{"id":2850,"date":"2015-12-17T01:44:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T01:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/?p=2850"},"modified":"2016-09-08T04:17:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T04:17:18","slug":"things-learned-from-this-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/2015\/12\/17\/things-learned-from-this-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Learned This Semester"},"content":{"rendered":"

The semester seems to have moved faster than usual. As I\u2019m sitting in the airport, headed for home, writing this, and despite the gray clouds covering the sky and finals being over, it still feels like it should be September. So much has happened, these last few months, and it still seems absurd that in less than eight hours I will be home.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the things I\u2019ve learned this semester:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Resist the urge to just do the bare minimum. It\u2019s easy to skim over readings, take half-hearted notes. It doesn\u2019t matter if the professor is wonderful or terrible, you\u2019ll get less out of the class if you don\u2019t put in the effort. Thinking critically will allow you to evaluate the world in a different light. It will enable you to think of other people complexly.<\/li>\n
  2. Write down funny quotes that your friends say. Maybe add context, for later purposes. But you\u2019ll look back at those quotes and be reminded of the moment and that is important.<\/li>\n
  3. You should go watch school sports. This was a strange one for me, because I don\u2019t particularly dislike sports, in fact I rather enjoy watching both soccer and basketball. Much to my own surprise, I manage to get wrapped up in the game, in the way the players interact with each other. Still, until this semester I somehow managed to not go to a single sporting event. (I know, I know.) I suppose I\u2019m just saying: try something new. Something that you aren\u2019t sure whether or not you\u2019ll like. Maybe you\u2019ll be surprised.<\/li>\n
  4. Pretzels dipped in Nutella is delicious.<\/li>\n
  5. Don\u2019t be afraid of being honest, of being blunt. People have a way of dancing around the truth and never really saying what they want to say. Don\u2019t do that. Don\u2019t be afraid of what other people will think, let them know what you\u2019re thinking.<\/li>\n
  6. Sometimes the timing just isn\u2019t right.<\/li>\n
  7. Space out your dinning dollars, but know that if you get to the end of the semester and have none, your friends with extra will be more than happy to buy you food.<\/li>\n
  8. Go on walks. Tacoma is truly beautiful. Go look at the houses, at the Little Lending Library\u2019s scattered across the streets, at the Sound.<\/li>\n
  9. Give your friend\u2019s hugs.<\/li>\n
  10. Talk to new people. They\u2019re nice. You\u2019ll probably have something in common with them. Make an effort to make new friends, they\u2019ll help you gain a different perspective on college.<\/li>\n
  11. Don\u2019t forget about your old friends, though. Make them know they\u2019re important.<\/li>\n
  12. Get off campus. Walk to the Met, explore Seattle, go to Frisko Freeze late at night in your pajamas, and wander around Point Defiance.<\/li>\n
  13. Read The Opposite of Loneliness <\/i>by Marina Keegan; \u201cSome Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science\u201d <\/b>by Alberto Rios; On Writing <\/i>by Stephen King; and The Sheltering Desert <\/i>by Henno Martin.<\/li>\n
  14. Remember that it\u2019s the little things that don\u2019t seem important that matter the most. Those stupid moments, those times when you\u2019re just laughing, eating breakfast with friends. Those moments are the foundations to a friendship.<\/li>\n
  15. Cry when you need to cry. And don\u2019t be afraid of crying in front of other people. Your friends care about you, they want to help you. They want you to feel better as much as you want to feel better.<\/li>\n
  16. Let yourself have lip synch battles with your friends, even if you\u2019re in a semi-public place. Also: improv rap battles.<\/li>\n
  17. Don\u2019t put off things until the last minute and get a good night\u2019s sleep. Especially before tests.<\/li>\n
  18. Email your teachers from high school. I read this poem in high school and I could only remember a few lines (\u201cMy student wrote star smoke, star love, star cape\u2026<\/i> \/ into poem after poem and told me once that her father \/ never said he loved her\u201d) and pointlessly spent hours attempted to google the lines to figure it out. Eventually, I decided to email my high school English teacher, as I read the poem in her Creative Writing class junior year. She wonderfully emailed me back the poem and asked me how school was going. Don\u2019t loose those connections.<\/li>\n
  19. Have weird conversations, have deep conversations.<\/li>\n
  20. Know that you don\u2019t know everything. You\u2019ll never know everything. And that\u2019s okay.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The semester seems to have moved faster than usual. As I\u2019m sitting in the airport, headed for home, writing this, and despite the gray clouds covering the sky and finals being over, it still feels like it should be September. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":493,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/493"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3460,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions\/3460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}