Road Trip: Part 1

I have learned something very important over the past few days. I love road trips! I was a little worried about three days straight in the car, but it was actually mostly enjoyable. Near the end of our last day I just wanted the day to end, but that was because I was exhausted from lack of sleep and we were nearly to my brother and sister-in-law's house in North Carolina. I just wanted to get there already!

For the most part though, I loved driving through the country and stopping to see family and watching the scenery. We ate deep dish pizza with a cousin in Chicago and we stopped to see some cousins near Nashville. We watched the snow melt, and then the grass get greener, and then the snow reappear when we got to the mountains. We watched the sun rise once or twice as well. My favorite time while we were driving was on Friday morning, we were going through the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was in the 30's or 40's and sunny, but there was freshly fallen snow all around us.

This weekend staying in Jacksonville has been a nice break from the car. Of course, it has also been wonderful to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law. We got to see the base where my brother is stationed (he's a Marine), which was really interesting. Today we even got to go to the beach! It was only in the 60's and windy, but it was sunny and the weather felt amazing to us folks from Minnesota. Definitely the warmest weather I've felt in quite a while.

This is their dog, Juliet. Usually she's terrified of the water, apparently today is the first time she's ever willingly gone into anything larger than a puddle.

The water was freezing cold, but it felt wonderful nonetheless to have bare feet in the sand and waves.

Tomorrow we leave for some more driving. Hurray! (I'm only being slightly sarcastic...) We're going to stay in Virginia Beach for a night and see yet more cousins. I never realized until this trip how many cousins I have scattered across the country! Our hotel is directly on the beach, and I'm pretty sure in the middle of the boardwalk, so I am excited for that.

That's about all I have to say for tonight, I should probably start getting ready for bed. We're going to try for a fairly early start in the morning. I'll keep you updated on my adventures when I can!

Bittersweet

Leaving is so bittersweet.

I have been home for over 4 weeks, secure in the fact that I had lots of time to spend. But now that I only have one more day, it feels like I barely just got here.

I suppose I'll get used to it eventually, but so far moving between two different places so often is a little disorienting. Just as soon as I get home and start to feel at home, its time to pack up again and leave. Its so sad to think of all of the time I didn't get to spend with my friends and all of the things that I could have done that I probably won't be able to do for the next 5 months. I guess that's the nice thing about home, though, I know I'll always be back.

The sweet part of the bittersweet is where I get to go. On my first ever road trip! I have always wanted to go on a road trip! I am so excited. I have a feeling that I will feel slightly different after several days straight doing nothing but sitting in a car, but this is one thing I am thrilled to be able to cross off of my bucket list. Well, I don't actually have a bucket list, but if I did going on a road trip would definitely be on it.

*lapse of time for increasingly frustrated attempts to upload a picture onto blogger*

Okay, here is where I wanted to insert a map of the route we will be taking. Unfortunately my computer is not cooperating, so you will have to bear with my muddled explanation in lieu of a beautifully illustrated map. Basically our ultimate destination is Wellesley, to bring me back to school, but on the way we are visiting lots of family. Our first stop will be in Chicago, and we will stay the night a short drive away in Indiana. Next we will be visiting some cousins near Nashville and spending the night, and then on our third day we will be arriving in Jacksonville, North Carolina where my brother is stationed. (He's in the Marine Corps, for those of you who don't know.)

We will be spending the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law, and then off to Virginia Beach to see some more family. Because nobody goes to the beach in Virginia in January, we got a really good price on a hotel directly overlooking the ocean. At least the scenery will be beautiful, if not necessarily the weather. Our last stop will be a couple days with my aunt and uncle in Bridgewater, Virginia, and then on to Wellesley! That's perhaps the part I'm most looking forward to, even though it means the end of our trip and the end of my freedom for another semester. You see, my dad has never been to Wellesley, and I am very excited to show him the place where I spend so much of my time. My mom has only been there once when I started school this fall, so it will be nice for her to be able to explore some more with a more knowledgeable guide (namely me.)

And then, after 5 days in the Boston area, I will be starting classes and my parents will be leaving for another two day drive back home. I'm not looking forward to that part.

But for now, I will get back to packing. (Well, to be honest, I will start packing.)

Hurray for adventures!

My favorite way to spend my free time

It has been SO wonderful to be home these last few weeks! I have spent tons of time with family (although not as much time with friends as I would like) and plenty of time home by myself. I know that probably sounds miserable to some of you outgoing people that like to be busy every moment of every day, but for me it has been paradise. I have had a lot of time to watch mindless tv, waste time on the computer, and read books for no reason other than that I enjoy them. Reading for pleasure and not for a class? What a concept!

However, I have also been doing some productive things. For a few days I was knitting like crazy, and I made my very first hat! I know, its a very cheesy picture of myself in the mirror, but I was proud of my hat :)

I have also been doing lots of cooking and baking. Here is an experiment that my mom and I made, they're called mini crostatas, and they're filled with either Nutella or strawberry jelly. So delicious!

I don't even remember all of the other little projects I have been working on, but the flour and the glue have been flying! (Hopefully not at the same time...) 

