10 Things in 2010

1. Get in shape and stay in shape.

2. Take more risks and live a little

3. Be more active

4. Visit museums I haven't been to before, like the MoMA

5. Get back in trumpet shape

6. Get closer to fluency in Italian

7. Read more books for pleasure

8. Learn to cook

9. Eat healthier food

10. Make a difference in someone else's life

Decisions, Decisions

Another joy of winter break is bluebooking. For the uninformed, bluebooking is how we Yalies choose our tentative classes for the coming semester, culling from a herd of hundreds roughly five credits' worth of classes. It is a challenge and a joy, and like a safari in digital format.

I've started this, and find it is now a compulsion. There are so many classes to choose from this semester, but it seems I haven't space for all of them. As an Italian major (which I declared about two weeks prior to the end of the semester), I need a few classes as requisites. One is ITAL 151-- "Advanced Language and Composition." This strikes me as another rehash of grammar type course but with more advanced speaking. I also want to take "Pirandello: Theater Practicum," a course taught by one of my former professors in Italian that looks to be something approaching the Best Class Ever. There's another course that I could take as well, called "War, Literature, and Politics in Renaissance Italy" that seems to be the equivalent of what I want to study for the rest of my life, but it also conflicts with most of my science courses.

And then there's the science courses that I should take; I'm leaning towards Ornithology, because it is raved about by several and seems fairly approachable, and perhaps "The Technological World" or "Movie Physics" will round off my left brain classes.

Finally, I have one or two "free" credits, in which I can choose a class that isn't strictly required. I'd like to take an art history course, or perhaps a straight English or History course. So many sound interesting, it should be a challenge to shop them.

I've worked up a few mock schedules, so hopefully it will all work out in the end. In the meantime, I can only go compulsively through OCI and look at all of my options.

The Joys of Winter Break

College gives all time a weird, warped quality. Time flies during the year at school, except whilst studying, during certain lectures, and writing papers. Time seems to crawl and fly at the same time over breaks. I've been home nearly two weeks and have spent the majority of the time sleeping, eating, and making vague noises about actually exercising, but failing to do so. Today is New Year's Eve-- I go home in a little over a week.

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Natural History in the city. It's a very different experience for me to go there now, because I'm older-- I can see how much of it is meant for kids. I visited the Silk Road exhibit, which, while interesting, didn't teach me very much about the silk road that I didn't already know. That being said, it was nice to visit a museum and be in the city for a while. I realize more and more with each visit how much I love New York, from the throngs of people to the dull roar of the subways. I hope one day I can live there myself.

Earlier in the week I went with the family to the Bronx Zoo for our quasi-annual winter photography expedition, in which my father and I square off our cameras and take pictures of animals. He soundly schooled me this time around, but I think this is partially because he has vastly superior equipment and also because I had bad light to deal with. However, some shots turned out wonderfully.

525,600 minutes

After the Christmas rush of holiday visits, now the airwaves are being clogged with year in review specials, because there isn't enough to talk about on the news.

For me, it's been a very good year. My first full year as a college student, with a relaxing summer and a tranquility of mind that I am grateful to have. I joined and led clubs, improved my writing, finished Directed Studies, and discovered my passion for Italian. I like where my life is going now, and I think I've grown a lot this year. I have closer friends than ever before, and New Haven is more home than New Jersey at times.

In the greater scheme of things, we've seen the ascent of Barack Obama, his various attempts at legislation, countless scandals and internet phenomena. It should be interesting to see what 2010 brings.

And what do we call the last decade? The 2000s? The aughts? I prefer the British-originated "naughties."

And I've gone from one sole plant to four. It's been a very good year.

And....scene.

So ends my third semester at Yale. No more libraries for at least a month!!!

Bass Lung Disease, and other tales of finals week

This is day four of the long watch at the Band Fort. We round up chairs in the library and study in the company of each other, which results in surprising amounts of productivity. I have been studying in excess of five hours every day here, and am ready for these finals to happen.

Insanity occurs, occasionally. I brought play-doh the other day and we made "finalsaurs," with each member present making their own dinosaur. It was a beautiful study break that proved to be extremely fun and awesome.

Last night there was a "Top Gun" study break, as run by myself and a friend, which was an epic success. We had lots of people show up, and it was just what we all needed to banish the "study bats," or those creatures that cause irrationality during reading and finals week.

Tonight the finals fairies are coming, but I plan on being nice and safe in Swing around then.

I can't wait to sleep and just let my brain recharge. It's long past overdue.

Nostalgia

There is something new in the courtyard of Swing.


This wonderful miniLipstick is a great way to make Swing feel a little bit more like home, and not the "Ramada Inn" of New Haven. Swing is impersonal, with long corridors of closed doors and generic modern art in the hallways; we do our best to add Morse flair to it, but I know it's just not the same. I also come to find out how far away Swing seems when it's cold out; Spring semester should be interesting while I'm in the great north up here.

I miss Morse.

Enter Reading Week

A very eventful last week of classes.

For the past three days, a crazy man holding a sandwich board and thumping a bible yelled at us to repent as we went back and forth to class. I'm a little shocked that this was the first time we've encountered a fellow like this, but disgusted by his views anyway. So was the rest of the student body.

An email had been sent out Wednesday or Thursday from "Chief Perrotti" telling us that virus-infected rhesus monkeys had escaped from the labs. Consequently, students in gorilla costumes and others in lab coats frolicked about.

I survived the Italian final and am sad that my wonderful, wonderful class is over. Not only has my language improved a thousandfold, the three students in the class (myself and two others) are like a family now. I'll never forget this class, which might have been my best at Yale so far. I want to major in Italian because of it, and other reasons, but this confirmed my thoughts.

Now we are in Reading Week, that blessed time period of not reading for most of it, and instead doing all the things we were meaning to do for the longest time during the semester. I have a jam packed schedule, but I can sleep now, and enjoy myself. It's going to be a great week.

It's had a great start-- having just come back from the HOCKEY game against QPac, in which we dominated, I am all fired up for hockey season. I lose my voice every game, and play my horn to the point of complete failure, but I have a hell of a time. There is something inherently more exciting about hockey to me, something that I think might have to do with the speed of the sport. And I take personal pride in heckling the enemy goalie with gusto.

In any case, I am tired, and picture-less, but happy to be here once again after the turkey-stuffed laziness of Thanksgiving.