So,

It’s Fall Break.

I’m sitting in my dorm room.

And somehow, even when I feel free, I know I still have too much I should do.

I guess I can’t really (don’t really) want to believe it’s the half-way point. I haven’t done as well this year as I would have liked and already there have been a couple setbacks for me. But I’m pressing on.

This week I: scampered around trying to atone for my previous grade-related mistakes, had a Chamber Singers performance, and an Econ midterm. It is only after the break that I’ll see if I hath salvaged myself from the jaws of defeat and despair.

The Chamber Singers performance was an interesting experience. The play, the Events, is about a women who has part of her multi-cultural choir killed by an extremist. It attempts to highlight the mental experience of going through a traumatic event like that. As a member of the choir, and hence the show, who was also supposed to be an audience member (I’d never seen the script and was only given a vague idea of what was going to happen) I know I came away with a difference experience than the rest of the audience. I was constantly waiting for my queue and sometimes couldn’t hear the actors/didn’t dare listen so I didn’t miss my queue. I feel I would have processed the whole thing better if I’d had a reaction-mate–meaning a sister to gasp and whisper with. Often, it’s how I make sense of the world.

Overall, I do feel like the performance highlighted how both victim and perpetrator get swept up emotionally in a traumatic event.

My other tidbit is a result of the Bryn Mawr stress-game. As I am want to do, on Thursday I went into my roommate’s room to harass her. However, she was moping: feeling bad about class stuff. An intervention was required to get her back to her normal crazy, cat-noise self. This namely consisted of: two Sara Bareilles songs (I’ll post one), snickering (heh) at this book The Dark she tried to read (it’s by Lemony SNICKet), and giving her a lesson on Liberian vernacular [all movies, TV programs, whatevers = shows].

That’s how to handle the Mawrter-stress machine, in my opinion. Annoy the heck out of people. They’ll be so irritated they’ll forget all problems but you!

Hehe 😉

I’ll tell you the good news first: I’m going to Cape Town, South Africa for the Nobel Laureate Summit! Best yet? Bryn Mawr is funding me. I intend to chronicle the entire trip in sight, sound, and word so you shalt experience it all with me! For the less glorious news. I had tried to get a job with the Civic Engagement Office. My interview was this past Friday.

Everything that could go wrong, did, essentially.

I missed two trains to the interview location because I didn’t know how they operated, somehow wrote down incorrect directions, got blisters from walking a vast distance, and was rejected from the interview due to my absurd lateness and lack of communication. I gimped back to Bryn Mawr, bemoaning my own incompetence and tiredness, and attempted to have a lie down.

It was not my best moment.

I did not get my lie-down, though. I had to race around like a headless chicken all day. I went to French class, picked up my shipment for my Plenary table, worked for 2 hours, was made weary at the Health Center, struggled to an (actually OK) meeting with the Civic Engagement Coordinator, and had to get a (aching) flu shot to the arm for my South Africa trip. RANDOM Shoutout: Quanisha (Civic Engagement Coordinator) is super cool–she listened to my tale of woe with sympathy, offered advice, and is still trying to find me a community service job even after I botched the first one so horribly.

This is your new home. Only one hour breaks!

Saturday was better, and certainly more interesting.

It was CampusPhilly. Now, if you had asked me last year what that is, I’d probably have said a festival of boredom that does not in any way excite me. But necessity makes jolly codgers out of us all, I guess. I had to go into Philly for my Cities class to write about a location. I chose the Eastern State Penitentary.

It turned out to be something of a challenge to get to it.

When I initially set out from Bryn Mawr, I had about one hour to get the Penitentiary and still make the 2PM bus back.

I ended up having to take the 5PM Septa to return.

This was owing to what, I now realize, are a total lack of public transport skills on my part. Even when I ask people (especially when I asked people), I end up at the wrong place doing the wrong thing. I took an unnecessary bus to a random stop in an effort to get the blue CampusPhilly bands that would guarantee me free entry to various sites in Downtown Philly, only to find the bands were given out at the Museum I’d just come from. I then rode the bus all the way around to the Art Museum like a stupe (I could have gotten off and caught another bus already going back). I finally got the bracelet and got to the Penitentiary.

It was around 3:20PM by then.

I scoped the joint out. Eastern State is quite pretty–when you aren’t incarcerated there. The hallways seem large and the peeling (lead-based) paint lends an air of glorious erosion. Apparently, it is still classed as a ruin (while being a National Heritage Site). It was the 1st penitentiary built in the world, and the circular design (everything is built from a central nexus) and idea of reforming rather than merely punishing prisoners originated there. After talking to a couple different people for my project, I headed home.

Me.

I had an a capella concert waiting for me.

The event cost a mere $5 to see 17 groups from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and probably Jersey. It started off a little rocky but soon progressed into enjoyable. I munched on a sugar-coated pastry as I listened. Yay, multi-tasking! I soon discovered, however, that just like with anything else, one can get fatigued. I began to feel like one of those stressed, tired cartoon characters–eyes overwide, ears numb. But, just when I’d almost become to deadened to listen, the Extreme Keys came on. Now, I’m fairly biased since my friend Mimi is a member. Still, they revived my tired soul.

I shall leave you with a snippet of their performance.