Dan DeConinck ’13

We’ll take a break from life on campus in this entry. I’d like to share a story while it’s still fresh in my mind, and I’d say now would be the best time for that, since it happened last night.

Ever since the NBA season started, my friends and I have been saying how awesome it would be to see the Celtics in person. My friend Charlie and I grew up following them, and our friends Tom and Dan share a general love for sports in general. This past Monday, inspiration struck, and we decided that this would be the week to make it happen. I found tickets for the Wednesday game against the Miami Heat, so we gave the train schedule a quick glance and it appeared to fit our plans. By our calculations, we would take a 5:30 train out of Worcester, get into Boston, grab the T to the Garden, and be at the game 20 minutes before tip off.

When everything went according to plan, the four of us were feeling pretty good. We found our seats, which weren’t exactly courtside but got the job done, and settled in for a thrilling game. It was the ideal game to attend – competitive, dramatic, and the Celtics won. We just barely missed a free t-shirt that was launched out of perhaps the most powerful t-shirt cannon I’ve ever witnessed. We laughed and cheered at the people dancing (or, trying to dance) on the Jumbotron. We had pretzels, pizza, and hot dogs. We flooded the streets with thousands of other satisfied fans after the game. We shared a cheery subway ride back to the train station.

We missed our train.

Wait, what? But…but everything was going perfectly! How could this happen?

A talented critical reader will already have an idea how it happened. Now, to do something I’ve never done before, I will quote myself. In fact, I’ll quote this very entry:

“…we gave the train schedule a quick glance and it appeared to fit our plans.”

Well, looks can be deceiving. A quick glance was not sufficient: the train did not fit our plans. Not at all. Not even close. It was midnight, and the last train for Worcester departed sometime around 10:20 (or, in basketball time, right around the beginning of the fourth quarter). How we made this mistake is currently under investigation (I plead the fifth). Regardless, it was a capital one. Suddenly, my Celtics jersey began to look like a pillow. The bench at the station began to look like a bed. The 4 a.m. train to Worcester began to look like our only option.

Then, our savior arrived in the form of Charlie’s dad. Luckily, he lived within a half-hour of the station and happened to be awake when Charlie called at 12:30. We had a house to stay at, beds to sleep in, and a ride back to campus in the morning. How we got so lucky, I do not know.

We got back at 10 a.m. with an hour to spare before class.

So, to recap, we had a great Wednesday night. Getting a change of scenery was refreshing, the game was invigorating, and fun was had along the way. Was it perfect? Not quite. But as far as I’m concerned, close enough.

Can someone please tell me where the month of January went? I feel like I just finished packing my car to move home, and somehow it’s two weeks into Spring semester already. If one thing stands out about college, it’s how quickly time passes. Sometimes I’ll think I shaved in the morning, but then I’ll look and I have a beard (and no, I haven’t yet reached the level of manliness at which I could sprout a thick layer in a single day); I get out of class at one on most days, but the next time I look at the clock it’s almost always five. I don’t get it. Anyways, I realized I haven’t done a blog in a while, so let’s take this chance to catch up.

Break was great. As much as I love school, some rest and relaxation can never hurt. I made the trek back to campus on Jan. 18th, and dove into classes on the 20th. Since then, it’s been a blur. In one of my earlier entries, I wrote about course selection and about how I was one of the lucky ones. My schedule could not have worked out any better – I never have a class before 10 a.m., and my latest class ends at 1 p.m. So yes, it is possible to get the schedule of your dreams.

The first day of classes this semester was similar to the first day in the fall, except it was 12 degrees instead of 85 and I knew where all my classes were. (A quick timeout for an embarrassing story/piece of advice for future college students: find all of your classrooms before classes start. I knew all of the buildings I needed to be in, so I assumed I was set, but I had copied a room number down incorrectly off of my schedule, and I spent an hour hiking up and down Mt. St. James searching for a room that didn’t exist. I had sweat dripping off of me, I was out of breath, and I was thoroughly confused. So please, locate the rooms.)

My Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays start with Spanish (10 a.m.) and end with Philosophy (12 noon). These two classes form the metaphorical bread in what I call the Montserrat (11 a.m.) sandwich. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have one class, Sociology, at 11 a.m. So far everything is going swimmingly, and I’m happy with all of my choices. For those prospective students who will enter school undeclared, I highly recommend taking a variety of classes. Dabble in as many areas as possible. This will not only help you pinpoint your major down the road, but it will make things more interesting in the present.

