Christmas [Cookies] in the Air

December first and the air smells like Christmas cookies.  At least, I smelled Christmas cookies, shuffling off to class through the frozen air, breathe billowing from me as smoke from a dragon's nostrils.  Call me unobservant, but I'd never noticed the evergreens along the path by the Timmer apartments are Christmas trees.  I don't mean they're shaped like Christmas tress, I mean they literally are the same trees that one finds under the big white tents this time of year, lopped off at the base and impaled in a bucket of water, waiting to be shoved into plastic netting and tied with twine atop the family minivan in anticipation of a few weeks of standing sentinel in some corner, stalwartly guarding a pile of gaudily wrapped packages and adorned with heavy porcelain balls and light little crafts made by kids in preschool covered in macaroni and glitter, to await the end of the season when the packages will be torn to shreds and the tree divested of its ornaments to sit ignominiously on the curb for the garbage man.  I wanted to hug it, but decided to be on time to class instead.  Also, people were watching me.

It's been getting steadily colder lately.  It used to be, a few weeks ago, a day this cold would come around, and I would shiver half-heartedly and check the forecast, where I would experience a moment of hope and happiness as the numbers increased back up again throughout the week.  No more.  While there is still no snow on the horizon, it is becoming apparent that this cruel weather is here to stay.

This post has been waiting to come out for a few days now, ever since Tuesday afternoon when I lay once again prone on the ground clutching my weapon in cold, gloved hands, spending a solid twenty minutes in reflective silence.  It occurred to me that those 20 or so minutes on Tuesday afternoons are some of the calmest, quietest moments of my week.  By no means are they the most comfortable.  For them to be comfortable, I would have needed the weather around 20 degrees warmer to begin with.  I would have wanted to spend a moment clearing all the sticks and twigs from beneath me, particularly the one digging relentlessly into the base of my breastbone.  I would have situated myself so my feet were slightly lower than my head, rather than the other way around, which had me feeling slightly vertiginous and also made it that much more difficult to deal with my helmet, the major bane of a STX lane.  I can never see wearing it, as it sits so far down my forehead to accommodate my bun that I spend every STX lane feeling like I have an acute case of tunnel vision.  It is heavy, so heavy, so that the muscles in my neck and shoulders burn trying to keep my head up, at a level that I can partially see beneath, so that on my otherwise cold body there is a lump of completely unwanted, scalding muscular heat that I can't ignore.  And my blood throbs in my temples and my head aches with the pressure of all the bobby pins in my hair being pressed into my scalp by the tight leather headband that holds the cursed thing in place.  Even gloved, my fingers feel numb against the mock trigger, like my toes, unable to wiggle confined in the tight boots.  No, it is not at all comfortable.  But it is quiet.  For those few moments, I have no other purpose than to lie there in silence, awake and motionless and alert.  I can't do homework or play games or plug in my iPod.  So I think.  I think about the naked trees rocking in the strong wind and how sentient they look, like lethargic dancers or swaying dryads of myth and legend, their thin, supple bodies bending far more than seems possible, their spiny fingers extended towards one another like amorous lovers or demented fiends.  I think about the years' and years' worth of leaf accumulation below me, fertilizing in death the very trees that produced and nurtured them in a system that could go on endlessly, completely irrelevant of human behavior.  I thought about the chipmunks I know longer saw running through the undergrowth, now firmly established in their hibernation, content to let the season pass without being involved in it, confident that the natural cycle will continue without their presence or aide.  I had just started thinking about what Army camouflage would look like, were the war zone ever to move to the tundra, where green is unnatural and irregular and brown and white the predominant color tones, when operations began.

