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It’s the Most Hectic 19 Days of the year…

As of today, there are 19 days left in my first semester of my senior year. Can we cue the panic music now?

Before I begin with what’s to come, let’s back up and see where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing since my last post.

Last Friday (the 19th) was Senior Ball, which was held at the DCU Center. I never knew that my classmates could look so elegant and/or dance so well!

Dancing!

Carrie, Miriam, Janet, and Tina posing

Carrie and me being total hams. Not much has changed since Freshman year.

Alyssa and me representing Kimball

Then that weekend was spent in Dinand (which is now open 24/5, which makes sleeping over in the library a possibility. Don’t tempt me!) writing my thesis and my Shakespeare paper since on Tuesday, I left for (wait for it…)

England.

Yes, although I only had a five day break, I hiked over to England for my Thanksgiving Break. For those of you who don’t know, I won a qualifier for the national ISTD championships in the Latin event. My parents decided to let me go back to compete at Nationals, provided that my mother joined me so I would return to America. I left on Tuesday right after my classes and we arrived on Wednesday morning. Mom and I spent Wednesday to Friday in London seeing some sights that Mom didn’t have a chance to see when she visited me during my year abroad. We spent Thursday in Oxford, where I had a brief and disastrous lesson with my coach, Neil, and I also saw two of my best friends from my year abroad. Then we left for Blackpool, which is the home of ballroom dance, on Saturday. I competed on Sunday, and after my lesson on Thursday, I was incredibly nervous. I ended up in the top ten for my ballroom event, which pleased me since I haven’t properly danced  a basic quickstep since about April. Then the Latin event came…

I was incredibly nervous about my Latin even since my coach was less than impressed with how I had regressed since I left England. He told me that I had about 72 hours to fix my dancing and remember everything that he taught me last year. Well, I guess that worked since I kept going on round after round. Finally, they were announcing the numbers for the final – there were seven girls who had made it. My number was high for the event (24), and the first six numbers were incredibly low (the highest one announced was 13). I was a bit devastated since I thought that I didn’t make it, but my number was the last one called. Woo hoo! I made it to the final. At that moment, I didn’t really care about how I danced; I was just excited that I made it. After dancing the final, they announced the placings. I won second place. No, it still hasn’t sunk in that I did that well. My coach thought I should’ve won, but considering the fact that I haven’t properly danced with him since July, I was excited at even making the final!

Me with my shiny trophy! It’s currently in my dorm room.

The new Latin dress that my father loves…not really.

Me with my coach, Neil.

And that was my Thanksgiving break! I made a mad dash for Heathrow yesterday, flew back to Boston, and arrived on campus at 10:00 p.m. last night. In the next 19 days, I have to finish my thesis chapter, write a Shakespeare paper, present my findings on Karl Rahner, present my thesis chapter to the English faculty, and take two finals. Although I could’ve used this weekend to get ahead on all of that work, dancing in England was totally worth it.
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Dear First Semester of Senior Year:

Please stop going by so quickly.

Love,
Colleen

Someone in my Apocalypticism Through The Ages seminar noted how we only have three more meetings left. Then Prof. Gettleman reminded the EHP students that the draft of our first chapter is due on Wednesday, December 1st…as in two weeks from now. Then Fr. Brooks told us that our final oral exam for Contemporary Christology will be on December 8th. Then I realized that the Brown competition on Sunday was my last competition with one of my teammates who will be going abroad next semester (by the way, the team did really well. Josh and I placed second in Silver Swing and fourth in Silver Cha Cha/Rumba. This means that we now have to start dancing Gold…eek.). Everything is just coming to a screeching halt. Honestly, yesterday was just August. Then I woke up this morning, and now it’s November 18th. This weekend is Senior Ball. As cliche as it sounds, I cannot believe how quickly this semester is going!
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I warned you.

Remember when I warned you all that since this is my senior year, I’m going to have a lot of reflection style entries about my years at Holy Cross? Well…I did warn you.

