Only in the Humanities dorm...

... is the phrase "let's sing some Christmas songs!" followed by an impromtu performance of eight people singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" in four different harmonies around a piano. It was pretty amazing. We had sopranos, altos, a bass, and a tenor. (I was the "#*%$ soprano" who got to carry the melody. :) Yes, only in college are those things called by such lovely names.)

I just love the amount of musical, artistic, and literary talent that is buried all around Chapin. We had a "talent show" before Thanksgiving in which we had an impromtu sight-reading music performance by our piano performance major and a violin major, which involved a lot of flying pages with notes, but sounded absolutely incredible (and they had never seen the music before!), a salsa/rhumba by Suz (soooo good, I was stunned), a flooring acapella duet, and some original, very well written and composed, songs. And this is what these people do for FUN!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had a wonderful first-holiday-away-from-home, enjoying the wonders of extended family this Thanksgiving season. Favorite tidbits were getting ALL the visting-with-grandparents time to myself, finally going to a Bed, Bath and Beyond, sleeping eight hours a night, eating home-cooked and non-dining hall food, and catching up with my life-long friend Leah!

Today consisted mainly of working on my final draft for my Medill project, which is actually coming along rather nicely. I just need an interview (really, just a sentence) with the Northwestern police that I'll get Monday morning, as soon as they'll let me talk to them, and then I'll read it outloud one final time.. and then submit it to the CMS system and be done! Except for my final presentation, which is just talking and easy to get ready.

Another incredible highlight of my weekend was talking on the phone to Marina, Diana, and Vika! Ahhh.. so much fun. I miss my friends a lot.. and it's fun to realize that but a great moment was leaving campus and realizing that I missed Chrissy, Suz, and Tricia too! I used more texting this weekend than I have since I've gotten here put together, probably. :)

I'm watching the ending of Return of the King with Papa on TV right now.. and remembering being obsessed four years ago.. I still know it by heart, though. Fun times..

"My friend.. you bow to no one!"

"And thus it was that the fourth age of Middle Earth began.. and the fellowship of the Ring, though eternally bound by friendship and love.. was ended. Thirteen months to the day since Gandalf sent us on our long journey, we found oursevles looking upon a familiar place.. we were home."

You know a story is a real classic when you find parallels to it in your life no matter when, where, or who you are.

Today I went to the University of Chicago and I successfully did not get mugged, shot, accosted, or (most importantly) LOST! Yes, I think Jackie is officially a grown up now that she can take the El, transfer to a different line, take a bus an unknown number of stops and pull the stop cord at the right time (go figure, American buses are SO complicated!!), walk to a campus she's never even seen before, successfully find the university's Student Center, interview her people, find a Starbucks to interview non-students AND find her way back. All by herself. To places she's never even seen before, let alone found. Yes, I am very proud of myself.

And I also have a lot of work I should be doing. I just wanted to brag a little bit about my success. I still can't believe I didn't get lost and I never got on the wrong train.. amazing.

Medill Final Project

The end of the quarter is rapidly approaching, which means it's time to write long papers, study for finals, and, of course, spend countless hours doing my final project for Medill. On Thursday, I spent no less than 6 frantic hours on my computer trying to come up with a good topic because in journalism, a good idea can make or break your story.

Today, though, after a good night's sleep and a talk with the RUF intern Randi, things started coming together. The story has to be something that is backed with numbers and something that is relevant today, an idea where I can access official studies and talk to official people. My idea? Campus crime and safety.

I hope to compare the crime rate at three universities- Northwestern, Loyola University, and University of Chicago- both with each other and with the crime rate in the areas surrounding the campuses, to see if a higher crime rate in the area around campus actually results in a higher crime rate on campus (although the logical answer is yes, my preliminary research has shown me that that is not the case, as the crime rate at Northwestern is actually higher than the crime rate at University of Chicago- and Evanston is certainly more peaceful than the south side of Chicago). I hope to interview students at all three universities, talking to them and figuring out how safe they actually feel and if their safety is proportionate to the statistical evidence.

My professor approved it, so I'm going to go ahead and go for it! Of course, some things can change along the way, as it always is with stories.. so we'll see how it goes.

