Lanthorn editors!

Adam and I are going to be editors of the Lanthorn next year! We applied a while ago, and we found out last week that we got the position! It's really exciting, and also kind of daunting, because we're going to have so much responsibility. But it'll be really cool. We even get our own office, complete with a computer. I feel so official.

The semester is almost over; I'm done with exams on May 3rd, and I'm going home on the 4th. I had all my big papers and projects due last week, so now I just have finals. Only two of them are actual tests, though, and only one is cumulative, so it's not going to be a problem. Tomorrow is geology, the cumulative one, and I haven't done much studying yet, so I'd better do that now. Bye!

Next semester's schedule

I'm home! Spring/Easter break starts today; I came home last night, a day early. It's really nice to be here.

Last Friday was course selection day. Here's what I'll be taking next fall:

French Level 1

Fiction

Literature by Women

Horsemanship 1

Writer's Worskshop

The workshop is something writing majors are supposed to take as seniors, but since I'm planning to go to Australia fall of my senior year, I have to take it junior year instead. I'm a little nervous because it's going to be me and a bunch of seniors, so that's kind of intimidating. I'm definitely going to be doing a lot of writing.

Poetry

I've been meaning to post some of the poems I've written for my poetry class for a while, and now that Mom's reminded me I'll actually do it. So here are a few; they're the ones I like best, and/or the ones that the professor liked.

This first one is, obviously, about the power outage I wrote about in the last post.

Power Outage

Total darkness below,

but above, the stars—

I never knew there were so many.

I could stand and stare forever.

When the lights came back on

most of the stars disappeared

and I can’t look at the night sky anymore

without thinking about all the stars I can’t see.

This one is a villanelle.

An Attempt

I tried to write a poem for you

to let you know how things could be.

(But not a word of it was true.)

I tried to show you something new.

I tried so hard to make you see.

I tried to write a poem for you.

I didn’t put in any blue;

of course there’s none, to you, from me.

(But not a word of it was true.)

I gave you more than just a clue—

I gave you the entire key.

I tried to write a poem for you.

I gave you what I thought was due

so that you wouldn’t choose to flee.

I tried to write a poem for you

(but not a word of it was true).

In this next one, the part about my wanting to go to Australia is true, but although there is a possibility that the program won't be offered until fall of 2012, it should be offered fall of 2011, meaning I will be able to go.

Hope

Turning in the paper

hoping for an A-, at least—

and getting it back with a B+.

Walking into the dining hall, starving

hoping there will be good pizza today—

but finding it a sloppy mess.

Getting excited for Australia

hoping the program will be offered—

then hearing it’s been pushed back another year.

Hearing rapid footsteps behind me

hoping it’s you, coming to apologize—

only to see a stranger stride by.

And one more.

Fog

There’s almost nothing to this fog

but it builds up between us

so that I can barely see you.

Yay! The power's out!

On the 16th, around 9:45, I was vacuuming up on the fourth floor of Gillette. Suddenly, the vacuum shut off. And all the lights went off too. It was a power outage, the first time that ever happened while I was at Houghton. It was new and exciting.

There were emergency lights in the dorm halls and stairwells, which was really good. I had been planning to meet people in the campus center at 10, so I put the vacuum away (fortunately I had been almost done) and headed out. All the outside lights were off too, of course, and I could see all the stars. It was amazing. I didn't know you could see that many stars. It was beautiful.

I found my friends in the campus center, and we hung out there some and walked around outside more. People were running around all over the place, screaming and yelling. Someone was setting off illegal fireworks, and I heard that someone drove a car on the sidewalk. People also climbed on the roofs of buildings, and the next day graffiti was found in several different places. That really annoys me, because most people were just enjoying the novelty of the power being out and admiring the stars, but some people thought, "Oh, the power's out, it's a great time to do bad things!" Which is stupid.

Anyway, it was an adventure. The Student Life office handed out glow sticks, as if they'd been prepared for this. The lights came back on a little after 11. Apparently the power had been out in several towns in the area, and I still don't know why. But I really didn't mind at all; it was fun and different.

I'm back at Houghton

10:15, Saturday night:

Yeah, here I am, at Houghton again; I've been back for a week, I just haven't blogged at all. This was a semi-busy week for me, at least compared to how the rest of the semester has been. I had a geology test Thursday that I was studying for and freaking out about all week. When I actually had to take the test, though, I knew almost everything and went through it really fast, so it was way better than I expected. I also had two short soc. papers due on Friday, which I put off until Thursday night. That was a bad choice, but I got them written.

