Stumbling to Adulthood

Hey I'm Kaitlyn, I'm a fourth year Theatre/English Major at Washington College.

[knowledgeispowerful]

When George Washington comes out to celebrate your graduation. #wac2017 (at George Washington's Mount Vernon)

[knowledgeispowerful]

🌊 Life is Better(ton) on the beach ☀️ (at Betterton, Maryland)

[chaylattes]

[knowledgeispowerful]

So I just scrolled back through all my posts to find my very first one. Since the mouse refused to load anything else after this, I’m assuming this one was my first post.

 Since I sort of love it, and it’s super accurate going into finals week, I’m sharing it now. Bringing back that very first post!

[knowledgeispowerful]

From WAC to World

Alright folks, it’s time. I’m wrapping it up. 

I’m finishing up my time at WAC, and that ends a huge chapter of my life. 

I started blogging about my time in college at the end of my first semester freshman year. Some of my friends were keeping blogs about their time in college and I thought it would be a fun thing to do. 

Now, three years and literally hundreds of posts later, it’s time to say goodbye. Or at least find something new to write about. 

I’m not positive what’s next. I mean, I know what’s immediately next, I’ll be touring this summer in a play, but the big “what’s next” I can’t answer. I’m not positive what will happen after my next show wraps. And I’m a little freaked out. I won’t pretend I’m not. 

But there is a huge part of me that is very calm. I know that I have become someone who, both as a general person and as a member of my field, is worth having around. I am proud of who I have become with WAC, and I am amazed at how different I am from when I started. I’m going to go back and look at some of my early posts to see just how different I am. That will be fun. When I started college I thought everything would be amazing and wonderful. There was a little voice in my head that said everything would go wrong, but most of me thought this would be all rainbows and unicorns. 

It hasn’t been. Of course it hasn’t been. And thank goodness for that. 

Who would want a perfect life? Not me, I would be bored out of my mind. Also, all the big things I have learned in life have been attached to some struggle. I love the magical happy times, who doesn’t? But I don’t tend to learn a ton from those moments. They don’t challenge me. I don’t go looking for dark moments, and it sucks when they are here, but I always learn from them. And that’s where WAC has been awesome for me. 

No, it hasn’t created dark moments. It’s not because of WAC. What WAC did was always make me feel safe and comfortable so that I would be okay to struggle or fall when I needed to. Because of that I never felt like I was failing during those tough times, because I always knew I would be okay here at WAC. Even though I’m leaving in less than 20 days, I know that confidence I’ve gained about being okay with risking and failing is something I’ll take with me. More than the individual classes, books I read, formulas I memorized, any of it, that spirit of trying, and being brave enough to fall on your face, is what I will carry with me when I enter the real world. 

Thank you WAC.

[knowledgeispowerful]

One Last Week of Classes

So this week is my last week ever of underclassmen classes. I’m fine, I’m not freaking out. Actually, I am alright. It’s definitely weirding me out to think that it’s all pretty much finished, but I feel okay. I was talking with one of my suitemates though and when she realized this was our last week she got emotional and started tearing up. 

I haven’t gotten like that yet, but I bet I will soon. I’m guessing if I do it will be Thursday, my last day of classes. I only have two classes on Thursday and they are with two of my favorite professors in the world. So knowing I’m not only leaving class for the last time, but that it’s their classes I’m leaving, will probably make me really overwhelmed. I have loved learning from these two professors and I love their classes and how they have always made me comfortable to really geek out about whatever it is that’s on my mind, and I will really miss having them as my professors. That’ll probably get me emotional on Thursday. 

But for now I’m alright. I already finished one last class today, and I’ll finish another tomorrow. Then it’s just those last two that’ll finish Thursday and then…the great beyond. I can’t believe I have been at WAC for over three and a half years now. This place has been so amazing to and for me, and while there is a big part of me that is ready to go find what’s next, it’s still going to be hard to say goodbye to my time here. 

Luckily that’s about two and a half weeks away still.

[knowledgeispowerful]

Finals Week Approaches

So finals week is next week. Yup, that’s happening. I feel kind of weird because I’m not freaking out and cramming to study for exams. I have papers and some final presentations, no exams. But I am kicking my butt on a paper or two. 

One of them is my Theatre thesis. It’s due the last day of classes (so Thursday) and I just got back my last round of notes for it this weekend. So it’s close to the deadline which I dislike but it’s just a final polish and then that’s done. It’s insane because it’s been a part of my life since the fall of my junior year when I started discussing it with my professors, and now I am one Submit button away from it being completely finished. Really weird. 

The other is my big last English paper. It’s a 20-25 page Shakespeare analysis paper (basically a third thesis). It’s 13 pages in so far so I’m pretty close to finished (I’m worried about going over the page count actually I still have a lot to cover), and its due Sunday. I want it finished by Friday though because Sunday is my birthday and I don’t want it on my mind then, I want to feel unburdened as much as possible. 

