four days home

What I’ve noticed about most people upon coming home is that most of them have changed their minds about what they want to study — or at least, they’re in a state of uncertainty. A few notable ones:

• A girl who entered college for, ostensibly, creative writing/journalism, is now working to be an art restorer (chemistry and shit.)
• A friend entered as a prospective civil engineer and is now studying pure mathematics.
• A prospective pre-med has is now also doubling in Chinese.
• One of my friends went in as a die-hard classical music fan, hoping to become a  music teacher. Though she still wants to be a music teacher, she’s considering grad school for contemporary music history.

As for me, I’m pretty sure I’m going to declare for computer science. Coming from someone who put down “Economics” on the preliminary forms because I didn’t know what else to put, this is a pretty big step.

I like seeing how people change, and are still changing. It’s reassuring to know that none of us really knows what we’re doing with our lives. 

re: reunions

Working the jobs for the Harvard Class of ‘87 reunion has been incredible and pretty stress-free, since my job entails “babysitting” young adults, who are ages 15 to 18. Basically, I get paid to hang out with people who are, at the most, three years younger than I am. It didn’t strike me until earlier in the week that all these kids are technically “legacies” at Harvard, since at least one of their parents went to school here.

In any case, talking to all these parents this weekend makes me wonder about what life will be like 25 years from my graduation. I can barely think ahead to the next semester, let alone two and a half decades. I mean, a lot changes in 25 years. Women didn’t even receive the same diplomas as men at Harvard until 1999 (barely over a decade ago!) so who knows what the world will be like 25 years from now. Maybe when I go back for my 25th reunion, we’ll all be driving electric cars and I won’t have a Toshiba laptop anymore. High standards, guys.

Even crazier are the 50th and up reunions. The Unabomber graduated from the class of ‘62, and… he’s in prison now. Makes me wonder who in our class will end up in fame or infamy. More importantly, though, back then Harvard College was still all male and women had a separate campus, so it must be really strange coming back to a coed campus and an ugly-ass Science Center next to Memorial Hall. And all those people, too. Not the close friends, usually, but rather the roommate’s boyfriend’s roommate, the minor characters that are a part of my college experience nevertheless. 

And then, of course, the money. I guess I should have expected that all these alumni would be loaded, but it is astounding all the same. People tip the student bellhops with hundred dollar bills, and even with pooling tips, some of the kids working the 50th reunion receive $530 individually in tips. On the one hand, it’s pretty cool to see all these affluent lawyers, doctors, and the like roaming around campus with their present-day families. On the other hand, some of the kids I met this weekend have an uncomfortable sense of entitlement, one that perhaps comes from being raised in a comfortable, rich environment. Of course, that same sense of entitlement could also come from the fact that these kids are bratty preteens, who tend to feel entitled to a lot of things. All the same, it’s my hope that my class and our offspring will enter into the world with a freer mindset, with humility and compassion. The hell if my kids turn out stereotypical Harvard douches before they even get here.

In any case, I hope the future is bright. I’d love to come back in a couple of decades and revel in the progress made at my former school. One of my friends who worked as a bellhop told a story about one of the more… conservative men he encountered this weekend:

Alum (paraphrased): “There are so many homosexuals at this school. Things have changed so much. In my day there were NONE here, and now they’re running around free everywhere. I’ll tell you, things have changed a lot. Are you gay, son?”

Bellhop: “No, sir.”

Alum: “That’s right. But things have changed so much.”

Why yes, they have, asshole — and all the better for it.

dorm crew is tough

Essentially, I get paid $12 an hour to sit in a swivel chair in a room full of refrigerators and fool around on my laptop. And every now and then I’ll help someone check in a mini fridge for summer storage. What a life I lead. Technically, I should be studying for my German final tomorrow, but es gibt 20 Stunde until my final, so internet it is.

My final exam as a freshman will take place tomorrow, and in about 24 hours I’ll be finished with my first year out of home, in college. It was absolutely wonderful — I could not have asked for a better year, for better friends, for a better experience. 