We ran a successful lane, ignoring a few snags and hitches along the way.  Predominant among these was the irate civilian and her fluffy snow dog, disgruntled and annoyed to find college students playing soldier laying quietly in the woods of what, apparently, was her property.  How dare you come into my part of the woods, the woman asked us, when the college's land so clearly ends a few trees back the other way?  I just want to walk my dog without having to deal with you people creeping in silence through the brambles.  Oops.  Our bad.  Silly us for thinking woods were woods and that we had any right to crawl through them when they were so obviously yours and not the college's, leaving out the fact that the only reason we're even out here in the cold woods in the first place is to practice serving our country, and ipso facto you, by defending America against all enemies both foreign and domestic.  Forgive us for thinking that you wouldn't mind us spending an hour or so a week walking though, if we'd even known this was your land, which for the record we didn't.  Ah well, no blood no foul.  I was sick of high crawling over sticks anyway.

And that's it.  One semester's worth of Army training and STX lanes over with.  Now that wasn't so bad, was it?  And now it's almost Christmas, when I have weeks of no responsibility, no pressure, no worries until January.  Ready for some Florida sunshine :D

Treading Water

I'm keeping my head above the water.  Not so easy in the metaphoric sense than the physical.  In school, I have to work.  I have to remember to study for the Calculus test on Friday that I need to do well on.  I have to remember to buy new laundry detergent, since the first bottle ran out.  I have to remember to clean my room, do my homework, not let the milk go rotten.  Not like swimming.  Treading water is peaceful, relaxing.  It's so effortless, when you know and understand the water.  When you understand how each kick, each twist of the arm will contribute to your buoyancy, it is easy to float, to keep your head up.  Familiarity makes it easy.  So perhaps the same is true for life.  As college life becomes a routine, it will become easier and easier, until it's finally time to move from "big world" to "real world," to a job and a house and adult responsibilities.  I did so well at our Combat Water Survival Training lab because I knew and understood water.  Going from swimming circles around the diving well, treading water with friends to jumping blindfolded from a diving board three meters up holding a rubber duck M-4 and wearing a uniform, swimming fully clothed 25 yards with the duck above your head, falling in and removing a vest underwater, is not so very difficult if you understand the basics of navigating water.  It's even fun, swimming with friends, jumping off the high dive, getting to lap the guys time after time instead of watching them run by me day after day, lap after lap; walking fully clothed into a shower and just standing as the hot water poured down my dry ACUs and soaked in to the bathing suit underneath; getting out of the water and watching it pour from my sleeves like a hose, squirt from my shoes as I walked; taking it all off to change into soft, warm yoga pants for class, tying my hair in a sloppy wet bun behind my head.  And in the end, I get to throw it all straight into a washing machine and press the button.  Voila.  All done.

It's been nice to have some time off.  I celebrated Thanksgiving in Chicago with a friend of mine and her family.  I got some homework done, ate some turkey, laughed a lot.  It's Saturday morning and I'm going downtown.  I've never seen downtown Chicago.  But I'm dreading Monday morning.  Having to haul out of bed at six and do pushups and run circles and stand at attention does not appeal to me, stuffed with food and well-slept as I am now. Staring down the barrel of a scary Calc test doesn't make matters better.  Stop.  Don't think about it.  Think about Thursday and going downtown to see Les Miserables, think about going from there to the airport to bring your brother to Calvin.  Think about the Calvin-Hope hockey game Friday night, and the low key weekend to follow.  Low key...  Nothing will be low key again until after Finals are over, in three weeks.  Stop.  Don't think about it.  Think about December 15 and flying home for Christmas and seeing family and friends and the beautiful beach.

Raindrops Keep Falling...

Laying prone on my stomach in wet leaves, rain dripping relentlessly, soaking me through to the bone, holding a heavy fake rifle in sodden, gloved hands, trying to keep my head up as my heavy helmet wants nothing more than to push it down, I realized I wasn't miserable.  I would have thought, lying there, cold and wet, with my assault pack pressing into my back, water dribbling off my helmet brim to pool relentlessly on a woodchip just below my nose, muscles shaking frantically to keep warm, while my legs are determinedly staying still so I can forget, for just a little while, how very wet they truly are, that I would be miserable, unhappy, and ruing my decision to join the Army.  But I wasn't.

