One Last Lap

I just finished rereading my blog post from after Thanksgiving freshman year, the first time I went back to college by myself after a break. It’s still hard to say goodbye, but that’s a good thing, right? Don’t get me wrong; it’s different now. I’m different. Especially now that I’ve made my room my space, and spent more time in it, and now that I’m working primarily on the things I’m interested in and plan to do in the future, my dorm room feels like home – although I still don’t fit very well with Cambridge as a whole.

And now it’s almost over – a few short months and, once again, everything will change. I know, I always wax nostalgic and moody in airports, and this is my back-to-school blog, so you know it’s going to be a little depressed. It’s a little strange, because I’m still looking ahead, looking toward the future, but nearly all I can see is endings. I’ve been a student for going on 17 years now, pretty much as long as I can remember. And now, suddenly, I won’t be anymore; it will be a new environment, new people, new responsibilities. I have certainly become better at dealing with new things over the course of college; newness is, in itself, not so new to me anymore, and I’m more comfortable being uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean I like it.

Okay, okay, saving that for another time. It was a fairly relaxing week; I slept late, took the dog running (we went about four miles this morning) and watched Netflix. My dad and I went to an amusement park. I like roller coasters, but outside of this past week, the only day of my life I’d actually ridden them was a choir trip to Fiesta Texas in high school (with Amelia, if you’re reading this). Although I had been catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier in the meantime. I’d forgotten quite how fast they went, but I was mainly concentrating on not letting go of my phone. We went on the parachute drop afterwards and found it much tamer (we rode it three times) before returning to the roller coaster for a final go-round.

We did a few other things over the break. We went to the park and star-gazed, and we drew on the sidewalk with chalk we bought for Christmas stockings but kept forgetting to use. My mother and I went shopping and browsed a thrift store for random items I didn’t know I needed until I saw them. A couple of my friends were sweet enough to invite me over (and make food!). I worked on my other blog quite a bit and started a facebook page (which is called “Lauren Mandaville – Blogger”, and which you should like/follow if you haven’t yet – subtle, I know).

I didn’t do much of anything school-related. I have a couple of papers due when I get back, and of course my thesis defense, but I’ll have time to prepare for those when I’m back in my dorm room with all my books. My seminary classes were also having Spring Break this week, as it turns out, which is good, since I forgot to bring my books home with me in any case. I haven’t been as on top of things this semester; it comes from being a senior and having a sudden drop in activity level.

In any case, it’s been a good week-and-a-half. It was nice to be able to take advantage of my class schedule and grab a few extra days’ rest before heading back. My sleep schedule has completely flipped to staying and getting up late, but I have ROTC today and Wednesday to jolt me back on track. A couple more months and I’ll head hope for Reading Period and Finals Period (hopefully) before heading back to Harvard for graduation, and then off with the Navy.

And there’s one more important bit of news: my parents bought me a car! It’s my graduation present, but they gave it to me early (hard to explain the new car in the driveway otherwise). It’s a very, very nice car – see the picture below. Its name is Bree. We finally had to name our cars, because my dad now has my old car, and so our old monikers of ‘your car’ and ‘my car’ ended up just making us hopelessly confused, until we had to resort to pointing.

Well, that’s about all my news for now. It’s been a pretty eventful semester, big-picture wise, even though it’s been fairly calm on a day-to-day basis, outside of the tail end of my thesis composition. Be sure to check out my other blog tomorrow at www.rightsideup.blog! Until next week!

Pictures: It seems that when I'm home, most pictures will feature the dog.

 He would be a champ at Twister; he practices by trying to get one paw in each of the waterbowls at the same time.

 We found a friend at the dog park.

 We crashed a dog birthday party, and it was luau-themed, so they were nice enough to give him a bandanna.

 My car!

 I took this picture while out running this morning, so it was taken in selfie mode, upside-down, while the phone was still strapped to my arm. I thought it turned out pretty well, considering, but the real thing was better.

 And we're back in MA. This is the Charles River at sunset.

 And of course we couldn't skip the roller coaster (photo credit to my dad on this one).