Aaron - Journal 5

November 12, 2003

"my life is completely new"

 

Ahhh.... Fall is so wonderful! The colors on the trees have been resilient reds and oranges, the air crisp and clear, and the season generally cheery. Midterms are over and the light at the end of the semester is just breaking into sight. Before I know it, I will be singing Christmas carols and celebrating Advent.

My parents thoroughly enjoyed their visit.

My fall break was well spent. I had caught up on my homework so that I would have nothing hanging over my head when school started up again. Around noon on Friday I drove up to Pennsylvania with some friends. We stopped at each person's house during the trip, starting from north of Philadelphia and moving to West of Lancaster.

On Saturday evening my parents joined us. They flew down into Washington-Dulles, rented a car, and drove to Lancaster. Unfortunately, I was still in the Philadelphia area that night, but I had no way of contacting my parents. The friend I was staying with in Philly and the friend I was going to stay with in Lancaster were gracious enough to arrange a half-way meeting place and get me to my parents that night.

Fall break with Emily, Rachel, Trevor, Phil, Jon Mitten, & Jon Keener.

After four days of staying with or eating a meal with each of my friend's families, we headed back to Harrisonburg. My dad had never been here before, so it was exciting to introduce him to the context of my new life. Since I have come to school, I have made new friends, developed new habits, and been introduced to new ideas. Although my identity is the same, my life is completely new. My parent's visit gave me an opportunity to share my new life first-hand with my parents. They sat in on my classes, ate in the caf, talked with my friends, and met my professors. My father even had the chance to give a presentation to the Pre-Professional Health Society.

Getting back to work after break was no easy task... I had a major group paper due explicating John Donne's 1633 Holy Sonnet XI. We started a new chapter in Linear Algebra that is much more abstract and difficult to understand; we are changing our definitions to more general terms. Three of my classes are requiring research papers that are due by the end of the Semester. For Ruling Ideas I am looking at the development of talent, for Advanced Writing I am going to write about women's issues in a D. L. Sayers mystery novel, and for Artificial Intelligence I am going to research neural networks.

So much to do, so little time.