Maylin Tu Profile: Maylin Maylin is a junior Oxbridge English major at William Jewell College. This year, she will be studying abroad at Cambridge University. In her free time, she enjoys making movies, baking cookies and saving the world from semicolon abuse. Interests: Filmmaking, reading, screenwriting, blogging, asking questions, classic literature, YA Literature, and encouraging creativity in others.  Personal Blogsite    Recent Posts Cambridge: A Glossary  - 10.15 Biking… - 10.08 Back to School…  - 09.18 The one about to end  - 04.29 Cambridge - 04.16 Overwhelmed - 03.31 Time of Transition - 03.11 Diversity is cool - 02.29 A Scientific Comparison - 02.19 Fencing means never... - 02.14 Oxford...Cambridge? - 02.07 My Classes - 01.28 Dear End of Semester - 12.14 Where your best isn't... - 12.03 My Break - 11.27 The Hilltop Monitor - 11.19 Tutorials - 11.13 First Post - 11.05

This blog archive contains posts from Maylin Tu's Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 semester.

 Wednesday, October 23, 2008 

An American Abroad

Wow—Cambridge—where to begin.

Well, I’ve been here for over three weeks and I’m finally starting to get used to certain elements of Cambridge life.

Things like: cycling to lectures/supervisions/meetings, drinking tea all the time, separate faucets for hold and cold water, people asking me “Are you alright?” instead of “Can I help you?”, complete freedom to go to whatever lectures I choose, everything being twice as expensive—

And one of the biggest adjustments—I never realized that all these years I’ve been speaking English incorrectly.

Just so you know, it’s “mobile” not “cell phone,” “crisps” not “chips” and “trousers” not “pants” (“pants” means underwear).

Oh. And I have not once heard a native Brit refer to “jolly old England.”

In the midst of being disabused about my mistaken notions of language, I’ve been going to lectures and supervisions, reading books and generally trying to look busy.

This term—Cambridge has three lasting eight weeks each—I’m taking three supervisions: Henry James, practical criticism and Aristotle.

My supervision on Henry James is a “major,” meaning I get to write a paper a week for it. The other two are “minors,” so I write a paper once every other week.

Other than that, I go to the lectures that interest me. Imagine that—complete freedom to go to the lectures you like.

Unfortunately, I’m still in American “this is not mandatory” mode, which means 9am lectures are way, way too early in the morning. But so far I’ve managed to catch quite a few interesting ones—on everything from Milton to Plato.

In the midst of schoolwork, I’ve been taking advantage of the insane amount of sports, clubs and activities available here.

I tried ice hockey. I’m going to go hillwalking, hopefully (equivalent to hiking). I’m doing debate (British Parliamentary style, baby). I went punting on the Cam last Saturday. I’m rowing this Saturday. Tomorrow I’m attending dinner and debate at the Cambridge Union.

In short, it would be very easy to get so caught up in extracurriculars that schoolwork becomes a distant memory of the past.

But that’s not gonna happen. Nah.

So—that’s it for me and my prosaic blog. If you want more—of England that is, check out the following blogs from my compatriots and fellow Oxbridge students:

Cody’s blog: http://codyjohnsonsyearabroad.blogspot.com
Jacquie’s blog: http://cambridgecorrespondence.blogspot.com
Bill’s blog: http://www.wombatofdoom.blogspot.com
Joy’s blog: http://thejoyreport.blogspot.com

I would like to point out that Bill and Joy are at Oxford—which though in my opinion is not as good as Cambridge, still has its points.

And just to brag on Jewell students in general and the Homerton JYA’s in particular—Cody, an Oxbridge music major, got accepted to the prestigious Queens’ College Choir. And Carly, an Oxbridge molecular biology major, is playing for the Cambridge University women’s football (soccer) team!

Ok. I’m over my word count.

Peace.

 Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Cambridge: A Glossary

Boatie: A person who participates in rowing (with some circuit training inexplicably thrown in).

Bop: A disco night (often with a theme).

Buttery: The place to buy sandwiches, drinks and desserts. See also, Cheese and Pickle Sandwich.

Cambridge: A beautiful university town in England named for a bridge over the river cam.

“Cheers”: bye / thanks / your welcome

Cheese and Pickle Sandwich: One word: awesome.

Cycle: Very useful for getting to city centre.

