Writers Institute Ribbon Cutting

Susquehanna’s creative writing department has officially moved from the lower level of Hassinger Hall into a building of their own, and I got to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony.

What was once the parish attached to the St. Pius X Catholic church (the congregation has since moved to a larger facility about a block away) is now the new writers house. Completely renovated, the house is now filled with dark wood floors, faculty offices, a conference room, a classroom, and shelves and shelves of books, books written and signed by visiting writers and our own professors as well as plenty of copies of SU's student-run literary magazines and a whole host of chapbooks featuring the work of past SU writing majors.

Before the cutting of the ribbon, Dr. Fincke, our department head, gave a brief speech tracing the history of SU’s writing program, from when it started with three minors in 1992 up through to today—the program is now thriving with 152 majors and 20 minors.  A friend of mine caught the whole speech on tape:

Then, after the speech, the writing faculty armed themselves with scissors and officially opened the new building:

• For more information on SU's writing program, as well as pictures, video, faculty bios, and excerpts of writing from Susquehanna students past and present, visit The Writers Institute website.

• For a more on Susquehanna's writing program, read some of my other Campus Life posts about the Writers Institute, or visit my other blog, Workshop, and follow me through my freshman Intro to Fiction workshop class.

Meeting Steve Yarbrough

When I read Steve Yarbrough, I’m reminded that stories matter. In deep weird ways, stories are a part of who we are.

Like in the title story from his collection Veneer. The narrator sits in a restaurant with an old friend, and he tells her about his worst Fourth of July ever: the summer before his family lost their farm, when they splurged on a grill and some steaks and pretended it was the best meal they’d ever had even though they’d accidentally burnt the meat to a crisp.

The way I tell it, it’s just an anecdote, but in Steve Yarbrough’s hands, this story tells us everything we need to know about the affair the narrator’s about to have.

What I love about Yarbrough’s stories is the way he layers them, stories within stories, the past on top of the present. When you finish his stories, you never quite arrive where you thought you would, but you know you’re in the right place.

He knows how to tell stories. He’s published five novels and three short story collections. His work has appeared in the Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. He’s the winner of the California Book Award, the Mississippi Authors Award, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction. His novel Prisoners of War was a finalist for the 2005 PEN/Faulkner Award. He’s also chair of the writing department at Emerson College in Boston.

So it goes without saying I was a little nervous about meeting Steve Yarbrough in person to hear what he thought of my own writing.

Every year Susquehanna’s Writers Institute brings about six acclaimed authors to campus through its Visiting Writers Series. Not only do these writers give Q&As and readings here on campus, often they will also guest-teach classes, have lunch with students, and meet one-on-one with upperclassman writing majors to discuss each student’s work.

That was me, the upperclassman writing major, popping another breath mint as I headed down the sidewalk to the Writers House for my conference with Steve Yarbrough. But it turned out I was nervous in vain—not only is Steve Yarbrough a great writer, he’s also a really nice guy.

He told me he enjoyed my stories and asked me about my background, we ended up talking about our families and books we’ve enjoyed (he recommended about a dozen and I wrote them all down in the margins of one of my manuscripts) and we talked about the grad programs I’m applying to. Our thirty-minute meeting spilled over well into four o’clock, and he ended up shaking my hand three times before I left the building.

  

More books by Visiting Writers

(click for larger view)



• Check out all of Susquehanna’s past and current Visiting Writers by clicking here.
• For a more in-depth look at Susquehanna's writing program, visit my other blog, Workshop, and follow me through my freshman year.
• For more information on SU's writing program, as well as pictures, video, faculty bios, and excerpts of writing from Susquehanna students past and present, visit The Writers Institute website.

Iowa Roadtrip

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past." - Field of Dreams

We drove all through the night—it’s about an eighteen-hour drive from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania to Ames, Iowa—and napped in a Wal-Mart parking lot just over the Iowa border as the sun came up.

