Spring Break: Notes on a Vacation and the Effects and Ramifications of its Aftermath on Academic Experience

I feel exactly the same way about Spring break- with some notable exceptions. As soon as I got home the weekend before last, I was ready to just relax and enjoy a week off from school. After about a few days, though, I was pretty bored. It was really awesome to see my high school friends (some of them, at least), and to watch our H.S. basketball team win the State Championship, but I kinda wished that I was off on some exciting trip like the stereotypical college Spring Break adventure. But I guess I didn't necessarily want to get drunk on a beach and play volleyball with a bunch of random tanned and completely air-headed girls in bikinis. So when I found out my friend at the University of Montana's mom and sister were heading out to Montana to visit her on Wednesday, I thought it would be fun to bum along for the ride. So I rode along for the 15 hour drive and spent a few days out in Montana with a couple of my high school friends- it was pretty amazing.

But now I am back at Luther- school is starting up again and I think I already feel a little spring fever coming on. I was in Philosophy today looking out the window and started to feel a pull to just go outside and... I dunno... do something. But I stayed in class, of course- if I give way to the feeling now I will have absolutely no hope once the weather warms up significantly and the trees bloom. Do trees bloom? Or is that just flowers? When the trees leaf. Well anyways, we only have a quarter left of school- 7 weeks about, and I have the feeling that April will just fly by. I think time has a winter, too, and it corresponds with the seasonal winter- when the weather gets cold and things start to die, to close up and hibernate, time slows down and begins to just slumber its way through the winter. Then spring comes and after time has stretched a bit and shaken off the last snow, it begins again to run, and then fly through summer.

My dad is coming next weekend to visit, and I'm going to send some stuff home with him so that I can get rid of all the clutter in my room. When I look at all my stuff that I have, I wonder how in the world I accumulated it all in just a short year. Didn't I come with just a van load to Luther? It feels now like I would need to call Rent-a-Van or whatever that thing is just to make it all in one trip. Here's some good advice: every time you go home over any break, always vow to bring more stuff home that you don't need then stuff to bring back that you think you might want. Otherwise, at the end of the year you will realize the only way your clothes all fit in your dressers and wardrobe is if you have a full load in your laundry basket.

Tomorrow my Fitness and Welness class starts. 8 a.m... I haven't woken up that early all semester. I'm rather worried my body will even accept my alarm going off- maybe I'll just subconsciously reject any noise I hear before 10 o'clock. I feel spoiled though. People get up at 7 or 6 or 5 or earlier every day and I am complaining about waking up at 7:55 to throw on a pair of shorts and run down to a class about how to work out.

Take it easy,

Danny

Someone to Eat Apples With...

How about someone to take a walk with on a bright spring morning?

***

Today in Chips (the student newspaper) I read a story about the graduation commencement ceremonies and realized that we only have a quarter left of school. When I look back at the beginning of the year and the uncertainty I felt trying to meet friends, dealing with a college workload, adjusting to a whole new way of life in a new setting, I realize that I have come a long ways. But it really doesn't feel like it took that long to get here. Which makes me wonder what life will be like, what I'll be like in only another three-quarters of a year, which will be... next year at Christmas break? Well, what I mean to say is, I've changed a lot, and will continue to change. But that doesn't bother me too much. I'm always me as long as my self-perception continues to be a present thing, and not a past thing. Some people get caught up in defining themselves by what they've done, by what they were, and that just makes change so hard.

Yesterday felt like a genuine spring day. I took my bike and rode down to the Depot, but didn't find any cool clothes to get; instead, I bought a couple books of poetry and two novels. After that I biked to the Co-op and bought a root beer and journaled for a bit. I was about to leave when I decided I really wanted to get some Blue Sky tea and chocolate-covered blueberries, so I stocked up on those and am now munchin' away. I think today I'll set up the slack line and thoroughly avoid doing my Paideia research paper. I'm writing about the Communist revolution in China and how it affected the family, and it's actually been quite interesting, but a guy can take only so much academia on a beautiful spring day.

I really agree with Calvin in the comic strip above. It's so damn hard to find good friends. Seems like there a lots of people that will spend their time with you, but when it comes down to it, they don't much care about you. But that's life, isn't it? You spend the majority of your time doing things you don't really want to do with people you don't really care to be with, just to have a few moments where you can let go of all that and do something for yourself. It doesn't make sense to me why we go through this long process of education, plunge ourselves into a career, and when our bodies are beginning to go, we stop it all and give ourselves some freedom to do what we want in life. It seems so obvious to me that we work for society, not that society works for us. We are slaves to a system that we created, and we don't know how to get out of it.