Fresher: A first-year student—or alternatively, someone new to the university.

Fresher’s Fayre: Where you may sign up for every activity/sport/interest known to mankind.

Fresher’s Flu: A noted Cambridge tradition.

Homerton: The friendliest college in Cambridge.

Homerton Horn: A large silver horn that freshers drink from at the start of the year. See also, Fresher’s Flu.

Lecture: Go to as many or as few as you like—none of them are mandatory.

Mobile: Useful for calling taxis—but not texting friends during lectures!

Plodge: Porters’ lodge.

Porters: Good sources of practical information—will also let you in when you misplace your key card at 2am.

Squash: A club meeting for potential new members. Usually involves free food (“nibbles”), free drink and awkward standing around.

Supervision: The Cambridge equivalent to a tutorial—you and one or two other students meet with a professor to discuss written work.

The Americans: An odd (and obnoxiously loud) group of people who live on the second floor of Queen’s Wing.

The Australians: Some of these also live in Queen’s Wing.

The Other Place: Oxford. See also, Inferior to Cambridge.

 Wednesday, October 8, 2008 

Biking…it’s faster than walking

On Thursday I went out and bought my very own bike.

In Cambridge, a bike is very useful for getting to and from lectures, to and from pubs, and to and from Homerton College and everything within the city centre.

In fact, Homerton is at least a 30-minute walk from the more central colleges like King’s and Jesus.

Did I mention it was far?

So I bought a bike—

A beauty: black, five speeds, skinny tires, with “West Coast” printed in block letters on the main frame.

The first time I saw it—chained to another (obviously inferior) green bike on the sidewalk outside of a pawnshop on Mill Road—

My heart pounded. I knew we were made for each other.

As I handed over my 59 British pounds, I envisioned whipping along the streets of Cambridge—hair to the wind—arriving to lectures in style, on time, and as cool as a cucumber on wheels.

Let me tell you—there is an upside and there is a downside to biking.

The upside is the first part of the hill on Hills Road (catchy) that every would-be biker must conquer to reach the city centre.

During my childhood, when I biked the streets of Beijing—there were no such hills. The earth was perfectly flat, as it should be.

On the streets of Beijing, random British people didn’t stop and snicker at my pitiful lack of balance and strange inability to ride on the correct side of the road.

But alas—

I put aside my indignation and embrace the inevitability of climbing hills on a two-wheeled, pedal-driven, human-powered vehicle.

I made it to Cambridge.

I can make it up that hill.

 Thursday, September 18, 2008

Back to School…Not

“Have you engaged in any other activities that might indicate that you may not be considered a person of good character?”
 -UK visa application

I leave for England in 13 days. And, no—I’m not ready. There are TB tests to take, old friends to see, and a visa to travel its solitary and perilous way through the US mail. (Yes, I am a slacker)

It’s been a long summer. A very, very long summer. I could list here all the things I’ve done, places I’ve seen, people I’ve met.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll soliloquize about summer itself—the meaning of life—what it means to be human in this great big place we call “world.”

Kidding!

Things I have done this summer:

1. Developed steering wheel calluses on my left hand—special shout-out to the I-405
2. Worked as a production assistant on a feature film (I made the coffee. And organized the costumes. And made Costco runs.)
3. Studied screenwriting under the writers of “Frida,” “Seven Pounds,” “Déjà vu,” “Liar Liar,” “That 70s Show,” and “Melrose Place” (thank you Hall family grant!)
4. Three weeks—three credits—James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” (What was I thinking?)
5. Got paid to clap as an audience member on “Deal or No Deal” and “The Doctors”
6. Volunteered at an indie TV festival
7. Got paid to study for the LSATs as a “mock student”
8. Learned the meaning of the word “crafty” (see also #2)
9. Volunteered at an indie fashion show (because, er, “fashion” is my middle name)
10. Gallivanted down a star-lit Rodeo Drive
11. Attended TV preview parties at the Paley Center (Free food! Free drinks! TV stars in person!)
12. Made friends. Alienated some. Influenced a few.

In short, I have done everything I wanted to do and more. And the summer isn’t even over yet.

But I miss Jewell. I miss my classes. I miss my classmates. I miss my professors. I miss going to class. I even miss the cafeteria—and don’t get me started on the library.