So for a Saturday, today was a highly productive day. I'm off to dinner and then to see an on-campus showing of Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court!

Marriage and other items of business

I received a marriage proposal today. That's right, a young man informed me that he was desperately in love with me and asked me to marry him. My answer? I'll think about it. But I feel that I might agree to it.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention.. my young suitor is four.

My job at the Child Care Center of Evanston is a lot of things, but it is never boring. From being bowled over when I walk in the door at 11 with shouts of, "Jackie's here!!" to talking active boys into taking naps, to assuring little girls that yes, I am their friend, my 10 hours a week are literally filled with laughter and tears (though the tears aren't on my part. Not yet, at least.)

Today, when I walked in the door, I immediately had to settle a confetti fight between Ferran and Sophere (Ferran later was the one who asked me to marry him). Then, I had to convince a hysterical Payden (3- definitely on the younger 3 side) that ladybugs were not going to hurt him, not even a little bit (he reminded me a little of my cousin..). He later got so excited with the idea of conquering the harmless bugs that he stomped around the classroom announced, "I eated a ladybug!" (Which was not true, as he could not come anywhere near them without going into hysterical screaming) During lunch, I told Adam that throwing rice is not allowed. When I was passing seconds, Amber (3) informed me numerous times that, "We don't want to hear any 'me, me, me,' right Jackie?" Needless to say, Amber loves telling other people what to do. In preperation for naptime, I sang "May there always be sunshine" countless times, in three languages and actually succeeded in teaching the words "solnze," "nebo," "mama," and "ya" to Alice, Faith, and Luc, my three most attentive listeners. During naptime, I got tired of putting Axel (a usually well-behaved boy) back in his cot- he kept crawling under the table and poking Adam, to see if he was sleeping (which he usually was). And in my last hour of work, I gave voice to the animal crackers we had for snack, tied 20 pairs of shoes, monitored the brushing of 20 sets of teeth, and taught everyone the "Universe Yoga Stretch" (apparently, a very simple stretch in which one bends the knees slowly and then springs out into a jack position. Payden fell in love with this immediately and showed everyone the "oomibers" stretch countless times.). Upon leaving, I was tackled by all of my lovely children, wanting to know where on earth I could possibly be going and pleading for me to come back right after.

So after this wonderfully refreshing day at work, I left to go back to the real world where problems couldn't be solved by a hug from a teacher, where tears were so much harder to dry, and where friendships were so much more complicated than just the question, "Jackie, you're my friend, ok?"

But that's ok. I like it here.

Insane Moments of College:

- oversleeping and RUNNING to German class and being out of breath and un-showered, but on time
- teaching small children how to pour milk and clean up after themselves
- freaking out and freaking out and freaking out again, and having to deal with stuff on my own and not being able to call my parents because they're sleeping
- having ice cream for dinner because of aforesaid freak out
- when 2 o'clock in the morning is really not late at all
- mixing up something that happened with Suz and with Marina.. which means my friendships ARE going somewhere
- obsessing about everything with Chrissy and Tricia
- being able to cry on Suz's shoulder
- going to support Jeff's acapella performance as ALL of Chapin and screaming our heads off and then posting ourselves on youtube
- reading the same sentence probably no less than 500 times because I'm trying to talk and read and write at the same time
- going to parties that end with fire alarms being pulled
- sleeping until noon
- watching stupidly crazy movies until four o'clock in the morning and thinking they are, if not actually acceptable, at least sort of funny
- study breaks = singing parties

ahh, college.

Heute, ich studiert Deutsch. Am Freitag, ich habe ein Prufung.

Today in journalism class, we did the longest, most painstaking excercise EVER. We fact-checked an article, and that means checking EVERY assertion that anyone makes, every name, every place, every spelling, every claim, every anything, you have to check online, on an official primary source.. gaahh.. for three long, long hours. I came back utterly dead, and slept for 15 minutes or so before dinner. Now I'm studying German (as I tried to say above. :) I forgot how to say 'tomorrow', so I just wrote 'on Friday') for my test tomorrow.

