digitalscrapbook: my last fall q
Due to the pandemic, I sometimes describe my three and a half-ish years here as “fake college.” We were sent home from school for COVID my first year, spent second year entirely online, and third year in some kind of ambivalent in-between space. It really feels like my fourth year snuck right up on me - and now we’re over a third of the way through!(?) I resolved to make the most of this last year of my yOuTh, and I’ll be bold and say that, so far, I’ve done a decent job!
One thing about me is that I love to dwell in nostalgia. Another (related) thing: I love to SCRAPBOOK.
I have assembled here a digital scrapbook of my last fall at UChicago. <3
One of the biggest changes this school year has been my new job as an RA. I hadn’t lived on campus since being kicked out of the dorms in March 2020 (when the world was ending), so I was a little apprehensive about the return. I moved in two weeks before classes started and spent a full week doing RA training before the new kiddos moved in and we began O-week! My RA friends made the transition so much easier for me and have provided a support system unlike any I’ve ever had before:)
On the Friday before our first week of class, I had my first ever interstate field trip! We took a 7am Amtrak from Union Station to St. Louis, Missouri to visit the City Museum. We spent five hours straight exploring the surreal play structures of the museum, roaming manmade underground tunnels, climbing ladders to nowhere, swinging across ball pits and launching ourselves down a five-story(!) slide. At the end of the day, we took the train right back to Chicago. It was an exhausting day, but certainly one of my most memorable as a student here.
My oldest friend Megan and I have a tradition of visiting each other at least once a year at our respective schools. She’s currently in grad school in Florida, and in October, she made the trip to Chicago to stay in my dorm room on an air mattress for four days. We tagged along on a house trip to go apple picking in Hobart, Indiana, which I swear is right out of a Hallmark movie.
One of my favorite parts of living in Chicago has been exploring its MANY music venues. I love going to shows both of artists I’ve been a longtime fan of ones I haven’t heard a single song of… To speak to the former, I saw Declan McKenna in October and almost passed away.
Cultivated lots of new hobbies and skills this quarter! I learned how to sew and knit in a class in the art history department called women’s work and became a woodworking GOD for my children and architecture class. It was so cool to get to visit the Lab School’s Early Education campus and meet the kids and watch them play with the blocks I made them:’)
Okay I am embarrassed to say that I have not been to the Christkindl market since my first year BUT I did manage to conduct some EPICLY FESTIVE holiday activities. I only fell ONCE ice skating and only got into ONE fight with a middle aged woman at the Joffrey’s Nutcracker show.
Cheeseball alert: I love my friends and am getting madly emotional about my college career coming to an end. Fortunately, this is great motivation to keep up with my scrapbooking to maximize future nostalgic looking back at the good old days….