I’m thinking Cambridge may be the only cure.

Stay tuned.

 Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The one about the end

Colloquium is over. And while I’m really glad that I did it (I’m a sucker for an audience), and really happy to have gotten to work with Dr. Accardi again—I’m also relieved.

I feel the same way about the end of this semester. I’m going to miss my classes—poring over poetry and prose with Ally, Melody, and Megan in Dr. Walters’ Lit Crit seminar, discussing the nuances of Aristotle’s conception of the soul in my History of Ideas tutorial, translating English into Latin and drawing illustrative stick-figures in Latin II, and appreciating Beowulf, Gawain, and Pearl in my English Lit to 1500 tutorial—but it’s also good to be done.

Well—I’m not done done—not yet. Question: who wants to study for finals on a beautiful spring day? Answer: No one whose name begins with “M” and ends in a prime number. (Not that you or I would ever associate with such miserable specimens of humanity.)

What have I learned?

Perhaps an analogy from my English major would be helpful here—I still read books and poems and things, but I read them differently than I did before. And while wielding the tools of literary criticism often feels a little like trying to sharpen a pencil with a buzz-saw (when you’re new to it), the practice also yields new insights, new directions, and new depths to the reading of a text.

I think most of education works the same way—my interests, my concerns, my passions have not really changed—but my reading of the “text” of life has been sharpened, refined, and in some cases completely revised (re-visioned)—by my education at Jewell.

Even the frustrations—especially the frustrations—have been instructive. After all, sometimes it takes knowing what you don’t believe, want or want to become, to know what you do believe, want and want to become. (So, thank you, brick wall.)

I’m still a writer, a thinker, and a filmmaker.

On that note—here’s the long promised video of my trip to Pass Christian over spring break.

 Wednesday, April 16, 2008  

Cambridge

I should be stressed out right now (there’s a colloquium paper with my name on it somewhere waiting to spring) but right now, I am psyched!!

I just found out I got accepted to the summer screenwriting workshop that I applied to—Me. Los Angeles. (Hopefully not living in a cardboard box under an overpass somewhere.) Four weeks of screenwriting bliss!

Not only that—I’m not paying for it, the Hall Family Foundation is.

You see, at Jewell we have something called the Hall Summer Grant. If there is a summer experience you are wanting to, uh, experience, you can apply for a grant to cover travel, program costs, room and board, etc. (Note: the experience must be academically related)

I got awarded a grant. I’m going to LA. I’m so glad I got accepted.

Speaking of acceptance—I’m going to Cambridge.

Yes, you heard me right, I finally made a decision. I’m really bad at making decisions. Really bad.

But when it gets down to it—I can decide if I have to.

I can’t wait. You see, I picture Cambridge as one of those gigantic all-you-can-eat buffets in Vegas, except instead of food you have different supervisions (the Cambridge equivalent of tutorials) you can take and lectures you can go to. I can study (virtually) whatever I want. It’s like academic heaven.

I’m excited for this summer, for next year, for life—

I need to write this paper.

Ooh, look, colored tissue paper!

 Monday, March 31, 2008 

Overwhelmed

I had a great spring break: 5 1/2 days in Pass Christian, Miss., 28 van hours, 48 bug bites, 3 scintillating conversations, 1 trash bin, 92 nails, 4 coats of paint, 2 beach visits, 5 street musicians, and 1 unfortunate water bottle incident later—

I’m back at Jewell.

Let’s face it—spring break is over and it’s uphill from here. I’m stressed out. Or—if I’m not, I should be.

I have a paper due at 9:00am tomorrow morning (and lots of rereading to do). I also have high table tomorrow night. (High table is a formal Oxbridge get-together for all majors.) I have a paper due Wednesday, reading to do for my other tutorial, some Latin words to memorize, a paper to write for a literary conference on Saturday (and no time to write it), a colloquium paper to work on and a video contest to enter.

All in a week’s work, right?

On the upside, I’m enjoying my classes—philosophy has a funny way of informing my thinking in my English classes, not just the other way around.

And then there’s Wuthering Heights. I swear, this book is dominating my life. That’s what I get for writing two papers on it at the same time.

Look for a video on my spring break experience soon—

Till then.

 Tuesday, March 11, 2008 

Time of Transition 

I am a bad blogger —

Inconsistent. Untimely. Self-contradictory. Metaphorically unstable.

