One last hoorah

So, I've made this blog sporadic to the point that I'm not sure anyone's even checking it anymore, but for the purposes of those whom I can specifically direct here, I thought I'd post a link to my very random photo album with pictures of the following things:
- the inside of my apartment, including my room, the living room, the kitchen
- bowls of various foods that have been made in my kitchen :)
- a few of my friends at my apartment (including Sunday brunches that I tend to host in small numbers at my place)
- the schizophrenic weather patterns of northern ohio
- Kal Penn (Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Eric Balfour (think: Six Feet Under, 24, The OC, Buffy, etc.) who came to Oberlin to rep Obama

[Click on this sentence to see the album!]

Unfortunately, the idea of keeping this blog during the school year, however noble the effort, is pretty unrealistic. I am swamped with stuff to do here from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep. Suffice it to say, however, that life this year is amazing. Being abroad for a semester changed me more than I realized, and probably more than I understand even now; I feel so much older and calmer and more confident and more passionate about things than I did before I left, and I have a newfound appreciation for the education I'm getting here. I only have another semester and a half, but I have decided to spend the summer here as well, working half-time at an internship with Field Magazine and half-time at Dick's Sporting Goods in a nearby town :) where I recently picked up a parttime job that I already love immensely for the exposure it gives me to the "real world" outside the private liberal arts college bubble.

I'm busier than ever, but I wake up excited to take on everything that each day offers - typically, this includes: drinking coffee, breakfast with Seyeon, a 5-7 mile on the treadmill, working out in the weights room, awesome classes with inspiring professors, afternoon tea or conversation with someone or other, reading a couple novels a week, churning out new fiction each week for my creative writing class, doing lots of work for the creative writing department, continuing to give campus tours for admissions, cooking dinner or baking some banana bread or something, meeting up with friends at the library in the evenings to do homework, chilling with my delightful housemates at night, getting a good night's sleep, then getting up the following morning to do it all over again :)

Weekends offer a little changeup of that routine - you know, I swim instead of run...eat brunch instead of breakfast...haha, seriously though - this last weekend, I went to see an incredible DJ/emcee performance at our school's bar/club/music venue from a group out of Seattle called the Blue Scholars; it was a firstrate dance party, really awesome chance to unwind from the week. Sunday evening, I went on a mini-road trip with one of my creative writing professors to get delicious Indian food and discuss plans for the department. It's cool this year, I feel that I am really bonding with a lot of my professors...this is what's supposed to happen at small liberal arts colleges, but somehow, I've never felt it in action the way it feels this semester; I really feel like I could be friends with all of them, and that's so exciting to me. The presence of adults and mentors in my life the first couple years at Oberlin was a real bummer, and I didn't realize until Amsterdam how much I need older people in my day-to-day life to keep sane.

Thanks for reading :) Get in touch with me if you want to stay posted on the goings-on of my life!