blog.shimer

Summer Thoughts

I have been home since the middle of May. For me, home is a suburb in southern New Jersey. I've done a lot of the regular getting home stuff. I got a hair cut, I've realized that all my new books will never, ever, ever, fit onto my bookshelf, and I've reacquainted myself with the family pets. 

A few days after I got home an interesting thing came in the mail. Now, to refresh your memory I'm an early entrant. That means I came to Shimer without a high-school diploma (though I'll be getting one in a few weeks). That means I left my high school at the end of my junior year, which confused a lot of people. I think mostly they're still trying to figure out if that was a good or bad thing. Well, I enjoyed my year at Shimer, so I think it was a good thing. Either way my status as a strange drop out who is going to college has been confusing people at my high school all year. 

For example, I got a student ID. Well, I'm not enrolled at my high school anymore, and I didn't go to get my picture taken. They pulled my senior portrait picture however and an ID showed up for me in homeroom. My sister took it home for me. I've also made honor role every single marking period. Thanks, but I'm not taking any classes to make honor role for. Probably I slip through the computer in just the right way to make honor role. Another thing I discovered is that I won't be in my class year book. This is funny because I will be graduating with that class (though I see no point in walking with them). I'd put me in the year book, but I guess that isn't my choice.

So I didn't get into the year book. What I did get was an invitation to the Academic Brunch for high achieving seniors. I was a little conflicted. I am a high achieving senior. I went to college a year early, and I've enjoyed academic success here at Shimer. Unlike the bumper sticker, and the ID and all the other mistakes they'd made I felt like I sort of deserved this one. I also wasn't sure if it was a mistake. Only a couple hundred people were invited to this thing so I thought, briefly, that maybe it was meant for me. 

It turned out that it wasn't. It was a mistake, they meant to send it to my sister but printed my envelope instead. It is the kind of thing that happens when you and your twin sister go to the same high school and you drop out. But when I found out that they had made a mistake I felt kind of upset. Why don't I get recognized by my high school for being successful like my sister?

We've certainly done different things, she stayed to make it into the honor society and do other senior year things. I dropped out. But I dropped out to go to a small liberal arts college, and I had to qualify for this program, and I made Deans List and I've done really well here. But no one in New Jersey really knows that, and in all honesty my high school doesn't care.

So this really brings me to my point. I loved my year at Shimer. And I don't regret being an early entrant at all; it is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. But, what I've done has created a separation between me and my school, me and my town, and me and my family. I didn't go through senior year with my twin sister, we won't be going to prom together. Believe me, it has caused some tensions. 

I think tensions like these are felt by all Shimer students as they return to their homes. All of us were a little different to begin with and we've just spent months amongst each other. It has changed us. The problem with going home is that no one knows this, they sense it but instead of rushing in to discover this new person you are, they stomp off offended. 

And if you are used to being at Shimer, where people actually listen to you when you talk, and are eager to discover things, this is a disheartening experience. I would recommend early entrance to anyone who really thinks it will be good for them, but it does create a level of separation, which I didn't anticipate. Being congratulated by your community is a really reassuring thing, graduating high school, and going to college are some of the few times you can reasonably expect almost universal support. Because of what I’ve done I don’t think I’ll ever quite have that again. I’m a half beat ahead of everyone in my New Jersey community and us getting back in step with each other isn’t really an option. I think that is a little sad and I’ve thought about it a lot as I’ve tried to adjust to home these past few weeks.

Now ultimately this brunch in honor of high achieving high school seniors is about high school students who survived a traditional senior year. For several reasons, I didn't. So these students deserve to be recognized and I wish them the best of luck. They have done something amazing by surviving high school. My hard work has been validated by a lot of people, Shimer, and some members of my family. Still I wish my high school would recognize me. It isn't the most well thought out or rational thing, but I still wish that the invitation had actually been for me. 

The Big Bad Final Conference

Final conferences. They can be scary, especially when you don't know what to expect. They can go really well, or they can be pretty unpleasant. You sit down and talk to your facilitators about your semester project and your semester.

My first semester conference was pretty bad. I hadn't had the best semester, knew this, and then had my facilitators tell me this. I was frustrated with myself, and the conference didn't help. Not to mention I'd been feeling lonely, homesick, and stressed. I'll admit it. I cried.

But don't think for a moment that conferences are frightening. I just had a bad one. It happens sometimes, I suppose. But this semester, I got to see the other side of the coin. My conference was amazing!

I wrote short stories for my semester project. I get nervous sharing my writing with people and talking about it with them. I've had some bad experiences in the share-your-writing department. This wasn't one of them. David and Harold liked my stories. They asked me some questions, and gave me helpful feedback. I kept wanting to grin as my nervousness melted into pride. I'd worked really hard to make those stories good, and I'd done it!

And then the talk turned to my semester. Sure, I still need to work on the talking thing some more. I know this. Still working on the confidence thing, after all. And I found myself assured that I was doing okay, and given suggestions that could help increase my class participation next semester.

And when it was all over... I felt great! I have a feeling that this is what most conferences are like, but I couldn't stop grinning because it was such a contrast to the previous semester's conference. I worked harder this semester, and instead of ending it frustrated and with tears, I pulled through with a grin and a huge confidence boost.

And I like that. I like how, if you really try your hardest, your facilitators notice, and you have a great conference. It's like magic! Yay! The semester's over, my class participation has improved, and I look forward to the fall. Sure, I'm in for a boatload of Natural Sciences, but I'm pretty confident I'll do even better than I did this semester. 

Improvement is a wonderful thing, and I totally found it this semester. 

A Shimer-Inspired Web Comic

It started as a bad doodle of an eye in my Nat Sci1 book. It morphed into a doodle of some (non-human) guy in a box, peering out through a rectangular hole. This guy started making comments in my margins. He demanded a web comic.

