Things I Have Learned or Need to Learn as a Senior Being an RA to Freshmen

So, I'm a senior this year, and a first year RA for freshman ladies. It's insane, awesome, painful, invigorating, sapping, exciting, and nerve-wracking all at the same time. All that I can say is that I love my ladies; they're a really great bunch.

There's a lot to learn, and a lot of fun to be had.

1. Everyone likes chocolate

2. Chocolate keeps people happy

3. Just because people say they are interested in doing something doesn't mean that they will

4. Everyone loves vanilla Tootsie Rolls too

5. Have patience and take your time to deal with a situation. Hasty decisions and words don't help anyone.

6. Remain calm, calmness goes a long way and is worth the energy.

7. Calmness takes energy

8. So does patience.

9. Both are necessary

10. Rules must apply to everyone

11. 10 can suck a lot, but it will be better for you in the long-run

12. Taking care of yourself is important.

13. Sleep when you can.

14. It's okay to lock your door for a little while if you need to.

15. Find safe people to talk to.

16. Don't bottle things up

17. Do your best to not procrastinate

18. Refresh yourself

19. Take the time to be a human being (that's what you are)

20. Be with your friends when you can

Linguistical Days and other stufff

Well, for starters...I am not a morning person, so 8am class is a little hairy for me at times. It's difficult to think about second language acquisition and it's related theories when you are basically a three-toed sloth. I make it to Articulatory Phonetics around 9am (the walk outside usually clears away the rest of the sleepy fuzz...although knowing that the phonetics classroom is infested with spiders keeps me awake as well). I listen to whoever the TA for that class is that week say words with phonetic sounds that I didn't even know I could make. Then I get to write the symbols for those sounds on the white board (all of this time I am also keeping an eye out for spiders...anything within a 6-foot radius of my body will die underneath my shoe, not kidding). Then I go to either Sociolinguistics or Syntax and Morphology, depending upon the day... Sociolinguistics is a really interesting theory course that explores the connections between language and culture. Syntax and Morphology is a pretty neat class too (it's basically grammar on steroids...just forget about English grammar, though...it will not help you very much...).

That's all for now.

~C

Early-morning madness...

The fact that I am a night-owl has never been so well rewarded as it was this morning: I was strolling into my bedroom and noticed flashing lights through the curtain on my window. I ran to the main room of my apartment to discover a flock of cop cars in the parking lot of my apartment. I promptly knocked on my roommate's door and we watched the scene unfold together. Not long after, I received a text from a friend, asking if she could come down to watch too. She and her roommate came down. At this point, my third roommate woke up and came out to see what was the matter. The five of us stood and watched the 10 cop cars arrest 1 guy. It was scary...and awesome! I am definitely not tired anymore...

a random memory...or the little girl with no shadow

There was this children's museum in my hometown that had all kinds of interesting things. One of them was this giant green box that filled the middle of a giant room. People would walk inside of this green box and pose while a person on the outside pushed a button. The light would blink inside of the box and the people's shadows would be frozen on the wall. I remember going in and leaving my own shadow on the wall. When I left the box, I was afraid that I would never get my shadow back. This made me sad, thinking that I would go through life without a shadow. Then I looked at the ground and it was still there.

Saturdays...

I've always thought that Saturdays were really weird days. They are like this strange, in-between day that you never really know how to spend. You feel like you waste the day if you sleep in too late, but you feel like you waste your resting time if you get up too early.

Since they are such weird days, I usually devote a portion of them to some sort of art or craft project, a portion to homework, and a portion to whatever else I feel like doing. Arts/crafts and homework are pretty standard, though...

Since it is April already, we decided that our window snowflakes should come down and something more colorful and season-appropriate should go up. Today my roomies and I are making coffee filter sun-catchers. They look pretty sweet, drying on their newspaper

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon dyeing some wool yarn fun colors with kool-aid. It worked out pretty well, as far as I can tell. It isn't bleeding color when it gets wet, which is really great. I attempted to dye some cotton with kool-aid as well. That did not turn out so well, since you need a special kind of fiber-penetrating dye for it to work.

