Ah! I canNOT believe that tomorrow is THE day of departure!!!! In exactly fourteen hours I will be at the airport awaiting my departing flight to GREECE. After all of the craziness of pre-trip preparation, it seems completely unreal that day one of Seminar in Europe: off campus is literally standing right outside my door.

I can remember the day my mom dropped me off for school last fall and she noticed the poster advertising Seminar in Europe on the wall in my Carmel dorm. “You should really try to apply for that,” she had urged. But then, with a heavy suitcase dragging behind me and a tearing paper bag of books under my arm, it seemed like one of those impossibilities that you suggest just for the sake of suggesting it. But a few months later when I received my acceptance email to the program, I began to break the barriers of reality…or at least it seemed like it.

And throughout this past week I’ve had the same surreal sense about my existence in general. I’ve spent the two weeks since seminar classes finished I’ve traveled to New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston. Definitely operating outside the grasp of reality, no? Now, after a bit of frantic list-making and shopping and packing, I am insanely excited for tomorrow. Can’t WAIT to put my feet on Athenian soil!

Because one of my resolutions for this year was to attend more performances put on by the theatre department, I decided to go to tonight’s showing of the “Our Town” opera. Though I wasn’t familiar with the story, I did know that it is NOT typically an opera. With that knowledge as well as my limited opera experience (the only other one I’d seen was “Orpheus in the Underworld last winter), I wasn’t sure what to expect. (This seems like a pervasive theme with my theatre-going experiences as of late.) But anyway….

The performance was quite impressive. The stage was set with a sort of circular theme, with a half circle cut out and a silhouetted shape of the moon. On the center of the stage was a circular “platform” where most of the scenes were played out. The most interesting part of the scenery was the row of gradually curving wooden chairs, hanging from strings above the actors throughout the play. (Later the chairs became a part of the play’s main theme.)

The singing aspect of the opera was impeccable. Every performer carried the essence of their character so well within their lines of song. Despite the fact that every word was sung, as is obviously characteristic of operas, it didn’t feel tedious or exhausting. The main characters George and Emily, followed through their romance, from school days to adulthood, were especially authentic and believable. The BW orchestra played from the pit, supporting and enhancing the performance with flawless musicality. Can’t wait for next year’s Valentine’s Day weekend opera production!

Before I came to college, and picked my major etc etc, I never realized that there would be serious attempts at uniting the students studying under the same major or minor. Throughout Marting (the building dominated primarily by all things English-department-related) there are consistently signs calling “all English Majors and Minors” to a Smores Night around the Circle of Warmth or to attend a reading by the visiting poet. Last weekend boasted the English Majors/Minors Potluck Dinner. We met in the Marting Treuhaft Lounge, with our assortment of cookie or pretzel contributions. Dr. Boe very graciously made sloppy joes and her famous “veggie-chili”. Quite a few students who I had never met before attended as well as professors (those I have had over the past few semesters and those who I hope to have in the future as well). It was very casual and we were all able to be very literary and intellectual, discussing novels and authors over our chili and tortilla chips. So thank you to Lee Ann Jindra, the English Department secretary for all of her efforts to bring us together within our program of study

Friday night marked my first ever attendance at a “reader’s theatre” production. The performance was held in the black box theatre, which is a much smaller, more intimate setting than the main auditorium/stage in Kleist. The story “Under Milk Wood”, written by Dylan Thomas, was read by a very small cast of five: (1) Ashley DiGregorio- a senior English major who performs on a small scale at BW (2) Nicholas Meloro- also a senior English major who works extensively with the theatre program (3) Sara Tackett- a senior English major and theatre minor (4) Michael Dolzani- chair of the English department and Dylan Thomas connoisseur and (5) Jack Winget- Theatre professor and director of the performance.

I was excited to see how the Reading would be staged. Would there be any sort of physical acting or was the story going to be driven solely by voice? My questions were answered upon my entrance to the theatre, where I noted the five empty chairs on stage. Once the lights dimmed, the five cast members filed into their respective seats and began “Under Milk Wood”. The story itself was absolutely fascinating. In actuality it was a completely plotless piece that narrowed in on the intimate lives and goings-on in Thomas’s fictional seafaring town of Llareggub. It lasted for an uninterrupted 90 minutes but its quick witted humor and lively voiced characters were able to hold the audience’s attention from start to finish. And even in the absence of acting or costuming or scenery, I was perfectly able to imagine each and every setting described, Thomas’s precise use of language bringing the story to life in the recesses of the black box.

I have discovered that while 8am classes are tragically early and not at all agreeable when I’ve gone to bed at two o’clock the night before, they ARE very conducive to productivity. Because once I have roused myself at this ungodly hour, I have in a sense already begun to “seize the day”. There isn’t even the possibility for wasted time on these 8am days. My seminar classes, lasting from 8 to 1 take up a large portion of the day but still allow me to accomplish work in the afternoon and work at the Cyber in the evening….plus time with friends which helps to maintain my sanity.

But! All of this eight o’clock nonsense will be over in only three weeks! (Which is when my Seminar in Europe classes end and my spring break begins!). We actually just got our itinerary the other day and i am consequently ECSTATIC! Having a tangible schedule of our time abroad has definitely increased my excitement x 1000000.

On March 18, our lovely little group of thirty-six will gather up at the Cleveland airport, zip up to New York and then fly our way over to Greece! I can’t even wrap my mind around being. in. Greece. After all of the studying we’ve done of these European cultures, getting to see and experience them is going to be doubly as incredible as it would have been if we’d just gone without the courses. Anyway, I think Greece and France have tied for first as the two countries i am most excited to visit. Can’t wait. I’ll have to post updates as to what I think once I’ve placed these two feet of mine on their soil. Until then. Or, just until more personal discoveries or realizations I guess.