Truth is, I like that once a week, I get to do something very few other college students ever have opportunities to do.  Truth is, I like having something to talk about in this blog, unique from what anyone else would write.  Truth is, I enjoy the challenge of running a STX lane- a situational training exercise lane, where soldiers practice combat exercises and techniques in a serious but low-risk environment.  Truth is, I think it's exciting to use acronyms like it's normal, to carry a "gun" like I'm used to it, to wear a uniform like I belong, to be trusted with a duty like I'm responsible.  So today, while lying prone in the wet leaves and rain dripped down my neck, pooled in my sleeves, soaked through my gloves, I miserable or upset, but calm and merely annoyed.

This afternoon, we celebrated Veteran's Day with a lunch at a local nursing home for the veterans living there.  Old and frail and deaf, some barely strong enough to lift their cups, yet all that could stand did so for the presenting of the colors.  They stood straight as the national anthem was played on the piano and all sang the words together, their voices deep and wizened and off-key, but powerful and proud.  Members of "the Greatest Generation," they didn't "thank us for our service."  Rather, they took it for granted that we would want to serve.  One man told us he was so "grateful for the ROTC program," grateful that there was a way for young people to easily learn to become officers.  They asked us about our age, our desires for our military careers.  Most had enlisted right out of high school themselves.  The man beside me joined the Air Force 3 days after his high school graduation, and found himself on a plane (he remembered the plane ride had been over 18 hours) over Japan in 1945, dropping the last bombs on Tokyo before the war was declared over.  Strange to picture the frail old man as young, strong, full of life and duty, ready to serve his country wherever he was needed.  The man beside him commented, "the uniforms looked different when we wore them."  These are uniforms for a desert country, digitalized and tan; uniforms for a new kind of warfare, on a new battlefield, with a new enemy.  And someday, when I am old, there will be another uniform for another generation to wear.  Strange to imagine.

Which brings me back to lying in the rain during the STX lane.  Planning a route, marking distance with our footsteps, keeping alert, heads on a swivel, guns at the ready.  Avoiding IEDs, mortars, enemy forces.  Watching all directions from our rally point while a team goes out to recon the enemy.  Walking silently, crouched down, unsure where the "enemy" even is.  Every unnatural item in the woods is an item of suspicion.  Covering your buddy, staying behind cover, aware of who might be able to see you.  Being congratulated at the end for a lane well run.  Perhaps not the most comfortable way to spend the afternoon.  Not the warmest, nor the most enjoyable.  But all the same, it was unique, exciting, and had a purpose.  So when all's said and done, I rather enjoyed myself.  Truth is, I'm glad I'm a cadet. Truth is, I'm proud of my uniform and of my country, and truth is, I'm glad to be serving it, in whatever small way I can.

I am a Soldier.

"I may never march in the infantry,

Ride in the cavalry,

Shoot the artillery.

I may never fly o'er the enemy

But I'm in the Lord's Army (Yes Sir!)"

I remember singing it as a child.  Marching, galloping, clapping my gunshot and holding my arms out like an airplane in the sky.  Saluting with wild enthusiasm and a wide smile.  Yes Sir!  I'm in the Lord's Army.  A sweet concept, half-understood with childlike simplicity, imbued with insubstantial images of David and Goliath and Joshua and the Battle of Jerhico and the Armor of God.  As I grew older and learned more about the "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," the concept of the Lord's Army solidified.  The Armor of God was an apt analogy for the battles that rage around us all the time, in which we are all active participants.  I'm starting to realize just how apt.

I am an American soldier.

I am a Warrior and a member of a team.  I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my Warrior tasks and drills.

I will always maintain my arms, my equipment, and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American soldier.

It strikes me every week how all-encompasing our Army training is.  From financial responsibility to stress management to character, the Army expects great things from its officers.  We must be disciplined not only physically but mentally.  We must be leaders not just on the field but in our daily lives.  Each lesson we learn reminds me strongly of similar lessons I've received in sermons, Bible studies, and other Christian places of learning, like Calvin.  The Army equips its soldiers to deal with death and dying, pain and bloodshed, stress and fatigue, success and failure, fear and courage, love and hate, brotherhood and honor.  Using such tongue-in-cheek terms as "character development" and "warrior ethos," the Army teaches morality and spiritual development.  The 7 Core Values are such that might be championed in any church: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage.