I agonized over the title. It had to be perfect. I named it "Un-boxed." 

You see, this guy has lots of time to think. 

Before the profound thinking goes on, however, he's got to get through the "Help, I'm stuck in a box, get me out" phase. Here's the first comic that went up:

I draw them all in pen by hand and scan them into the digital world. I plan to copy them out of margins over the summer. I can't wait to see what shows up in the margins of next semester's books. Probably something science-y.

My guy in a box has found a home at www.unboxedcomic.blogspot.com should anyone want to follow it. Updates every Monday! In a few weeks, there will be something about x-rays. I look forward to it. 

I Am A Writing Legend

I wish. 

At least, it hasn't happened yet. But I did pull off some incredible feats involving turning out massive amounts of fiction.

I spent Hell Week finishing up my last paper for Hum2 and writing a script. 76 pages of script, to be exact. I've discovered that having crazy writing challenges such as NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy at the end of the semester gives one a great incentive to actually get papers done on time. This makes Hell Week easy academically. However, putting off writing for the challenge until schoolwork was done made my week an interesting one, full of discoveries.

Discovery 1: Writing papers is much easier than I had originally thought. Trying to pull plot out of thin air makes the brain hurt. A lot. I'm still recovering a week later, though writing fiction for Writing Week probably didn't help any.

Discovery 2: Procrastination can be helpful. Yes, helpful. But only if you're writing fiction. Procrastination on papers is bad. I learned that one last semester. (Plus it gets in the way of the writing for fun!) When writing fiction, however, and with a scary deadline hovering, procrastination followed by a sudden rush to actually accomplish your goal inspires really wonderful things. This time around I was greeted with feuding deities that caused the world I was writing about to almost be destroyed, an unfortunate soul to be given omniscience (which subsequently drove her crazy), and both of my main characters turned out to be not important in the least and nearly died. It was epic. And it was a myth about why the moon has phases. A 100 page myth, that is. Most of it was written in... 48 hours?

Discovery 3: It is possible to write 40 pages in 7 hours. Granted, they lack in the quality, but it is entirely possible. First drafts of many things can be done this way, especially if they are drafts of six page papers instead of giant scripts. I can never blame lack of time on late papers again. 

Discovery 4: I should not be given coffee. During the writing sprint, I was given some coffee by my pal Kurt who works at Global Grounds. He knows I don't like coffee. He heard about my intent to write 76 pages in a very small amount of time. So he tried to disguise some coffee for me. He didn't succeed, which is all the better, because the few sips I had turned me loopy. It was... an interesting experience. One I don't intend to repeat. Coffee works miracles for some people when they have lots to do. Just not me.

Discovery 5: Things I read in class influence the way I write. This was evident to me in the short stories I wrote for Writing Week. I think it was mainly Dostoevsky and Flannery O'Connor. Maybe Kafka. (Also Terry Pratchett, but that wasn't reading for class.) It was interesting rereading what I'd written. 

I'm sure there are more things I've discovered, but I can't think of which ones are relevant. I'm having fun exploring the writing process though, and I'm itching to write more. Despite Cassie's worry that I was going to fiction myself out, I seem to have opened the creative door in my head, and my passion for writing quality (as opposed to the quantity of NaNoWriMo and Screnzy) has been revived. 

I can't wait to see what I come up with over the summer. 

Orange Mystery

This was the view from my Gunsaulus Hall window one Saturday afternoon. I'm very fond of my view. Lots of varying buildings... Sunshine... Lake... Balloon.... Wait--what? Balloon? What is that doing there? Maybe I was just seeing things...

Hm. nope. Still there. And it was still there after I went to get my camera. And it was still there after the obligatory attempt to take a photo with the lens cap. That orange hovering entity of some sort remained floating in approximately the same area of blue sky until the next morning when I woke up and the sky was back to its favorite shade of gray. I could not, however, remain in my bed all day staring at the mystery like I wanted. Something was going to happen with that balloon, and I was going to miss it for some nonsense obligation called a job. Psh. Job. When I came back it was gone. And now I'll never know...

They don't call it "Hell Week" for nothin'

That was hard.

I came home from work around 11:30 Wednesday night, got to work on papers an hour later, fell asleep around 4:30, was up by 10:30 Thursday, and worked on papers for the next twenty-five hours. Yes, without sleep. Why?

Because I am a procrastinator. And it is Hell Week, the last week of classes--meaning, the last chance to participate stellarly in class, and the week ALL of the papers and rewrites for the past semester are due.

Also, one of my facilitators is Harold, who does not enforce the paper due dates he gives throughout the semester. This means that, instead of having 4 finished papers and one final paper due today, I had three Hum II papers I pulled off within the last twenty-four hours. In addition to my final Soc II paper, that is. I do not recommend this. It was painful.

I wore the same clothes for three days straight, I did not shower, I had 5 hours of sleep one night and none the next, and my stress level was so high someone told me I was literally shaking last night. But I finished.

I am incredibly proud of myself. Also, I never want to do that again. I can pull off writing two papers in the last two days. Not four. I need sleep. And showers. And also, since I literally did nothing yesterday but work on my papers and eat, I forgot to go to the apartment to feed my cat. (Tis all right, she is pudgy and also I fed her well Wednesday.)

Plus, nifty neat new fact about me: it seems I do strange things when stressed about having too much work to do. These things do not involve actually doing my work; they mostly seem to involve spur-of-the-moment adventures and dying my hair. Hence why my head is currently blue.

However, I did manage to squeeze in one last blog post before...WRITING WEEK! This is a week of pure projects. No work study, no blogging, no classes, no meetings, just cramming 40 hours of work and a few parties into five really short days and hoping something interesting comes out.

This is gonna be fun.