Slightly Scatter-Brained
Zia considers where her time goes, breaks down her study schedule and the Activity Fair, and fears for the winter months.
Zia considers where her time goes, breaks down her study schedule and the Activity Fair, and fears for the winter months.
Trimesters move fast. Everyone warned me, but I don’t think I understood that they actually fly by. It’s already the middle of the second week and I truly don’t know where my time goes. The upside to that is that at the end of each day I feel as though I accomplished a lot. Which makes me feel proud and validates my exhaustion.
One of the weird things I’ve discovered about my college experience is that I have no idea what I’ve been doing with my time, but I do remember what I’m learning. What did I do yesterday between classes? No idea, but the conscious mind is essential to the creative process and past a certain point, formal education might interfere with creativity. Crazy stuff.
I guess I covered this in my last post, but most of my time is dedicated to studying. I recently discovered that I enjoy listening to Northern Cree’s music while I read, but piano covers are better for when I’m doing my writing assignments. Music is essential to study sessions. Foosball breaks are also an essential to these study sessions. I think I’m getting better, but I still have a long way to go before I’m a true foosball master. A majority of my work is done in upstairs Sayles with one or two friends. I think I’m better at studying within other people for two reasons: 1. when I’m alone my mind tends to wander, and no work gets done and 2. I get motivated by other people who are proactively working.
But off the topic of studying, because I feel tired just writing about it, I’ve been wishing for the transition into fall, because I did not bring enough clothes for warm weather days. Being from New Mexico, I was very worried about being too cold, but I currently have the exact opposite problem. I think my wish might be coming true, because this week’s weather is supposed to be in the 60-degree range, which means I can start wearing the long sleeves and sweaters I packed.
Despite my wish for fall weather, I don’t think I’m going to be ready for winter. I’m excited to miss the entire month of December in Minnesota (thank you trimesters), but I still have the rest of the winter season to worry about after that. I often visit my family in Canim Lake, B.C. for Christmas, but from what I’ve been told, I haven’t even come close to seeing what a “true” winter is. Should I be worried about what is to come during the winter months?
Moving on from my fear of winter, last week was the Activities Fair. This was the chance for students to sign up for clubs they were interested in, and it was overwhelming — but in the best possible way. I loved seeing so many students advocating for their favorite club and more students joining said club. I decided to sign up for the clubs that sounded fun to me, since I’ll have my fair share of stress this year. Off the top of my head, I signed up for table tennis, badminton, intramural sports, the Apathetic Whittlers, Ghost Club, CCCE Tutoring, Cave Interest, and the Coalition of Women of Color. I’ve also had talks with another Native student on campus — Yes! There is another one! — on restarting Indigenous Peoples Alliance (IPA). The prospect of having a club for indigenous students makes me so happy. I hope it works out and expands the Carleton community!
I’m excited to get further into the term and figure out what I’m doing. But for now, I’ll end this scatter-brained blog post with some more photo highlights from the week.
Zia is a first-year student from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Though, despite growing up among the 19 Pueblos, her tribe is the Canim Lake Band from British Columbia, Canada. She is interested in studying Biology and, hopefully, giving back to her people while bridging the gap between the medical field and Native communities. Aside from academics, she loves watching re-runs of The Office and Parks and Rec and keeping up with the latest music from Aminé, Brockhampton, Rex Orange County, Omar Apollo, GoldLink, and many more. Meet the other bloggers!