It’s clichéd, but writing is one of the ways that I process my life. And I don’t think I can (attempt to) put a witty spin on things this week.

“Time of transition” is one of those loaded administrative phrases that generally means:

“Be prepared to suffer.”

It means discomfort and inconvenience—the disappointment of expectations. It’s like having a worksite right outside your window, with constant auditory reminders that something’s getting torn down, or put up.

I’m looking forward to England—but I’m also scared and unsure that I’ve made the right decision.

I’m looking forward to this summer, but I don’t know if I have what it takes—and sometimes I suspect that I don’t.

I’m looking forward to spring break—building houses in Pass Christian, Mississippi—but I’m leery that I won’t be able to get my work done.

Sorry to get all emo on you. Next week will be slightly better, I promise.

And don’t mind my dust. I’m transitioning. 

 Friday, February 29, 2008

Diversity is cool 

In honor of multicultural emphasis week (last week), I have compiled a list of students I believe Jewell needs to target in order to become a more diverse institution. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Mariachi players: Jewell needs more Mariachi players. There is a simple reason for this—Jewell needs more Mariachi music. You can never have too much Mariachi music.
2. Emo kids: It is a well known fact—no emo kids = no diversity. They should be flooding our three creative writing classes (creative writing fiction, creative writing poetry, creative writing non-fiction), composing overwrought guitar melodies on the quad, and stabbing innocent vegetables in the cafeteria—and under no circumstances should they pledge a fraternity or sorority. *shudder*
3. Cowboys/cowgirls: I haven’t seen any 10 gallon hats within a three mile radius—clearly something has gone very, very wrong. I can see it now: PED 173—cattle driving 101.
4. Asian guys: Specifically, Asian guys who look like Bruce Lee. Get on it, Jewell.
5. Half-Asian guys: Specifically, half-Asian guys who look like Keanu Reeves, Dean Cain, and/or Brandon Lee. Ok, I’ll stop now.
6. Extreme environmentalists: Forget this recycling crap, I want to see people chaining themselves to the blades of grass on the quad as an evil lawnmower bears down to the theme from Jaws.
7. Celebrities: Why should Harvard, Yale, Stanford and NYU get all the celebrity students? Sure, we might have to hire more security staff, but just think of the boost in enrollment.

To the admissions office: If you need a diversity consultant—call me. I know people. 

 Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A Scientific Comparison

 Thursday, February 14, 2008  

Fencing means never having to say you’re sorry

I’m taking fencing this semester. I get to wear this cool mask and make that *swish* noise with a foil when I salute my opponent. If anyone ever challenges me to a duel...I’ll be so ready.

“You changed my Facebook status while I was asleep. En garde!”

Ahem.

In other unrelated news, I haven’t made a video yet this year. It’s weighing on me like 46 library books all due tomorrow.

We in the marketing department are working on a campus tour for the website. Basically, we make a mini promo for each academic department on campus.

I got biology.

I enjoy working for marketing because I get paid to shoot video. It’s kind of like being an English major and getting paid to read—a sweet deal.

Yeah.

I have about 242 words to go, so I’m going to attempt to elaborate a little bit of “What Filmmaking Means to Me.”

If you want to feel smart, study English. If you want to feel helpless, incompetent and without any recourse save divine intervention, make a film.

If you want to write, study English. If you want to shoot and edit till your fingers bleed and your eyes blur over, make a film.

If you delight in language—its ripple and play, not its potential for manipulation—study English. If you delight in people and images and meaning and 20 hour days—make a film.

I guess you could say literature is my first love.

But filmmaking—filmmaking is the love of my life.

 Thursday, February 7, 2008

Oxford...Cambridge?

“I have two dreams in life. One is to become a filmmaker. The other is to study English at Cambridge University.”

...So runs the first sentence of my (dismally written) application essay to Homerton College, Cambridge.

Every word of that sentence is true. I swear.

I’ve wanted to go since I was 15. And we all know 15-year-olds have a tremendous grasp on what they want out of life and how to get it.

Next year, I will be at either Oxford or Cambridge. Cambridge or Oxford.

What? I have to choose?

An opportunity opened up recently for Oxbridge students to study as matriculated students at one of the colleges in Oxford.