Today, I talked with one of my professors about my upcoming paper for my Shakespeare class (Carrie and I now refer to Mr. Shakespeare as Shakey. It’s catchy and much easier to say.). We then started talking about the nature of the liberal arts education and what he’s trying to achieve in class. See, I expressed a fear about maintaining my average for graduate schools, and he told me to stop worrying about the grades and focus more on education – that’s what the liberal arts experience is really all about. Now, that is much easier said than done, especially for someone as OCD and neurotic about grades as me, but his comment made me reflect upon my grades. The highest grades that I’ve received are in the classes where I stopped working for the grade and started working for the sheer enjoyment of learning. Yes, yes, I know how cliche this sounds, but it’s so true. I’ve been lucky enough to find professors at Holy Cross (and Oxford as well) who teach in this manner and focus not on the end result, but on the journey to get there. I think I’m going to end this “senior moment” entry now, but my talk with my professor was just really inspiring. And that, my friends, is why I love the liberal arts education.
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A Jesuit Success Story

Today, a certain organization held a recruiting information session for seniors. When I first entered Holy Cross, I only wanted to work for this organization – that was my plan. Then the Jesuits got a hold of me and the rest is history…

My Jesuit education made me reflect on why I even wanted to join this organization – did I feel a strong passion for it? Could I be a woman for others by working for them? Was this organization the best way to redistribute my talents to better society? After periods of deep reflection, I realized that the answer to all of those was no. Instead of planning out my life based upon one organization, I began to explore my personal interests – what made me tick, what resonated within me the most.

Instead of attending that organization’s recruiting fair, I skipped off to the library to work on my thesis on Julian of Norwich and Flannery O’Connor. Funny how things change.
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Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

I enrolled for classes for the last time on the STAR system. And I’m quite sad about it.

Not really, actually. See, enrollment has always gone extremely smoothly for me. I’ve been one of those unique lucky students who has enrolled in every single class that I have ever wanted. Sure, I’ve had to get permission to take some of my courses, and my luck might be a result of no one else wanting to take the same courses as me. I’ve heard some horror stories from some of my friends – they can only enroll in one or two classes, and then they have to go ask professors if they can overfill the class, etc (one of the many good things about Holy Cross being so small and exclusively undergraduate is that you can do stuff like that and professors will 9.9 times out of 10 allow you to enter).

So why am I happy that this is my last enrollment? Well, for starters, enrollment is always at 7:00 a.m. Although I usually get up this early anyway (yes, I’m speaking the truth, Mom and Dad!), let’s face it – it’s early. And there’s always that pregnant pause – that awful moment of hesitation in which your computer frantically attempts to successfully enroll you in all of your courses. You sit on the edge of your computer – you’re barely awake, you’re clutching your mug of tea (if you’re me. If you’re the average Holy Cross student, it’s probably coffee), and you’re frantically going through your back up plan just in case your primary choices don’t work out. It’s a frightening five millisecond span.

So what am I taking next term?

This is as of right now. One class might change a bit, and this doesn’t include my thesis meeting – Prof. Kee and I arrange that individually. This also doesn’t include the TS Eliot class that I’m auditing. But, as you can imagine, I’m really happy about this set of classes. It is weird to finally see the term Spring 2011. Stop going by so quickly, senior year!
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For Your Aural Pleasure

After reading my blog for the past four years, have you ever wondered, “Hm. I know how she writes and I know everything about her life, but what does she sound like?” Well – look no further. I’m here to take you into an aural post.

If you click on this link, you can listen to/see the interview that NECN did of me for my ballroom dance thing…stuff, and finally put a voice to my blog entries. You can also see my new haircut more visibly (I think I’m going to change the title of this blog to “The Many Hairstyles of Colleen”), which is obviously more important. 😛
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Where In the World is Colleen?

Wow. I feel like I haven’t been on here in quite some time. To make up for this and get you all up to speed quickly, this is going to be a photo entry.

First, I was in San Diego, California to present at the 32nd annual Association for Integrative Studies Conference.

I think that the location kind of helped my decision to go to the conference.

At the conference, Professor Matlak and I argued for the establishment of a national honors society for those students with interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary…however you choose to look at it) majors. Our presentation was well received, and the board is going to review our proposal. Hopefully there will be such an establishment within the next few years!

Then, I went home for a few days, where I made s’mores and slept.

Then I came back to Holy Cross to compete and cheer on the rest of the team at the Harvard Ballroom Competition.

My grandmother and Mom came to watch.

Yes, I have long hair when I compete in ballroom.

Then I came back to beautiful Holy Cross…

…to work on my thesis.

Then I had loads of papers, exams, and applications to do. When I blinked my eyes, it was Halloween.

Yes, I went as Scrabble.

And that’s my whirlwind life for the past month or so!