Hello blog, and happy Monday!
Today it was a beautiful 60 degrees and sort of sunny in Massachusetts; I spent most of the day at the Computing Help Desk in Clapp Library resetting passwords and sorting through tickets for more experienced tech support workers, so I unfortunately did not see much sun today. I did manage to get out for a while yesterday, though, and the header image of this blog is of the beautiful, mostly melted Lake Waban. My friend Emma and I always get COVID tested on Sunday afternoons, and this week it was so beautiful outside when we left the testing center that we decided to stay out a little longer for a walk around campus.
This week’s blog title is a lyric from the song “The Lament of Eustace Scrubb” by The Oh Hellos, which feels very relevant for many reasons this week. It has very much felt like springtime at Wellesley the past couple of days, and all of the snow and the ice is melting and the plants are ready to start blooming again, which always makes me feel very introspective. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about who I am, who I want to be, and what is important to me- all of the very normal Coming Of Age things- and I think that, while I will never be done growing, I have reached a point where I think I’m done Growing Up. Much like Eustace after he has been stripped of his dragon scales, I think I have a sense of clarity now that I didn’t have four years, four months, four weeks, even four days ago. I think that while I will continue to change and learn and age, today is the first day where I have really felt like an adult. I think that, as of today, I have officially Come of Age.
The second reason the song is relevant this week is because the Chronicles of Narnia are going to be my next audiobook venture; I’ve gotten into a bit of a lull with The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and I’ve been meaning to reread the Narnia books for awhile now, so now is as good a time as any. I’ll be listening to them in original publication order, beginning with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and reading The Magician’s Nephew and The Horse and His Boy right before The Last Battle. When I read them as a kid, I read them in internal chronological order, so I thought I’d switch things up this time.
In other recent events, this weekend my friend Abby and I were on CE for Saturday night, which meant we were the RAs in the New Dorms assigned to be on duty and engaging with the community from the hours of 8:30PM to 11PM. A bunch of our friends from Stone Davis and Munger came over to join us for several rounds of Mafia. My friend Alex, who is the House President of Stone Davis this year, narrated for most of our rounds, which always makes for a slightly unhinged game. I’ve been working nonstop to finish my little brother’s birthday sweater before I go home for spring break, and Abby was analyzing the sounds of my knitting needles to tell if my eyes were open or closed every round. I knit a lot slower with my eyes closed because I’m going completely based on touch, rather than being able to see what I’m doing.
Compared to my Saturday night, my Sunday was very tame; Emma and I took our walk, I caught up on the episodes I had missed from the Bachelor, and I watched The Final Season, a movie about someone my dad used to work with who coached a small town Iowa baseball team for its last season before a school merger. Usually when I’m in the mood to look at Iowa I watch Field of Dreams, which is the most famous Iowa movie out there (potentially rivaled by Bridges of Madison County), but that’s not streaming for free anywhere right now and I thought it might be worth saving the five dollars to rent it if I’m going to be back in just over a week now. The Final Season takes place in Norway, Iowa, about twenty to thirty minutes away from my hometown, and the opening was shot at one of the Cedar Rapids high schools, where I spent a summer practicing for a community theater show I was in junior year. The owner of the movie theater I worked at in high school told me that they rented out one of the screening rooms in the theater to play back their footage while they were shooting the movie, and it was only a couple of years after Sky High came out so all of the teenagers who worked there were excited to see Michael Angarano, who plays a rebellious Chicago teenager who came to Iowa to live with his grandparents and join the Norway baseball team. The movie was actually much better than I thought it was going to be, and it was really just what I needed this weekend.
Today marks nine days left until I fly home for spring break! While I could not be more excited to be home, there are still a few things I have to look forward to here on campus before I go. Emma is directing the musical Fun Home for Upstage, Wellesley’s student theatre organization this weekend, and the Guild of Carillonneurs has a Duet Concert this Saturday, where my lesson partner and I will be playing “Once Upon a Dream” from Sleeping Beauty and the theme from Mission Impossible. Next Monday is also our Lip Sync competition for the spring semester, as well as my younger sister’s eighteenth birthday!
Lots of things are happening in basically every corner of my life right now, and I am more than ready for all of them. I’m feeling happy, I’m feeling confident, and I’m feeling good. Who could ask for more?
Sending you joy,
Andrew