I’ve been offered to go.

Choosing between two of the greatest universities in the world feels a teeny bit different from the other choices I make on a daily or weekly basis.

Questions like: Dr. Pepper...or Cherry Pepsi? Facebook...or Myspace? Obama...or Clinton? The man of my dreams...or the guy with the nice smile? (Of course, that last one is a false dichotomy)

Life is hard. Choices are hard. Dreams die hard.

Admittedly, it would be ironic if I went to Oxford.

And as an English major, I like to think I can appreciate irony.

But what the heck, Cambridge or Oxford??

My roommate showed me the episode of Gilmore Girls where Rory chooses Yale over Harvard. My mom recommended making a list of pros for each college and giving each one a numerical value.

I’m thinking about flipping a coin.

Arghhh!!! 

 Monday, January 28, 2008 

My Classes

It is a new year. A new semester. I have new classes. Here they are for your reading pleasure.

Elementary Latin II

My Latin class has exactly three people in it and I have a strong suspicion the instructor knows my name because she keeps calling on me to translate sentences like “Don’t mess with evil tyrants” and “Did my sister write your sister a letter about the recent sack?” Coincidentally, second semester Latin is harder than first semester Latin. This means that while other college students are out socializing at age-appropriate venues properly supervised by qualified chaperones, I will be memorizing the noun endings of the third declension and the principal parts of 3,500 verbs. “Semper ubi sub ubi” to you.

Moral Psychology

I am taking a History of Ideas tutorial this semester. No, I have not crossed over to the dark side (yet). I am still an English major. An English major who is going to know a heckuva lot more than she ever thought possible about Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by the end of the semester. This is easily my hardest class:

Me + Aristotle = the death match of the millennium.

Stay tuned to see if I make it out alive.

English Lit Before 1500

I’ve always wanted to read Beowulf. Now I get to read it in tutorial. And we only have a paper every OTHER week (!!). And no required secondary sources (!!!).

Poetry: Analysis/Critical Interpretation

Would you like some historicist deconstruction and Marxist phenomenology to go with your post-structural psychoanalytic feminist critique of Chris Brown’s “Shortie Like Mine”?

That’s what I thought. 

 Friday, December 14, 2007 

Dear End of the Semester,

Thank you so much for the ice storm. It was very pretty (and deadly—but no quibbles here).

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the one final and three papers that you decided to send me this week. Given, one paper is to be expected. Two—I can deal.

But three?

Even you, End of the Semester, must agree that three papers—final paper for Responsible Self, final paper for Oxbridge intro seminar, and last paper for tutorial—is pushing it.

Please do better next time.

Also, you really need to work on your timing. I could have used you about three weeks ago.

But that’s ok. We can still be friends.

After all, the end is just the beginning—

Love,
Maylin

P.S. I made this video when I should have been studying. Please accept it as a token of my appreciation.

P.P.S. I’m so glad I came.  : )

 Monday, December 03, 2007

Where your best isn’t good enough

In honor of finals week (next week), I give you a short quiz:

1. When I have a paper due I _______
A. Check my Facebook 37 times
B. Go to Sonic with the roomie
C. Paint my toenails lime green
D. Post videos on youtube
E. Write my paper

2. Your average Oxbridge student is ______
A. An overachiever
B. A shameless procrastinator
C. Secretly rumored to have escaped from an insane asylum in Russia
D. Indifferent to matters of personal hygiene

3. In this week’s blog I’m going to write about ______
A. My life as a secret agent
B. How bitter I am that the library fined me $8 (so the books were two weeks overdue...)
C. The Oxbridge Intro Seminar

If you guessed C you possess amazing perspicacity. Congratulations.

All first semester Oxbridgers take the Oxbridge Intro Seminar (OXA 100). The course introduces you to the academic rigor of the Oxbridge program (read: it kicks your butt!).

We read Plato. Then we read some more Plato. Then, we decide that reading some more Plato would be a wonderful idea. Then we read Plato again.

Also—and this is important—we write papers. Lots of papers.

To take OXA 100 is to realize that you don’t know ¼ of what you thought you did—and even that is suspect. It’s to question the way you think, the way you write, the way you construct an argument—

To take OXA 100 is to have a crisis of faith in yourself—to reach the edge of what you’re capable of doing.

