I'm just stopping by for a quick post, having found a little window of free time between finishing a homework assignment and heading home for dinner at Spanish House. This semester has been one constant to-do list as I run around desperately trying to fit in every last "Hendrix experience" before I graduate. In addition to wrapping up my two theses and keeping up with my two 400-level classes, two 200-level classes, a job and an internship, I've been committed to having as much fun as possible with friends I'm afraid I'll never see again. Oh, and did I mention I got mono? I feel like I've crammed more feelings and events into this one semester than I even knew was possible.
I just got back from the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, which took place in charming Missoula, Montana. Hendrix consistently has one of the largest groups of attendees, despite being a comparatively tiny school; this year there were 42 of us. As I sat in on my fellow students' presentations and had awesome, intellectual conversations in the off-hours, I couldn't help but recall something I wrote three years ago:
The more upperclassmen I talk to, the more amazed I am. One spent his summer volunteering in rural Mexico. Others researched the vibrations from Hurricane Katrina. These are normal, average students: they stand behind you in the lunch line and sleep in the dorm room next door. The best part: within three years, each member of the class of 2010 will be saying, "I went to ___," or, "I researched ____."
When I wrote that, it was hard to imagine that it would come true some day. But it really has! I presented on my Odyssey research about Spanglish, which was also the topic of my International Relations and Global Studies thesis. Two of the other girls in my hotel room had conducted interviews for their research during an Odyssey trip to Geneva. Other people on the trip had gone to Rwanda and Ghana and Cambodia and Peru and, and, and.... What we keep saying is, Hendrix got us addicted to travel and learning, but after graduation we're going to have to pay to get our fix.