I was in a little bit of a bad mood today until I went out for coffee/sandwiches/milkshakes with Chrissy and Tricia. We have a lot of fun together, the three of us. We joked around, talked, shared, and generally had a good time. We decided that we should make this into a weekly, stress-relieving event. Now the girls of Chapin are playing Dream Phone, which I really should play also, but I am going to review my German words one more time and then go to bed.

AND Rachel's play that she is Assistant Managing, which I went to go see, was CANCELLED due to an unsafe balconey, and will only be shown tomorrow, when I can no longer see it. Sad. 

And Suz and I are perfecting the art of facebook chatting while sitting in the same room, about two feet away from each other..

Studying.

This is what happens when I have no time.. I post my assignments for all to read. :) I actually had fun writing this one, you had to write a descriptive piece on somewhere you had never been before, and I went to the Shakespeare garden on campus- a very quiet and refreshing place. I definitely will go back..

Sandwiched between Northwestern University’s Technological Institute and the Ford Center, there lies a small corner, surprisingly incongruous with the surrounding buildings: Shakespeare’s Garden. Outside, the grey buildings accentuate the dullness of everyday life, but after climbing the concrete stairs into the garden, the world realigns itself into shades of bright green.
 
Tall blades of grass blown flat by the wind surround the path of stone steps that replaces the concrete. Sitting on one of the old, wooden benches, an observer would be tickled by cat tails growing up from behind, while tall, old trees stare solemnly down. It is a sad note to our time that the ground around the benches is littered with cigarette butts and that a blue Northwestern Emergency Light is planted firmly in the middle of the sidewalk.

Following the path around a corner, one comes across a monument erected in honor of William Shakespeare. Three worn, weathered steps lead up to a stand featuring a portrait of Shakespeare and lines from his plays “A Winter’s Tale,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and “As You Like It.” Turning around, one is immediately confronted by a multitude of colorful flowers, growing with a wild abandon down a line of neatly trimmed grass.

Pinks, magentas, lavenders and greens all wave in the wind as a leaf flutters to the ground from a berry-laden tree. Tall white flowers shade small, soft red ones and pink roses look up to purple lilacs. In the midst of the wild arrangement, stands a sundial, wildflowers growing around its base. A twittering, red-breasted bird flies up into a tree as the sun sets and the wind picks up.

Taking two steps up and several more forward, the magic of Shakespeare’s Garden is left behind for the stark reality of the harsh, gray-green wall of Tech and a half-full parking lot.

College Moments..

moments that make college worthwhile:

- walking to the beach to watch fireworks, taking my shoes off and wading in the lake, and then walking back to my dorm barefoot with four other girls singing Disney songs
- quoting El Dorado at my computer and missing my brother
- singing the NU anthem every time our team scored (which I now know almost all of)
- getting my roommate to love my TV show (go survivor!)
- spontaneously going to watch the championships of Midwest improv as a study break

and many, many other things..

A LONG Day

Today I:

- learned how to conjugate regular verbs in German
- fell asleep in Art History like always. Studying for my midterm from those notes is going to be interesting...
- sat through Russian class where I learned nothing new
- ate a SlimFast bar in pieces during class
- got my VERY FIRST Medill F. Apparently suing a teacher and suing a school are not the same thing.. go figure.. :) So I'll be re-writing that one.
- received an assignment to write a feature story with Ali on long distance dating relationships. 6-8 sources, 800 words. Due next Tuesday. And Tuesday is my midterm. And we'll have another homework assignment on Wednesday.
- RAN to a speech on environmentalism and global warming. The polar ice cap will no longetr exist in 10-15 years. Yeah. But I recorded a lot of it and took good notes. Will write speech story by Thursday ALSO. And got flirted with by Turkish guy. Very good looking but a little creepy.
- missed dinner because the speech went way longer than it should have
- interviewed for an hour and a half only to have my iPod malfunction and DELETE my recordings. So I wasted my time. And other people's time.
- dashed to CVS to get Rachel something resembling a birthday present (her birthday's the 15th, but since it's college, we all wish each other happy birthday at midnight)
- dashed all the way to Annenburg to a very nice time at RUF
- did German homework, re-interviewed one of the girls, and wished Rachel happy birthday.

