The Final Countdown

No, I'm not planning on rocking out to 80s synth music tonight though that would be fun. This title is in reference to the fact that in less than two days I will back on Minnesotan soil for the first time in seven weeks! The excitement on campus is palpable. Change is in the wind--spring is on the horizon despite the best attempts of late season snowstorms. The weather is warm and the sky a dazzling shade of blue. Walking on campus yesterday I couldn't suppress my buoyant spirits--greeting everyone I saw, smiling often and indiscriminately. My friend, who had several midterm exams awaiting her lashed out telling me to "stop being so happy!" This time of year (meaning both the season and part of the semester) brings out conflicting emotions in the student body. Luckily I found myself with only one paper due before Friday so my workload has been relatively mild compared to most. But the heady mixture of spring break approaching, positive interactions with several of my professors, and the beautiful weather combined to make me almost giddy with excitement. Yippee!

Tomorrow my friends and I will celebrate the midterm of the semester by going to La Casa Grande for dinner. It's simply a hike down the hill to 4th street. Since I don't own a car Beloit businesses within walking-distance receive the majority of my patronage. La Casa Grande is a local west-Mex restaurant that is pretty popular with the college crowd for serving up heaping plates of tasty food for cheap. They even deliver, in case you have a hankerin' for quesadillas some odd night or Sundays. Not too shabby. In any case, it should be a fun time with my chums who I won't see for a whole ten days. We shall take pictures to record the momentous occasion. Otherwise I only have to print off my Brit Lit paper, attend two classes, and pack before hitting the road. I promise to return to Beloit full of gossip and highlights from my journey!

February Snowstorms and Other Hazards of College Life

It always seems to blizzard on nights when I have to work in admissions. Perhaps someone is trying to tell me something about the nature of my college employment. Hmm...something to ponder when I shovel my way out of Middle College at 10:00 tonight. It has been an exceptionally snowy year in Beloit, Wisconsin and I have been lucky enough to be a part of history. Apparently this winter has been a 'doozy' which local folks haven't experienced since the 70s. When I was weaving in class today I watched the heavy flakes falling outside the studio window and felt terribly sad. This past weekend was so lovely with clear, blue skies and warm weather heralding a seasonal change just around the corner and now...slush as far as the eye can see. Oh well. If it has to storm this week at least it's happening before Friday when I leave campus for spring break.

Life has been very busy lately, as it generally is right before midterms. I am currently working on writing a paper about Dr. Faustus for my Brit Lit class. This is our first paper in the class and it happens to be worth 25% of our grade. Rather nerve wracking but I'm sure I can manage. I am an English major after all. If I can't write a five page paper about Dr. Faustus before Friday then I better start looking at another field. I am also interviewing a bunch of people for a journalism article I'm writing about the Presidential Scholarship Weekends. I've already accumulated a lot of information and different perspectives from people in admissions as well as current students and former Pres scholars. Should be interesting. At least that is my hope. I am also working on the second round of Newberry program applications which will be due following spring break--March 15th to be precise. I have been tracking people all over campus for signatures, forms, and recommendations. Tiring work, I tell you, which will hopefully turn out in the end. One must stay optimistic in these snow-filled, turbulent times!

Oh! This weekend I saw a great movie with my friends--"Once." It was so cute and the songs were uber catchy. No wonder the film's musicians won Best Song at the Oscars last night. I am seriously tempted to buy the soundtrack but I try not to spend much of my hard earned money these days particularly with a journey in my near future. I admit that I am already counting the days until spring break. I can't help it. Today my bus tickets came in the mail, which made the whole thing much more concrete and exciting. I'm heading home in less than five days. Hurray for Minnesota and hot dish!