So, as many hours as I have been spending sleeping in or watching tv or doing absolutely nothing, I have also  been exercising my creativity. Its so nice to have the time to put my mind to doing something besides homework.


Coming Soon: My very first road trip! I am SO excited! I'll tell you all about it later, but I already leave in less than a week! I will miss home, but I am thrilled that I have this opportunity. My last hurrah of winter break before classes start yet again! Stay tuned.

More Pictures!

Finally, I'm home! (Well, I've been home for quite a few days now, but I haven't had time to write until now.) It is so wonderful to be able to just relax and spend time with my friends and family and do those little projects that I have been meaning to do for weeks.

Christmas was so wonderful! Now that I don't get to see my family as often, time spent with them is very special. Overall, I had an awesome (but busy) Christmas. I'm sad it is over, especially because my first day home was the 21st. I felt like I didn't get to experience Christmas this year for as long as normal. However, now that we are done with cleaning and cooking and shopping and present wrapping and celebrating (as fun as all that was) I have much more time to relax. The 26th was the first time that I can remember not having anything at all that I had to do. It was wonderful. In a month I will probably be ready to go back to class, but for now I am very grateful that I have so much time off!

Anyway, the main point of this post was to let you all know that I updated my pictures page. You can find the link to it on the top of this page. I added lots of new pictures, so even if you have seen it before you should definitely check it out again. And if you have any questions about any of them feel free to ask! I  always think pictures are one of the best ways to understand a place (besides going there in person) so hopefully you guys enjoy the little glimpse of Wellesley and of Boston.

Have a great break if you happen to be a student like me, and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

It's Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas

No more finals! Hurray! It is one of the best feelings in the world to know that I will have absolutely no homework for the next 5 weeks! (Although I will feel even better once I actually know what my final grades are...)

As usual, I've been wanting to write for a long time, I just have not had time. For the last few weeks my more responsible half has been telling me that I should be studying and writing papers instead of blogging. So, that's what I've been doing! (Well, mostly.)

Anyway, I have a great story from this weekend that I wanted to share with you guys. I'm pretty sure I mentioned in another post that I'm in the Guild of Carillonneurs here on campus, which basically means that I take lessons on how to play the carillon. (And by the way, if you don't know what a carillon is, now would be a great time to look it up! Otherwise this blog post will be rather difficult to understand.)

Well, in the Guild of Carillonneurs we also get to take field trips, and this Saturday I was able to go on my very first one. We went to this town called Norwood, where they have a bell tower in their town hall. We played a Christmas concert there (hence the title of this blog post).

They had fewer regulations at their carillon, so were actually able to go up where the bells are and look at them. While it was somewhat terrifying because we were at the top of a bell tower on a scaffolding with no railings, it was also awesome! I had my camera with me so I took pictures. Isn't it so great that I get to learn how to play this instrument? I believe this carillon has about 50 bells, the largest of which weighs nearly 4 tons. (Ours here at Wellesley is somewhat smaller).

One of the best parts about going to Norwood was that I got to play a real carillon for the first time! I am currently only an apprentice in the Guild, so I can't play the Wellesley carillon yet. (Which makes sense, because it would be really annoying of us to make the entire campus listen to inexperienced carillon playing.) However, apparently the town of Norwood doesn't care that much! I only played two really easy songs, but it was so great to be able to play an actual carillon for once (I've only ever played on practice keyboards). The first song I played was Ding Dong Merrily on High, which I thought was fittingly ironic.

Anyway, that's pretty much the whole story. Not actually all that eventful or interesting, just something unique that I get to do, so I like talking about it!

And just for good measure, here's a couple pictures I took on campus when it snowed a couple weeks ago. These last few days it has looked nothing like this, its been raining almost every time I go outside. Is it strange that I miss Minnesota winters? When it does snow here though, it is beautiful!

I will be home for the next few weeks, so hopefully I will have more time to blog (and maybe even see some of you that are back in Minnesota!)

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Here is a list, in no particular order, of a few of my favorite things about Wellesley. The list is by no means exhaustive!

1) Traditions
Especially during orientation and the first couple weeks of the semester, traditions abound. It is fun to do something that you would feel ridiculous doing, except for the fact that you know every other class that has been here for the last 100 years has done the exact same thing. Take Stepsinging, for example. This is when all of the classes dress in their class colors and gather together to sing songs either written by Wellesley alums (like America the Beautiful) or about Wellesley (one of my personal favorites is entitled "The Ballad of a Bold Bad Man", detailing the story of a Harvard man who pretended to be a Wellesley senior on graduation day) and shout class cheers and try to out-cheer everybody else. We also have Flower Sunday (where each first year is paired with a "big sister"), Lake Day (they used to announce late the night before that classes for the next day were cancelled. However, professors didn't like that much so now we still have to go to class, but there are celebrations that day), Marathon Monday (our campus is the half-way point for the Boston Marathon, so classes are cancelled for the day and everybody goes out to cheer on runners and form the "scream tunnel"), and hoop rolling (where all of the seniors race down a hill rolling a hoop and the winner gets thrown into the lake). There are LOTS of others, but these are a few of the main ones.

