i went home labor day weekend to attend my grandmother's memorial service. that really felt like it brought some closure to her unique and accomplished life. it was also an impromptu reunion as a huge number of relatives and community members gathered for the event. longview is such a small town and she was such a mighty woman-- her passing really affected people.
school began right after labor day and i have pretty much been in overdrive since then. big shock, right? i am taking my first 300 -level class, qualitative inquiry, in which i am conducting some research on restricted diets in college; i am really enjoying but am constantly challenged by my performance studies class; intro to social work isn't getting me a really clear picture of the profession but is certainly an interesting topic; i love almost everything about my culture of india class-- except for that it is highly unstructured and chaotic, in "indian style," as my professor says; digital imaging is going to prove very useful.
newspaper staff has been going pretty well, although we have been taking this issue very slowly. we'll see how we fare when the real test of too much schoolwork AND newspaper stuff comes up. i have been swamped in other extracurricular administrative duties in heading up a new anthropology & sociology club at goucher, joining our student health advisory committee, serving on the alcohol policy review committee, managing money for the community service club and running the suicide awareness and prevention group.
i am happy to report that work has been going swimmingly. i am creating animated online tutorials for using our education platform, blackboard, through the graduate studies program. i'm also having fun being the t.a. (or, at goucher, a "supplemental instructor") for the methods of sociology course. working in the career development office has been great too. i honestly really enjoy going to work in the administration building at 9 a.m. three days a week because it is in those morning hours that i feel like i get the most tangible work accomplished. producing pamphlets, updating the website, making copies, getting small tasks done...i suppose it's not too intellectually challenging, but the staff is awesome and i feel like part of the legitimate workforce in this job.
of course there have been a smattering of campus events that i have and have not attended. tonight i went to the president's house for a (very fancy) dinner in honor of the awesome baltimore journalist/author/tv producer (of homicide & the wire) david simon, then went to hear him speak. his thoughts on our country's current situation were both alarming and bleak, but raw and honest as well. he's a straightforward guy. he claims to be terrified about the future of our country, our economy, our city and the field of journalism-- and i trust him.
my living situation has been working out very well. my roommates and i all tend to be pretty old-fashioned and tame, in a good way. this evening we were talking about how we don't understand how people take notes in class on laptops (paper works better!). we're usually all in bed by 12 and up by 8. i love it. we try to have roommate night once a week, which so far has consisted of baking a funfetti cake and going to play racquetball. it's only for a semester, but i think this is going to work out nicely.
this year has been really odd in that i feel like so many people are missing. a lot of my close school friends are abroad right now-- in india, south africa, mali, england, etc! three of my best friends from home are in europe for the year as well. it's also been tough with my boyfriend and his crowd of wonderful friends graduated and moved on from goucher. while they are just down in baltimore city, it's a bummer knowing i'll probably never run into them around campus ever again. i think my housing situation also factors into the weird impersonality of this fall so far. now that i live in an apartment, i rarely go to the library or dining halls to hang out, so i typically only see people i have classes or live with. i'm not sure how i feel about it. i just need to work on being assertive and making an effort to maintain ties with people i don't see on a regular basis.
some recent photos: of my grandmother's house in willow grove; my room, our lovely cake, and my and apartment-mates. also, i started a flickr but haven't had a chance to do much on it yet: http://flickr.com/photos/aunihusted.