Barack in Beloit

I'm sure all the other SOIs have recently blogged about the Barack Obama rally that came to campus on Monday. Not to be a mindless duck but I will fall in line with this trend and briefly regale you with my personal experience. Luckily, admissions work was cancelled Monday so the student workers could attend the rally if they so desired. My friends and I got in line at 6:30 and entered the arena where Obama would speak at around 8. Security was tight--we had to walk through a metal detector and empty our pockets. Still, the crowd was buzzing with excitement. The arena was covered with handmade posters bearing messages like "Cheeseheads for Change" and "Yes WI Can"--a delightful regional play on the Obama slogan. The local high school pep band played rousing marches. When Obama made his appearance at 9:45 the entire room was packed and people were screaming and cheering and clapping for a full five minutes. The energy and optimism were catching. Whatever your political views, one has to admit that Obama is a charismatic speaker. He won the crowd over with his smile, ironic humor, and message of hope. I wasn't surprised with the outcome of yesterday's primary election. Beloit was putty in Obama's hand.

In other news, my application for domestic off-campus study was accepted! Now I move on to the second round of applications which requires more recommendations, essays, and liability waivers. Thank goodness spring break is coming up so I will have a moment or two to breathe and get cracking on the second application. It is difficult to juggle classes, social life, and the future while in college but a necessary evil to learn. I finished my first project in weaving which is a scarf made on the inkle loom. We are beginning to learn broadcloth weaving this week and I should finish my sample early next week. I hand in my apple essay tomorrow--did you know that singles in ancient Greece would throw apples at their love interests? It's a shame that practice died out. Certainly sounds effective. Today I saw a visiting writer on campus for a Q & A session. Unfortunately it wasn't widely publicized and so I was one of only two students that showed up. Awkward. But this writer was a Beloit alum and very chatty about the old days so it worked out.

Hard Act to Follow

Today my life is a musical. Well, actually that's a lie. Certain aspects of my life have been recently set to music, however. Dinner, for instance. Tonight was the annual Chinese spring fest and karaoke party in Commons complete with cliché love songs and raucous laughter. While I didn't sing I enjoyed listening to the brave souls that did get up in front of the smiling sea of students and kitchen staff. Reflecting on this experience I almost regret that I didn't possess the audacity to get up and make a fool of myself. Almost. An attitude of good-natured tomfoolery is really the hallmark of a Beloit student and I have yet to expose myself to that aspect of my liberal arts education on the grand scale. If I had decided to sing in the cafeteria, which song would I sing? I would love to belt out Gillian Welch's "Caleb Myer" but the DJ probably wouldn't know it. I guess I would have to sing "Beautiful Ones" in that case. That's right. This mild-mannered, unassuming admissions student worker has a soft spot for Prince. He is a homegrown Minnesota boy after all. Plus the 80s were great, musically speaking. Can't say that I want to return to the days of stirrup leggings and shoulder pads though.

Oh Valentine's Day is upon us and all the lovelorn losers cry into their pillows. Actually, I don't think a lot of people pay attention to Valentine's anymore. Unless of course they are hopeless romantics or work for Hallmark. Personally I do have a hot date tomorrow night--with my journalism class. Ha. Ha. Lame joke. My professor better bring candy. We are workshopping our first articles so he told us to write a love letter on the back of the drafts we're editing. I haven't actually taken him up on that but who knows? The night is still young and my pen isn't quite dry. Though it is getting there. I will be interviewing again for the second Presidential Scholarship weekend. That will be exciting and add some more fodder to the creative fire!

Notes from a Dye Pot

My hands are magenta and blue today--regular dye pot hands. In weaving class we painted our warp strings various hues of our choosing. Mine are a spring green and blue with deep purple at the ends. It looks better than it sounds, I assure you. It will be fascinating to see what my first attempt at broadcloth becomes but I won't know until I set up the loom on Wednesday. As part of my weaving class I am required to design and make five projects--four of which use particular techniques and one free style. Since I had some extra time during class I decided to peruse weaving magazines from the 1980s for ideas in planning my projects and came up with four of the five. It is terribly exciting. I plan on making a rag rug, which I have always wanted to do, a stole with some lovely alpaca yarn I've had for years, a stripy fashion scarf on the inkle loom, and a family of sock monsters. It will be absolutely wonderful, especially since I can use up some of those holely socks I have lying around my dorm room.