And then yesterday was Friday, and I was finally done with everything, and I watched Ratatouille with Adam and Eri after work at the dining hall. Today I went to the college play, Jake's Women, which was really good. Right now I'm watching The Italian Job with some girls on my floor, which is several of their favorite movies, although I've never heard of it. The main characters are in Venice right now, which is where I'm going in June! On Monday Nora and I are meeting for dinner to plan a little more about where we're going and how we're getting there.

2:55, Sunday afternoon:

I stopped writing last night because I got into the movie. It was pretty good, a fun, action/adventure movie. After that Jaela, Alexa, and I watched half of Harry Potter 6. Also this week, on Thursday after my geology test, I watched Where the Wild Things are, which the school showed in the chapel. It really wasn't what I expected; it was sad and kind of dark and even disturbing at times. I think it was good, though.

I also started a new job this week, vacuuming the fourth floor. I do that Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday while my other cleaning job is MWF, so now I'm working every day. It's good; I have the time for it, and I'm making more money.

The weather's been really nice here, which is great. And I guess that's it for now.

I went skiing for real

On Tuesday my ski class took a trip to Swain Ski Area, about 40 minutes from Houghton, so that we could experience an actual ski resort. It was my first time ever going to a real ski place. The hills were so tall. It was a rainy day, so the top was hidden in fog. At first we took the shorter ski lift, which only went halfway up, so we could do some easy hills. I was surprised at how high off the ground the lift was, so although it was fun it was also a little scary. Getting off and on took a little getting used to.

The actual skiing felt really different from skiing at Houghton, because even the short hills were way longer. After a few times the TA had us get on the long ski lift, going all the way up to the top. Everyone was saying how ominous it felt, riding up slowly into the fog. The TA took us down the mile sweep, which was still an easy one, but it didn't feel like a mile because I was going so fast. Every time I went down any slope it pretty much felt like I lost all control, and it was only through luck that I didn't fall. I actually did fall once, when I tried a blue square hill. The whole time I was so scared of falling, and then at the very end it suddenly got really steep and I wiped out. My hat flew off, one ski came off, and I lost my poles too. Fortunately I didn't get hurt at all.

So yeah, skiing was interesting; a very unique experience. By the end I was really wet and cold. I liked it, but I'm really not that good at it, so I don't know if/when I'll go again. But I'm glad I got to try it.

Right now I'm home on break. It's really nice to be away from school and be with my family and be lazy. I always feel so different when I'm at home from how I feel when I'm at school; at Houghton I have to be organized and responsible and get to places on time, while here I can do what I want when I want and don't really have to worry about anything. It's weird living at such extremes. Houghton feels unreal now.

I went skiing

So, today I had my skiing class, so I skied, and I fell down a lot, and it was really discouraging. But I kept trying, and I actually started to do better. Next week we're going to a real ski place, Holiday Valley. I don't really feel ready for that, but it will be nice to ski on real slopes and to actually have a chairlift; here they just have a tow rope, which is really uncomfortable and hurts your arms after a while. Speaking of hurt, one of the time when I fell I did something to my knee. I didn't really notice it until I was done skiing and was walking around. It hurt and it swelled a little, so now I have ice on it. That's my story for today. :P

I've been watching a lot of the Olympics; figure skating, my favorite event, was really good last night. The Chinese were pretty awesome.

An away-from-Houghton adventure

Yesterday Adam, Steve, and I borrowed Alexa's car and drove to Rochester to see Avatar in 3D. I drove, and no, we did not get lost. There was a lot of traffic as we got close to the city, and there were pretty strong winds, but everything went fine. We got to the theater and watched the movie, which was almost 3 hours long. The story was really cliché, but the effects and the 3D were really cool, so it was worth seeing.

Afterward we went to Adam's house for dinner. His mom made us calzones, which were amazing, and we had real salad, so much fresher than Houghton's, and brownies and ice cream for dessert. It was a delicious meal.

Then it was time to drive back, which was when it really became an adventure. Steve drove, since I'd driven the whole way there. It was snowing a little, and it was dark since it was about 9:30 by the time we left. We made it onto the highway and back off fine and continued to follow the directions I'd gotten from Mapquest. But the directions must have been wrong, because we'd been going for a while and hadn't seen the road we were supposed to turn onto.