I’ll be honest: I’m used to teachers drawing strawberries, rainbows, and stars all over my papers. I’m used to getting good grades.

It can be a shock to the system, but I don’t think any of us would be here if we didn’t love an intellectual challenge.

Plus, with all the work involved, all Oxbridgers have a definite masochistic streak or they would have become psychology or business admin majors so fast it would put William Jewell’s super-speedy bandwidth to shame (*sarcasm alert*).

I made a little video this week about Oxbridge, interviewing seniors, sophomores, and first-years (mostly first-years).

Do you have what it takes? 

 Tuesday, November 27, 2007  

My Break


Tuesday, 1:46pm - Oxbridge paper due 4pm. Mother due 1:30pm (at KCI). Not good.

Tuesday, 2:33pm - Finally on the way to Des Moines, Iowa in Chela’s ’96 Nissan Maxima. Going 85 in a 70.

Tuesday, 5:30pm - Pearl party ongoing. Notice Plato’s Dialogues on shelf. Is there no escape?

Tuesday, 10:03pm - Bad service + bad Mexican food = flirting with the waiter next time.

Wednesday, 11:28am - Snow (!!!)

Wednesday, 2:40pm - Pie (!!!)

Thursday, 1:25pm - Sledding on hospital hill. Wiped out. Brrrr.

Thursday, 11:36pm - Homework? Nah.

Friday, 1:45pm - Mom to airport. Mall crawl. Shopping faculty sated.

Friday, 9:11pm - Forgot the Republic at home. Oh look, there it is on the shelf! Can’t escape...must read...Plato...must read...Plato...

Saturday, 12:12pm - Ice skating. Wiped out. No coordination. Dreams of figure-skating stardom dashed.

Sunday, 10:15am - Church.

Sunday, 4:43pm - Back to Jewell. *sigh* 

 Monday, November 19, 2007

The Hilltop Monitor


As a writer, I suffer from something we writers like to call “publish-o-mania.” Found in wordsmiths both exalted and lowly—Charles Dickens had it, but then again, so do I—“publish-o-mania” can take on many frightening forms, especially to the uninitiated and word-phobic.

To simplify, those afflicted with this disorder have one creed and one creed only: be published or die.

In order to further feed this addiction to the written (and published) word, I joined the Hilltop Monitor this semester as a staff writer. The Monitor is Jewell’s weekly student newspaper, the self-dubbed “student voice of William Jewell College.” We are the fourth estate, the historical record, the watchdog, the gadfly, yada yada.

We are the opportunity to see your name in print.

As a staff writer for the Monitor, I have gotten to report on:

• Diabetic needs in the cafeteria
• Football (which is ironic because I know nothing about football)
• Debate
• Martian sightings near the Mabee Center
• Students’ summer projects
• Jewell’s hot dating scene
• Faculty Follies
• Why the cafeteria is expanding to include a full-service sushi bar
• Football again (??!!)

Ok, some of those might be wishful thinking on my part. But, suffice it to say, through my job at the Monitor, I’ve gotten to talk to cool people I never would have talked to otherwise.

And I’ve gotten to ask them questions. I love asking questions.

Even better, I get to hang out with cool people every week just because I work on the Monitor.

There’s Monday night dinner meeting (discuss stories, goof off, discuss stories, goof off...)

Then there’s the Wednesday night “This is SERIOUS people” meeting down in the Monitor office. (talk, assign stories, talk, assign stories, talk...)

Thursday night is production night. Usually, if you haven’t turned in your story (or stories) at this point, the editors will come after you with a meat-cleaver. It can get pretty ugly (not to mention gory), but come Friday morning when the Monitor hits campus with that wonderful fresh-off-the-press ink smell...

It’s all worth it.

And that’s all I can say about being a writer in general.

 Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Tutorials

Tutorials. What are they good for? A lot, actually. Because I transferred into the Oxbridge program this year, I get to take* the Oxbridge Intro Seminar (required of all Oxbridge students) and an English tutorial. For my tutorial, I chose Novels of the Brontë Sisters with Dr. Accardi.

In a tutorial, the student meets with the tutor once per week for one hour (sometimes there are several people in a tutorial) and they discuss the material covered in that week’s reading as well as the paper the student has written in preparation.

