Here We Go!

Sorry, my sister and I bought Mario Kart for Wii and I think I’ve picked up Mario’s “here weeee gooooo!”

Anyway, I am officially in the second semester of my senior year. And you know what? I am very surprisingly quite calm about the entire situation. I think what helped a lot was my participation in the Spiritual Exercises, which is a five day silent retreat offered by the Chaplains’ Office on campus. Yes, I said it.

I, Colleen Curran, the local chatterbox, went on a silent five day retreat.

At first, I thought that the silence would be tough, especially since I went with some of my best friends. But I actually just got into a rhythm of spending more time focusing on internal conversation with God and myself than external with my friends. Over the course of the five days, I learned to let go of my anxieties about this semester, next year, and my overall plan. As one of the spiritual directors, Fr. John Savard, said, “God has such a brilliant plan for you that even you can’t mess it up.” I like that optimism! It was an absolutely incredible experience – I realized that my graduate school applications are already in, my thesis is progressing, and I have a general sense of direction. And I realized that I can’t freak out about any of that stuff, especially since I have one last semester to savor. So, everyone, you should do the Spiritual Exercises. Or at least try to be silent for just a day. It’s amazing what a difference the silence makes.

Then we returned to Holy Cross…which was covered in snow.

And then Holy Cross reminded us that we’re seniors and we’re graduating soon. We had Senior Convocation, which was a night of great food, showcases of senior musical talent, and far too many trips down memory lane (laughter was the soundtrack of the night).

And before you know it, classes started. Here’s what I’m taking this semester:
1) Contemporary Literary Theory
2) Chaucer & Dante (Prof. Ireland wants to put a sign that reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” above our seminar room’s doors)
3) Chant as Popular Music
4) My thesis
5) and I’m auditing T.S. Eliot.

Exciting semester, right? Okay, if you’re a sciency person, then no.

Then, today, as if to really hammer it in to the entire senior class that we are graduating in May, the Registrar told us how to apply for graduation. Graduation. In May. Aaaaaaaaaah!

So, my goal for this last semester is to truly enjoy everything that Holy Cross has to offer – my friends, classes, and opportunities. I can’t believe that this is the beginning of the end, but it has been a fantastic first week back already.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 12:01 am and is filed under On Campus News, Senior Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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