Month: September 2011

I’ve been back in the UK for nearly a week now, and Oxford hasn’t changed a bit. Well, I admit that there are a few new stores here and there. Anyway, Mom and I flew over last Wednesday night, and she helped me move in. Having her here made things a lot easier than my junior year. Dad joined us on Saturday, and the moving in process is basically complete at this moment.

My new college, St. Hilda’s, is beautiful. It’s right along the river, and several willow trees overlook the meadow. You can actually walk on the grass, too!

All of my official events begin next week, and then classes begin the following week. Then it’s on for ten straight weeks of papers, classes, tutorials, and dissertation proposals. Well, here we go!

I officially have one week until I leave for England. Naturally, I just spent about five days in Boston and Worcester with my Holy Cross friends. Packing up everything so I can move to a foreign country for two years? Nah. It doesn’t seem nearly as important as going back to my alma mater.

It was fantastic to see everyone. I had long conversations with Professors Perry, Mulrooney, Kee, DiCenso, Smith, Geracht, and Fr. Brooks about my new courses at Oxford and how I felt where graduate school was going to lead me. I talked with friends about their lives on the Hill as current seniors, juniors, and sophomores, and we reminisced about our adventures when I was still a student. I walked around campus to see the new additions and to place myself in my favorite spots on campus. I spent most of Tuesday afternoon in Campion talking with Paul Melley and the other chaplains. I went to Culpepper’s every morning to get my iced coffee and blueberry scones. In other words, I felt like I was back at Holy Cross.

Fr. Brooks – we chatted about the Christology seminar this semester and the theologians that his students had picked earlier that day. I am proud to report that another girl is studying Rahner!

Professor Kee – this poor man thought that when I graduated, I’d be out of his hair. Such is not the case!

Although, I will admit this – although I adored every moment that I spent on campus, I just had this feeling that it’s time to move on from Holy Cross. Holy Cross has given me the most wonderful undergraduate experience, but I am excited for everything that my graduate career has to offer.

Don’t worry – I will always consider Holy Cross my home. But I’m just very excited about the opportunities that graduate school holds for me. And, oh, yes. I am leaving for England in less than a week, and I haven’t started packing. This could be an issue.

Unfortunately, my visit back to Holy Cross wasn’t all smiles and catching up. One of my favorite professors, Professor Rick Murphy of the Religious Studies department, passed away on Tuesday morning.

I was blessed to have had Professor Murphy for two classes – Jesus and His Contemporaries in my sophomore year and Apocalypticism Through the Ages in my senior year. When Fr. Brooks told me about Professor Murphy’s passing on Tuesday morning, I had a difficult time accepting it. Professor Murphy was one of the kindest and most involved professors in my life at Holy Cross (then again, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a professor at Holy Cross who didn’t care about his or her students). Even in the semester when I wasn’t taking one of his classes, I always stopped by his office and we talked about everything – and I mean everything. His classes helped me develop a more mature understanding of my Catholic faith, and his example as a scholar and a man of faith definitely helped me along my own faith journey. The photo above is from my Christology defense in Senior year, when he was a guest grader. After my presentation and defense of Karl Rahner, Professor Murphy sat down next to me and whispered, “Great job.” His presence on campus and, more specifically, in my life will certainly be missed, but I am blessed to have known him in my undergraduate career.

http://news.holycross.edu/blog/2007/09/05/first-year-student-ready-to-explore-abundant-opportunities-available-at-holy-cross/

Anyone remember that first news release? A lot has changed since then. The first line of that news release reads, “Decisions, decisions, decisions.” When that release was written, I remember being overwhelmed with all of the opportunities I had at Holy Cross, which ranged from courses options, extracurricular activities, and eateries (I really like food). Now, I get to look back and see how everything just fit together perfectly during my time at Holy Cross, even if I didn’t know it at the time. I remember meeting with Professor Oser during Summer Gateways, and he advised me to take a certain Professor Kee’s First Year Program course since it seemed to target everything that I loved (literature, theology, philosophy, and history). That FYP course introduced me to the Medieval period and Professor Kee, who eventually became my Medieval Studies Advisor. I happened to meet Professor Smith one day while walking through Smith, and we talked about studying abroad at Oxford in the summer after my freshman year. That program made me fall in love with Oxford, so I applied to study there during my junior year. Professor Mulrooney interviewed me in the first semester of sophomore year, and we struck up a conversation about Tolkien. He invited me to apply for one of the last spots in his seminar, which I did. I happened to waltz by (no pun intended) the Ballroom Dance table at the Co-Curricular Extravaganza, and I enjoyed the first lesson. Then I became hooked, and the rest is history. I didn’t know how all of these decisions would guide the course of my four years at Holy Cross (or life, but let’s not get too dramatic), but all of the decisions worked out well. In fact, they worked out so well that the plan with which I entered Holy Cross completely disintegrated, and I found a new plan and a new passion (well, several) that I never knew existed. So, to all of you members of 2015 – have fun making those decisions, whether they work out or not. You never know – that 7:00 a.m. shift at Kimball for which you sign up could very well be the place that you meet one of your best friends.

On September 3rd, 2007, I published my first post on this blog. In my first post, I had no idea what I was doing, so I just talked about Orientation activities and my classes. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Since then, I’ve made friends, acclimated to college life, and made Holy Cross my home. Of course, I still get lost every so often, and I definitely still have questions about the place (for instance, why is Mamie Reilly one of our fight songs? Dean Freeman doesn’t even know!). However, despite my bad sense of direction and some general questions, I know I’ve made the right decision for college.

Since that first post, a lot of things have changed, even with the blog itself. We’re now running on a .me platform, which allows users to post comments. The layout has changed a bit, too. And, of course, I’m no longer that frightened little freshman who got lost in Stein.

Most importantly, thank you to all of you, my readers. When I accepted this position, this blog was only supposed to be around for a year. Four years and a graduation later, I’m still here due to how you all have responded to my posts. I’ve met so many Crusaders who read my blog on the Hill, and it always means so much to me when I hear back from my readers. So, thank you to you all, and I can’t wait to show you what life off the Hill for this Crusader will be like.

And, no, I still don’t know why Maime Reilly is one of our fight songs.