Truly the Christian life is being at war.  I'm learning how interrelated these things are.  War brings out the best and worst in man.  In the face of death, man is the closest to God.  Likewise, peace is meaningless without war.  Good and evil must struggle, and one must fall.  There will be casualties.  There will be pain.  There will be times when you don't want to get up, when going on seems to take more effort than you have to give.  There will be suffering and misery and, yes, anger and hatred as well.  There will be valor and cowardice.  In the face of death, one finds the extremes of life.  Christians are not in a world of peace.  Christ did not come to bring peace but the sword.  We live in a world given over to the vices of the Enemy, and we are placed here to oppose him, to steal back from him the souls he has stolen and return them to their proper sovereign.  We have an enemy, an objective.  We have teammates and allies, we have weapons and armor.  God equips us to join in the fight.  He trains us and He leads us.  God is the greatest general we could ever hope for, personally leading even the lowliest soldier with care and wisdom.  He is patient but demanding.  Because he knows that on a battlefield, fear, indecision, incompetence, can be fatal.  Seeking to protect His sheep, He gives us rules and standards to keep us safe.  I may never march in the infantry, but I'm being equipped to do so.  But I am in the Lord's Army, and I was born onto the frontline.  Deep in enemy territory, the discipline and rules of the Christian life will be the difference between success and failure.  Life and death.  I'm in the Lord's Army.

Agony of Success

I am so busy.  I don't know how it happens, but everything gets done.  Or it has so far.  My papers get written, my tests get taken, my homework is done...  I even do my laundry.  There are papers to grade, beds to make, clothes to pick up off the floor.  There are classes to attend, notes to organize, supplies to collect, and things to buy.  There are letters to send and water bottles to fill and pushups to do.  There are dorm meetings and floor meetings and club meetings and floor dates.  There are friends to visit and projects to finish and chapels to attend.  I never have any trouble falling to sleep at night.  It's the waking up that troubles me.

0600 my alarm buzzes three mornings a week.  Gotta get out of bed, put on my swishy PT uniform, fill up my water bottle, get to the track.  One hour of formations and stretching and running and sit ups and pushups and more formations and cadences and HOOAHS that come from deep inside your chest.

Every time I put my uniform on it becomes more natural.  Awkward at first, I now walk proudly in my digital tan-green camo, shoulders back, chin up.  Hat on outside, of course.