All in all, the Spring semester is a fresh start. If it’s as exciting and entertaining as the Fall (which, no doubt, it will be), I’ll be in for a great couple of months. Come back and keep reading, and you can experience it with me.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering what happened to me when I got lost…

I figured out my mistake around the same time the class I was supposed to be attending finished. I had actually walked right past the classroom four times. I swallowed the lump that was my pride and located my Professor’s office to tell him what had happened. Luckily, he told me he too was “directionally challenged”, and not to worry about it. No sweat…Well, except for the actual sweat I worked up during my search.

As I sit here preparing for finals, I can’t help but wonder – where did my first semester go? The concept of time in college is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Days seem to pass with the blink of an eye, and often when I go to bed at night I feel as if I just crawled out of it.

It honestly feels like a week ago that I arrived on campus with two cars that held my life and began to unpack. Somehow, three months have passed since my first day at Holy Cross and just two finals stand between me and winter break.

When I sit down and think about everything I’ve done since August 29th, I realize that in actuality, a lot has happened. First and foremost, I’ve learned more in one semester through four classes than I think I did during my entire senior year in high school, and while I was a senior I felt like I was learning a lot. My study habits have morphed (undoubtedly out of necessity) into ones that I’m proud of, and wave of high expectations at HC no longer overwhelms me. Don’t get me wrong, the work isn’t easy, but I’ve gained a better understanding of what’s expected of me and how I can meet these expectations.

Outside of the classroom has been just as busy. I’ve had numerous occasions to get my adrenaline pumping between intramural sports, pickup games, and lifting sessions at the gym. I had a glorious career as a floor hockey goalie that lasted all of one game, something that no one can ever take away from me.

I’ve had the opportunity to experience firsthand the unique talents and capabilities of my peers by attending live performances of music and the arts, and just by living with them every day. I must admit, I’ve never been around a group of more talented, well-rounded people.

In addition to classes, sports, and hobbies, there’s the day-to-day activity. These are the times when I really get to know my friends – lunch, study groups, video game competitions, and so on. It’s hard to say that any aspect of life on campus is better than any other. Every part is unique and valuable, but if one thing has really struck me thus far it’s the relationships I’ve been able to forge with the people on campus.

Of course, some memories stand out. Most recently was the night of night of Worcester’s first snowfall. It was a lazy Saturday and my group of friends and I had grown lethargic after a movie marathon that featured “The Santa Claus,” “The Santa Claus 2,” and yes, the unremarkable “Santa Claus 3”. (In my opinion, this movie series should have ended after the original, but no one asked me. Seriously though, the woman who plays Tim Allen’s ex-wife is different in every movie. What’s going on there?) I had been just about ready to call it a night when one of my friends asked if I wanted to throw a football around in the snow. I figured, why not?

We stepped outside into a winter wonderland and had an absolute blast until the ball rolled down a hill on the third throw and transformed into a slick, wet chunk of ice. So much for that. Undeterred, we focused our efforts on the construction of a snowman, but were interrupted by a gang of snowball-wielding hooligans approaching rapidly. What ensued was one of the biggest snowball fights I have ever witnessed. Our peaceful evening out in the fluffy whiteness was morphed into a war of attrition.

Before long, more and more gangs started to join the battle, and when I took a quick tally I realized that nearly 50 people were packing and chucking the frozen ammunition, and more were on the way. I noted that I had never met most of the kids who were out there, but once the first snowball flew it didn’t matter. A snowball fight is a snowball fight. And with every ‘thud’ of snow against jacket, with every whitewash, with every snowtackle and with every innocent passerby who turned into a savage snowbeast, came laughter. And with laughter came more laughter. And laughter makes memories.

I guess it turns out that my first semester of college was pretty busy after all. That’s probably why it went by so fast. Thus I find myself facing an unsolvable problem. The saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun,” but the second half of that is the harsh reality that time that flies, flies. I know, you’re thinking, ‘what is this kid talking about?’ But what I’m really getting at is the fact that three months has felt like a week. It’s scary. I can’t control it. But I love it. So while I wish that life would slow down at times, I guess I can’t complain. If having fun means accelerating time, I’d better get used to it.

I don’t see any signs of the fun stopping.

Hey folks! Let me just start out by saying Happy Thanksgiving! I got home last night to a house full with family, and I’ve got to say, it’s good to be back. Now that I’ve had a night in my own bed and a shower without flip-flops, I find myself at an 8 on a scale of one to relaxed.

