The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

To me, the month of December truly is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the beginning of the holiday season, ABC Family begins airing its annual “25 Days of Christmas” special, and most importantly, I get to eat Christmas cookies whenever I please. I have always been an advocate of holiday spirit, hanging lights in my room and blasting Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

While Christmas is really about the celebration of Jesus’ birthday, our society has transformed the holiday into an elaborate event where giving the most extravagant gift earns the most credit. I am not against this social norm in any way, and enjoy waking up Christmas morning to a tree with beautifully wrapped gifts lying underneath it.

One of the gift giving traditions I have always loved is “Secret Santa.” My group of friends from high school and I have always engaged in this festivity and get small gifts for each other. This year in college, I suggested to a few of the girls on my floor that we do an exchange and also asked  a few of our guy friends from the floor below. We were skeptical at first of the boys’ ability to pick out appropriate gifts for us girls, but we put our trust in them and had them pick names along with the eight of us girls.

Two nights ago, my roommate and I bought milk and cookies, decorated our door with a Christmas wreath, and turned up the Pandora Christmas radio. We invited the members of our Secret Santa over to our room to exchange gifts. The holiday cheer was spread throughout the room as we gave each other our gifts. The boys really held up their end of the deal and gave really thoughtful gifts to some of the girls.

When I was picking out my gift I realized how hard finding the perfect gift is. There are so many things to buy, yet I wanted to get the perfect one. I contemplated multiple necklaces, a few different shirts, and a scarf. I wanted to make sure my friend would love it and realized that gift giving is somewhat of an art. Buying a generic shirt would feel too impersonal, so I went with what I felt best suited my friend’s personality, and I ended up with a gold, long chained necklace with turquoise stones in the center.  

Seeing how much effort and thought each person put into the purchase of his or her gift made me realize how much a simple gesture can mean. The gifts were not expensive or elaborate, yet they were from the heart and that’s what matters in the end. The Christmas spirit was definitely in the air the night of Stuart Hall’s “Secret Santa.”

Arts/Cultural Response: Poetry Reading

The Palmer Museum of Art may not be the most populated with college students on a Saturday morning in chilly Penn State December, yet I was eager to attend the poetry reading held at the museum that morning. I have never been a fan of writing or analyzing poetry but there is a sense of peace that overwhelms me when I hear poetry. While I certainly do not have a talent for poetry writing, I can appreciate when a writer puts his or her emotion and passion behind a rhythm of words. I enjoy the fluidity of a poem and how words strung together in an irregular pattern can hold such meaning to a writer.

That Saturday morning, my friend Emma, accompanied me to the poetry reading led by my very own professor, Sheila Squillante and her husband Paul Bilger. As Sheila read through a collection of ten poems, Paul simultaneously presented a photograph that corresponded to each poem. The photographs were not at all what I expected, however they were incredible abstract pieces that both Paul and Sheila felt conveyed the same point of view. After the presentation, we (the audience) learned the photos were reconstructed after the poems were written. It amazed me that two individuals with such different talents could come together and create something so fluid and coherent.

This poetry reading brought me right back to my years of high school because each April, the English department would hold a day-long poetry festival featuring guest speakers like students and teachers of various subjects, even gym. The English teachers set up the festival in the library, with dimmed lights, a podium and half-circle seating which gave it a feel of a small coffee shop, very “hipster-y” event. This event was always a nice way to escape from the everyday stress of classes and it was fun to see friends reading poems at a podium. The poems read by my fellow classmates and teachers ranged from Shakespeare to Shel Silverstein to anonymous writers which satisfied a wide range of interests of the audience.

The reading was a perfect length of time-about 30 minutes-just enough time to enjoy the entire presentation while still keeping my attention. Although I probably would have enjoyed that extra 30 minutes for sleep that morning, I left the reading feeling intellectual and contemplative. I always love that about poetry; although I have no idea where to begin an analysis, I know that it somehow has meaning. Maybe one day I’ll have enough curiosity to figure this out for myself, but for now I’m content with listening to poetry for enjoyment without thinking too much into it.  