We made the final three or four hours of our drive in the daylight down the straightest roads I’ve ever seen. No curves, no diagonals. They cling tight to the cardinal directions and they always intersect at right angles.  Even the broadest curves are heavily marked off by yellow-and-black chevron signs.

If you look at a map, you'll see that in Iowa the roads are a grid of pavement that divides the land into squares of corn. As we drove, we saw fields and fields and fields and fields, all of them stubby and newly harvested. The sky was huge, completely unmitigated by mountains or trees, and it almost made me feel naked.

“It looks like a stereotype,” I laughed and Holly nodded.

*     *     *

For me and Holly the main attraction in Iowa, the reason why we were pushing our four-day Fall Break weekend to limit, was our friend Casey, an SU alum who had just started his first year of grad school at Iowa State studying statistics.

Casey greeted us with a wide-armed hug and then cooked us some grilled turkey sandwiches before he showed us around his new campus. Compared to Susquehanna’s cozy green campus, Iowa State is like a town in and of itself, with tall buildings (the library is four stories!) and traffic and its own busing system.

The town of Ames had that classic college-town feel, narrow streets lined with quirky bars and restaurants that sported the red and yellow of the Iowa State Cyclones. Casey took us to a bar called Es Tas, and we sampled their specialty: fried tacos.  We caught a movie at the dollar-theater, ate at The Fighting Burrito, helped Casey cheer the New York Giants on to victory against the Detroit Lions at a sports bar called Wallaby’s, and, on our final night at Casey’s apartment, watched Field of Dreams—which, Casey explained, is the greatest (and maybe the only) Iowa movie ever made.

*     *     *

Before we left the state, we stopped in Iowa City to see another SU alum, a writing major named Marcus who's working on his MFA in creative writing at the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop.  We circled his block twice before we found his apartment, and then he talked almost nonstop about how much he loves the program.

Then he showed us around the city, and we ended up at place called Shorts, the restaurant that served, Marcus assured us, the best burgers in town.  It was good stuff.

Then, because the MFA program at the University of Iowa is one of the grad schools I'd like to apply to, Marcus took us over to the Dey House, the home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  He showed us around the classrooms and the library (stocked with books written by Iowa alumni), and then he introduced us to a few of his classmates and his professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson before we hit the road for another night of driving.

Not bad for a four-day weekend.

The Bloomsburg Fair

It's like a fair, only bigger.

When Holly talked me and Rob into to making the 45-minute drive up to Bloomsburg, I was expecting a handful of rides and maybe two dozen food stands, but I was wrong.  With over 400,000 visitors, 1,200 concession stands, and big-name music acts, the Bloomsburg Fair is one of the biggest fairs in Pennsylvania.  They were offering ten-dollar helicopter rides by the entrance as we walked in.

The fair draws in big acts (which this year included Jeff Dunham, REO Speedwagon, and Lady Antebellum), but it also features some off-the-wall entertainment: an Elvis impersonator, a "Dock Dogs" dog-jumping competition, Cinderella-style carriage rides, and a lawn mower race.

And there's the standard fair stuff: bright-colored rides, farm animals and food.  We pet some sheep, stumbled into a 4H auction, tried (and failed) to win Holly a goldfish, oggled at the giant prize-winning pumpkins, and wandered through the concession stands trying to decide what we wanted.  Funnel cake?  Candy apple?  Apple dumpling?  Frozen banana?  I went for a waffle cone full of Chocolate Pretzel Crunch ice cream from the Penn State Creamery booth.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Friday night I helped a friend cross an item off his senior year bucket list: attend this fall’s theatre department production, The Diary of Anne Frank. We arrived almost late (I tend to be almost always late for everything) and ended up sitting in the very first row because the show was almost sold out.

The set was sparse, roof beams above, floor boards below, and a few crates that sufficed for furniture. With the exception of a few cherished objects (a fur coat, a music box, the diary itself), there were no props. The actors mimed nearly everything. We watched the eight Jewish characters on the stage eat from empty hands, seek privacy behind invisible doors, and light Menorah candles that gave off no light.

