I have sadly neglected my blog for far too long: I apologize for so profoundly slacking. Life has been a whirlwind, but then, what else is new? It feels as though I’ve entered a new stage in my life, even in just the span of time between my last blog post and this one.
I’ve been working hard on my first job application; I’ve started writing my thesis; and somehow midterms have sneaked up on me. Midterms in and of themselves are not incredibly noteworthy (besides the fact that I haven’t taken an academic test in like fifteen months, since I just wrote essays for a year)—it is just that a midterm represents precisely that: mid-term, half way through my first semester of senior year.
That’s right: senior year. How did that happen? I’ve been thinking “one-fourth of your senior year is already gone” again and again, certainly more than I should be thinking of it. It’s hard to stay positive about this year passing by when I feel so utterly powerless to slow it down or fully soak it in.
The rhythms of my life are more consistent now that I’m half-way into the semester. I have my steady constants between my work and class schedule that take up such a large portion of my week. It feels as though I simply cram anything and everything else into the little gaps of time remaining, so that my week is cordoned off, each section given its allotted task and duty to fulfill. I miss spontaneity. I’m back in this city of mine and have all these grand plans of things I simply haven’t gotten around to doing.
I want to go to Ben’s Chili Bowl (finally), to Bus Boys and Poets, to see the new MLK Jr. Memorial, to revisit my favorite Smithsonians, to go to the top of the Washington Monument (that is now under repair indefinitely), to return to the Library of Congress, to tour the Capitol. We have this expression about getting stuck in the Georgetown bubble, simply meaning that this town of ours is engrossing, fulfilling, sufficient to meet our needs so that we forget we are a part of a greater whole, this sprawling metropolis of DC.
Every time I do venture forth into the city, I feel alive and plugged into the larger urban heartbeat. I can’t help but think of all the people who’ve explored this city before me, to compare its architecture with cities from around the world (that I’ve now had the good fortune to have visited). It feels somehow as though my time is running out, to spend with DC, to be a student at Georgetown. I was talking with a friend this weekend about how it is so exciting to get to experience all the “adult” things that come with growing up, but it is also depressing to feel closed off from the “young” things—like being a student and making stupid mistakes that are acceptable as a teenager.
The fact that I struggled to find time to write this simple blog post, which I so enjoy doing, is a sign in and of itself that my schedule is a little too confining. That’s something that I truly miss about Oxford—the independent study system that allows one so much freedom in terms of one’s schedule. But being back here has also allowed me to feel a little more invested in my community: there is a sense of unity in being in a class, being back in some of my old student clubs, working, living, and hanging out with old friends.
Slow. Down. Life. That is what I want to say to time, to gain back control of these evaporating hours. I want to live this year so fully, so beautifully, that while I may look back and say, “I wish I could be a senior once more,” I won’t look back and say “I wish I could have done that year differently.”