So it is officially a new year, a new month and a new semester. Returning to campus this past Sunday was somewhat surreal after being away for an entire month. Because I’m generally not a fan of transitions, I was surprised at how easy it was to move back (despite the strangeness of it). Anyway, I have been anticipating this semester with incredible, insane, even monstrous, amounts of excitement. Because it is, of course, the semester of Seminar in Europe. Though we don’t leave for Europe until March, we do get to study aaaaallllll about Europe for the next 8 weeks (hoorah!).

Moving on to Monday. Monday was good. Monday was the day of the much-too-tiny classroom we were assigned for our 30+ class of Seminar students. Monday was the day my intrigue for Greek architectural terminology was born. (Flute, peripteral, doric, ionic, drum &tc.). Monday was the day of collegiate inspiration. Everything felt so appropriately like college; from waking up for my 8.00 class to the crowded lines at the bookstore. Monday was the day of realization: This will undoubtably be a wonderful minimester A on campus.

And, with Dr. Vincent’s words in mind, it will also be a glorious minimester B abroad:
“You’ll be jetlagged and you’ll be tired. But you’ll be in Greece.”

Last night was the “Undefeated” Voices of Praise Concert in the Student Activities Center. My roommate is actually in the gospel choir group this year too! So, to support Racquel and to witness the undoubtably soulful performance, my friend Sam and I trekked across campus to see the concert.

I had seen VOP a few times in the past, when they’d come to Campus Crusade, but I hadn’t ever seen one of their “official” performances. Last night was absolutely incredible. And it wasn’t just a concert, with us as the audience, and then them as the performers. It was everyone, together, moving and singing and praising in a throbbing unity. Their voices, and then ours, filled the room like air pressing against the elastic sides of a balloon. Everything was thick and heavy with sound and with the Spirit. I could feel the songs and the voices sort of wrap around and pull at my heart.

It made me realize how something as universal and basic as singing can bring so many people together. And how Christ’s Spirit can come into any setting where His people want to praise Him.

I honestly have NO idea why I haven’t written about this before. But considering that I have neglected telling all of you about it earlier, I will now!

So basically Seminar in Europe is a study abroad program where half the semester is spent on campus and the other half is spent abroad. For the first eight weeks or so, a select number of students take four courses with the program’s two overseeing advisors. The classes are based in European art and literature. One is a humanities course, titled “Seminar in Europe”. Two others are English courses, “Travel Narratives & Backgrounds” and “British Theatre Today”. And the last one is an art history class, “European Museums and Architecture.

The second half of the semester (!!!) the students get to see what they’ve learned in the classroom become completely tangible when they go to Europe. The Minimester B is spent exploring Greece, Italy, Germany, France AND England. The group gets to see the art they’ve studied in the classroom as well as see the plays they’ve read performed on stage.

AND the best part of all of this, is that I’m GOING!!!!!! I was accepted into the program last month and absolutely canNOT wait!!!! It will be my first time abroad so, naturally I sort of wish I could fast forward to March and the trip to Europe. But it will come soon enough and there are still a zillion things to get ready and a lot of stuff to finish up for this semester (which is, incredibly, almost over). Ah, sooo excited. Now I am off to daydream about the Eiffel Tower and such. No big deal.

This past weekend I had an unexpected opportunity to go home…which was extremely exciting considering that I live in Connecticut (a little distance from school) AND because i hadn’t expected to go back before Christmas. So after rushing around and trying to get people to cover my many shifts at the Cyber and letting my professors know that I wouldn’t be in class on Monday, I packed up a good deal of my belongings and headed off on the ten hour trip back.

I know everyone always talks about this strange going home phenomenon in books and movies and poems etc etc. Where everything seems sort of dreamlike, smaller and detached from every version of home that you thought you knew. I had never really fully grasped this concept until last weekend. Even though it had only been three months since I’d left, everything seemed shrunken and surreal. I felt like a different person altogether. Like an outside observer on my own family and my own house. I keep thinking about it. The way the ceilings felt like they were closing in and how my bedroom walls felt folded and quiet. I’m not sure if it’s really home that’s changed, or more me. I guess the obvious answer would be me. But I can’t decide if I like the idea of all of these different irreconcilable selves of mine floating around. Hmm. Definitely something to write about. Or think about. I wonder when they will unite; when college me and self me will morph into one body.

Okay, now that philosophical thought has overtaken, I will close…

So this past week I decided that I would be intensively studious. I needed to isolate myself in order to reap the results I really wanted. At least for Chemistry. Trying to study chemistry around friends has proved a horrendous idea on numerous occasions. And with our second big test coming up on Wednesday, I decided that Monday and Tuesday needed to be solid days of chemistry devotion. Even if it required eating, breathing, even dreaming about molecules and atoms and ionization levels.

All I have to say is thank God for the library. It provided a perfect little camp out for my new and improved studious lifestyle. Monday should have been named National Day of Chemistry because all of my waking hours were spent pouring over chemical formulas and such. The day began with an hour Chemistry lecture. Followed by an hour of chem studying in the library. Then an hour and a half study session with my professor in the afternoon. Only to end in a wonderful four and a half MORE hours of brain stuffing in dear old Ritter Library. Tuesday wasn’t much different. Except that when I went to bed that night, I felt a lot more confident in my ability to draw the geometrical shapes of molecules and determine their polarity.

The test honestly wasn’t that bad either. Yessss for studying. Anyway, Friday I found out that I got a 90 on it. Not as well as I wanted to do, especially after all of that insane studying. But I have to say, that it’s not tooooo bad. At least the current B average will enjoy the higher grade… So, here’s to a thousand more library hours and just as many consequent A grades.