After the show I learned that the tiny dimensions of the set that the eight actors shared actually matched those of the original rooms where Anne and her seven companions remained hidden for two years.  When the play ended, director Doug Powers joined the cast on the stage for a brief Q&A with the audience. The actors dangled their feet over the edge of the stage and discussed the challenges of acting in a tight space and bringing to life characters who were described primarily through the eyes of a young girl.

Sometimes people forget that Anne was just a girl, Powers explained during the Q&A. His aim in producing the play was to get his audience to see Anne not as a symbol of the Holocaust, but as a person. He said that by restoring her humanity, we strengthen her message.

More On SU's Theatre Department
Tickets and Upcoming Shows

The National Aquarium

After enjoying the Mini Coop, the Inner Harbor, and, of course, delicious seafood, we finally made it to the main event, the National Aquarium. Home to over 16,000 animals representing over 660 different species including poison dart frogs, tree sloths, dolphins, and jelly fish, the National Aquarium in Baltimore is Maryland’s most popular tourist destination.

Below is just a brief glimpse of what the aquarium has to offer.

Sea Robins, named for their wing-like fins

Fish native to Pennsylvania and Maryland

Yellow-Headed Parrots living in the
Aquarium’s Amazon Rainforest Exhibit

A mean-looking Austrailian Freshwater Crocodile

And, of course, there are sharks.

• More on the National Aquarium
• More on Baltimore's Inner Harbor

The Inner Harbor

It takes about two and a half hours to drive from Susquehanna University to Baltimore, so we arrived at the Inner Harbor a little past noon. Our plan was to visit the National Aquarium and then grab a seafood dinner before heading back to Selinsgrove to turn in the rental car. After purchasing our aquarium tickets, though, we had to rearrange our plans.

The National Aquarium only admits a limited number of visitors at a time (with over 1.6 million visitors annually, the aquarium is Baltimore’s most popular attraction).  Our tickets gave us a 2:30 admission and a chance to walk around the Inner Harbor.

The National Aquarium, home to over 16,000 different animals.

With its brick-paved sidewalks and leafy green trees, the Inner Harbor is one of the most scenic urban places I’ve visited. We walked beside the water and took in the sights: a street musician playing the guitar and the harmonica; an artist sitting on the sidewalk painting dolphins into a seascape; an old Coast Guard cutter docked beside an old submarine, both open for tours; a unicyclist performing for a crowd; and, in the window of the American Visionary Art Museum, a pink poodle that was easily six feet tall.

Since we were getting into the aquarium late, we decided to grab a big lunch. There are a ton of places to eat in and around the Inner Harbor—Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Capital Grill, Hard Rock Café, ESPN Zone, to name a few. We decided on Phillips Seafood Restaurant at the Harborplace shopping center.

We sat at an outside table with a view of the harbor and enjoyed delicious seafood. I had the Chesapeake crab cakes and “potatoes gratinée;” Holly got the melt-in-your-mouth salmon with cucumber and yogurt sauce; and Andrew ordered a little bit of everything—a good choice because I think everything at Phillips is probably good.

Lunch

After visiting the aquarium, we still had about 45 minutes on our hands before it was time to hit the road, so we walked over to the Barnes & Noble we’d passed on our way in. I’m a sucker for bookstores in generals, but this wasn’t just any bookstore. This was two stories of books inside a refurbished power plant. Really cool. They had shelves wrapped around the four old smoke stacks that take up the center of the store.

When we were finished looking around the book store, we headed back to the parking garage to take the Mini Coop home.

Barnes & Noble

Connect by Hertz

“It’s like a time machine,” Andrew said, peering over my shoulder to get a better look at the glowing dashboard.

Sitting behind the wheel of the BMW Mini Cooper, I couldn’t have described the car better myself.

