Freshman year of college: check.

Now I'm home to enjoy a few relaxing weeks with my family until I start work as a counselor at a Lutheran camp.After unpacking all my crap and realizing I have the potential to become an exceptional hoarder, I made a trip to the library. For fun. For the first time in a year.
Because what's summer without books? My plan is to have my nose in a book at all times, so as to make up for the many months of un-fun reading at college. I keep an obsessive list of all the books I've read, and it used to be that I could find the time to finish four or five a month. When I looked at what I had put under the year 2012, it read one lonely title, "Great House," by Allison Krauss. One book for the entire year so far.

This is truly a tragedy.

So, I started my atonement by picking up three books the other day: "Sacre Bleu," by Christopher Moore,

"Einstein's God," by the wonderful Krista Tippett,and "The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson." Since I don't have much time to totally immerse myself in Emerson's Trancendental philosophy, I'm going to narrow down "the essential writings" to the "absolute essential three essays," and save the rest for another summer.

I'm really enjoying the books I started, butI'm at the point where I get to the library and feel like I've read everything already, so new authors and story suggestions are welcome.

Along with the reading, I'm keeping up the piano stuff as well (because it's kind of why I'm in school). A Bach Partita, Mozart sonata, and a few Debussy preludes are on my rep list this summer and fall, which should be fun, and while I'm here I'm going to finish up some pieces I've been trying to write. Already my sister has commissioned me to write "a hymn to Isaac Newton and gravity," after being inspired by this video.



So we'll see how that goes.

Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 2

What a great experience we're all having! Even after just the first full day, I can already tell that I will miss the relationships that have been made through this conference, the diversity and openness that everyone has contributed, come Monday morning when we're back in Moorhead. Sigh...

Today, the big theme was brainstorming specific projects our delegations could focus on. These could be events to promote awareness of an issue, or just the local Better Together group itself, it could be a service project, field trip kinds of experiences. Also, we discussed what were the best ways to advertise and get the word out to the community. We deduced that the crazier the stunt, or the catchier the poster/flyer ad, the better response you would get. So, dress all campus statues in Better Together t-shirts and apparel to gain attention-- t-shirts that you stenciled yourself at your hands-on/crafty interfaith event! Always provide pizza! Make a silly video about your campaign! Put flyers of useful information in the bathrooms! And most importantly, use social media. Facebook and Tweet it up big time with quotes from interfaith leaders in history, or statistics about the issue that you're focusing on, like homelessness, hunger, immigration/refugees, or environmental stewardship. This was a really great time for our group, because our creative juices were really flowing. And also, we did something called asset mapping. This was basically a flow chart of all of the support we have on campus, be it from faculty and administration, student groups, outside community, and even who let's us rent a room for events. We realized that we have tons of people at Concordia who've got our backs!
Other things that happened today was that we could attend a service to celebrate the Jewish tradition of Shabbat, and a Muslim call to prayer. I went to both, and it was one of those goose-bump inducing experiences.
Our Dorothy Day group is pretty awesome, I'd say. Yesterday, our delegations were all at different tables, but today, we tried to see how many people could fit around one table, and when we realized, "Oh, awkward, there's 8 people who won't fit," we jumped to action and brought our tables together, to the surprise of the IFYC staff who were leading our session. I'd have to say, our enthusiasm and humor has been making this such an awesome group to be in. (And thanks to one delegation, the phrase of the day has been, "Dorothy Day FTW!")

What I'm loving about this conference is that I have always been interested in diversity but because of where I live, I was always reading about those things instead of experiencing it first-hand. Most of the people that I encounter in my life are white Christian Lutherans--it's a kind of sad fact. Here, I'm meeting people who are Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic and Athiest, and not only are we bonding over deep stuff like our beliefs, but also through the goofy random flow of conversation that tends to happen between 9pm and Midnight when a lot of candy has been consumed and someone has a deck of Uno cards.

It's a goal of ours to make our school a more welcoming place for that type of relationship-building. And I think our school's ready for it.

Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 1

I know it's midnight,and I'm tired, and it's been a day of information overload, but I'm going to try and make this blog post make sense. Please bear with me.
~
Our group of 4 students and 1 professor arrived safely in Atlanta yesterday afternoon. The conference started off this afternoon at Emory University's conference center, with an overview of what Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) is all about, then afterwards we had our first break-out session. This meant out of us 150-some people, we broke into groups made up of 5 or six college delegations. Since it's the first day, we all got up and introduced ourselves, and intentionally talked about the differences of our faith. Some of us were Christian, some were Muslim, some were Hindu, some didn't identify with a religion or believe in a higher power at all. And that's what's so great. What I love about IFYC is that it's not an organization that wants to dumb things down, ignore our differences and sing Kumbayaa together. It wants people to know that we are different, and that we can learn from our differences. I myself strongly believe that learning from these different faith traditions helps me reassess what I really believe, and therefore strengthens my own faith. What's also very cool about this Leadership Institute that they put on is that everybody who's here actually wants to be here. Everybody's eager to know how they can build bridges through interfaith dialogue and service instead of maintaining walls.
We talked about how our college communities have responded to our interfaith-ing, both positively and negatively. For our group from Concordia College, while we love the positive response we're getting from students and faculty, we're also glad that we have encountered opposition from others--that means that our mission and message is being heard, and that the dialogue has been sparked, and the diversity of our community is being reflected.


I want to summarize a few of the things I've picked up here from various speakers. As members of an interfaith movement, IFYC believes that we should

~Voice our values. This means not being shy about our diversity.

~Engage with others! I shouldn't have to explain why: nothing gets done, no understanding is made, if we do not communicate with and learn from one another.

~Take action. So, with the knowledge and understanding that we now possess, we then should go out in the world and start making some positive changes.

