on the size of this college

This college is too small. I have to work my schedule around its schedule.

This college is too big. It’s impossible to learn everyone’s name, so half the time I don’t know who people are talking about.

This college is too small. I walk down the sidewalk feeling obligated to acknowledge everyone.

This college is too big. I take the same class as my friends, and we don’t even get to be in the same section.

This college is too small. The weekends are dead.

This college is too big. If some of these lovely young women would leave, the guy/girl ratio would be a lot more level.

This college is too small. I can’t avoid those mediocre professors.

This college is too big. The most classes I have with the same person is two. How am I supposed to get to know anybody if I have two classes with them tops?

This college is too small. The cafeteria has really short hours. On weekends I don’t even have time to go back for seconds.

This college is too big. I have to pass up dozens of promising activities every week.

This college is too small. “There’s like nothing to do. We have to dye our hair every week just to stifle the boredom.”

This college is to big. Too much room for people who say, “There’s like nothing to do. We have to dye our hair every week just to stifle the boredom.”

This college is too small. Something is wrong when I can already tell whoever is walking behind me just by the sound of their voice.

This college is too big. It takes forever to walk to the parking lot where my car is at.

This college is too small. I’m running out of places to explore.

This college is too big. I feel defeated because there is no way I will ever be able to learn all that is offered, especially the life lessons that individuals offer. Like tonight, I’m sitting in psychology and we have to talk in groups and I find out that the girl I am sitting next to has an inspiring story and many of my same interests, and I don’t even know her name. And if this college was smaller, we would probably be best friends or something. But no. I may never even have another class with her.

This college is too small. It is missing something important: an obvious best friend for Rebecca.

This college is just right.

Thanksgiving

As always (except for the time I was in Tokyo), I spent Thanksgiving in Pella, Iowa. As always, we spent the time with extended family, feasting, talking, holding a trapshoot, and playing games. What made this year unique was the unseasonably spectacular weather and the lack of mashed potato explosions.

My cousins stayed through Friday, which left time for movie watching, disc golfing, indoor swimming, dress-up playing (My grandma’s dress up box is stocked with old bridesmaid dresses that we have just recently grown into.), and pizza eating. That night, my cousins said goodbye and went back to their home.

The rest of the weekend, we did some Christmas decorating, went bowling, did a little homework, and relaxed. On Saturday night my parents hosted a party with their high school friends. On Sunday we went to church and ate a delicious dinner (carved above.) That afternoon my family and I also departed. My parents were going to have to bring me all the way to Trinity, but I got a guy we saw on the interstate to bring me.

Getting together with the extended family is marvelous. Having to say goodbye at the end of every time together makes me wish that we lived closer. It makes me daydream of us all setting up permanent residence there. Like a commune, with cousins as close as siblings, and shared resources, and more time to play balderdash together.

This weekend

What a college kid can accomplish in 61 hours, starting on a Friday morning:

Go out for breakfast with cousins Matt and Laura. Eat yummy stuffed french toast and talk about Trinity.

Go to an international teaching job fair. Ask recruiters what credentials they look for. Ask about student teaching options.

Try to take a nap. Fail.

Do a little homework.

Go to a talkback after that night’s showing of A Plague of Angels to discuss theological and ethical implications of the plot.

Party at the Art Raid to Save. Listen to live performers at the open mic. Watch people knit and crochet like no tomorrow.

Drink hot apple cider. Color a picture. Buy an appliqued t-shirt. Not know how to dance. Play Apples to Apples.

Sleep.

Go to the Palos Heights Library with several friends. Get a library card. Borrow “The Very Best of Artie Shaw.”

Hang out in Alumni 221 with a few upperclassmen friends (Allison, Caitlin, Liz, and Roz). Drink hot chocolate. Talk.

Do a little homework.

Run fun errands with Allison and Caitlin. Buy roller blades at Salvation Army. Buy rice, tortillas, and tea at Trader Joe’s. Plan a
pre-Thanksgiving meal of rice and beans.

Attend a gospel choir concert. Damage my ears. Enjoy it anyway.

Do homework.

Sleep.

Congregate with Hope Church in Oak Forest. Sing. Listen. Read. Eat cake.

Do a little homework.

Have my family over. Have them bring me food and an internet cable that is long enough to wrap around the outside of the
room so I don’t have to duct tape the shorter one across the ceiling to reach my desk.

Attend Eric’s senior recital. Listen. Laugh. Hear him sing in his bass range and his soprano range.

Visit my cousins. Savor soup and sandwiches. Swing little boys around by their feet. Bounce them on knees. Bake bread with a bigger boy, the big brother. Eat pie and ice cream. Inspire Jonathan (first grader) to ask his dad if he could get a laptop too.