Last weekend I got really familiar with my gear.  Although my heels have not decided to make friends with my boots yet.  The boots usually win.  We left after class on Friday afternoon and drove to WMU in Kalamazoo.  Awkward and out of place, Charlie Company huddled together away from our fellow Bronco cadets until we marched out to the repel tower and tied our Swiss-seat harnesses.  Then it was confusion as we all got into lines to repel 30, 60 ft down the smooth wooden tower sides held on by our own rope knots around our hips.  It was very secure, as my bruised waist will attest.  Before loading, gear in our laps, onto the navy blue ROTC school bus for the drive to Ft Custer, we were issued our "rubber duck" M-16 fake rifles.  Never point the muzzle at anyone.  Never leave your weapon unattended.  Never drop your weapon or put the muzzle in the dirt.  Cuddle the thing like a teddy bear in your bunk.  Pretend it's a matter of life or death.  Maybe it is.  I aced my written land navigation tests.  I guess I'm just a test-taking pro.  Turns out I can actually read a map, if I try.  Slept in my uniform long underwear in my Army-issued sleeping bag at the end of a barrack full of cadets, mostly male.  Woke up, raced to formation, stood at attention.  Marched my ruck in formation to the FLRC.  Field Leadership Recreation Course.  I had to look that up.  I have no idea what all these letters mean.  Ever.  FLRC- mission scenarios with props and a setup and a goal to complete.  Get across the river with your ammo box.  Escape a POW camp.  Work together like a true squad.  Strong mind, strong body.  Hua.  MRE breakfast sitting on my ruck.  MRE lunch sitting on my ruck.  Freezing fingers, but the MRE heaters kept them warmer.  MRE-meal ready to eat.  Army rations.  I knew that one.  Bus ride to the land navigation course.  We call it land nav.  The one thing the Army doesn't shorten to an acronym.  LN doesn't sound cool enough, I guess.  Mathematicians are fine with it, even though it means the "natural log" and should therefore logically be an NL.  But I digress.  5 hours of hiking down trails, pushing through brambles, thorns, and dead trees, and getting lost.  My feet are waging constant war with my leather boots.  Guess who suffered the most damage.  That's right.  Night land nav.  3 more hours of hiking down trails, pushing through brambles, thorns, and dead trees, and getting lost.  This time at night with nothing but a dim red flashlight to help out.  Red doesn't mess up night vision.  I didn't know that.  It's true though.  A glowstick war passed the time while we waited in formation for the bus to take us back to barracks.  I don't think anybody made it out unscathed.  Some were worse than others.  We looked like the night sky, glowing with speckled stars on a deep, dark field of black.  Only our stars were dangerous glowing chemicals.  So much fun.  Slept in my long underwear again.  There're called poly pro.  What does that even mean?  Had to skip out on the second ruck march as my feet were convalescing from their hours-long suicide mission fighting back against my boots.  Just accept it; they're not going anywhere.  Which means I missed the GAC.  Grenade Assault Course.  They didn't give us any grenades.  They gave us rocks.  Because that's just how gung-ho the ROTC program is.  Boom.  Made it home.  Ate lunch in the dining hall and it tasted incredible.  Took a hot shower and shaved every single hair off my legs.  I needed to feel feminine somehow.  Hobbled around campus all Monday with calves as tight as coiled steel.  But my Engineering bottle rocket flew 122 yards, so I was pretty pleased all the same.  Wednesday morning I passed my APFT.  That's out of the way.  Now I'm just 3 short forms away from contracting and getting my full ride and my stipend.  And applying for a summer culture and language program on the Army dime.  If I can make it through the application process.  But that's a story for another day.  Today I took a test and kicked it's butt, I have a lab write up to assemble and a squad meeting tonight.  Plus a meeting with my advisor to discuss my academic schedule for the next four years.  Does it tell you something about me that I have been looking forward to this for weeks and have already planned out all of my 7 remaining semesters and developed a schedule for this spring?  I know my course catalog like the back of my hand.  Looking forward to course registration.  And seeing my parents!!
HUA!
CDT Wood

Was that just one week?

One week of classes is now officially over.  We started on a Tuesday and I have come back to Tuesday.  One week ago, after days of Questing and orientation and having fun with newfound friends, we all assembled in the gymnasium of the fieldhouse for Convocation and were welcomed to Calvin as the class of 2015.  The ceremony was short and sweet, and there was a barbecue on the Commons lawn.  But not for me, not right away.  I had class.

History class.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.  10:30.  My professor is a small man who opened class the first day by showing us pictures of airports and, after about 20 pictures of "What do you see here?" finally explained that the purpose was to show us how much information is involved in every instant of time, and how impossible it would be to go back and recreate any one event.  His teaching style sometimes feels like he makes it up as he goes along, like he is less teaching than musing, and asking us to share in his ponderings.  I like him.

Calculus 2.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.  11:30.  My most challenging class, the homework assignments take upward of three to four hours a day to complete.  The professor is a good teacher, passionate about the subject and careful to show every step of his examples.  But the class itself is hard.  Very hard.  As I sit in his lectures, I follow ever step of every problem he demonstrates.  But when I sit in my room with my homework open, I stare at problems that I don't know how to solve, or spend twenty minutes or more working through integrals that take me sometimes five or six steps and ten or so lines on my paper to solve.  I'm so glad I bought a whiteboard.  It helps me organize my thoughts to see the problems laid out coherently on a plain white board in black ink, with no lines to work around and no eraser marks to deal with when I inevitably mess up.