Honestly, it took me a good five minutes to figure out how to work the keyless push-button ignition.  First you stick the fat disc-shaped key fob into the slot by the steering column, then you press down the start button and the brake pedal.  This I learned from reading the laminated "How to Start a Mini Coop" instructions tied to the gear shift.

Once we got the wheels rolling, though, the Mini Coop was a blast.  We hooked my I-Pod up to the stereo and pointed the little car toward Baltimore.  While I enjoyed the car's smooth ride and tight turning radius (at home when I drive, I'm usually behind the wheel of my dad's big, long F-250), Holly and Andrew experimented with the switch that opened the sun roof.

My friends and I got ahold of the Mini Coop through the Connnect by Hertz car rental program.  Connect by Hertz provides Susquehanna students and employees with easy access to high fuel efficiency vehicles.

Students participating in the program can go online and reserve a car days in advance or just hours before their trip, choosing between the eco-friendly Toyota Prius or the also-eco-friendly BMW Mini Cooper.  Both cars, when they're not in use, are parked between Weber Chapel and the campus center.

Hertz offers both daily and hourly rates, so the cars can really be used for anything—short errands or long road trips. It only cost us $81 to take the car to Baltimore for the day, which isn’t bad at all if you divide the cost by three or four people.  Plus the rental fee covers the cost of gas and insurance.  There’s a fueling card just above the visor that you swipe at the pump like a credit card whenever you stop to fill up.

You're not going to spend much time filling up, though.  These cars really are fuel efficient. Holly, Andrew, and I took the Mini the whole way to Baltimore, but we didn’t have to stop for gas until we got back to Selinsgrove. I spent more time enjoying the breeze coming in through the windows and the Dave Matthews Band coming in through the speakers, watching the needle on the humungous speedometer waver between 60 and 80, than I did worrying about where the next gas station is.

If you don't have a car on campus or a girlfriend who has a car on campus (like I do), the Hertz Connect Program is a really great way to explore the world that exists beyond SU's campus.

We spent the day in Baltimore hanging out at the aquarium, but really you could take the car anymore—catch a concert in Scranton,  spend a day at the hands-on science center in Harrisburg, watch a hockey game in Hershey, maybe eat some chocolate too, visit friends at another university, catch a Broadway Show in New York City, head to Philly, D.C., or wherever.  With Connect by Hertz, it's really up to you.

• Learn more about Connect by Hertz at connectbyhertz.com.

The Canals of Mars

Last Monday, students like myself as well as professors from the English and Creative Writing Department gathered in Isaacs Auditorium to hear a reading from Susquehanna’s own Gary Fincke, head of our creative writing department and author of twenty-two books of poetry, essays, and short stories.

Sitting in a chair at the center of the stage, Dr. Fincke pressed his thumb into the uncracked spine of his new memoir, The Canals of Mars, and he started to read:

I take us through Etna to the Circle Bar (you could see it from my grandmother’s porch), but now it’s somebody or other’s sports bar, one of those places with two pool tables, a dart board, and dual televisions tuned into ESPN and ESPN2 below a display of Pittsburgh sports memorabilia and a sign advertising fifteen-cent wings during Monday Night Football. Late afternoon on a weekday, it’s deserted except for two men simultaneously watching an equestrian competition and a dog show. “You’re too late for all this,” my father says. “You should have been this interested when your mother was alive.”

Every year the Writers Institute brings in some pretty big-name authors for on-campus readings—last year I had lunch with Sue Miller, attended a workshop class guest-taught by Bob Shacochis, and sat down for an interview over Chinese food with Tom Franklin and Beth Anne Fennelly—but I was especially looking forward to Dr. Fincke's reading, a celebration of the debut of his newest book, The Canals of Mars, a memoir that explores his working-class background and his family’s view on work, religion, and weakness.

In the writing world, Gary Fincke is pretty big deal. Last year Salman Rushdie, guest editor of Best American Short Stories 2008, placed Dr. Fincke's “Isn't She Something” in his list of “100 Other Distinguished Stories of 2007,” alongside works by John Updike, David Foster Wallace, Alice Munro, and Stephen King.

