i love spring, and spend my time appreciating trees food & exercise
By Tamika Whitenack
What's new? Well, I finished classes on Tuesday! So the last few days have been the perpetual weekend that is study week. This means that I have been spending a lot of time swimming (5 out of past 7 days) and yoga classes and baking and attending student shows/events and overall not that much studying. I have 2 finals on Thursday and Friday, Bio and Spanish, but I am struggling to feel a sense of urgency to study for them...it'll happen eventually! I'm making slow progress, and just don't feel that stressed about it?
I feel like a lot has happened since I last blogged! It's been a rush with the end of the semester and the beautiful weather...there really is something special about Northeast Spring, especially on Vassar's beautiful tree-filled campus :)
Last Friday was our last farm trip, and we got ice cream after! A nice lavender honey that was a fun shade of pink. It reminded me of all our family road trips and the way we always seem to end up getting ice cream....
Last Saturday was Founder's Day, which is a big deal...it's like a carnival/music festival and also the big day-drinking/partying event of the year! So campus was a bit crazy, but at least the weather was nice?
Classes ended Tuesday, it felt pretty anticlimactic actually. In high school, the last day of school has a sense of finality to it, but honestly everything was sort of business as usual in a lot of ways since we all still have finals and all that, and it's not like everybody finishes at the same time since it's not a standardized school day. Still, it was a weird day...it's finally dawning on me that this is the end of my freshman year of college! Whoa. I'll write more about this in my blog post next week (last one!).
Wednesday was our last ALANA study break, with lots of food! And also our end of year Flutefest, which was a little recital with all of my flute teacher's students. It was nice to perform my piece with the piano accompaniment (Ganne Andante et Scherzo) and to hear everybody else's pieces! I'm really pleased with my flute lessons this year, I think it's been the most fruitful aspect of music in my life this year. I like the music I've been playing and I know it's good because it reminds why playing flute is fun, and it's also very satisfying? I think something that has been huge across all my activities, and definitely present with music, has been realizing that I can do things that I love and be decent at them without being crazy and feeling like I have to be practicing every day or meeting some super high standard. I definitely feel like I've relaxed a lot in college but still continued to do a lot of the things I love, which is a great feeling. Out here livin' my best life :)
I'm going to be on Asian Student's Alliance executive board next year (secretary), so part of this week has been spent on that! We had our end of year picnic yesterday, so on Thursday we went on a little grocery shopping spree, and yesterday we had fun with set-up/cleaning and all that.
Yesterday was also a big cooking day for me! One of my senior friends was having a little get together for the end of the semester and I did a lot of the cooking for it, which consisted of trying to use up a lot of ingredients from her fridge and pantry. I made alfredo veg pasta, baked falafel pan thing, lemon poppyseed bread, miso carrots, vegetable grain soup, and chocolate cake. It was one of those "spend 4 hours in the kitchen" affairs, and I loved it!! Excited to return home to more cooking adventures (those also know that my diet and all that have changed A LOT here and am not sure if my body can handle my old eating habits).
Today I went on my last rail trail run with my long run buddy! The rail trail has transformed into a magical green canopy place and I love it. Today was also a good day for a run, it was mild temperature when we started out and then started to gentle rain mid-run, which I find refreshing and cleansing and overall lovely. It was a bit miserable later when we were rather damp and had to head back to our dorms after our breakfast stop at the Deece, but overall, a good last long run experience. She's going abroad next semester so I'll have to find a new running buddy! I'm sad :(
In general, that's been something I've been thinking about this week. I am definitely looking forward to coming home, but it's going to be sad to say good-bye to people, especially my friends who are going abroad! A thought that I've had is that something very special about high school is the fact that (for me at least, since family has always been close to home) in high school all the people I loved and cared about were in one place, easily accessible. But as I go off into the world and make new friends and meet new people in other places/from other places, my network of people who matter is scattered, especially as my friends from home go off into the world too! It's a scary thought but I guess it's just life...for anybody reading who hasn't graduated high school yet, this is not-that-wise not-that-old me telling you to cherish it!
What's new? Well, I finished classes on Tuesday! So the last few days have been the perpetual weekend that is study week. This means that I have been spending a lot of time swimming (5 out of past 7 days) and yoga classes and baking and attending student shows/events and overall not that much studying. I have 2 finals on Thursday and Friday, Bio and Spanish, but I am struggling to feel a sense of urgency to study for them...it'll happen eventually! I'm making slow progress, and just don't feel that stressed about it?