Engineering 101.  Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  8:00 The easiest class in my schedule.  I am convinced that Calvin's first semester of engineering is designed to give students a false sense of confidence about the subject and their ability to master it.  The textbook so far has given us study tips, told us how to take good notes, told us to be confident and goal-oreiented, and to be realistic about time management.  We haven't yet learned engineering.  We've been learning how to learn engineering, or any subject for that matter.  Most of the textbook would apply to any subject (and in fact I've been utilizing some of its suggestions in my history and philosophy classes).  Professor Hoeksema (my one Dutch professor) is competent and funny and engaging.  The workload is light, the studying easy, and the class enjoyable.  We've been assigned a project to make bottle rockets! :D

Philosophy.  Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  9:00.  Professor Mellema walks in at precisely nine o'clock, walks to the blackboard, writes PHIL-153F, PROFESSOR MELLEMA without once glancing towards the room full of students, slowly turns towards us and says, "I am Professor Mellema and this is Philosophy 153" as though he had not just written it on the chalkboard.  He then proceeded to take attendance using only our last names.  I could not get over the fact that balding Professor Mellema, with is round belly and thinning gray hair, was exactly what I had pictured when I had pictured a stereotypical college professor.  It made me want to laugh, which I would have been far too intimidated to actually do.  Since the first day he's begun to exhibit signs of possessing a sense of humor, which is encouraging.  The class itself is not difficult and rather interesting.  I believe I'll end up liking it.

Engineering 181.  Thursdays.  8:30.  Our three hour engineering lab is going to be fun!  We get to play with computers for three hours a week and get credit for it.  Professor Brauer is a quiet, competent professor who opened with a Bible reading and a word of prayer, and seems interested in learning our names (actually, both of my engineering profs opened with a word of prayer and gave us cardstock nametags to place on our tables so we could begin learning one another's names).  He taught us a bit about the program AutoCAD and then gave us three drafting assignments to finish before the next class in a week.  I stayed a bit after class was over and got them all done that day.

ROTC.  PT: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 6:00, now 6:30.  Lab and class: Tuesday. 2:00-5:00PM.  What to say?  Thirty pounds of gear in my closet.  Trip to Kalamazoo to pick up uniforms today.  Three mornings of PT so far.  Sore, tired, out of shape.  Piles of daunting paperwork that makes me feel like I'm signing away my life and freedoms.  A chain of command full of terms I only half understand.  Identity crisis.  Who am I?  How do I address my fellow cadets?  How do they address me?  What am I?  A civilian, a cadet, a uniformed soldier?  A support group.  Someone to turn to.  Older guys who treat me like a younger sister.  Respect.  Feeling ridiculous marching and chanting in cadence.  Trying to keep up.  Falling down.  Arms giving out.  So tired.  Showering in a hurry to make it to class.  Arms shaking too much to put on mascara.  Missing breakfast three mornings a week.  Sharing in mutual misery.  Laughing together.  Sweating.  Shivering.  Blistered hands.  Blistered feet.  Army strong.

One week down.  One week of one semester of one year at Calvin College.  I can't believe one week is over.  But it doesn't feel like only a week.  Time for class.

Quest 2011 and GO NVW!

My first few days at Calvin have been fantastic.  Before classes start we have a week of summer-camp-remnicient orientation and introduction activities called Quest.  We are all divided into Quest groups, who we will continue to spend time with for the next seven weeks in our required class called Prelude, which is apparently about Calvin, Reformed tradition, and being in college.  My Quest group rocks.

