The times are a changin'...

I'd like to start this off by saying that a fresh spring breeze is blowing out the old, but that's not entirely accurate in Santa Fe today. I had a rude awakening at about seven thirty this morning, with the wind and the incoming rain doing its best to assault my poor blinds and my iron. The reason why my iron lives in my window is because the combination of inevitable night breezes, a metal window frame, and metal blinds means that unless something physically restrains the blinds, there's a constant "fwip-thwap" during the night, which does not facilitate sweet dreams. It's a whole big thing that took me a long time to get a hang of in the beginning of the year.

So, there's a new pope. Preface to my opinions: I really don't care, because I'm not Catholic or religious in any way, shape, or form, and have better things to worry about. That said, the Pope is A) 78 years old, B) quite conservative, C) pretty much John Paul II, con't., and D) really, really scary looking. Seriously. Take a look at this picture and tell me that he's not creepy looking. Apparently, the popular theory is that he looks like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, which I really am not qualified to comment on. Though perhaps that'll give me an excuse to watch Star Wars sometime in the near future. I think he's creepy, and that's my final word.

Next up: Summer. Coming up fast upon us. Seminar essays are done, my oral is Wednesday, and we're starting the infamous Freshman Atomic Theory paper. To those who say that St. John's isn't challenging: Hah! You go ahead and write a high-quality seminar essay on Sophocles, with Aristotle as your break. Then go ahead and read some Dalton and Guy-Lussac and Avogadro and so on, and then go ahead, and write a paper about whether or not there really are atoms, and why, and how you know, etc. In your free time, learn ancient Greek and Ptolemy. Hah.

*ahem*

Sorry. That happens sometimes. Anyway, there's a month left of school, which will be minorly hectic, mostly due to the Aristotle and the Ptolemy and those pesky atoms. After that, it's homeward bound for me, for a week, in which I will hopefully secure a paying job for the summer and get lots of sleep. Then it's westward bound, once again, for the sister's graduation (my sister is so totally an adult now. That's awesome.), and then a road-trip back home with her. Then, settle into whatever paying work I've found, and my internship. I'm excited about the internship, not only because it hopefully will be fun and quite educational, but it'll give me something concrete, career-goal-oriented to put on my resume. Currently, I pretty much have a short stint at a fast-food place, my current work-study job as a "marketing intern" at a publishing company (which, I think, makes it pretty obvious that I spend my working hours stuffing envelopes, for the most part), and a liberal arts degree.

That's one of the vexing things about St. John's. I'm never quite sure what to put on job applications, my resume, etc. According to none other than the St. John's website, the major awarded to those who are crazy enough to survive 4 years here is a B.A. You don't get a choice and it's not, technically, a degree in anything. It's just a degree. The common answer is that it's a major in Liberal Arts, but telling someone you're a Lib. Arts major often is equated to telling them that you're an aspiring McDonald's Team Manager and you can't be bothered to take real courses. If someone takes a close look at the St. John's curriculum, you do see that it's not really a major in anything particular: we study everything. But we go in-depth into the major parts. We study a solid chunk of chemistry, we study a solid chunk of astronomy, of physics, of language, of literature, and, of course, of philosophy. I could say I'm a philosophy major, though that's sort of cheating myself, because I'm studying a hell of a lot more than philosophy. Philosophy majors don't, generally speaking, also intensely study Ptolemy and Atomic Theory. I personally propse a major in "Everything, and I am Far More Intelligent Than You Are, or Will Ever Be." That, though, might not do much good for getting rid of St. John's slightly-elitist image.

Ho-hum. No one can say we didn't bring it upon ourselves.