And just like that, you change the world :)

~~~

These break-out sessions with other colleges that I talked about: each of them are named after an interfaith activist from throughout history, such as the Ghandi Group, The MLK Group, the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Group. Us? We're in the Dorothy Day group, which made me a bit too excited. I did a pretty emphatic arm-pumping motion,a la Napolean Dynamite.

Then of course, the highlight of the day was hearing IFYC founder Eboo Patel speak at dinner. He knew that in a way he was preaching to the choir by talking about how important interfaith dialogue and service is. I wish I could tell you more about the content of the speech, but I was so enamored that I didn't really take notes at all. And geez, I always take notes. And there was an overarching music metaphor, which was awesome! So, I'm hoping someone recorded it, 'cause I'd love for y'all to be able to Google or Youtube it. He did say that our job is not to ask, "Eboo, what are you going to do about this? When are you going to get something started in my community?" It's our job. We start it. We should mobilize ourselves and other people, we should be teaching people, and serving together.
Our delegation got to meet Eboo Patel and talk with him--we're really excited, because he'll be speaking at our school next year! "I'm not coming in the winter, though," he said, right up front. He doesn't know what he's missing. So, we got our picture with him, I got my copy of his book "Acts of Faith" signed, and it was very cool. All I can say is that he's the real deal.
Later in the evening we did more mingling activities, and I started hanging out with a few new people, and hey, there's a piano in the lobby, we said, so we started playing it. Me and someone else were just improvising tunes for a good 45 minutes. It's amazing how that always seems to happen to me. Music follows me everywhere; I can't seem to shake it. It brings me together with people that I never thought I'd encounter, ever. I feel so blessed by this.

Ok, that's all I can manage tonight. Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

Back in Moorhead...for now

Winter break has ended and I've been back at school since Saturday. Then, I'm leaving again on Wednesday for Atlanta! I've been alternating between long periods of packing for the trip, organizing everything for the school year, taking walks in the freakishly warm weather, sleeping, and watching "Throw Down Your Heart" on Hulu.
And hasn't it been loverly! Being back that early means that campus is rather quiet, and the time by myself is helping me start the semester off all confident and organized.


I really didn't want to come back at first, but now that I am back, I'm feeling optimistic about the semester. Last fall I had a huge learning curve, and now I've pretty much got my bearings. There are little things I'm doing to keep myself sane this semester: growing a pot of marigolds, keeping my desk clean enough to actually use, drawing (I specialize in hedgehogs and Hobbes-like tigers) and jotting down little thoughts on index cards, going to bed earlier, and doing pseudo-yoga stretches (because I'm not disciplined enough for real yoga). If I keep up with these things, I will be alright.

Thanksgiving

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving Break--just three more days and I'll be home! But, just like Mid-Sem break in October, it's probably going to be over before I know it (how's that for pessimistic? WHAT HAS COLLEGE DONE TO ME?). This semester has had its peaks and valleys, and I'm still trying to figure out how to operate within this new world. That sounds like an exaggeration, but that's really what it feels like. And not the happy Aladdin kind, either. It's been rough, dealing with the stress of classes and not having the luxury of free/dreaming/guitar-playing/journal-and-blog-writing time. It's freakin' hard interesting being a college student, when I'm coming from a very different philosophy of learning and living. A lot of times I feel like a square peg being forced into a round hole. But along with that, there have been good things as well, like being in choir, playing on the Quidditch team, learning to speak German, and meeting lots of cool friends and mentors. I'll get used to things eventually...

Coming home

I've been enjoying a weekend home from school, and man it feels good. The reason I came down after only a month away is because the music director at my church needed an accordion player. Of all things. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and had a fun time playing with a polka band in church as part of an Oktoberfest worship celebration. Yes, my life is awesome.
It was really fun today seeing all my friends at church. I love it at school, and I'm weathering the challenges well, but there's no place like home. Actually, I spent so much of my time in high school at church, that a lot of people were not surprised at all to see me around this morning. Aside from jamming out on the accordion, I've spent my time finishing a research paper, which I'm glad to be done with, and practicing piano with my snazzy new metronome (which looks like a miniature beige coffin, which is why I associate metronomes with DEATH).

Today I've just been hanging out, knitting, and watching football. I miss this idea of free time!

My home-schooled background has helped me in a lot of ways; I get stuff done promptly, and I'm not burned out from years of being in school already, so I'm curious as to how things all work. Doesn't mean I like all the deadlines and creating annotated bibliographies, the late nights, and general fast pace of everything, but I roll with the punches. Even though I'm in college, I still identify myself as a home-schooler-–four years of college won't change that.

Graduating?! What?!

Life is feeling pretty surreal right now. I know it is for a lot of graduating high schoolers like me, but my case is a bit different. The last time I was in your typical classroom environment was in pre-school, and now in a mere two months I'll be in college. Yowza!
My peers and I are at this weird stage where everything in the future is new, exciting, and scary. For me as a home schooler, you can multiply that by a million. I don't want to think about my future, but that's all I end up thinking about. I know I already have certain skills I can use to survive and do well in the world, so I try to stop worrying. (Let's see how that goes, shall we?) I know I have comforting and supportive people around me, though, and I'm definitely not alone in my anxious thoughts.

Some people ask me if I'm going to be part of the local high school commencement ceremony, but the answer is no. I suppose I could process through my livingroom and my mom could hand me a diploma, but I'd rather not. Fanfare and funny hats aren't my thing. I'll just take the party, please.

~~

This last week I've made progress with a few compositions, which is always an exhilerating feeling. What's strange is that I could sit at the piano and play you a multitude of tunes that frequently roll around my brain, but to this day my complete collection of finished works--though they're not as epic as the title may suggest-- comes only to a total of three. I'm kind of new at this whole composing thing, so that's probably why I underestimated the insane amount of time it can take to perfect one measure, let alone an entire piece of music. But I'll keep on truckin'. It's a fun mind-bending type of challenge for me. Some people do Sudoku, I write music. What I'm working on now is a piece for choir, because I'm a choir geek raised by more choir geeks who hang out with other choir geeks, and then another piano thing. That's kind of my big summer priority--to finish something--along with catching up with people before I leave for school.

Exciting times are ahead, without a doubt.

A host of different things...