On Monday, I flew into Grand Rapids and was picked up by my roommate Gwen Fuller and her family.  We got my car and I stayed with them Monday and Tuesday night.  On Tuesday we were able to get onto campus and into our dorm early to set up and move in stuff.  Our dorm room looks fabulous; I'm so proud of us.  Wednesday was officially move-in day, when I became an official resident of Noordewier Vander Werp, my residence hall for the year.  Our hall theme is Pirates of the Caribbean, so it's a good thing I took the time to pack my pirate boots.  (By the way, these were taken during the organization process.  The room is much cleaner and less chaotic now, I promise :)  I'll put new pictures up soon.)

Today was our StreetFest day, when all the Quest groups descended upon the unsuspecting city of Grand Rapids and volunteered in various organizations and services around the city.  Our Quest group split, and I was sent to the local Salvation Army, where I and three others helped organize the pantry and clean the refrigerators out for teenage mothers with nowhere else to go but the Salvation Army.  This evening, to have fun and get to know each other better, our Quest group went to Aerials, a gymnastics gym that lets paying customers play with all the gym equipment.  Super bouncy trampolines, foam pits you jump into from a platform, spring mats, balance beams, uneven bars, and protective pads everywhere for tricks and stunts.  Afterwards, we made the obligatory journey to Yesterdogs and enjoyed their classic hotdogs on the Calvin dime.

Basically, it's been awesome.  I've met numerous people from all different groups and places who are friendly and fun and eager to meet people.  I've done a stellar job at fooling everyone to believe me outgoing and social, including myself.  I'm loving my newfound, long-desired social life!  I've moved in and settled, and already feel at home.  I've learned my way around campus enough to walk with a fair amount of confidence wherever I need to go.  My car is parked five minutes from my dorm, instead of most other people's fifteen.  And I did a stellar job driving a full car to and from Aerials.  I'm learning south-east Grand Rapids pretty well too.  The Barnes and Nobel just south of campus is almost a fair trade for a beach in the backyard, and I'm already planning to take a gaggle of car-less girls to Target on Sunday for some overlooked necessities.  Or maybe I'll try out Meijers like a real Michigander.  Basically, I'm obsessed with college and can't wait to start classes.  (Also, I have more bookshelves than I'd been afraid.  Guess that means I'll need a few more books :D)

One Last Day in Paradise

It’s the strangest feeling in the world, that feeling of being on the cusp of a new life and new adventures but without yet having taken that all-important plunge.  Like a little kid sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, unsure whether the safety and security of a solid footing and ready oxygen are worth sacrificing for the free and weightless joys of the deep end, I can only hope that my parents’ loving guidance, my happy situation at home, is a fair trade for my own college experience with all its opportunities for both freedom and failure.

This is moving that somehow manages to be both more and less difficult than my norm.  I sometimes catch myself treating this packing exercise as a trip to summer camp, a weeks-long vacation I’ll be returning from before too long brimming with stories to tell and experiences to cherish.  But unlike summer camp, I’ll never be coming home to the same house I’m leaving.  I’ll always be my parents’ daughter, my brothers’ sister, but I’ll never really live with them again.  But at the same time, I’m leaving most of my things here to await my return.

I’ve become something of an expert in goodbyes.  But in moving, I’ve never farewelled my family.  No matter who or what we left behind, no matter what new situation we found ourselves in, moving for me has heretofore been a group effort.  We as a family all moved together.  Monday morning I move alone.  How does one farewell family?  With the same resigned equanimity I have employed leaving behind best friends in the past?  Or ought the egress from the “nest” be heralded with a more emotional sort of adieu?  In my experience, goodbyes are most easily born when terse and matter-of-fact.  “Well, that’s it then.  I’ll miss you.  Take care.”  Add an “I love you” to a close friendship.  Done.  Goodbye Mom, Dad, Galen, Jared, Ryan.  I’ll miss you all.  Take care.  I love you very much.”

Just as every cloud is said to have a silver lining, I’ve found it also tends to be true that every piece of silver has that one spot that polish can never quite free from tarnish.  There’s a dark, shadowy corner in every light-lit landscape, and that’s where there be dragons.  Beginnings must be built from the wreckage of something else’s ending.  Becoming Monica the adult means Monica the child must make way.  Destruction is always painful.  Monday morning, the most compromising blow is dealt to my childhood: moving away from home.  Wednesday morning the foundation is laid for my future as an adult: I move in to college.  Let the construction ensue.