This break has given me a chance to reflect on my experiences through three months of school, and frankly, I love it. I’ve met more cool and interesting people than I ever might have expected; I’ve learned to push my academic capabilities to their limits with the help of some brilliant professors; I’ve found time to mix in work study, intramural sports, time with friends, and time at the gym.

As much as I’m enjoying life at HC, though, every now and then a moment will pop up that throws life into a frenzy. One such moment occurred a week ago, and it’s that experience that I’d like to share with you all in this post.

For the past three weeks, we freshmen have been perusing the course catalogue for ideas for spring semester. Some kids knew exactly what they’d be taking, others, like myself, were open to ideas. After a round of meetings with advisors, most had a general outline for what courses would be the top priorities on enrollment day.

Enrollment day for freshmen was on November 19th (a Thursday) at 7:00 a.m. We students had two jobs to complete by that time – to fill our online enrollment backpacks with the courses we wanted, and to have backups in mind in case things didn’t work out as planned. In retrospect, I don’t know which job was more important (ignoring either would have been a recipe for disaster).

On Wednesday night, a thick wave of seriousness washed over the freshmen population. As I made my nightly rounds from room to room I noticed a lot of people looking stressed, and a lot of people missing. I asked my friend Charlie what was going on, and our conversation went something like this:

Me: “What’s going on here? Where is everyone?”

Charlie: “Cory just left. She went with Brittany to a hotel for the night. Nathan went home, and everyone else is in bed.”

Me: “It’s a Wednesday night, I don’t get it.”

Charlie: “Dude, tomorrow is enrollment day, people take this very seriously.”

I knew that people were excited about picking classes, but they were actually leaving campus? Was I missing something? Would my laptop betray me when I clicked enroll? A lot of people seemed to think so.

A few days earlier, a campus-wide email was sent out suggesting that students not rely on the wireless network for enrollment. Had I been wise, I would have invested in whichever company supplies the Worcester area with ethernet cables. Maybe next year. Since I already had a cable, I figured I was all set. No sweat right? Depends who you ask.

Whenever someone would ask me what my “plan” was for enrolling, I would tell them I’d be using my laptop in my room. Here is a small sample of the variety of responses this apparently controversial decision evoked:

Response 1: “Wow, dude, that’s bold.”

Response 2: “Wait, you mean you’re using the same computer you always use?”

Response 3: “I’m with you man, I don’t know what everyone is freaking out about.”

Response 4: “Wait, enrollment is tomorrow?”

The only comparison I can think to make for this situation is to Y2K. In this metaphor I would be one of the people who thought all the concern was blown out of proportion, yet everywhere around me there were the people stocking up on enough bottled water and canned broccoli to survive until spring. Simply put, the tension on campus could have been snapped like a twig.

To my knowledge, the concern was this: People knew that at 7 o’clock, everyone would be picking classes. The large number of students logging into the network suggested that the network might not run as smoothly or as quickly as usual. People were afraid that if they used their own laptops or a computer that wasn’t securely wired to an internet connection, the entire system would explode and destroy the world. Or something like that.

Honestly, I can see some logic in those ideas. But I didn’t feel the urge to flee campus in search of a more secure connection. My mouse clicks just the same way every other mouse clicks, no? Whether I was at home, in a hotel, in my dorm room, or in the registrars office itself, the internet was still the internet.

I went to bed early on Wednesday so that I wouldn’t sleep through enrollment. (I wasn’t concerned like other people, but I wasn’t reckless either.) At 6 a.m. I heard my roommate slip out of bed and run out the door. At 6:50 I went to the bathroom, and saw absolutely no one. The hall was empty. The rooms were silent. Honestly, if a tumbleweed rolled by at that moment I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I didn’t need to see anyone to know that they were all reviewing their courses for the umpteenth time or quadruple checking their internet connections.

When I got back to my room I logged out of Facebook and closed down all my programs except for the internet. At 6:59, I thought I’d pull a fast one on everyone and clicked enroll early. It rejected me. Since I wasn’t sure whether or not my computer clock was in synch with the campus clock, I hit refresh every five seconds until finally I got a message that said “processing”.

At that very moment, the tension snapped. My childhood memories of 4th of July were brought to the forefront of my mind, as reactions exploded around me like firecrackers.

From next door I caught this excerpt of a conversation:

“YES! I GOT ‘EM ALL! WHO’S YOUR DADDY?!”

“Shut up! I need a replacement class!”

From a few doors down I heard this:

“Are you KIDDING ME? I didn’t get any of them?!”

From the other direction:

…actually I probably shouldn’t share this reaction with the public, but that particular person wasn’t pleased.