Here's a lovely photograph of how it turned out...I'll post pictures of the mitten-things when I finish them. :)

A few Saturdays ago I made a kite...that was interesting...I haven't gotten it to fly yet, since I have decided to only fly it on weekends, and there hasn't been a windy-enough-weekend-day yet. Soon, though...very soon...

So, now you have a picture into my Saturdays...sort of... I'm going back to dishes, dinosaur mac and cheese, sun-catchers, and homework. Hope you have a great day too!

P.S.

What do you do with your Saturdays?

Unphotographable

I found this really neat website called "UNphotographable." It's this really cool web page by a person who is both a photographer and a writer. This site is dedicated to the moments when this person didn't have a camera, but wanted to capture a particular moment that he or she experienced. I think it's wonderful!

http://www.unphotographable.com/archives/2010/03/foreclosed_fron.shtml

MEPs

Military Entrance Physical...

This is the second time in my life that I've heard that acronym and felt like I got hit in the chest with a baseball bat full-swing. Don't get me wrong, I will support my little brother and his decision, no matter what it is. I am just deeply sad about the whole thing right now. At least he told us in advance that he was planning on going into the military...not like my older brother. He just came home one day and he was in the Army, leaving for basic training at the end of the summer. None of us had any idea. It's tough to keep a secret like that from 5 people who live in the same house with you and have known you for either their entire lives or your entire life, but he did it.

Please forgive me if I don't seem like myself this week, I have a lot on my heart and mind.

Pro-cras-tin-a-tion

I just now realized that the word "procrastination" fits into the Pepto Bismol jingo...

Some days I have the hardest time focusing on my homework. I just find myself drifting far away in the oceans of my mind, sometimes, while my eyes are still glued to the article I'm supposed to be digesting for class...

Oh homework! If only I had more time in the day, I would enjoy you more. I really DO like homework (if you haven't figured out how much of a nerd I am by now...you should re-evaluate your views of me a teensy bit).

I just destroyed my February resolution as well. I definitely did not get 1 blog post in a week. In fact, this is the first blog post I have written since my February resolution. Silly me! I would say that rules are made to be broken, but I don't believe that is true. I like rules...and straight lines...and organized books and papers (this is why I am purposely not looking at the floor of my room right now...a veritable hazard-zone for paper cuts, I tell you!)...

So yeah...that's all for now...back to the Preuss article(it's actually a really great article...I'm just not focusing right now...) and plotting the Nepal presentation!

~C

A Poem in a Dying Pen

A Poem in a Dying Pen
by carolyn walsh

You're a silly thing
Just like me
More confusing than either of us
Would like to admit
Where have you been?
What have you said?
Who are you?
Now both empty...


I thought it would be fitting to have the font in orange, since the pen was orange. I found it this afternoon while I was working. I am having a poetry-feeling day today, and a friend suggested that I write some myself...so here you are! Fresh from the vaults of my own mind 5 minutes ago.

;)

Billy Joel and a "Theolo-Day"

I recently realized that I have not been listening to my Billy Joel album on Sundays...I don't know what that means. I used to listen to Billy Joel every Sunday afternoon. For some reason Sunday was just listen to "The Stranger" on repeat day. I miss "Vienna"...*sighs*...

Anyway, I was brushing my hair, listening to Billy Joel (despite the fact that today is not Sunday...) and I started thinking about theology. I remembered the time that one of my friends and I had our first theological discussion over something that we agreed upon. We declared it "Theolo-Day." It was a good day...we probably celebrated it by eating chocolate (I know part of the celebration involved us scribbling diagrams of what we agreed upon on our other friend's white board...she thought we were drawing Mickey Mouse...anyway...). I think we need to celebrate Theolo-Day again, I'm just not sure how to go about it. Maybe a visit to the Russian Tea House for some proshki and pecan cookies...perhaps a party involving cake and crepe streamers...maybe Chipotle....Yes, I do love food, okay? Yeesh.

