Autumn Falls to Winter

The leaves have left,
The pageant is over.

The distant sun shines no more
But glows, amber like wine.

The air’s chill is ever-present,
It walks beside and all through.

Autumn has fallen,
And winter, victorious,
Tiptoes in on soft white specks.

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Candlepower

Candlepower- intensity expressed in candles Time passes differently in this reading room, I think to myself. Minutes turn into hours like the wax of the candle turns from a solid into a liquid, running quickly together and building up. I barely noticed when the sunset, and am only just now aware that I had lit the candle at all, let alone that it was my sole source of illumination. I lean over it carefully to blow out the flame that sits on a short nub of wax. Two things happen in that instant. The light in the room blinks out, of course, as the flame is extinguished. Also, as I stand there in the dark with my face above the candle, the last tendrils of smoke drift upward and into my nostrils. Instantly, decades of birthdays flash through my mind, a blur. I’m a child, standing up on a chair at the kitchen table, eyeing the cake my mom has decorated to look like a clown. I’ve just blown out the candles and everyone around the table- all family- is clapping. I’m slightly older, this time...

365 and I Didn´t Waste A One

Originally I was going to write a humble, what-I’ve-learned sort of review of 2010’s major events for me. That’s kind of my thing, anyway. But then I started listing what’s happened this year and I decided to throw the humility crap out the window. I’ll just say it: this year was awesome. I’d be doing it a disservice if I tried to play it down. 1. U of I- My second semester of U of I was filled with interesting classes, new friends, and a lot of fun. My classes were varied and I learned so much that I still carry with me. (I can have a basic conversation in French, I can draw and label a cross section of a brain- to a certain extent, I learned about force and momentum and electromagnetism and a bunch of other things I’d never have learned about in an English class.) I got all A’s and made the Dean’s List again. I spent a lot of time applying, writing, and interviewing for the study abroad program that allowed me to be in Barcelona right now. I survived Un...

Unnecessary Personal Update #3: I'm Almost Out of Peanut Butter

Before we came to Barcelona, the counselors and instructors showed us a graph. A long, curvy line showed us the ups and downs we could expect while spending almost a year studying abroad. The excitement of arrival, the frustration of having to shop, get around, and find an apartment in another language and culture, the thrill of actually accomplishing those tasks, the unavoidable homesickness, etc. I glanced at it at the time but shuffled it back into the ream of documents we'd been given. 'Don't tell me how I'll feel,' I probably thought, ' I'll tell you , when it happens.' And through all the good times I've had here in Barcelona, I haven't thought much about that graph. But during the not-so-good times, the days when the entire city seemed to be an implacable force motivated only to bedevil me... I thought about that graph. The damned prophet that had seen all of it coming. Yes, there have been ups and downs this year. But even in the...

Drink Life to the Lees

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