Well, I have finished my second year here at Smith. Sorry about the scarcity of posts — things got a little crazy with finals. I’m still on campus, and it’s a very strange feeling. I don’t have classes. I don’t have much to do at all, just the occasional choir rehearsal. We leave for Spain in a week, and I won’t see Northampton again until very late August of 2013. So here’s a wrap-up of some of the extremely cool things I’ve done here over the past two years.

• During finals last fall, I got to play with the Computer Science department’s giant inflatable flying clownfish as stress relief. It’s one of those surreal experiences that I will always remember fondly — the spur of the moment trek across campus late at night with my friend the CompSci major, and the casual “air swimming” up and down the halls of Ford.
• The XBox Kinect music we got to make in conducting last semester. Our teacher is really into electronic music (stuff you make with computer codes) and he figured out how to make the Kinect interpret movement as sound. For me, it was just really cool to think about the possibilities for future music-making that this kind of technology opens up.
• Founding the Quidditch team. Even though I had to leave, it was still one of the greatest decisions of my college career. Without Quidditch, I would have missed out on some of the most amazing people I’ve met here.
• The Campus Police taught me to ride their segway. It is now my preferred mode of transportation.
• Work in Admissions. There are so many things that I just loved about my job this year. I got to talk to so many prospectives and their families, I learned so much about myself, I got to drive a golfcart around campus, I got great work experience, and I had the opportunity to work with some of the nicest people on campus. The current idea is to work there again when I come back in 2013.
• Spain. I haven’t gone yet, but there is no way I’ll have a bad time on that trip.

The thing is, there isn’t a whole lot for me to say right now, and given that I am spending the 16 months in a variety of places that aren’t Massachusetts, it’s probably time for a hiatus. I haven’t decided what that entails yet — I might post sporadically, I might switch the url and restart thegenevaconvention as my own blog that is more varied and personal. In any case, I really like tumblr, so I’ll probably be checking in at least once a day to keep track of the blogs I follow. If you have a question, you can still feel free to ask! So now I’ll just say thanks to all my followers. Good luck, and I hope to see you all around. :)

I just came back from the library with the following items:

• One (gigantic) book on the history of U.S. foreign relations since 1776
• One (slightly smaller) book on Soviet missile systems
• Four books about Ronald Reagan and the Cold War
• A book on feminism written by the woman I’ll be working with this summer
• The Matrix
• Love Actually

Finals is the only explanation for this.

I took a zipcar to Baldwinsville, NY this weekend (about 4 hours away, depending on how much you speed), and it was the definition of synergy. I mean, I assume. I’m not entirely sure what synergy is, but that’s not the point.

I fulfilled a number of important tasks:

• I got rid of three bins’ worth of stuff I don’t need for the summer (flannel sheets, sweaters, winter coats, and other things I don’t want to store at Smith.
• I got to see several members of my extended family.
• I crashed on my cousin’s couch, which was a real learning experience — she’s only a couple years older than me, but she has a husband and a baby. They say that while you’re still single, you should spend the weekend in that sort of a situation (I guess it sort of grounds your expectations of familial bliss), and I’m really glad I did. They’re happy, but life is not easy, nor is it idyllic.
• I went to the aforementioned baby’s first birthday party! Totally adorable and a lot of fun.

So, definitely a successful weekend. I wish I could have stayed an extra day or two, but I didn’t really have the money to do that, nor do I have the time to take another day off here. There are only four more days of classes, and I may have been a little too lax last week. We’ll see.