25 February 2011

The Friday of all Fridays

Last night, two dangerous events fell on the same night. Not only was it the last Friday of the month (and therefore the day that students get their allowance), it was also the Friday night that began the Mid-semester Break.

I'm not sure when the house music started bumping outside last night, but it was there in full swing when I got out of choir at around 8 o'clock in the evening. It was the first time I have ever felt uncomfortable walking by myself back to Vegas. People and cars were everywhere, and most were already fairly tipsy. I went to bed around 10pm, and managed to fall asleep in spite of the house music blaring from the carport outside my window and the loud voices that went with it.

When I woke up this morning around 7:30 there was still music playing. I'm pretty sure it played all night. Not only was there still music, but when I walked to breakfast I realized that there were also still a few people standing in the carport drinking and hollering. And even if there weren't people, the evidence of last night is horrendous. I've never seen so many glass bottles, smashed, broken, or whole, over such a great expanse, in my entire life. Whole parking lots were rendered unsafe to tires by a littering of broken glass. But the worst part was the people. Still out there. Still drunk. They hollered at me, "Lekgoa, lekgoa!" I ignored them as best I could. In the line for breakfast they pressed around me, the alcohol still thick on their breath, and tried to get me to talk to them. They were arguing with the lunch lady (who wasn't taking any crap this morning, and I don't blame her), they were fighting outside the windows, they were telling me to marry them. It was disgusting.

This morning the campus is alive with the sounds of garbage collectors jingle-jangling glass bottles and glass fragments, trying to clean up the campus because tomorrow starts the Intervarsity Games. Because tomorrow we're hosting people from a college in Lesotho and another in Swaziland to compete at just about everything you could possibly compete at, athletic and otherwise. And people will already be arriving today, and maybe even some arrived yesterday.

Chimo tells me it gets worse. She said it was good I wasn't staying, that people lose all sense of propriety and dignity at these games. That you'll get propositioned right and left by drunken males. So I guess I'm glad that I'm leaving on Monday. The experience of competing with the choir on Sunday will be my only taste of the Intervarsity Games, and I think I'm okay with that. Much as I would like to see the soccer and the rugby and the ballroom dancing and the aerobics and the swimming and all the other competitions that will go on all day from Monday through Friday, I can't say that I'll have the tolerance to put up with the drunk people and the loud music every night for a whole week. When I come back next Sunday, this will all be over and done with, and everyone will be sobering up for Monday classes. I'm thinking that'll be a good time to show my face again.

19 February 2011

It's that time of year again:

the time of year when I decide randomly to revamp my blog. I'm not sure that I actually kept this how it was for a year, but I suppose it's a cyclical thing. Anyway, I was just thinking that I should make my blog fit my surroundings a bit more: so that means more color, and more lively, warm-climate styling! ;) Hopefully you like it and the change isn't too overwhelming.

I'd write a longer post today, but my train of thought is pretty well derailed right now, so I guess it'll have to wait until I've got something better to add. Which I should within the next week, so be on the lookout for it! :) Really, I just wanted to explain the new layout.

08 February 2011

Back to the norm.

I haven't had a typical reflective post in awhile, so I thought I would put one up tonight.

It's a futuristic reflection.

And it's an open-ended question: if you had a choice between graduating a semester early and graduating at the normal time, which would you choose?

Here's the dilemma, and I'll try to spell everything out clearly: if I wanted to, I could graduate a semester early (as in, next December instead of next May). I've got some pros and cons for each option, and for ease of reading, I'll put them in an anal-analytical table-like format.

Graduate in December:
Pros - I'd save a lot of money, for me and my parents, by going one semester instead of two, which would give me more money in the bank to get started paying off loans and to live life in general. (I would only have to budget for one semester instead of two!) I would be free from January to May - I could enjoy the snow and skiing scene back home that I have dearly missed the last few years, I could maybe take some interesting courses at MCC while I was around, I could travel - a great time to hook up with my fellow study abroad student from Canada and go hiking and backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, also a great time to spend a week or more with my sister. I could take some "time off" to figure out what I want my next step to be: I could look for a job around home, start trying to apply for things in State Parks or National Parks and see where things go from there, and I could always fall back on a summer job at Bodie or some other place to make some bank if I don't have something lined up by summer. One semester less means one semester less of general school stress and one semester less of being in the city. And of course, anytime between March and May would be a great time to do my National Parks road trip!
Cons - Leaving a semester early would mean leaving my friends a semester early (although granted I could come and visit them pretty easily since I don't live too far away). It would mean one semester less of Jazz Band (and no going to Elmhurst again). It would mean that I wouldn't get to take the Intro to Botany course that I tried to take pretty much every semester since I got to NPU (although I could take botany courses at MCC on my own if I was home for the spring semester). And on a side note, I probably wouldn't be able to swing getting "academic honors in history". (I'm not exactly sure how that whole thing works, but I think I could get it if I did the extra semester.) And of course, I miss any opportunities that the spring semester would bring: other global partnership trips, other service opportunities around Chicago, club activities, etc.

Graduate in May:
Pros - Graduating in May means I get one more semester at North Park. That's one more semester to be with my friends before I get dumped off in the real world. That's one more semester of joy from playing in the Jazz Band (and one more semester to try and excel under Joe's direction), and one more semester to take advantage of opportunities that may come my way: perhaps a spring internship at a museum or cultural center in Chicago, the chance to take more NPU courses - including botany, and a full year of a new language, perhaps?-, the opportunity to do a Spring Break with my friends - or perhaps to go on another Global Partnership trip over the break. And of course, there's the chance that I could fulfill the necessary requirements to graduate with honors in History.
Cons - One more semester means about $5000 more dished out to North Park, that's more money spent from my pocket, my parents' pocket, and more debt to add to my loans. I'd have one more semester of school stresses, and I would be thrown out with less free time to figure out what I want to do next. It'd just be school->summer job->who knows where!? There would be no break period to have nothing to do but figure out what I want to do and where I want to go next. It would be one more winter of skiing and spring of hiking and family time that I would miss out on - and since I will probably be going into the working world soon after graduation, that might be the last chance I get to enjoy a careless winter/spring season and spend all that time with my family. And I don't know when I would get the chance to travel on my own, meet up with people all over, and whatnot - it wouldn't be until much later, I'm sure, if at all.

So that's the puzzle I've got laid out before me. I never am quite sure which side I agree with more. One day or one week I'll think that I really just want to graduate and get that free time; the next day or next week I'll get really clingy to everything that I've built up for myself at North Park and not want to let go of it so fast. Currently I'm leaning more towards the early graduation, but chances are that could change within a week or so. But I'm willing to take suggestions here, since I'm pretty undecided myself, and as my mom would say: I always make a more solid decision when someone tells me what I should do and I either forcibly agree or forcibly disagree with what they say. So, the floor is yours. Tell me: what would you do in my shoes?