And now I've given up all hope of working more and am actually going to bed. I think I'll get up and die tomorrow.

Things About College that Bother Me:

- Feeling guilty about stealing time to read an Agatha Christie
- When "my" shower is busy in the mornings
- Falling asleep in the middle of really interesting lectures and then not being able to read your notes afterwards
- Gaining weight
- People who go to bed super early
- People who don't go to bed at all
- People who never study and just walk around drunk all the time
- Writing on deadline and turning out not-so-great work
- People who stress

Things About College that Do Not Bother Me:

- Barely sleeping
- Not-that-great food
- Studying all the time
- Having classes from 9 until 4
- Walking EVERYWHERE
- Late-night "pretending to do work" in the lounge
- Shifting your schedule about 3 hours later each night than you're used to (things really just get going at 11 or 12... )

Oh, and did I mention today that I love my roommate? I didn't? Well, now I did. 

Goodnight. It's bedtime. :)

I'm back!

After having some trouble with the Blog Police (I truly have no idea why), my blog is again authorized, and I'm ready to write!

Highlight of my week: YACHT CRUISE on Friday. The Res Colleges had a formal on a yacht this year! It was awesome to get dressed up, to see all my friends dressed up, and to go on a yacht.. there was an incredible display of fireworks at the beginning: I had forgotten how good American fireworks actually are! We had a great time dancing- it was better than all the other dances because now we actually know each other, as opposed to having just met, during Welcome Week. So we were able to have a lot more fun. Pics will soon be on Facebook as soon as I get Tricia to give me them. It was a blast!

Wettest moment of the week: On Tuesday, it was literally pouring down raining, and Rachel, Tricia, Chrissy, Suz and I made a mad dash to the building where they were having a free dance lesson. It normally seems very close (3-4 min?), but this time it seemed SO far. There is a street with a light that you have to cross on the way there and, when we stopped at the light, a car went zooming by through an enormous puddle and absolutely literally drenched us all. I really thought that only happened in movies. 

Fun and relaxing moment: on Friday afternoon, after my 2 *yay* morning classes, I had lunch with Julia, a freshman from RUF, and then I went out to coffee with Randi, the RUF intern. It was actually a lot of fun and I was proud of myself for maintaining friendships outside of Chapin, something that everyone is trying to do, but I'm not exactly sure why. ;)

Most different moment: my job! (I work at the Evanston Day Care Center, 10 hours a week- I help out in a classroom of 3-5 yr olds) I love my job because, even though I get tired doing it, I feel incredible, because it's a completely different kind of tired. My mind is thinking about kids and families, instead of classes and people my age. So I actually do rest while I'm there, even though I'm always doing something. Helpful tip: Don't forget to wear gloves if you're serving food!

I have a lot more thoughts on the week, but some friends called me to play Loaded Question in the lounge.. we're so good at putting off studying.. (only joking, I'm actually studying a lot- one of the guys in my dorm said he never saw me doing anything BUT studying which, though grossly untrue, I took to be a complement :))

THIS is what I want to do with my life!

Today I had an incredible moment, affirming me in my choice to become a journalist. We had a Medill meeting with the lady that wrote our summer reading. It was Sunday, I really, really didn't want to go. That morning, dragging myself out of bed, having to skip church, and going to school on the weekend, I thought, "What a colossal waste of my time!" But when I got there, and the lecture started, I was absolutely spellbound. Susan Casey is a reporter who writes books. My dream! Hearing her talk about what she did, how she reported, how she found stories.. it was amazing. I really and truly felt like THIS is what I was called to do, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't even truly know how to explain it, but Northwestern and Medill both really speak to me and make me feel like I've never felt before. I am so pleased to be here and so excited about what I'm going to learn in the next four years! 

Anyway. And then we had a Big Bite Night, which is when all the restaraunts of Evanston give out free samples to college students, and so we (as Chapin of course) walked around Evanston collecting free food. It was pretty awesome to get exotic food (Indian, Thai, etc), and to get away from the dining hall.