Then I suddenly recognized where we were--the tiny town of Short Tract, which was really ironic because Eri and I and some other people had been lost there on the way back from church a few weeks ago. We'd called Dan and he had looked up directions and told us how to get back, so I was pretty sure I remembered. But we'd driven past the road we needed to take, so we had to turn around, and the inside of the car was getting really fogged up and the defrost wasn't working very well, so Steve pulled over so we could clear it up. But he'd pulled onto a side road with a good amount of snow on it, and it turned out to be deeper than it looked. We opened a window and wiped the fog off the windshield, and then Steve tried to pull back onto the road. But we couldn't get out--we were stuck in a ditch.

I definitely had a moment of panic, wondering what we were going to do. Adam and I got out of the car and Steve drove forward, able to move in that direction but still not able to get back on the road. It really looked like we were stuck there. Then Steve tried backing up, and as Adam and I watched the back end of the car pulled up and out of the ditch, and the front end followed. After jumping up and down in celebration, Adam and I got back in the car. Steve turned it around, very careful not to go back in the ditch, and we drove back the way we'd come. We had to turn around several more times because I was confused about whether the road we needed was on the left or right, but we found it, and it was the right one.

It was about 15 or 20 minutes back to Houghton from there. The only other problem we had was that Steve's window wouldn't close--Alexa's car is pretty old and beat up, and the driver's side window gets stuck. There's a special way you have to close it, but I didn't remember what that was, so we had to drive the rest of the way with the cold wind blowing right into the car. I felt really bad for poor Steve!

But we did make it back, finally; it was almost midnight and I'd expected to get back around 11. It was definitely an adventure, with its scary moments, but it ended well and makes a good story. It was great to get away from Houghton for 9 hours and see a movie in a theater and eat a real meal in a house with a family.

***

Right now I'm half-watching the Olympics. The biathlon is on, which is a weird sport. Before that was ski jumping, which was pretty cool. Hopefully I'll be able to catch some of the figure skating tonight.

10 million fireflies

So, now that I don't have Facebook I'm going to try to start blogging more regularly, provided people are actually reading this. So leave me a comment once in a while if you are, so that I know this isn't a waste of time. :)

I started another blog last month, mostly for myself, where I post pictures, poems, and songs/song lyrics that I really like. I wanted to have a place to "collect" all these things, so that I can find them quickly and easily. In case you're interested, it's http://alyshkalia.blogspot.com/. There are a lot of poems on there already, so if you just want to read the ones I like best, go to the right side where it says "labels" and click on "favorites." A lot of them are ones I read in my poetry class this semester.

I mostly mentioned that because I don't have much else to say right now. Today was an okay day; I went to class, cleaned in Gillette, watched half an episode of the sci-fi series Firefly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)), worked as salad runner during dinner, and not much else. So yeah, pretty boring. Tonight Jaela, Alexa and I are going to watch the 4th Harry Potter movie, which is probably my favorite one (not sure though, because I've only seen it once).

So yeah, I guess that's it. Enjoy the weekend!

I quit

This week I quit one of my jobs, sweeping and mopping floors in the dining hall once a week. I really didn't enjoy it, because it was supposed to take only an hour to an hour and a half, but it always took me at least two hours. And it was a pain, because it's such a big area and it's always really dirty. And it was boring, because I wasn't allowed to listen to my iPod while I worked. So on Monday I told my boss I quit, but I had to work today because he hadn't found anyone to take over. It was utter misery, and I'm really not exaggerating. It took me two hours and twenty minutes, the longest it's ever taken. I was really hot and tired and in a bad mood by the end, but now I'm done forever, and it's such a relief.

I also deactivated my Facebook a few days ago, which probably anyone reading this already knows. Not only did I spend too much time on it, I also was frustrated with the surface-level connection it provides. Status updates simply state what someone is doing, or, if they do talk about anything more serious, it has to be masked by quoted song lyrics. I don't think everyone should be completely honest on Facebook; that wouldn't be appropriate. But that's the point--Facebook isn't meant for deep connection with people. So if I'm not truly connecting with anyone, why bother?

I have other issues with Facebook as well, which I won't get into now. Suffice it to say, I'm very happy it's gone. I actually enjoy getting on my computer and realizing there's no Facebook to check. So that was definitely a good decision. Maybe in the future I'll be back, but for now I'm staying away.