroom, packing my book back. I decided to dump some activities, such as brushing my teeth, that had always been an important touchstone in my high school routine. It felt odd.

But, being an athlete and knowing that I had two classes to get through before lunch, I knew I couldn't skip breakfast. So I raced to Essie Mae's, a quick food stop that serves as the only alternative to the main dining hall, Sharples, slathered cream cheese on a bagel, and even impulsively grabbed a cookie (mmmm...chocolate).

I actually made it to my seat before the bells tolled 9:30. Moral of the story? Life goes on without your parents and without every routine begin executed perfectly. And, Swarthmore is so tiny that you can get breakfast and still make it to class in fifteen minutes.