After being sick all through spring break, I'm finally on the mend. The last few days I've been really excited about college this fall, which is weird, because for a long time I was dreading it. There's something about the never ending winter that's made me want to push the fastforward button and be in late August so I can start at Concordia-Moorhead. I found out this week about my financial aid package (not too shabby) and what dorm I'll be in (the one connected to the music building!)

In other news, I'm

*trying to compose more music, trying to sort the good stuff from the crap (which is harder than it sounds), and actually finish something.

*on the lookout for summer jobs nearby. Blah. Figuring out a plan if I need to wing it. (I'm an expert weed puller/yard worker and house sitter)

*Trying to be all Buddha-like and live in the moment. Ha! Let's see how that works.

*Bracing for the ickiness that is the spring thaw. I like spring, just not the melting snow mixed with dog poop and worm smell that lasts for a couple weeks prior.

*Playing Bach's Invention in C minor. Playing anything by Bach is like broccoli--it's good for you and it helps you to be well balanced. The Inventions are super yummy and the C minor is really fun to play, what with the interweaving voices everywhere.

*Thinking about taking violin lessons this summer. I've been teaching myself for 2 years, and I'm at the point where I'm wonderfully average, but I'd like to seek some professional help so I don't hurt myself (literally). I never thought I'd like Bach so much, but the stuff he wrote for violin has been really inspiring me to practice so that one day I can play some great work of his! I don't plan to become the next Joshua Bell, but I'd like to learn enough to play some decent chamber and fiddle music for sure.

*Really wanting to travel. Anywhere. I'm going a little stir-crazy.

The College Search Continues!

I just got back from visiting U of M-Morris and Concordia College in Moorhead. I had never driven that far north-west in Minnesota, and the fall colors were beautiful!

These were two distinguished schools that I knew I wanted to visit for awhile. I have trouble remembering, though, that I am the consumer, and they are trying to impress me--not the other way around. Of course I have to look respectable and interested, but they have to act like they want me. Hence the snacks and sugary beverages every school I've visited has offered us.

I was thirsty, and you gave me a Pepsi. I was hungry, and you offered me Fritos.

I never had a ditzy tour guide, but coincidentally they were both biology majors who confessed to not possessing a single musical bone in their body. Morris was nice and small, and architecturally it reminded me of the Twin Cities campus. I talked with a member of the music faculty and had a very good conversation with him. Although the town is very very very small to me, it looks like they make a good effort to bring entertainment to campus. All in all, it's making itself a suitable option. My next task is to imagine being at Morris...in the winter.

Concordia was someplace I expected to like, and I'm glad my expectations were realized.

I'm very much into the small, private, Lutheran, liberal arts schools, in case you didn't know already. We were there during homecoming, so there were alums everywhere.

So many blond haired people wearing maroon and yellow...so many corn cobs...

I didn't speak with any music faculty, but I was aware that--in the tradition of many Lutheran schools--that its music program was highly solid in general, and I wasn't too worried about it. (Especially after hearing their orchestra, band, and concert choir perform for the homecoming concert.)

Then I got to have lunch with my friend who is a Cobber, and I was so glad to see her and get a real student's (good) opinion of what it's like there.

So, if I get accepted to the ones I want, it'll be hard to make a decision.

Who has the faculty that's right for me?

What's the financial aid like?

What's the choir like?

Who has the better food?

Which one has carpeted dorm rooms?

Who has an intramural quidditch team?

Important decisions indeed.

Back from St. Olaf

The verdict: I still love St. Olaf


Even though I pretty much knew everything about it from my mom before I even visited, I liked actually being there, and I could really picture myself there in--golly!--a year or so.

We were there on Flower Friday, when a local florist comes and you can buy flowers for your peeps. The student mail boxes had a bunch of flowers poking out of them.

I found it a cute little quirk, but we're not supposed to go to college for the cute little quirks, so here are some other things that I liked:

They have a top-notch music program, lovely hills to climb on your way to class, a rock wall to climb to qualify as your physical education class, a wind turbine, nice admission staff (even though someone added an extra letter to my last name, I forgive them), and a tight community that I really like. Although, they could have saved a lot of money by making climbing the hill from Skoglund gym/auditorium a way to take phy. ed., instead of walking down the (steep!) hill to get inside the building to climb up a wall with ropes bothering you in uncomfortable places, then walk up the hill again to your dorm on the other side of campus.

I like the smallness of the school, the not-too-faraway-but-still-far-ness of it, the liberal arts structured education, and the basis in the Lutheran faith, while still being culturally diverse and having many non-Lutheran and non-Christian students.

Oh, and this is the best part--it smells like cookies. I know it's the Malt O Meal plant, but the place smelled like cookies to me.

(This is not one of the major deciding factors in how I choose the school I will attend, but it doesn't harm their chances at all. If it smelled like cows, that would be a different matter)

The only thing that could potentially derail my dream of becoming an Ole is the financial aid that I may or may not get. I find it very unfair that it costs three arms, two legs and your first born child to go to a good private school. But hey, we'll see what happens.

I would say at this point, St. Olaf is my first choice, with Augsburg College in second, then comes Wartburg College (love my Lutheran schools) and UW-Madison with a shrug and a maybe from me.

May the best school win.


And may they all really really really like me and want to shower me with monetary gifts. Amen.

I'm getting excited for my first college visit this Friday to St. Olaf in Northfield. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I've been there once to sing in the fall choral festival, so I got a look at the beautiful campus when all the leaves were changing color. Hearing all their wonderful choral groups later that evening also made me want to go there. Singing is my second musical passion next to playing the piano, and I hope to someday direct choirs. Northfield is also a nice little town--not too big, not too small, and just the right distance from home for me.
It's also got a Ragstock. I'm so there. Case closed.

Lots of people I know have gone to St. Olaf (my mommy included), and all of them like to gush about the music program. [Mom edits: I do not gush.] I haven't even applied yet, but I'm probably going to gush too. They're also trying to win me over with their food--but they didn't need to send me a whole postcard about it, though. I'm sure becoming an Ole does not include starvation.

Fun fact: In 2009 St. Olaf won the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest hosted by Purdue University. They were the only liberal arts college in the competition and the only college to enter without an engineering program. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who drew insanely complicated machines to do simple and mundane tasks, like turning on a light bulb, as seen in the video.



But anyways. I'm just going for the music. Let's hope on Friday I like what I see even more.