The Week Ahead

This is going to be what I refer to as a hell week.
This Wednesday to the next is the last week of classes.  I have a hum paper, a bio midterm, a Microbes In The News project, a French final, reading, and then studying for the humanities and bio finals.
I won't be around much, and I'm sorry...
Love,
Bronwyn

A Typical Tuesday Night

Reed evenings are occasionally hard to come to terms with.  After a while, it's hard to really believe that this is how I spend my Tuesday evenings.  Coming out of bio lab at around four-thirty with the lovely Tamara, browsing through my books (which apparently someone in high school underlined), and then going to dinner were fairly usual for me - but still.  I loved coming back to my room and sitting down with Earl Grey (yes, I'm a tea drinker, yes, I know, in the Pacific Northwest that's practically sacrilege) and the Oresteia to write a paper on Cassandra.
The paper didn't happen (or didn't get finished, anyways), but singing Abba with my friends did.  Talking to the lovely Alexandra did.  Starting a tumblr did.  Sitting in my room and talking about Thucydides, folding laundry, remembering the difference between conjugation and declension (conjugation is for verbs, declension is for nouns), trying to explain to my boyfriend how going to South Africa when I was thirteen made me feel - all those things happened.  And as for my French and my microbes project - I've got time tomorrow.  That's what waking up early is for.
I'm off to bed, lovely readers, but I'll see you tomorrow!

To Me In the Future...

Remember evenings like this one.  Remember long nights of writing essays about Cassandra, long bio labs in which you make root beer and talk about antibiotic resistance, long cups of tea and walks in the cold across the blue bridge to Commons and back.  Remember the forty minutes in between bio lecture and French conversation talking to your friends about the Silmarillion and Supernatural and Canadian tar sands in the Vollum corridor.  Remember lunchtime crosswords and Shostakovich and mild but exhilarating exhaustion.  Remember those, because this is why you came to this school.  To think, and be challenged, and have your mind work in new and interesting ways.
God, I love this school.
(photo from here)

Writers And Their Books

Everyone should go read this article and marvel at their books.
In other news, I would really like Claire Messud's house and piano.
In further news, I had no idea how many famous (or semi-known) authors lived in Cambridge!

School Again

Wow, that four-day weekend flew by!  In between cooking for my friends and Thucydides and buying yarn and knitting, I barely got anything done.
Being away from home for Thanksgiving was hard, harder than I expected.  I called home that day, and talked to everyone getting ready, and just missed home.  I imagined everyone in the kitchen with the woodstove lit, moving around each other and just being together.  That's generally the hardest part of college for me, being away from my family.
In other news, the Christmas season is coming up, so come December first, I'll post a gift guide and Christmas-ey things.  Be warned, however - exams come first, so the beginning of December might be a little light on posting.
Happy Monday, everyone!

I am ever so thankful...

... but for little things this year.  I am thankful for the rain on my roof, and the potted plants in my bedroom.  I am thankful for Sunday crossword Skype dates with my family, and lunches with Dave, and Tuesday afternoons with Willamae.  I am thankful for breakfast every morning with Emily, and the upright Steinway in the music building where I can sit for hours and play Chopin.
Mostly, though, I am thankful for my family and my friends.
You guys are incredible.

Thanksgiving Holiday

Are you excited for Thanksgiving?  I am, a little.  It's the first year that I'm not spending it with my family.  I'll miss the dinner at Anna's house, the butternut squash kibbe that Caleb makes and playing "Winter in America" with my father.  I love my home Thanksgiving, but in no way is it feasible for me to go home to Cambridge from the other side of the country when my vacation starts on Thanksgiving Day.
I thought about going to my uncle's in Seattle, but then my friends started talking about going camping or up to the ski cabin.  It would be nice, I thought to spend Thanksgiving with the people I live with, to give thanks for each other and our lives and think about how very lucky we are to be here, at Reed, learning and living and being happy.  At least, I'm happy.
Given the current weather (rain, more rain) perhaps camping isn't the best idea, but the ski cabin is still definitely a possibility and even if we can't get there, Thanksgiving in the Nog or Chittick would be lovely.
I'm glad to spend Thanksgiving with my friends - I just am worried about missing my family.  Family, I love you, and it will be so empty having the holiday without you.