Dr. Fincke’s work has appeared publications such as Harpers, Newsday, The Kenyon Review, and Doubletake. His poem “The Sorrows,” was recently read by Garrison Keillor on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac, and in 2003 he was awarded the Flannery O’Connor prize for his most recent collection of short stories, Sorry I Worried You. And he’s also won two Pushcart Prizes.

Dr. Fincke’s stories and poems are great, but it’s his nonfiction that grabs me the most. Four years ago, as a prospective student, I heard him read what is now title essay of The Canals of Mars, a reflection on growing up during the Cold War, a time when Body Snatchers, communists, and sixth-grade dropout Jimmy Mason were all very real threats.

My freshmen year, in my Intro to Creative Nonfiction class with Dr. Fincke, we looked at selections from his other memoir Amp’d, which chronicles the rise of his son’s career in rock music as lead guitarist for the band Breaking Benjamin.

Really, Dr. Fincke’s the one who sparked my interest in the whole creative nonfiction genre to begin with. He’s the professor who taught me that “creative” and “nonfiction” can actually go together in the same sentence, that essaying is actually a really satisfying way to gain a deeper understanding of your world.

So for all these reasons wrapped up together, I was excited to sit down and hear some world-class writing and pick up an autographed copy of the new book. For me, it’s opportunities like this that make Susquehanna the best place to be an undergrad creative writing major.

More:

• Hear Garrison Keillor read Dr. Fincke’s poem “The Sorrows”*
• Learn more about Susquehanna’s creative writing program by checking my other blog, Workshop
• Read Gary Fincke's full bio
• Order The Canals of Mars on Amazon
• Visit Susquehanna's The Writers Institute website for more information on our Visiting Writers Series, our summer writers workshop for high school students, our student-run magazines, and our other top-notch writing professors

*Dr. Fincke's name is pronounced "Fink," not "Finky."  Keillor is mistaken.

SU Paranormal

The meeting opened with mostly mundane stuff—talk about budget hearings and homemade cookie fundraiser results—but when the club’s VP turned to me and the three-person student documentary team who were also sitting in on this SU Paranormal meeting and asked us if we had any questions, the group began to overflow with campus ghost stories.

They talked about “No-Face Girl,” a shadowy little kid who lives (if “lives” is the right word) in Seibert Hall and watches you from the foot of your bed; a big, dark figure with red eyes who can be seen staring out the door at the end of the hallway in one of the freshman dorms; the “evil hallway” in the basement of Weber Chapel where the group once had their flashlights flicker out.

“When all you can see are the exit signs, that’s what you’re running for,” said the VP, vigorously nodding her head.

The group takes its investigations seriously.  They have a strict no practical-joke-scaring policy and insist that no one goes off on their own. They also have a no-flip-flops rule (they make too much noise).  Through the cookie fundraiser I mentioned above, they're hoping to earn enough money to take a Gettysburg Ghost Tour trip. 

And equipment is important. On walkthroughs, the group carries EMF detectors for detecting electromagnetic fields, digital voice recorders for picking up EVP (“Electronic Voice Phenomena”), flashlights for obvious reasons, and digital cameras for capturing orbs of light that can’t be seen by the naked eye.

“The strangest thing I’ve ever encountered,” said Rob, “is capturing orbs on camera in Weber Chapel.”

Orbs, however, Angie pointed out, are contested as evidence of paranormal activity because they can be caused by dust particles in the air.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not—and even the club members range from firm believers to mild skeptics—SU Paranormal is a fun group to talk to, especially if you enjoy passionate storytelling.

“I think I might have to sleep with the lights on tonight,” I said as I closed my notebook, smiling even though, honestly, their stories had raised my heart rate higher than I’d like to admit.

The VP widened her smile, ready to tell another story. “What dorm are you in?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Laundry Day

Laundry is an essential aspect of campus life.