When I glanced back at my own screen, I saw I had finished. I had gotten all of my classes. At 7:01 it was over. My laptop hadn’t exploded. No message popped up that said, ‘Hey sucka, should have used a more secure connection!’ I was happy.

I strolled down the hall to see how others had faired, and it turned out I was one of the lucky ones. One of my friends was searching for a final class to replace one that had filled, another was already back in bed but was only enrolled in two, and another was sitting in his underwear with his hands on his head staring at his computer like it had just told him he won the lottery but he missed the deadline to claim his prize.

Later, during my 11 o’clock class I heard more mixed reactions. Some people had it easy like me. Others missed out on a class or two but found a satisfactory substitute. Some kids didn’t get anything they wanted.

Overall, it was a crapshoot. It’s a difficult system to master – 700 students all clicking a button at once, hoping that their click was a millisecond quicker than the click of the person next to them. In the end it came down to luck. I had good luck, some others didn’t. End of story. I’m sure that over the course of four years we’ll all be on both sides of the ball, and that’s why it’s important to have backups. The people who faired the worst were the people who went in carefree like I did, but didn’t have a Plan B. So while you can’t control everything, you can at least be prepared for the worst.

In any case, the moment has passed and it’s time to move on. If you’ll excuse me I have a banana bread that isn’t going to bake itself! Enjoy your turkey, everybody!

A month ago, my Poetry professor handed the class a month-long assignment. We were all to choose a poem from a short, predetermined list, that we would recite for the class near the beginning of November. First, we would have to memorize the words. Then we would delve into a deeper exploration of what the words on the page meant before perfecting our performances with these meanings in mind.

It was an assignment that required daily work, and to help us track our progress, we were instructed to keep a daily journal that chronicled our experiences. The poem I chose was “The Garden of Love” by William Blake (click here to see my poem for yourself!), a relatively short work with deeper implications than one who reads it just once might expect. In order to share my experiences with you, the reader, I’ve selected a few of my journal entries that I think encapsulate what I went through over the past month. Enjoy.

October 15 – I had my top four choices picked when I went to sign up at exactly 2:00 pm, and somehow, numbers one, two, and three were already chosen when I got there. A little disheartened, I scribbled my name on my fourth pick, “The Garden of Love”. When I got back I re-read the poem and decided that for #4, it shouldn’t be too bad.

October 19 – Today I was able to find a solid chunk of time to work on my poem so I decided to raise the workload and really get a move on the memorization. The faster I have the words memorized, the more I’ll be able to focus on each word’s meaning and the better I’ll be able to refine my oral technique.

November 2 – Today is my birthday. Day off.

November 4 – This morning I woke up to the daunting reality that recitations lay just a day away. Suddenly, a month’s worth of preparations seemed inadequate, and I imagined myself in the worst possible scenarios.

I was relatively sure I wouldn’t wet my pants, but I could realistically imagine a forgotten word or a jumbled line. What if the other person reciting my poem (each poem had one or two students) was a super thespian and made me look like the opening act in amateur hour? Or, I thought, what if I got up there and started reciting the poem I had memorized for a similar assignment in high school? Basically, anything that could go wrong during my recitation crossed my mind this morning. Deep down I knew I had the poem memorized, but another hour’s practice couldn’t hurt, so I spent the time between work and bed to practicing out loud.

The first time I tried it I stumbled on the transition between the second and third stanzas. After a brief pause to curse at myself I resumed and started over. The second time around was smoother. I remembered all the words in the proper order, but I could hear the hesitation in my voice.

Attempt number three was better, and the emotion that I had been working on the last few days seemed to come out of hiding. Before my fourth attempt I checked the hallway outside my room. Once I saw it was empty I told myself to go way over the top and exaggerate my performance. I nearly shouted the poem, and made sure to open my mouth as wide as possible to spew the clearest pronunciations possible. I even tried to make my voice waver at the end to reflect the pain experienced by the speaker when his “joys and desires” were bound.

When I finished this performance I glanced around my suddenly silent room. My Celtics poster seemed to nod in approval; my desk chair smiled at me; even the dirty laundry looked pleased. I could never imagine myself being so dramatic in the classroom, but it felt good for the time being to let loose. I’ve continued to practice up until this moment, and I’ve finally decided its time for bed. Back at it in the morning for a quick review session.

November 5 – Well, today was it. The big day. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. Of course, my poem was first on the list. Nothing like getting the ball rolling right?

