November 24, 2008

Salvete, omnes!

I am so incredibly sorry for the lack of posts lately. My life has been quite the whirlwind! The end of the semester is fast approaching, and with it a flurry (of snow, I wish!) of assignments and papers has come. I have two major papers to do for next week: Montserrat and Latin. Latin is a grand 10-12 page masterpiece that should take me a solid week to get done. Montserrat is a bit easier — 1200-1600 words on two contrasting bodies of work we’ve studied and how the Greeks preserved themselves through them. I’ll be working on those from the comfort of my own home…

Tomorrow I’m heading down to my beloved Philadelphia with my cousins, who are spending Thanksgiving in PA this year. I can’t wait to see my family and friends! Even though I have an incredible amount of work to get done (trying not to think about that!), it will be so nice to relax and eat some of my mom’s fantastic cooking. It’s so odd to think that I only have a few weeks left after this break until I’m finished my first semester. I’m enjoying myself so much and cannot believe how quickly the time has passed. It seems like in the wink of an eye, three months have sped by. Ah, did not mean to get poetic!

As I said, the past week and a half or so has been absolutely jam-packed. On Thursday the 20th, all first-years had to register for classes. Now, enrollment at Holy Cross is quite an event. One must get up at the crack of dawn (my roommate got up at 5:30 to secure a computer with an Ethernet cable!) and sign onto a program called STAR to enroll at exactly 7 a.m. in four classes. I was up and signed in, with my classes picked out and ready to go, at around 6:45. By some miracle, I managed to get all of the classes I wanted to take! So you’ll be hearing about Introduction to Astronomy (with which I’m fulfilling my last Natural Science core), Classical Archeology, and my second semesters of Intro Greek and Montserrat, which switches to an emphasis on Rome. I’m very excited to continue studying Astronomy—it’s a hobby of mine, and I took a semester class on it in senior year of high school.

Friday I had a really fun and relaxing Montserrat class, even though the day itself was a tad stressful. I had Professor Joseph all day, and happened to have both a quiz in Greek and a presentation in Montserrat. However, we held class in a very nice classroom on Mulledy’s basement floor and even had lunch delivered from Kimball! Giving the presentation was quite easy because of the relaxed atmosphere of the day. For me, little things like this make Holy Cross special. We have so many opportunities to forge real connections with both our professors and our fellow classmates. Smaller class sizes and professors who are genuinely interested in our education and well-being make this beautiful school all the more enjoyable.

As beautiful as Holy Cross is right now in the last throws of fall, I must say that I have never felt such bone-chilling cold as I have here in the past couple days. This weekend was so brutal that I cringed even at the thought of stepping outside of Mulledy. Saturday night was especially terrible. The wind chill had the temperature down in the single digits…in Philadelphia, the temperature might not get that low even in January or February! I’m being thrown full-force into the nasty reality of a New England winter, I suppose!

Off to organize a bit before my long journey home tomorrow. Xairete, and a very happy and safe Thanksgiving to all!