Spring Fever

It's been absolutely gorgeous here for several days now.  The humidity hasn't set in, and the slightly breezy 80 degree days are driving everyone crazy with spring fever!  Finals aren't for a few weeks yet, so we've been taking good advantage of this nice change in weather...

Last week was Greek Week on campus, so all 6 of our fraternities and sororities were in high gear.  Every night there was some kind of fundraiser, concert, ultimate frisbee game or giant obstacle course for the gang to tackle.  A lot of the girls on my floor are in sororities, so it was fun to watch them come back giddy and laughing from all the fun!  Oh, and I should mention that Belmont is a dry campus, so our Greek life parties are overall a wholesome experience!

I've just stumbled upon the website where Belmont's professional photographer archives all the events and speakers on campus, so I must give him credit for these photos.  Here's a great one featuring a beautiful Tennessee sunset...

40/40 Revisited

I found this today while reading back through my journals from the 40 States in 40 Days trip last summer. I think it perfectly conveys the nostalgic mood I was in, and reflects all that I was taking in as we traveled from coast to coast.

The lyrics to Guthrie’s “This Land” first caught my attention as a sixth-grader in Mrs. Hamilton’s music class.  “This Land is My Land/ This Land is Your Land/ From California to the New York Island,” we sang, as we strummed the very basic chords of this song on our half-size Yahama student guitars.  “New York Island?” I kept thinking, “I’ve never heard of New York having an island.”  I was lost in thought, pondering Guthrie’s descriptive phrases of America’s landscapes as we finished the abridged version of the song that we had learned, consisting only of the refrain and first two verses.  “This Land” was part of the school’s repertoire of patriotic music.  It was sung every year during our Spring Fling concert alongside classics such as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “Fifty Nifty United States,” and “America the Beautiful.”  I never took note of who wrote the song, what kind of life he led, or what inspired him to write.  From my perspective, whoever the author was, he was no doubt a great American hero, like Francis Scott Key, who wrote our national anthem in the midst of an attack on his battleship.  “This Land” has always been a purely celebratory hymn for me.  From sing-alongs with my siblings to school performances, singing this song was to paint a most beautiful picture of America.  Several years have gone by since my elementary years, and “This Land” had been filed away in the depths of my cranium, along with memories of lunch boxes, playground competitions and colorfully illustrated maps of our fifty states.  But this summer, as I entered northern California’s redwood forests for the first time in a long time, a wave of nostalgia washed over me as a mental video clip from my childhood started to play: I watched my family pull up to the same redwood forest nine years ago, singing “This Land” repeatedly as we jockeyed for a prime window spot from which to look up at the ancient towering sequoias.  From that moment on, and throughout the rest of our trip—as I looked out over the rocky Oregon coast, rafted through swift waters in Yellowstone, drove through miles and miles of South Dakota’s badlands, stood on one of New York’s islands while staring up at our Statue of Liberty, walked among the graves of a generation that gave everything to secure our freedoms, and as I looked down under the bridge in South Carolina at the Gullah harvesting sweet grass—Woody Guthrie’s most celebrated song was on permanent repeat in my head.

Sunnier times, a sunnier place

Nashville's gloomy weather and a conversation with one of my very favorite French language enthusiasts has left me dreaming of summer evenings in Cannes....

I've recently been looking at real estate in Provence; not much, just a little home to spend where I can escape the cold Nashville winters and enjoy the relaxing French countryside.  I've started a list of friends who've agreed to come for a visit to this eventual home of mine, so if this sounds like something you'd like to do, I'd be happy to add you!


I haven't yet signed a lease, so for now you'll have to settle for this seashore panorama. (Click the photo to enlarge.)

Words

My blog has been getting a lot of attention lately.  It's great because every time I click "Publish" I have this sense of accomplishment that I've created something--thought it up, written it down, made it blogworthy.  It serves as an escape from homework, an indirect procrastination mechanism.  Let me tell you, if you need an excuse to put something off, you really need a blog.  It's this magical thing that "demands" attention.  Because people are going to visit, they're going to want to read something new.  Even if the world is crashing down around you.....you can't let the readers down!


I know, I know.  It's a false sense of urgency.  It's the urgency I should be feeling about the final draft of that thesis prospectus that was due last week.  But some things you just can't rush.  And a thesis prospectus is one of those things.  The thing is, when it's ready, it just flows out.  Like the music that flows out of the end of a conductor's baton.  If you can just wait for the right time, the polished prose will gurgle up out of your brain so fast your fingers won't be able to type fast enough.  But between those wordy extravaganzas I sometimes just want to yell at my professor: "Stop!  Don't make me try to write it now! You're making it worse!  We just need to wait!"  And nobody will believe me, because everyone knows that college students these days don't really want to learn.  But when it all comes out they'll see. They'll see that it just takes time.  All that information - all seventy three of my sources - are rolling around in my head, forming a cohesive plan slowly but surely.  I just hope that my ideas can get their act together in time! 
The end of the semester draws near!

On Easter - Les Pâques

The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no matter what my circumstances. 

Robert Flatt

Let every man and woman count himself immortal.  Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection.  Let him say not merely, "Christ is risen," but "I shall rise."  

Phillips Brooks

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.  

Walter Raleigh

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."

John 11:25-26

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him.  For He departed, and behold, He is here.  

St Augustine

Once upon a balmy evening...

Last night Jon and Kelsey and I drove down south of Franklin to the middle of nowhere, put out a tarp and blankets, and just laid out under the stars.  We talked and talked for at least an hour or two, argued about constellations, and marveled at how we'll be able to see the Milky Way from Joshua Tree, CA when we stop there this summer during the course of our road trip.  At one point I thought, "How nice it would be to just back up a few decades when people did stuff like this every night instead of sitting in front of TVs." Of course, I changed my mind when Jon pulled out his iPhone and pulled up some real-time star charts to settle our dispute over the location of the Big Dipper.  "Okay, I thought, I'm going to work hard to garner the best of both worlds:  iPhones and Blackberries and iPads and GPSs are great, but I'm going to get out and make sure I'm enjoying all the other less-connected activities in life.....even if I'm enjoying music from my iPod during the hike :)