I know a guy here at Luther that's taking a year off next year and going to travel a bit, working on organic farms in New Zealand, Nepal, and one other place I can't remember. I envy him. I think I'll maybe do the same thing, if I ever get the courage to deviate from societal and parental expectations. For now, it's springtime and I want to go for a walk.

Take it easy,

Danny

Wise Words from 50 Cent

It's raining today, but not heavily. I actually really enjoy the rain, and have never understood why people are so against it all the time. That old nursery rhyme about rain going away and coming again another day doesn't make sense to me; rain is both good for playing and good for listening to while inside. The other day it was raining pretty heavily here and I sat in my room with the window open, some quiet music on, a cup of hot chocolate, and just sat on my couch and read a really good book (a Douglas Adams, actually). But I guess my enjoyment of the rain would be much diminished if it came more often. I'll quote one of my favorite philosophers on this one: "Joy wouldn't feel so good if it wasn't for pain" - 50 cent. Which is actually quite deep, when you think about it; it's almost Freudian. The greatest pleasures in life come from the release from pain and tension, and if we were in a continual state of pleasure, we would be both exhausted and continually jaded. We can only make distinctions about quality in their contrast to other qualities, so it makes sense to say that if we only felt joy (or it always rained), we would not be conscious of the pleasure we would be feeling.

Well other than that philosophical digression, my life has been rather predictable lately. I've been doing a lot of research for my Paideia paper, reading and writing for my Philosophy class, and studying for Bible and Politics. I declared my major last night as Philosophy, and am feeling pretty content about that, although I'm fairly sure that my feelings on that regard will fluctuate pretty regularly within the next few years. Especially when the prospect of getting a job rears its ugly head and I have to think about the 'real world.' I think after college I'm just going to buy a motorcycle and drive to South America. That should be pretty philosophical; I could really utilize my major. How happy my mother would be.

So my room is basically the hang-out room for all of my roommate and my friends. It's been that way since the beginning of the year because we have a couch, a tv, and the all-important N64. That was pretty fun for a while, but lately it's just been rather tiring. I get home from studying in the library, practicing tuba, whatever, and there are always a bunch of guys in there. And inevitably, it will smell like a bunch of guys, which is certainly not pleasant, and it will be hot and stuffy. And sometimes they'll be watching a movie so I can't really just relax. There's no place to sit and all I want is to have a clean room with space to sit and relax. Tip to incoming freshman, wherever you may be: consider carefully whether or not you want people in your room all the time. It can be just as fun to walk down the hall to hang out, and come back to your own room when you want privacy.

Only a few weeks till spring break- it will be a tough few weeks, though. Wish me luck.

Take it easy,

Danny

Food, Words, and General Epicurean Digression

I hate it when things are exactly where they are "supposed" to be. I would never find anything that way.

***

I'm at a complete loss as to what to write about; I could tell you all about how I went home for the weekend, and how that was pretty awesome, or about how I am way behind on my Paideia research and am going to be spending the whole night in the library, but I think that that would be really boring to read about. A picture of life at Luther right now? Waking up, finishing homework I really didn't want to do the night before, going to class, eating, going to more class, coming back, doing homework, eating, and then perhaps some hanging out with friends. Aha! I can tell you all about the caf, one of the things at Luther that provides a subtle yet powerful relief. For me, at least.

Whereas once in my life I saw eating as a task I had to get done before moving on to something else, in college my perspective has significantly shifted. Reversed, almost. This is something that a lot of college students experience, I think. Let's call it the College Caf Phenomenon (and yes, we call our cafeteria a caf, not a cafe. I've gotten flack at home for this. Is it a midwest college thing?). So the CCP is when going to eat becomes something you greatly look forward to--a refreshing refuge from studying and pretty much just a great place to hang out. It may be different at colleges that have A La Carte menu-ing, but being at a place where you can just sit and talk and have at your disposal more food and more variety of food than you could possibly exhaust is a pleasure that keeps me going through long classes.

Plus, caf oranges have been awe-mazing lately. And I like oranges. However, our room is beginning to smell like rotting fruit because I am too lazy to put out the trash.

Tonight I'm gonna go to the Philosophy Society meeting and philosophize it up. I am rather nervous, though, because my conversations in philosophy have hitherto been with very close friends, and have been really fun. I'm worried that this will be an awkward hit and miss discussion dominated by one or two philosophy majors puffed up with their extensive knowledge of codefied philosophy. We'll see, though. I don't want to be too pessimistic. It's pretty cool that a small liberal arts school in the midwest even has a Philosophy Society and that perhaps, I don't know yet, but perhaps has some students that question the assumptions of our societal ideology. I'd love to find someone with whom I could inveigh, invect, and just generally rant.

Weather is warming up by infinitesmal degress, but spring is definitely approaching. Get excited.

Take it easy,

Danny