Dear Heavens,

It was a beautiful weekend! Not only did I complete ALL of my homework (that never happens on time) but I managed to have a TON of fun with my girlfriends! Emma had a sleepover, and Emma, Tia and Nurhan and I all spent the weekend eating out, shopping at Target (new shoes and a new jumper!), and staying up late watching all eight episodes of Stranger Things! We took group naps together with the sun shining on us, went to the farmer’s market and hula practice, and sat together screaming and yelling at the TV while watching the decisions made on the Oscars!

Gratitude Corner

I am grateful for my friends. We are getting so much closer this winter quarter, and the balance of personalities really is remarkable. We cry, laugh, and eat together, study, and go on “bonding time” adventures!

Meeting Numero Uno

Or, put in a more specific English translation, I went to my first formal Immersion meeting on Monday night, and it was beautiful. The mood lighting with candles and comfy chairs made it easy to settle in, but we talked about some thought-provoking subjects. We shared our good and bad habits, explained what culture/country we’d want to explore and why, and then dove into two deep questions: To you, what is a credible utopia, and how does that play into religion? What prevents your from fulling loving those around you? I invite you to sit with a dear friend, a loved one, or even better, a group of besties sitting over a meal together and ask these questions because they’re bound to provoke a very eye-opening conversation. Maybe it was because it was past my bed time, but it was an amazing conversation starter.

For the Love of Homework, Why?!

There was way too much to do this week, it was absolutely ridiculous! I had project after project to do and it was insane. This is everything I had to do this week: read the play Antigone (Greek tragedy), read the play Lysistrata (Greek comedy), read the play Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare comedy), analyze/study/score/ annotate a monologue, memorize the monologue from Troilus and Cressida, perform the monologue twice (once on Tuesday and once on Thursday), memorize “I’ll Know” from Guys and Dolls, write a four-page reflection on Acting, write a discussion regarding multimodal education, read three LONG scholarly article regarding multimodal education, write a discussion regarding my research project (the relationship between theatre and at-risk youth), write a discussion regarding Lysistrata, write a discussion regarding Antigone , write a script for my presentation on my research project, create a PowerPoint for my research presentation, present my research project to my class, and present my research project to all the students, faculty and administration of the LEAD Program on campus. Not only was that an insanely long run-on sentence, but that was a freaking insanely long run-on week! Excuse my slight French!

But! Then the weekend came, and I was highly productive! I did ALL of my homework and got ahead for the week. I also decided what my project was going to be for my Culture and Ideas class (When God was a Woman) – It was about time considering it’s due on Friday! The prompt was to either write a paper (boring) or do a creative project showing why I’d want to be a specific woman or goddess we’ve studied in class. My favorite character, even though she came to an awful death, was Antigone from, Antigone.. I’m going to do a visual piece of mixed medium of water color, ink, and colored pencil. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m pretty excited!