All Good Things Must Come to an End

1. Self-Evaluation 

Fifteen weeks ago, I was a high school graduate anticipating, worrying, thinking all day everyday about my future as a Nittany Lion. My thoughts were consumed with thoughts like, What are professors like? How am I going to survive finals? Will I make friends? What will my roommate be like? The normal thoughts of any incoming college student.

Now fifteen weeks later, I can answer most of the questions with confidence. My roommate is awesome, I made an abundance of new friends, and college professors are very smart. I have not yet conquered my first round of finals so that is still to be determined.

Although I have only been a Nittany Lion for a few short weeks, I feel like I have been one for life. I know that choosing Penn State was the best decision I could have made for myself academically and socially. I am surrounded by people with the same goals as me, the same motivations as me, and similar interests as me. Within the short time span of my life at Penn State, I have already learned many important things about myself academically and socially.

Socially, one of the hardest things I encountered was making friends in the beginning of the semester. At home, I have had the same friends since elementary school and the simple skill of making friends had never been an issue. When I got to college, I had to re-make all my friends and it proved to be slightly difficult at first. I had to step out of my comfort zone and talk to people I knew nothing about. While it seemed daunting on the first day, every freshman was in the same boat as me and I now have some of the greatest friends I could ask for.

Academically, I had to readjust to sitting in class, having homework, and studying for finals because I had seriously slacked on all of that towards the end of my senior year. I quickly fell back into the rhythm of school and sort of enjoyed having a schedule again. Since I came into Penn State with an undecided major many of my classes were exploratory courses and I was eager to learn about different subjects than I had in high school.

With the semester coming to an end, I can safely say that I will NEVER go into a career in economics or mathematics. I took one class in each of those subjects and although the material was not too difficult to learn, I just realized I have no interest in either subject. I also took a psychology class and loved the course, as well as a French class, which is now going to be my minor.

One of my favorite classes (and I’m not just saying this because I have to blog about it…this is my honest opinion!) was English 15. I really enjoyed the structure of the class because it was very different from my high school English classes. We did not spend hours aimlessly completing “daily edits” or reading boring novels and analyzing each word of every book. Instead, it was a much more discussion-based class which I truly enjoyed because it made me think. I was encouraged to think about issues that were plaguing our world and especially our community of Penn State. In high school, I always dreaded the art museum field trips, but this class helped me view a different perspective of art. Because I was not forced to analyze art in a specific way, but was given guidelines of how to go about things, I felt I was able to express my feelings of art in a way that made sense to me. This class was not cookie-cutter English which made it one of the best.

After almost completing one semester already at Penn State, it is safe to say that I will gladly be returning for the next seven semesters and look forward to future classes and broadening my horizons through Penn State University.  

2. Blog Comments

http://liddycoddington.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-analysis.html#comment-form

http://ideasoninspiration.blogspot.com/2012/09/turkish-delight.html?showComment=1348753809870#c8799344579648809665

http://derosag5050.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-arboretum.html?showComment=1349189184307#c3956151419357179413

http://joewater.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-garden-means-to-me.html?showComment=1349710193944#c6061474741440084268

http://artsfortheheart.blogspot.com/2012/10/theres-new-critic-in-town-without.html?showComment=1350316872682#c5908215289600986413

http://artsinthehappyvalley.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-red-and-brown-water.html?showComment=1355114720950#c1453603413614530955

http://theartsynittanylion.blogspot.com/2012/12/crazy-for-shwayze.html?showComment=1355115045861#c6177954029802632654

http://jimmyschlupp.blogspot.com/2012/12/artscultural-event.html?showComment=1355115475191#c39885666193554116

http://joewater.blogspot.com/2012/12/random-post-christmas-decorations.html?showComment=1355115871763#c1310099960769873969

http://samanthamartinblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-arboretum-at-penn-state.html?showComment=1355116404043#c5911328986535280285

3. Hi Ms. S, I completed my SRTEs!