Countdown

There’s a countdown on my whiteboard marking eleven more days.  Is it a countdown of excitement, or one of dread?  Ask me now, ask me later, who knows y if I’ll answer the same way twice.  I’m sitting on a soft, queen-sized bed in a huge room painted the colors I chose.  To my right, all my beloved books are displayed on a ceiling high bookshelf with various accoutrements I’ve acquired over time.  My dorm room will be small, bare, cramped, filled with the essentials and shared with another.  I spent this afternoon floating in neck-deep sea water, eyes closed against the sun, warm waves lapping gently across my face.  I somersaulted in the ocean and brushed against the smooth sand.  I sang at the top of my lungs with a smile on my face, and danced in the waves in a bikini, unashamed in the knowledge that I was alone and unobserved.  My face is red and my body brown.  I showered in a private bathroom redone not six months ago.  I have my family around me, my brothers, my mother, my dad will be home soon.  Pretty much perfect.

But however perfect it might seem, the truth is that it doesn’t feel right anymore.  After eighteen years, the natural instinct to leave the nest, that age-old urge to leave home and strike out on one’s own is now fully developed and finally attainable.  I have a life sprawling ahead of me, a path at my feet that will carry me away from my family toward a future of my own.  As much as I love Florida summer, I find myself almost wistful for Michigan winter, because it already feels like my life.  That’s me, the pale college student in fluffy pants, rather than the bronze high schooler in shorts.

I want to start my classes.  I want to wake up early, stay up late, work on homework.  I want to meet my professors and get to know my classmates.  I want to go out to eat and I want to skip meals.  I’m ready to move on to the next great adventure before me.

Of course, I’ve got a lot of room cleaning before that can happen.  That’s what this week is for!

Tips for Incoming Freshman

My younger brother is starting high school this year.  He got a letter from the high school headed "Tips for Navigating High School."  Reading through the list, I almost laughed.  It was all so simple, so common sense.  "I know you're feeling overwhelmed," the principal wrote.  I thought about how easy high school had been, how little those kids had to be afraid of.

My college orientation was last week.  For two days we went to workshops, lectures, informing us how to best navigate college, quelling some rumors and verifying others.  College is different from high school, they said.  Don't be so complacent that you don't work.  I have to admit, I started feeling concerned.  Maybe college will be harder than I thought it would be.

But just like the transition from middle to high school, the transition into college will take some work, but will soon be as natural as high school became.  There's no need for anxiety; it will all become familiar.

To be honest, I loved the orientation.  I loved meeting my classmates and knowing we were all strangers to one another.  Everyone was friendly, everyone wanted to make friends.  We all sought something in one another that we held in common.  Major, hometown, books, movies. Everyone wanted to fit in with everyone else.

I loved the campus, small and cozy and isolated, with plush green lawns and picturesque trees and flowers.  Old brick buildings that all looked the same, all with Dutch names I still can't quite keep straight.  Fireflies glittering everywhere when the sun went down, like a fairy story.  Even winter is beginning to hold less fear, as I consider snuggling beneath blankets with steaming mugs of tea or hot chocolate, surrounded by friends in the snug little dorm rooms, wearing my softest, fluffiest pants and socks.  The more I look forward to college, the more I find to look forward to.  Classes, friends, camaraderie, coats and hot chocolate, comforters, weeping willows, study abroad...

I leave for Michigan in 25 days.  It feels interminable.  But then I remember that going to Michigan means leaving home.  Leaving my parents, my brothers.  Leaving my devoted cat.  Leaving my huge room with its view of the Intercostal.  Leaving the south where the summers are sweltering and the winters mild.  Leaving the beach I love so much.  Leaving sweet tea and grits and buttermilk biscuits in creamy gravy.  Bittersweet.  But worth it.

To the class of 2015, whether entering high school or college, we have a lot to look forward to, these next four years!