In the country--there is an odd continuity to the stars and the lights of houses on the hills

It is strange to think of light making something invisible, but, clamorous and jealous, it does. Please don't make yourself sad imagining hordes of star-deprived city girls, though. The silent-heavened cities are hardly starless. It would be more accurate to say that night's traditional hemispheres of light and dark are somewhat reversed here, the bowl of the sky having long ago scattered its contents to the earth, where they fell in neat gridded patterns and currently experience greatly shortened lifespans(streetlights flicker because they remember a time when they twinkled).

And Massachusetts is one place I have seen

Having successfully crossed the country to spend a week and a half in New England, I am now happily back at school outside of Chicago, sort of settled in and mostly in one piece. Notable:
- A gorgeous old library built by robber barons

- Being surrounded by New Bedford/Boston accents

- The view from Mount Monadnock, and greedily combing the wild blueberry bushes on the way down

- Breakfast in a library-turned-café

- Unbelievably yummy fresh juice on the Dartmouth (College) Green

- Wandering around old New England graveyards

- Spraining my ankle practicing a slip jig step in a parking lot the morning before my flight home (and consequently getting the wheelchair treatment in the airports on the way back to school)

- Getting skipped ahead of two dozen surly New Bedforders in the ER and fearing for my life when I walked through them in the waiting room again on my way out (srsly, the guy across from me looked like he could kill someone with his bare hands)

- Frolicking in a creek with my roommate's half-wild little sisters

- Feeling like the sickly city girl in Heidi who goes to the mountains to be transformed into a sturdy, rosy-cheeked non-invalid

- Getting my bag stolen, and my camera, cell phone, wallet, and checkbook along with it

- The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston

- Seeing humpback and finback whales on a whale watch

- Said ninety-minute whale watch actualy being a four-hour trip

- Plymouth turning out to have amazing fudge, even if Plymouth Rock is "the most anticlimactic thing ever" (to quote my friend the local). As well as the oldest church in the U.S. and an absurd number of salons.

- Cooling my feet in the Atlantic Ocean

- Watching Secret Window in an old house in the middle of the woods
I shall try to find some good pictures of the museum, the mountain and the library for my next couple posts.

3/3/08

I did this as a freewrite (read: i'm calling it that to provide me with defense against any and all criticism. jk) in March, trying to get a handle on the strange and addling taste of spring and the way I experienced it in high school.


Spring. Things fall together and apart. I shed friends and walk in a new skin, in deepening shades of loneness. My eyes return to the horizon over the sea and my mind floats defiantly into realms of daydreams and books and faraway places and paralysis. Obligations and realities are not quite heavy enough.

The season of failings and yearnings. I write, Another beautiful rotting spring. Living in spring is strange vividness - tears, cool sunlight, sharp moments of joy. And always a sense of journey, of something waiting, so big I can't even see all of it, so big it swallows me whole.

So I turn my eyes to the distance and walk with certainty. I copy poetry into my trigonometry textbook. I tear up and down hills on my bike under the deep young sky. I make my escape in a multitude of small ways.

A brief definition from Miss Dickinson

I heard this jewel from a friend of mine. Brilliant and brilliantly succint, don't you think?

Love -- is anterior to Life --
Love -- is anterior to Life --
Posterior -- to Death --
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Breath.

- Emily Dickinson

Round-up at Read. Imagine. Talk.

Sophomoric advice on freshman year

It would be pretentious to call this list anything like comprehensive, so I shan't. All I've done is think of the things I didn't read or hear before my first year of college that I wish I had. Without further ado — a little foolish wisdom from me to my bloggy freshman friends. Take it for whatever it's worth.

• Mandatory orientation events? Not all of them actually are that. Consult an upperclassman if possible, because some of them are good, but if you think you've got something better to do — one last dinner with your parents, a trip to Target at a less busy time, or just the bonding experience of cutting a boring event with some new acquaintances — you probably do.

• Don't be inhibited when it comes to approaching the other new students. They are all just as lost as you are, and no one wants to go through college without friends, even if meeting them means looking a little awkward. The first few weeks of freshman year may be the only time in your life when you are surrounded by people your age who are all just as desperate as you to make friends and secure social happiness for the next four years. Take advantage of that opportunity.

• The same desserts that look so luscious the first few weeks will keep getting cycled through again...and again. You've got four whole years to eat your fill of them, so why rush?

• Don't let your high school identity cramp your style. If some aspect of the way you present yourself displeases you, then change it! Now that no one around you remembers that you were ever otherwise, it's a great time to try being what you've always kind of wished you were.

• Get to know your professors. Often said, but not so easy to do. Why? Adults that erudite can very easily be intimidating, but you have so much to gain from talking to them that you really owe it to yourself. If you don't get the opportunity in class, make a point of introducing yourself to them at the beginning of the semester. Office hours or lunch in the dining hall is good for when you have questions or ideas that didn't fit in the class discussion. When they invite groups of students over to their houses, accept and go!

• Do your laundry before you realize that you have to. Granted, the strange looks you get for going to the laundry room in a dressy skirt and swimsuit may make the trip more amusing, but I think most of you would agree that not exhausting all your other clothing options is even better.

• Know what activities keep you sane, and insist on having time for them. I, for example, go a bit crazy without pleasure reading. If I cut it out of my schedule to make more time for schoolwork or time with friends (both good things), I always regret it eventually because then I can't destress as well, and I start getting resentful of the things I gave it up for. And loony cuil is just not as productive as happy cuil. So, I journey regularly to the public library and make sure I'm always reading a good non-school book, even if some days it's only for twenty minutes before I fall asleep.

• Get regular exercise. That's kind of a duh, but a lot of college students look at it as a luxury their busy schedules can't afford. If you can make it a habit (which, remember, is said to take twenty-one days), you'll be so much happier - enjoying the endorphins, destressing, warding off the freshman fifteen, and all that jazz. Take it from someone who took too long to make physical activity a part of her routine.

I'm planning on asking my friends what they would add, and I may think of something else, so I'll prolly have one more post on the topic. But have you any questions, my dear freshies/pre-freshies, or anything else you'd like to hear more about? Any knowledge that I've gained from a year at college is at your disposal, so please feel free to ask by comment or e-mail me at wieeinlied[at]hotmail[dot]com. If I think of anything else I'll stick it in a new post.

Fellow post-freshman year readers, anything to add?