AND, to top it all off, I had my first major interview this evening with a girl from my dorm who spent the summer in Uganda. We have to do a profile article by Tuesday, and I had to set up my iPod and my sound recorder for the interview. AND I've now transcribed all of it also- I never though I could type so fast. But it was really fun, she had an amazing story and I'm so excited to get to write about it. I guess this sounds really nerdy, but I LOVE Medill, I love everything we do, I love all the freakin' hard work that they make us do and how we have to put hours more into it than any other regular Weinburg student. But the more I get into it, the more I feel like this is what I am made to do. 

Today was a good day..

Reporting and Debating - what a journalistic day!

Most exciting moment of today: interviewing people for my journalism class! We got to class today and actually had to go out and TALK to REAL people, and take notes on what they said. I decided to do something about cellphones because of a recent train wreck in California that happened because the engineer was texting while driving the train. I chose that because I reeeeally didn't know enough about politics to do either the bailout or the VP debate. So. I went and talked to people. Definitely a big adrenaline rush!! "Excuse me, do you have a second to answer a few questions about cellphone usage in today's society?" Dad, I definitely saw you in a couple of the men I tried to talk to.. :) :) :) But I ended up getting a variety of sources and then writing an article on deadline. I felt like a real reporter, it was SO fun. I love Medill.

Most controversial moment of today: watching the Vice President debate. I actually don't really like Sarah Palin.. like, at all. McCain did a much better job, but.. man. She seems like a really nice person, but possibly not the most coherent Vice President. Anyway. Interesting moment of the debate- neither candidate said that they support redefining marriage as being equally either heterosexual or same-sex. Which I thought was cool. But some of the listeners in our media lounge did not.

Hooray for Yahoo maps!

Best moment of today: I walked in to the dining hall this evening and it was MEXICAN night! yayy, we got chips with salsa. haha. everyone went crazy-excited, which is a definite "you know you're in college when" moment.

Most surprising moment of today: after German this morning, I found my way ALL the way to the YMCA, which, I'll have you know, is a good 0.63 miles from my home! Yup, I'm really cruising now. Of course, the only way I had any idea where I was going was because I punched in my address and the address of the place I was going, but then I followed the map and walked ALL the way there! I am quite proud of myself for improving my navigational skills in the past couple of weeks- I have not once gotten seriously lost! And only one time did I take the "scenic route" to somewhere I was going. So contrary to my preconceptions of myself, I'm doing quite well.

Biggest accomplishment of today: writing my first full-length article for journalism class! I still have to finish editing it to turn in tomorrow, but I felt like an actual journalist, compiling sources, using quotes and paraphrasing people. It was a lot of fun. 

Before I left home, thoughts had crossed my mind about making a blog, where I would write an interesting/happy/unusual/educative happening that happened to me each day. In the beginning whirlwind of college life, I discarded the idea as impractical- there is way too much studying to be done! But then I decided, why not? I'll try it.. and if I don't update every day, well, there's not *actually* a blogger-police who will hunt me down and shoot me. 

So here it is.. the beginnings of my life at Northwestern!

Most unusual fact of today: my Russian teacher wrote "vodka" водТка and pronounced the phrase "у моста" - "у мОста". The other girls that know Russian as well as I did (silently) thought that was hilarious. I was a bit appalled. She is a university professor, after all!

Biggest accomplishment: finally turning in my health forms! They have now been processed, which means I finished the last thing on my official checklist of things I had to do. Hooray for me and responsible living! (I guess I should probably wash my dishes too, to make my responsible-ness complete.)

When I laughed the hardest: Last night (at 1 am, so it technically was today) when Tricia checked her email and found out that Chapin only had 30 spots for the formal, so the four of us (me, Rachel, Lora, and Tricia) all completely went off our heads and wrote checks, pulled out cash, and came up with the entrance fee and then snuck upstairs in our pj's to stick our envelopes of money under Tommy (our president's) door, making us the first people to sign up, 6 minutes after the official email went out. Needless to say, our "sneaking" was not very quiet at all...

Well, I'm actually going to try and go to bed 'early' tonight- it's only 12:30! Incredible. But congratulate me with my first post, and we'll see how quickly I can catch on to this "blogging" thing...