So far, in my tutorial, we’ve read five books: Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Shirley. I’ll be honest: sometimes, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m not really doing homework. I love being an English major!

However, when writing my weekly paper (13 total this semester), I definitely feel like I’m doing homework.

To give you an idea of the workload involved, here are some numbers:

• Reading per week: 250+ pages
• Writing per week: 3-6 pages
• Emergency text messages: 20
• Near suicide attempts: 2 (...j/k)
• All-nighters pulled this semester: Too many. Way too many.

Toto, we’re not in community college anymore.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m whining, because I enjoy my tutorial. One of the gleeful things about tutorial style learning is that you get to pursue (and I mean pursue) the things you are interested in—not only in your papers but in conversation with your tutor.

By definition, tutorials are student-driven. The onus is on you to bring your passion for the subject to the table.

Here, for your benefit, is a mock-tutorial Maylin-style to give you an idea of what they are like:

Dr. Accardi: So, how did the reading go this week?
M: It went pretty well.
Dr. Accardi: What did you think of Van Ghent?
M: I liked her idea of the windowpane as a medium between “inside” and “outside”...

You get the idea. It’s a dialogue.

So don’t let the workload scare you off—it’s worth it.

*I say “get to take.” What I really mean is, “Help!!!"

 Monday, November 5, 2007

First Post 

Hi! In honor of my first post of my first year on my first William Jewell blog on the first day of the school week, I give you...

The Top Six Perks of Attending William Jewell College vs. the Horrendously Cheap, Insanely Inexpensive Public University Back Home

6.) Nothing says private liberal arts college like small class sizes. Don’t believe me? My introductory Latin class has ten people in attendance—on a good day. You try sleeping through class with only ten students in the room. Not gonna happen.

5.) In the word’s of Blockbuster’s seminal advertising campaign: No more late fees.

Thanks to the library’s two week grace period, no more must I sacrifice my hard-earned Sonic money to the grasping clutches of the librarians, just because I forgot to return, in a timely fashion, Gender, Race, Power and Religion: Women in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in Post-apartheid Society.

I salute you, Curry Library, for making the world a better place—one dilatory reader at a time.

4.) One of my favorite things about William Jewell? Niche-ism. (Not to be confused with a religion based on the teachings of Nietzsche) What’s your bliss? What are you passionate about? Whether it’s photography, unicycling, blanket-tying, hog-calling, playing in a polka band, or writing interminably long blogs, you can make it happen at Jewell. Don’t just find your niche, create your niche. And don’t worry, with only 1,150 students, there’s plenty of room.

3.) During the first week of school, I went to the financial aid office to work out some kinks in my financial aid award. What I found there shocked me. No lines! I almost dropped my FAFSA paperwork.

2.) Most students have a love-hate relationship with Responsible Self, the introductory general education course required of ALL INCOMING STUDENTS (no exceptions). Responsible Self is Jewell’s version of the gauntlet, and like all shared experiences of educational misery, it promotes that community-of-learning we all hear so much about. Hate John Stuart Mill? Commiserate with other first-years in the cafeteria. Abhor E.O. Wilson? Burn his books in protest at the bonfire pit with your classmates. Detest Augustine? Hold an anti-Augustinian rally on the quad, complete with slogans denouncing the overuse of the rhetorical question. You get the idea.

1.) This may seem like a minor concern, but the automatic paper-towel dispensers in our public bathrooms make my day. Need more paper towel? Wave your hand in front of the sensor. No response? Wave your hand again. It’s an amazing feat of technology. Sure, I feel like I’m at the airport everytime, but that’s the great thing about Jewell. You always feel like you’re going somewhere.

And now for some stuff about me...

The facts, evasions, and blanket interpretations:

Age – 23
Hometown – Fresno, CA (the raisin capital of the world!)
Why Jewell? – The Oxbridge Honors Program—it’s always been my dream to study at Cambridge University...and apparently I really enjoy writing papers.
Major – Oxbridge English language and literature
Future Career – Filmmaker! I want to be a writer/director in the vein of John Sayles (look him up). So far, I have written and directed two short films through the 168 Hour Film Project.
Favorite Movies – Limbo, My Life So Far, Memento, Fight Club, Bottle Rocket, Benny and Joon, Monster’s Ball, Box of Moonlight, Almost Famous, Another Country, Thumbsucker.