I woke up feeling like Rocky, ready to take down anything that stood in my path. This poem? Nothing to it! I ran through it in my head in the shower – flawless. I came back to my room, said it aloud – perfect. I jotted down some final notes – they made sense. When I got dressed I grabbed my baseball “State Champions” t-shirt from high school. Why not? After all, I was feeling like a champ. Not knowing what else to do with myself until class, I flicked on ESPN and saw that the Celtics had won. It truly had been a good day to that point.

I walked into class around ten-of and listened to the excited/nervous chatter of my peers. A lot of them had their poems out and were mouthing the words to themselves then checking the paper for reassurance. I left my paper in my backpack. There was no time to change things at that point.

As I mentioned, my poem was first on the list, and I could feel my heart pound as I centered myself in front of the class. Off I went. After the first stanza I gave myself an imaginary high five in my head – I hadn’t forgotten anything. No time to lose focus though, the hardest parts lied ahead. I swept through the second stanza with relative ease, and even managed to accent the harsh “t” sound in line six. The third and final stanza was by far the most challenging, but I somehow survived, despite the fact that my heart had crept up into my throat. The last two lines came out slightly choked, but luckily for me these lines had emotional implications for the speaker too, so my breathlessness didn’t seem too out of place (I hope).

After the recitation, my classmates asked a few questions about the poem and my experience with the memorization. I was impressed with their high level of thinking, especially since this had been the first poem and the expectations had not yet been established. Several questions touched on areas that I hadn’t yet considered, while others were on points that I had dwelled on for an entire day or two during my month of preparation. Before I knew it, I was back in my seat, watching the next round of recitations.

Overall, this is what I can say about my experience:

First, performing in front of twenty-something peers and one professor is a lot different from performing for a dorm room. I feel like I could have practiced for a year but I still would have gotten butterflies when it came time for the real thing. I accomplished several of my aural goals like the accented “t” in line 6 and the fact that I didn’t forget or omit any words or lines. Even so, my performance wasn’t flawless.

At the end of the day though, what matters most is that I’ve spent a month with this poem. We got to know and understand each other. But, as my peers’ questions showed me, poems are a lot like humans: you can know one for a very long time, but you will never know everything about it; you can always dig deeper and you can always find more.

Flashcards, textbooks, study guides, music, and if you look very closely, Youtube, are what got me through the week.

Flashcards, textbooks, study guides, music, and if you look very closely, Youtube, are what got me through the week.

Life is busy. Assignments this past week piled up faster than my plate at Thanksgiving, and for a little while I thought I wouldn’t see the light of day until Winter Break. I was wrong…I survived. To be honest, I’m not sure how I did it, but one midterm, one paper, one quiz, and one test later I’m standing on the back end of a crazy week, completely intact. In fact, I had a good week.

When I sat down last Saturday to plan out the week ahead I grabbed my syllabi and dove in. As soon as I was in, though, I wanted out. A midterm on Monday? A paper due Thursday? Double exams on Friday? I’m usually a ‘glass-half-full’ kind of guy, but this time around I was having difficulty imagining any possible light at the end of the tunnel.

Sunday night was dedicated to perfecting an oral presentation for the next morning, and by 9 am Monday the midterm was over. The celebration was short, however, as I settled in to work on my paper that I knew couldn’t wait until Wednesday night. Work study in the dining hall swallowed up six hours between Tuesday and Wednesday, and before I knew it I was setting my alarm for class on Thursday morning. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders as I handed in my paper, but I sagged once again when I realized that I still had two hurdles to clear (a quiz and a test) on Friday.

At 1 pm on Thursday I entered my dorm room. I studied until class at 5:30, grabbed a dinner on the run after class, and was back to my studies at 7. The next time I looked at the clock it was 11:30. Where had the night gone? For that matter, where had the week gone? I felt like I had blinked once and four days had gone by.

When I stopped to think about it though, I realized my week had been a good one. I got to the gym a couple of times, I got my nose dirty in some intramural football and floor hockey (though I’d rather not discuss the results on a public page like this one), and I somehow found time to watch my beloved Celtics open up their season with three convincing wins. Combine these activities with studying, regular homework, time spent with friends, and several late-night ping pong matches, and you get a complete week.

So even though I sat down a week ago and felt the looming burden of a week full of studying, I’m sitting in the same spot now, battle tested and completely unscathed. It’s like when you come to a door that looks heavy so you push really hard, but the door is a lot lighter than you expect and you end up slamming it against the wall. Now that I’ve burst through this week’s door, shaken the Homework Monkey off my back, and taken a deep breath, I think I’ll sit for a few and relax. And do nothing.

For now at least.