The next 12 months of my life are going to be pretty amazing– I can already tell 12 days in! I will be going to Chicago in February, Washington D.C. and hopfully Pittsburgh in March, San Antonio in April, and EUROPE in May with one of my besties. Also in May, I will be GRADUATING from McKendree. And in August, probably the best thing of the whole year, I will be starting another degree somewhere unfamiliar! These changes, graduation and moving, are quite terrifying, but I’m sort of becoming more excited about them as time passes. “It’s not the beginning of the end, it’s the end of the beginning” my roommate Allie said the day before the semester started. Though it is hard to accept, it is also very true. At McKendree, I have found the “Me” I have been searching for the last few years; I have found my identity. So it’ll be difficult. The most difficult thing is that my Wolfpack of Meagan, Allie, and I will change next year when we all go our separate ways– whether we go to grad schools, get internships, or start real jobs– it will HAVE to change. There’s no way around it.
I’ve been back at school working and doing things since the 3rd and since then, I think I have had more than 10 people remind of this big scary graduation thing coming up. It makes me a bit sad honestly, but then again, I keep thinking about the new exciting things coming up and change my feelings once again! Many emotions. I kind of feel borderline bipolar. I got to skype my friend in England the other day! He’s studying abroad at King’s College London through McKendree this semester. Meagan and I are used to seeing him everyday and spending hours doing homework with him, so it is quite an adjustment for us! We’ll be seeing him in London in May though!
Classes this semester: all but one is for fun. The dreaded last requirement I have been so strategically putting off has finally caught up with me: Speech. Ugh. We make our first speeches next week, and though they are not graded, I am already nervous! Eek! I believe we make a total of 5 speeches– 5 too many for me. I am also taking a Spanish course to keep my language skills up for the foreign language requirements in grad school! My one TTh class, Women’s History, is going to be a fun one! I’ve always wanted to take this course, and I’m glad I finally have the opportunity to do so! We’re reading three texts along with a textbook, and I’ll eventually be writing a 10 page paper (hopefully something on 2nd or 3rd wave feminism!) Though my schedule was basically all electives, I felt very weird about it. I felt very bored already. So I was, until today, enrolled in a Study Abroad class but I decided to drop it and go to England/Europe on my own (well with friend in tow as well). I then decided to pick up and Independent Study! The missing link in my schedule–lots of English research! 
Everything is right in the world again, the more english, the better, of course. Other English classes include Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Romances– starting off with Romeo & Juliet and 18th Century/Restoration Literature. I’m going to be reading things like Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, and more of the infamous Aphra Behn! Overall though, it’s so incredibly weird to think that this is it. I’m making the best of my last semester, though (except for Speech of course)!
Graduation this semester or not, the spring semester ALWAYS goes fast! Soo many things happening sooo soon! I’m beginning to really appreciate these last sixteen weeks I have here and really taking advantage of each and every opportunity I have in front of me. I’m super pumped for the upcoming Hett events this semester! The Distinguished Speaker series continues with an explorer/filmmaker next month; the spanish film series continues with a film about the young Fidel Castro later this month and as always, concerts! I’m really bummed I missed Christine Brewer’s concert tonight, but it was Sold Out! So jealous. Another great semester of Brown Bags coming up including one that I get to help present! Young Feminists is doing a Brown Bag on the same day as The Vagina Monologues to give a history and such about the monologues! Super pumped! The first one of the semester, today’s, was about McKendree’s new program for first generation college students. I definitely had to go to this one as it hits close to home– I am a first gen! It was put on by the director of the new program and included input from many McK professors who are also first gen college students. This definitely surprised me, but also encouraged me–if they can get their Ph.D.’s coming from similar family backgrounds, I hope I can, too! 
Besides school, one “resolution” I made to myself this year is to do more fun things! From a blog post someone found, a few people in Young Feminists are venturing to face the challenge it posed: read one “feminist classic” a month for the entire year of 2011. Currently, those of us in it are reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman written by Mary Wollstonecraft during the Romantic period (1795). I’ve actually read this book for a course before, but I love reading it again! I do need to get ahold of the other book for this month!The other books include:
January: A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollestonecraft AND So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
February: The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill
March: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
April: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
May: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
June: God Dies by the Nile by Nawal Saadawi
July: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
August: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
September: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
October: Ain’t I a Woman? by bell hooks AND Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism Anthology
November: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
December: Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The rescheduled Eurotrip I’m taking is going to be around the same time frame as the other one (in May) but it will be specifically what we want to do. We’re planning on going to Stratford-upon-Avon, Canterbury if I can convince her, the Globe Theatre, Parliament, The Tower of London, Stonehenge, some castles, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey just to name a few!
Grad school update: in only two weeks, I will be completely done applying! I feel like half the battle was the application process. Now the dreadfully long and uncertain waiting period begins. Fingers crossed though!
Until next time!