I clean my clothes at the laundromat a block off campus.  It's cheaper than using the on-campus machines, and if you have more than one load to do, it's usually quicker too.  (Plus, it's kinda fun to watch the clothes swirling around in the machines.)

If you don't happen to have a girlfriend with a car who can drive you to the laundromat, the washers and dryers on campus can get the job done.  All the major residence halls have them.  Half the machines are coin-operated, and half are card-swipe, drawing cash from an account linked to your student ID.

SU's Spring Concert: Jack's Mannequin

Saturday night we headed over to Weber Chapel Auditorium for evening full of the piano-driven rock music of Jack’s Mannequin.

When I’d heard SU’s spring concert was going to be Jack’s Mannequin, Holly and I each bought two tickets, two for ourselves and two for my friends Jimmy and Sheri from back home, because Jack’s is one of Jimmy favorite bands. He’d seen the band twice already, but Saturday was Sheri’s first concert ever.

And, lucky for Sheri, it was a great concert. The second opening band, fun., had this really great rock-and-roll sound you don’t hear too much anymore, an ELO/Queen/Blood, Sweat, and Tears kind of sound. I downloaded their album Aim and Ignite off i-tunes three days ago and haven’t stopped listening to it.

Fun. playing a show in Los Angeles.

After fun. finished their set, Jack’s Mannequin took the stage, and they didn’t disappoint. They opened with a song called  “Crashing,” then Andy, the band’s pianist and front man, told us all how excited he was to be here at “Sus—ka—honna.” After the fans crowded around the front of the stage corrected him (“Sus—qwa—hanna!”) he played a great high-energy set. At one point in the show he was actually standing on top of his piano stomping on the keys.

For the encore, Andy came back out alone and played “Swim,” one of my favorite Jack’s Mannequin songs, and then the rest of the band joined him and they finished off the night with “Dark Blue.”

It was a great time.

"Swim" by Jack's Mannequin

Fat Tuesday on Friday - aka Mardi Gras at Trax

Friday night Holly, Karen, Andrew, and I followed the railroad tracks to Trax, Susquehanna's on-campus student-run nightclub, for some drinks and some dancing at the Mardi Gras party.

Trax frequently has "wristband" nights throughout the semester, nights where Trax serves free alcohol to students 21 years of age and older.  Students of age receive a three-tabbed wristband upon entering Trax to ensure no one gets overserved.  Students who aren't 21 yet are also welcome at Trax on wristband nights; they just get their hands stamped instead of a wrist band.

So after showing off some of my (terrible) dance moves, I had a glass of Land Shark Lager.

The Mardi Gras party also included mask-making, a raffle drawing for a flat screen HDTV, and lots of dancing.  DJ Novocane, a student DJ, took requests all night—Shakira, Lady Gaga, the Black-Eyed Peas, "The Cupid Shuffle," that sort of stuff.  At one point during the night, there was even some spontaneous break dancing.  It was a good night, a good good night.

• More on Trax

Bagels at Benny’s

I’m not a morning person. I like to wake up slowly and ease into the day.

Benny’s Bistro is usually my first stop on campus each day. I’ll grab a bagel and a cup of coffee and then read for twenty minutes or so until it’s time to head to my first class of the day.

Benny’s Bistro is one of four on-campus eateries. For breakfast they serve eggs, hash browns, and all sorts of bagels. My usual is either a salt bagel (it’s like a soft pretzel for breakfast) or just a plain bagel, though if I’m feeling really adventurous I may get something exotic, like cinnamon raisin or poppy seed.

For lunch and dinner, Benny’s offers pizza, soup, salads, sandwiches, burgers and fries, stuff like that. I’m a big fan of the chicken tenders wrap (with hot sauce, ranch dressing, and pepper jack cheese). It’s definitely not the healthiest option, but if you’re looking for quick college food, Benny's is the place.