Knitting thoughts...

I often find myself knitting when I have things to think about and have the time to knit. There is some sort of psychological connection (for me, anyway) between fiddling around with something and thinking through something else. I don't know why that is...

The world just seems so much simpler when I am sitting here going "knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one..." with my hands while my mind is somewhere else. It's like the fact that I have this simple little thing in my hands that I can create makes the fact that I can't control life and that things out there can get so complicated a little bit easier to not stress out over.

Anyway...I am currently in the middle of a few knitting projects at home (heaven only knows how many I have started at school but haven't finished yet...). Sometimes when I get frustrated with one project, I start another one. Working through the new one often helps me fix my problems with the old one...for example, I was getting very frustrated with my mitten project, so I stopped working on it and began to do some stuff with double pointed needles and yoga socks. By the time I finished the first yoga sock I understood what my problem with my mitten was...happy day!

I think this sort of has a lot to say about how life works. Sometimes you run into problems and it's like you are bashing your head against a brick wall, trying to knock it down. Sometimes a step back from the brick wall shows you the toe-hold that you didn't see before that will help you get over it. Cheezy, yes, I know...

Soda-Pop Fiasco

So...today when I was on break I decided that I wanted to have a soda of some kind or other. I went to the machine in the break room to pay the $.35 that a can of soda costs (I was particularly hoping to have a Dr. Pepper). When I got there, there were little signs semi-covering the regular decals that indicate what kind of soda each button dispenses. They had varying messages such as "Usually Mountain Dew." Another one said something along the lines of "Sometimes Sprite, Sometimes Lemonade." No where did I see a Dr. Pepper button, which made me a little sad, so I pressed the one with the tag "Usually Cherry Coke." I got a Dr. Pepper...I win!

Metaphor Struggle...

The last few days I have been struggling for a metaphor describing one of the ways in which I perceive people... I think I have it!

People are ripples on a giant ocean. All of them are going in different directions because they have been pushed or caused in that direction. A ripple that is compelled towards land will never be happy if it turns out to sea, and vice versa.

I know...crazy INFJ speculations on things that don't matter to other people. I do that. A lot...

Irony and Some Other Stuff...

Have you ever noticed how utterly ironic life can be at times? And please, don't quote the song "Isn't it Ironic?" The only really ironic thing about that song is the fact that none of the situations in it are truly ironic. True irony is saying something like "I hate green Skittles, they are gross," and then opening a bag of skittles to find all of them green. That, people, is an example of situational irony.

Rain on a wedding day is not ironic unless there was some other part to the story that we don't know...Maybe the bride's dress is made out of toilet paper and the forecast for the day was "sunny"...she walks out of the church to find it raining...Maybe the songwriter is a total genius and intended the song to be one big game of verbal irony... I have thought of that, and perhaps that was what she intended. It is a good, catchy tune, she has a lovely voice...

Anyway, here are three good definitions of irony from reference.com:
IRONY
1. verbal irony is when an author says one thing and means something else. 2. dramatic irony is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know. 3. irony of situation is a discrepancy between the expected result and actual result.

Life is riddled with these three kinds of irony, just keep your eyes and ears open for it. Believe me, you'll begin to recognize it when you see it. You don't need to go out and create irony (that can be disastrous); just keep an eye out for it.
If irony didn't exist, though, I think life would be much more boring...

Side note on Skittles: have you ever noticed that without the green ones, Skittles are a beautiful bouquet of fall colors? Not that green isn't a pretty color. I'm particularly partial to the color green, in fact. I'm just saying that the green Skittles are the least delicious. They are even less delicious when the company decides to make them into the "special edition" skittles with that nasty fake apple flavor. There is very little that I find "special" about nasty apples...but maybe that's just me.