• NO MORE OCCUPY HARVARD LIVING IN TENTS IN THE YARD. Appreciating having the gate closest to CVS open more often.
• Recording “Rhythm in Blue” with the Callbacks during J-Term.
• Returning to Stowe at the beginning of the year with the Callbacks. I want to live in Vermont when I’m old and wrinkly.
• Freshman formal with the entryway.
• Valegrams (just like high school) with the Callbacks.
• Being Assistant Music Director the whole semester. Realizing how much I love being a music director. And having control.
• Seeing many a visiting friend from elsewhere.
• Meeting SO MANY PEOPLE STILL.
• Walking into my Expository Writing class and realizing that I recognized about one person in the room, and remembering that our freshman class is pretty large still.
• Spring auditions for the callbacks, welcoming in a new member to the group.
• LEAP DAY (haha.)
• The first few all-nighters for CS51… and then the subsequent ones as well. So many coding all-nighters.
• Scramble with Friends, all the time.
• Call Me Maybe… all the time…
• River Run. Even though someone had to go to the emergency room. But that’s okay…
• HOUSING DAY SO FUN. The mass insanity that is the Yard during Housing Day morning… and being placed into my beloved Currier House.
• Spring Break at LMU with Christina, Michelle, and Rochelle. Going to Disneyland again, enjoying the sun.
• Seeing Guys and Dolls back home, and being home for break… only to realize how much I loved and missed Harvard.
• My first A on a paper. 
• Jammertime! with the Callbacks, our spring concert. My first solo with the group! And the first time my arrangements have been performed at Harvard.
• Legally Blonde: the Musical. And now my high school will be performing it next year! I’m so excited. What a wonderful experience, meeting so many talented people (despite the inherent dramatic-ness). Meeting the writers of Legally Blonde. Being part of such an impressive and fun production.
• Being a part of a quasi-“pit” for a student-written play. Jazz band came in handy.
• Attending the Kina Grannis concert with David. Meeting Kina Grannis and Imaginary Friend.
• THE SHINS CONCERT. Man oh man oh man oh man.
• So much good music this year.
• Getting a little closer to knowing what I want to do with my life, maybe? Maybe?
• I love my entryway as well. So many good people.
• Crossing off everything on my checklist — projects, finals, things.
• Looking at my freshman register (a “yearbook” of all the freshman) and realizing… that I still don’t know half the people in my class.

I don’t return home for another two weeks because I’m working on campus, but I’m looking forward to a good summer. 

The Harvard Baseball Team 2012’s cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” I’ve watched it three times… yes. I love my school.

the shins are so good.

Oh, they’re so good. Went to see them live tonight in Boston — they opened with Caring is Creepy, Australia, and Simple Song. Phantom Limb, New Slang, 40 Mark Strasse, September, Sleeping Lessons… so many good songs from tonight. James Mercer’s voice sounds fantastic live — admittedly, I had my doubts since he sings so high in the recordings — and it was so nice to be there with a bunch of other kids from school, and meet some new people.

I have four finals this coming week, but this was so worth it!

I know that things can really get rough, when you go it alone.

Don’t go thinking you gotta be tough, and play like a stone.

I was not too fond of Fun. when I first heard “We Are Young” and the intro to the new album… but this song makes me reconsider some things, so I might take their new album a listen. Maybe I just like the African chant feel and the Bohemian Rhapsody-esque beginning.

(Source: Spotify)

Eva Cassidy’s cover of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” — a true moment of beauty. She died a while back because of melanoma. I listened to this for the first time a few years ago, and have listened to it many times over the past few years. It’s so pure and clear. A friend of mine recently sent me the tracks from her album “Songbird”, a album of some of her covers. This recording is a live one, from the late 90s, at Blues Alley.

breakpoint

I’ve thought about this several times, but lately I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Tonight, I spoke with an old friend from back home who will soon be entering college, and he recently met several people at a conference, one of whom just came back from a two-month hitchhiking trip across New Zealand (you can’t make this shit up.)

Sometimes I’d really like to do that: just take a break in life, uproot myself from everything I know, and do something without really making a plan. As I told him tonight, I really can if I want. There’s not much stopping me; Harvard would easily let me take a semester or two off if I asked, and if I made enough money in the coming months or year, I could potentially do it. The only thing stopping me is a fear — fear that I will fall out of my plan for life, fear that my parents will be unhappy, fear that I wouldn’t know what’s coming next. But it would be really nice just to come up for a breath of air. 

But lately, I’ve been kind of feeling a thirst for that. There’s probably a name for this feeling — that burning desire to take flight, to depart. People always write about a sense of connection to their roots, but what about the desire to sever those connections, if only for a little while?

EDIT: I guess the closest term I could find while Googling was “wanderlust”, incidentally a German word. It still does not adequately describe the innate desire to sever connections, though.

"Son coeur est un luth suspendu; sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne."

de Beranger

“His heart is a poised lute; as soon as one touches it, it resounds.”

After I pulled an all-nighter to write this essay for Gothic fiction, I was very struck by the quote. It’s the epigraph from Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. It connotes a sort of loneliness — a beautiful loneliness — and longing. (7 am musings)

Esperanza Spalding, “Radio Song,” from her new album Radio Music Society.

This song is so jazzy and funky and everything I love about music. She won the “Best New Artist” Grammy over Justin Bieber in 2011, and I’m so glad — she’s so talented and incredibly motivational. Her voice is just like THE SMOOTHEST THERE EVER WAS. The song is pretty long — over six minutes — but it’s totally worth the listen. She grooves so well with the band and her relationship with the music is intricate and delicate all at once. Yet she makes it seem so easy… the runs and scats just run off her tongue. The eternal struggle..