• More on Benny's Bistro

Hands-On Science: The Whitaker Center

Saturday morning the six of us piled into Holly's car and Jeff's jeep, and we headed forty-five minutes south into Harrisburg. Our destination was the Whitaker Center, a hands-on science museum. We were definitely the biggest kids there, but I'm pretty sure we had just as much fun as everybody else. See for yourself, check out the pictures below.

Kelsey and Holly enjoying the 3D IMAX movie Dolphins and Whales.

Holly learns about levers.

Eric and Andrew race to see who can be the first to burn

one hot dog bit worth of calories.

Me, experiencing F1 hurricane-force wind in the Hurricane Chamber.

Andrew, Holly, and I have fun with pulleys.

This is what we think of the Whitaker Center: two thumbs up.

• More about the Whitaker Center

The Sock Hop

I showed up at Trax a half-hour early to help set up, but by the time I got there everything was already done. “Here,” Collin, the VP of SU Swings, said as he dropped his hat onto my head. “You look good.” And then there was nothing left to do but listen to the band warm up and wait for everybody to show up.

The Sock Hop hosted by SU Swings was well attended (thanks, in part, to the free root beer floats and milkshakes). The student jazz combo played a great hour-long set that we all danced to, and then it was DJ’d swing music until 2 AM. There were beginner lessons upstairs by the pool tables and free-dancing downstairs in front of the stage.

It was really a great Saturday night. My girlfriend looked beautiful in her green dress, and I don’t think I looked half-bad in Collin’s hat (but judge for yourself). It’s always a huge amount of fun dancing with so many of your close friends. All in all, it was an awesome evening, full of inside turns, outsides turns, dips, leans, cuddles, milkshakes, barrel rolls, pretzels, and even a few never-ending loops.

• More on SU Swings
• More on Trax

Chilling at Charlie's

At 8:30 PM my long Wednesday was finally over—class, work, class, a meeting that ran long and made me late for dinner, and then I led an Intervarsity Bible Study. It was third long day in a row, and Thursday was promising to be even longer. What I needed was a break, some time to relax. What I needed was Zombieland.

Every Wednesday night (Friday nights too) Charlie’s Susquehanna’s student-run coffee house, plays a movie that’s left theaters but hasn’t made it onto DVD yet. I’d seen Zombieland at the Selinsgrove Cinema Center with Rob and Holly back in the fall and had been completely surprised to find that it wasn’t terrible like I’d expected it to be. It was actually really hilarious—especially for a zombie movie.

Anyway, Zombieland was just what I needed. I met Alice, Casey, and Eric at Charlie’s and for two hours completely forgot about how jam-packed Thursday was threatening to be.

Charlie’s is great. It’s home to both the best hot chocolate on campus and the university’s most comfortable couches (Get there early if you want a good seat!). They serve hot and cold drinks as well as all kinds of snacks. Occasionally they also do “mocktails,” and during football season, they have free wings. In addition to showing recent movies, Charlie’s also has live music, football games on the big screen, poetry readings, open-mic nights, and all sorts of other stuff.

It’s one of my favorite places on campus.

• More about Charlie's

One Week Down

The first week back from winter break is always an interesting one. It’s a comfortable return, with no heavy furniture to lug in, just small things to arrange. My refrigerator is plugged back in, and Elwood, my lovable betta fish roommate, is back in his spot on my bookcase.

The first week back is also an exciting week. You keep bumping into people you’re really excited to see. Of course, they’re the same people you were bumping into a month ago, except now they’ve got new haircuts and some new stories to tell.

In some ways it’s a weird week, with new schedules, new classes, and new professors. On Monday, I was feeling a little over confident—I arrived at Bogar Hall just in time for my Italian class only to suddenly realize that I didn’t know what room Italian class is in this semester (Don’t worry, I found it eventually.)

Of course, the newness of it isn’t all bad. My new classes this semester include Detectives in Fiction and Film as well as a novel-writing workshop. Excited isn’t exactly the right word to describe how I feel about churning out 150 pages in one semester, but I’m looking forward to the class anyway.

All in all, this semester seems to be shaping up pretty well.