Ride back to campus. Sing Keith Green songs loudly. Discuss global warming.

Write a blog.

Once again, “Last Weekend”

Last time, I wrote about the previous weekend soon after it happened, but didn’t get around to putting it on the internet until after the next weekend, which is the weekend I would like to tell you about tonight. The weekend in contemplation is the eleventh and twelfth.

If you count Thursday night as the weekend, you can say that I went to Trinity’s fall play, A Plague of Angels, last weekend. A deep and thought-provoking drama.

Friday night I did nothing of significance, which is remarkable. So I guess that makes it significant.

Saturday I went downtown on my own. It was easy. I drove to Midway, paid two bucks to park, paid two bucks to get on the train, and got a free business card telling me to read The Purpose Driven Life. I also got some free counseling from a rundown man who told me to “Stay in school.”

I attended a lecture on Goya’s art at the Art Institute. Once I was in there, I took advantage of the chance to look at all the art without paying admission.

Then I wandered towards the next lecture I wanted to attend, hoping to find some relatively cheap food on the way. I saw a whole-in-the-wall Szechwan restaurant that looked promising. I walked through under their chintzy awning and past their taped-up menus and into a large, professionally decorated foyer. I was escorted to a tidy, modern dining room and seated at a table with a cloth napkin and a leather-bound menu.

Needless to say, this is not what I expected, and the prices were far more than I wanted to spend. Furthermore, I didn’t really have time for a sit down restaurant. So, I ordered off the appetizer menu, dumped all my ice in my soup so I could eat it faster, burnt my tongue anyway, and ran to the next lecture. But that velvet corn soup was worth it.

The lecture I went to was entitled “Ourselves As Others See Us.” The “others” were an Indian journalist, a Dutch journalist, and an American journalist who had spent a few years in Mexico. The panel was an annual part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, and the auditorium was packed with people who wanted to hear the opinions of those who look at United States’ politics from a different perspective.

Well, what do you know? We found out that the rest of the world agrees with liberals.
I’m sure every organization, every faction, every circle, gathers to itself people who will tell it what it wants to hear.

Conservatives are no different. And neither are Christians.

So should we find people who will tell us what we disagree with? That seems silly. Should the liberally-run, liberally-attended Chicago Humanities Festival have purposefully sought for conservatives to tell them a few benefits of the war in Iraq? They could’ve done what they did for another panel: pick one liberal, one conservative, and one moderate (which made for a good panel because their was actually debate, which makes panelists use logic and reasoning, which is always advantageous). Or they could’ve picked the panelists based on their credentials, and not on their credos. Maybe they did, I don’t know. I don’t really know their credentials.

If we have reasons for believing what we believe, we should not be afraid of hearing people tell us why they don’t believe the same thing. We shouldn’t have to resort to ad hominem arguments (as I saw happen at the panel in which there was debate). We shouldn’t have to count “the ‘others’ agree” as one of our reasons.

Moving on with the weekend:

By this time I had joined two other Trinity women, and we went to a performance in a Jewish synagogue. But we walked out after a few songs because we literally could not see the performers. The stage was kind of below that part of the horribly-designed balcony. It might have been okay if the sound system was either quality or well-run (both would have been good.) So we took the train back to Midway and drove… Home? Is that what this place is? For as much as it feels like home, everyone reserves that term for the place they go on the holidays. Odd.

On Sunday I went to yet another good church with people who shake your hand and don’t even know if you are a member or a lost soul. Or both, or neither.

In the afternoon I went to a guys junior recital and found out that foreign language songs can be done very well and that German is a beautiful language.

Most likely I did nothing of interest that night. I probably went to bed. I should go to bed.

Last weekend

I spent last weekend downtown Chicago attending lectures and presentations that were a part of the Chicago Humanities festival. I got to here about the art of interviewing, teaching a culture of peace and justice, and photographing war. I heard that republicans are all rich, that becoming a Zen Buddhist is the ultimate in peacefulness, and I heard the liberal on the panel called “Iraq War Strategy” say that more troops are needed in Iraq.

I walked miles, spent fourteen dollars on public transportation, ate delicious food, attended the Moody church, slept in a hostel, got a few hours of sleep. At the Field Museum I met another young woman who is going to Spain. Same program, same semester.

Amidst all this I took the oh-so-important Basic Skills Test. If I had known when I signed up for the test that I would be living downtown at that time, I would have signed up for the one in Chicago. But since I signed up for southern suburbs, I had to get up at five and take public transportation to Harvey and back.