2) Galen Tower

If you know anything about Wellesley (or have been following my blog), you have seen a picture of this tower. It is one of the stereotypically famous things about this campus. And for good reason. I love how majestic it looks, and how you can see it from pretty much anywhere you go on campus, and just how awesome it is that we have a bell tower! However, I also love it because I am an apprentice in the Guild of Carillonneurs, so once a week I get to climb the ridiculously large amount of stairs through the creepy tower to have my lesson on playing the carillon (and if you don't know what that is, you should look it up!) It's pretty great, and its just one of those opportunities I wouldn't get anywhere else.

3) Ice Cream
Enough said.

4) Random Harry Potter Jokes
I'm pretty new to the world of Harry Potter, the first time I ever read the books was this summer (and I still haven't read the last book. I'm working on it!) However, I am still able to appreciate the abundance of Harry Potter jokes on this campus. From Platform 9 and 3/4 to The Leaky Beaker (the cafe in our science center) it is very evident that Wellesley students have somewhat of an obsession.

5) My Professors
I am now convinced that learning about pretty much anything can be interesting and enjoyable as long as you have a good professor that cares about the topic. For example, my Hamlet class this semester. We spent an entire semester doing nothing but reading and watching movies and discussing Hamlet, and I genuinely enjoy going to that class. Good professors make all the difference.

6) The view out my window
I live on one of the most beautiful college campuses that I have ever seen. I love waking up in the morning and looking out my dorm room window to see a path lined with trees and flowers (well, there were flowers earlier this year) and Lake Waban in the background. This autumn was one of the most beautiful I have ever experienced, because I was able to see the flaming bright trees every morning as I woke up right outside my window. It was incredible! (And the view still is, I'm looking forward to more snow!)

7) Sports
I mean this in a couple of ways. Those of you who know me well know that I have never been very into sports (maybe with the exception of baseball, due to my family) so I enjoy that there isn't a huge culture on campus of sports and huge football games and all that. We have good sports teams, but it isn't the most important thing here. However, I have gotten involved in a couple of unique sports this semester that I have really enjoyed. The PE class that I am taking is all about rock climbing. It is so different from anything I have done before, and its a lot of fun (even though I do occasionally leave class with bloody scraped up knees...) I am also in archery club this semester, which is awesome! It is something I have always wanted to do, and now I get to spend 4 hours a week in archery practice learning how. I also like archery because it is a sport, but it is very laid back and if I am busy, I don't have to go to every practice. (Seriously, all of you Wellesley students should come at least once, it is such a great way to get out your frustrations! And every practice is open to anybody, even if you have never come before.)

Okay, I could think of so many more things, but I just don't have the time to write everything I like about this place!

Waxing Philosophical about the Weather

In these past couple weeks I have had the odd experience of having the weather make me feel both like a stranger here in Massachusetts, and also more at home than I have felt in a long time. Let me explain.

Last week was hurricane Sandy (as I'm sure most of you know.) While the main storm missed us, we still got bad enough weather that Wellesley deemed it necessary to cancel classes (for the first time in 27 years!) For me, being from the state of Minnesota (which is pretty much as far away from any ocean as you can get) the prospect of being hit by a hurricane was completely foreign. The only time I've ever heard about hurricanes I was safely in the middle of the continent with no fear of being affected whatsoever.

Hurricane Sandy made me feel really far away from home. While I like storms, a part of me wished I was hearing about it on the news instead of looking out my dorm room window seeing the trees bending improbably far towards the ground. It was a bizarre experience, and it still seems strange to me that it actually happened.

On the other hand, this Wednesday was one of the best days I have had in a long time, in large part because of the weather. What weather makes a Minnesotan feel at home, you ask?

Snow!

I didn't realize how much I missed it. There was something comforting and familiar about having the snowflakes land on my eyelashes, about sticking out my tongue to catch them. As I sat inside and watched the ground and all of the trees slowly become carpeted in white, it felt like the world was transforming into home. It reminded me of wonderful white Christmases spent with my family, of watching snow fall past my window, of that first blissful feeling of warmth when you come inside after spending time out in the snow and cold.

I don't know if I can fully explain it, but I had the most pleasant two hours on Wednesday afternoon. Nothing spectacular happened (In fact, I was in my professor's office hours doing calculus. Pretty much the opposite of spectacular.) but I was filled with a feeling of quiet contentment and happiness. Something about snow outside makes me appreciate the warmth and fellowship I have inside so much more.

The snow also made me realize how everybody comes from a different place and has a different background. I was talking to a girl in one of my classes and she said that she had always wanted to make a snowman (she's from Texas). I asked if she knew how, and she said no. I started to explain how you make a snowball and then roll it along the ground to make it bigger. She interrupted and asked, "How do you make a snowball?" I was struck dumb. Isn't that something everybody should know how to do? I never thought about it being something a person had to learn. Anyway, it made me realize just how Minnesotan I am, if that makes any sense.

So, that's pretty much all of the thoughts I have at the moment... In the meantime, I hope you all have a great weekend and find lots of small things that bring you joy. Sometimes all it takes is the weather.  :)