These days I am consumed with a steady workload. Not a ton of time to skip and dance in my schedule. I have three papers due before spring break which is in three weeks. This wouldn't be so bad except that two of those papers are due in the same week (You'd think the professors could have planned this better taking my schedule into account). I am currently researching the life and times of apples for an essay in creative nonfiction. Granted, the tactic of taking a common entity of popular culture and exploring its hidden side has recently been overdone with books like A Natural History of the Senses, The Botany of Desire, and The Secret Life of Lobsters, I believe there are still some creative ways to deal with apples in a six page essay. And I'll be sure to share with you all the fascinating details about apples that I discover as well as any notes from the underbelly of the apple industry.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

So it's blizzarding outside at the moment. Beloit has had a foot of snow dumped on it in the last 24 hours. Typical midwestern weather, really. Nothing much to say about it other than if you are planning to spend the next four years of your life here, invest in a really nice pair of boots like mine. They're perfect for herding reindeer or other frolicky winter activities. In other news, Shanna is currently suffering from a fit of hysterics. Crazy...

Today in my weaving class we are learning how to set up the big floor looms. This an exciting enterprise for the uninitiated. We are going to make broadcloth. But first we are learning how to dye cotton. This means I will get to work with caustic chemicals! First we have to prepare the warps to make them colorfast. This involves washing them in a solution that leeches all the oils from your hands. Pleasant, no? But the important thing is that we will get to choose our colors on Monday and that makes it all worthwhile. The things one must do for ones art...

My first feature article for journalism is slowly coming together. I will do some 'shadowing' of Chef Peter on Friday (which is quickly approaching!) and interview one of his closest colleagues come Monday. In the meantime I am whipping together the organizational structure of my profile and have developed my 'angle' as they call it. I made the mistake of telling my professor that I had already completed my first round of interviews as we were walking to class yesterday and so he naturally asked me to workshop my article first. But I stood fast and refused. That's right. You can say 'no' to a professor. The consequences might not be all that favorable--it just depends on the prof--but you can still say no. In this case, he didn't really care as long as someone else volunteered to go first.

I am not relishing the walk to class tomorrow morning or the walk back to the dorms tonight, for that matter. Good thing I have my boots. Yay for pedestrians!

Another week begins

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with a portion of those folks who are thinking about joining the Beloit class of 2012. It was a hopping time on campus with lots of new faces and exciting events to see. This year I was able to participate in the scholarship interviews again, which is always a good time. I hope those of you who spent this past Saturday at Beloit being interviewed would agree that it wasn't as scary as you thought it would be. I remember when I was visiting campus for the interview. All the students kept telling me not to worry, it wouldn't be bad but I didn't believe them for a minute. It didn't help that the weekend was the coldest of the month either. My hair froze on my way to the interview! But looking back at my experience that weekend, I would have to agree that Beloit tries really hard to take the anxiety out of the interviews. Let's hope they were successful!

I spent a lot of my time this weekend interviewing people. First, there was my interview with Chef Peter on Friday for my journalism class. That went really well. I gathered a ton of information and collected some good quotes. It was fun. Then on Saturday I spent my morning interviewing for the scholarships, which was also a blast. I love talking with prospective students about their high school experiences, favorite books, aspirations, you name it. For those of you who end up at Beloit as Pres scholars, don't pass up the chance to interview the next crop of scholars your freshman year. It will be an experience that you look forward to every spring. It seems like I spent my entire weekend talking to people--friends, strangers, former employers, well-wishers. It was odd but good.

And no, I didn't watch the Superbowl. Instead I ate pizza with my friends and laid around Haven lounge, often upside down because everything is funnier when you're upside down. I'm not kidding. Try it sometime. Today is wet and sloppy outside. The snow that proved a bane for those people heading to Chicago is leaving in a hurry and creating big puddles on the sidewalks. It was quite warm outside again which is unsettling but also made it somewhat pleasant for me when I went outside to pick up pinecones to use as weights for my next weaving project.