I feel like a lot has happened since I last blogged! It's been a rush with the end of the semester and the beautiful weather...there really is something special about Northeast Spring, especially on Vassar's beautiful tree-filled campus :)
Last Friday was our last farm trip, and we got ice cream after! A nice lavender honey that was a fun shade of pink. It reminded me of all our family road trips and the way we always seem to end up getting ice cream....
Last Saturday was Founder's Day, which is a big deal...it's like a carnival/music festival and also the big day-drinking/partying event of the year! So campus was a bit crazy, but at least the weather was nice?
Classes ended Tuesday, it felt pretty anticlimactic actually. In high school, the last day of school has a sense of finality to it, but honestly everything was sort of business as usual in a lot of ways since we all still have finals and all that, and it's not like everybody finishes at the same time since it's not a standardized school day. Still, it was a weird day...it's finally dawning on me that this is the end of my freshman year of college! Whoa. I'll write more about this in my blog post next week (last one!).
Wednesday was our last ALANA study break, with lots of food! And also our end of year Flutefest, which was a little recital with all of my flute teacher's students. It was nice to perform my piece with the piano accompaniment (Ganne Andante et Scherzo) and to hear everybody else's pieces! I'm really pleased with my flute lessons this year, I think it's been the most fruitful aspect of music in my life this year. I like the music I've been playing and I know it's good because it reminds why playing flute is fun, and it's also very satisfying? I think something that has been huge across all my activities, and definitely present with music, has been realizing that I can do things that I love and be decent at them without being crazy and feeling like I have to be practicing every day or meeting some super high standard. I definitely feel like I've relaxed a lot in college but still continued to do a lot of the things I love, which is a great feeling. Out here livin' my best life :)
I'm going to be on Asian Student's Alliance executive board next year (secretary), so part of this week has been spent on that! We had our end of year picnic yesterday, so on Thursday we went on a little grocery shopping spree, and yesterday we had fun with set-up/cleaning and all that.
Yesterday was also a big cooking day for me! One of my senior friends was having a little get together for the end of the semester and I did a lot of the cooking for it, which consisted of trying to use up a lot of ingredients from her fridge and pantry. I made alfredo veg pasta, baked falafel pan thing, lemon poppyseed bread, miso carrots, vegetable grain soup, and chocolate cake. It was one of those "spend 4 hours in the kitchen" affairs, and I loved it!! Excited to return home to more cooking adventures (those also know that my diet and all that have changed A LOT here and am not sure if my body can handle my old eating habits).
Today I went on my last rail trail run with my long run buddy! The rail trail has transformed into a magical green canopy place and I love it. Today was also a good day for a run, it was mild temperature when we started out and then started to gentle rain mid-run, which I find refreshing and cleansing and overall lovely. It was a bit miserable later when we were rather damp and had to head back to our dorms after our breakfast stop at the Deece, but overall, a good last long run experience. She's going abroad next semester so I'll have to find a new running buddy! I'm sad :(
In general, that's been something I've been thinking about this week. I am definitely looking forward to coming home, but it's going to be sad to say good-bye to people, especially my friends who are going abroad! A thought that I've had is that something very special about high school is the fact that (for me at least, since family has always been close to home) in high school all the people I loved and cared about were in one place, easily accessible. But as I go off into the world and make new friends and meet new people in other places/from other places, my network of people who matter is scattered, especially as my friends from home go off into the world too! It's a scary thought but I guess it's just life...for anybody reading who hasn't graduated high school yet, this is not-that-wise not-that-old me telling you to cherish it!
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| goats |
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| meat chickens |
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| not meat chickens |
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| ice cream |
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| womp womp, can u spot it? |
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| founder's day |
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| founder's dAY |
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| quad coming back to life |
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| trash and tree |
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| get ready |
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| for |
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| too many tree pics! |
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| plus my watercolor |
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| i love spring!! |
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| i eat weird things |
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| SPRINKLESSS |
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| hehe |
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| :) |
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| shade |
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| fried soft-shell crab from my dinner tn |
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| hamachi neck from dinner tn |
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