But other than that I am just prepping for some final performances for some theatre and music classes (basically the final exam) and a final presentation for an English class. Then I’m done. 

Wow. Yup. 

One last finals week.

[knowledgeispowerful]

Wrapping it Up

Finals week is fast approaching. Like, it starts after May 5, so it’s 11 days away.

Gulp. 

My finals actually aren’t too bad this year. I have this huge paper due then but the first draft is already mostly finished so it isn’t like I have to churn out 25 pages in a week. That would be insane. But I don’t believe I have any big written final exams for my classes. I have some final performances and presentations but that’s pretty much it. 

In a way I kind of wish I did have some exam or something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy I don’t, but when you have an exam you do it and then are like “alright, boom, done with that.” It’s decisive and strong and you can just walk away. Just clicking submit doesn’t quite have that same feeling of an ending as exams. But again, I’m really happy I don’t have to be studying like crazy for exams now and can just focus on writing these papers. 

After finals we have senior week, which is sort of the break week for us between the end of school and graduation. I don’t quite know what I’m doing yet for that. A lot of people go down to ocean city, and my friends and I have talked about doing that and have somewhere we could go there if we wanted to, but we haven’t cemented the plans yet. I don’t know why, I think it just still feels weird to think about planning for something that is so closely tied with the end of college. That means admitting we are out of here in 20-some days…which just feels insane. But insane or not we are leaving soon, and college is wrapping up. Rapidly. 

But before I cross that stage and get my diploma I still have to, you know, finish my schoolwork and all that. That’s kind of important.

[knowledgeispowerful]

Summer Days

It feels kind of weird to have people ask me what I’m doing this summer. It doesn’t quite make sense in my brain. For me, summer has always been the break between one school year and the next. But this break is between one year of school and….well the rest of my life. I fully plan on going to grad school in a few years so I know last summer wasn’t my last time like that. But it still feels weird. 

Whatever though, even if it technically isn’t a summer break it still is summer. And I do have some nice summer plans. I’ll be on the road this summer touring in a production of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s a pretty awesome comedy about two couples who get all mixed with love at first sight and disguise and all that traditional Shakespeare goodness. I’ve mentioned this before but last summer I trained at a place called the Shakespeare Academy. It’s a summer theatre conservatory for actors in their 20s who want to learn more about performance and Shakespeare. The whole company trains together daily for six weeks and rehearses two Shakespeare shows to perform in repertory (same exact cast but different shows depending on the night-my company did Love’s Labours Lost and Richard III). It was one of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life. 

That’s the company that I’m returning to for Two Gents. Each summer that same company brings back four alumni from any previous company to manage, rehearse, and produce their own tour. This year myself and three of my friends from my company last summer are returning to do Two Gents and I am unbelievably excited to reunite with some of the people I love most in this world to create an awesome show and just have fun. Also, it’s always been a dream of mine to be part of a touring company, so this summer will be the test for me to see how much I truly love it in reality so I’ll know whether or not it’s something I truly want to pursue. (I’m 99.9% sure it is, but this is the best way ever to double check that so why not?) So yeah, that’s what my summer will look like. After that ends I honestly don’t know what’s next, but I’m going to figure that out one step at a time. But right now I am excited to graduate and get to leap into something so rewarding and entertaining as this amazing touring company.

[knowledgeispowerful]

🌳 #wacluv #ctownismyplace (at Washington College)

[alevelstudent]

[knowledgeispowerful]

T Minus One Month

In less than a month, my dorm room will be empty, campus will be quiet, and I will have a diploma from Washington College. 

I’m kind of freaking out. 

Not in a way that I’m really sad and don’t want to leave. I actually feel ready to go. Four years is a great window of time to spend at college. I feel I have now learnt what I was meant to here, and I am ready in that way to go. 

But on the other hand, there is such a safety and security to college. I know how long it takes to walk to my friends’ dorms if I want to hang out, or what my teacher will probably say when they walk into class in the mornings. I know my favorite computer to use in the theatre design lab, and I know my favorite meal at Martha’s in Hodson. I know buildings here well enough to walk them in the dark, and I know where are the best places on campus to look up and see the stars. After I graduate, all of that will still be in my head, but it won’t matter anymore. I won’t be able to apply those things to my daily life anymore, because college will no longer be my present. It will be my past, a series of beautiful memories. That’s what I’m not ready for. 

I am simultaneously ready to leave and do the next thing, but I haven’t made my peace with the idea of this safe little bubble of my life ending. I have no idea what’s next, and it freaks me out to think that I won’t know my favorite place to go work, or how that new person in my life is probably going to say hello each morning. Everything will be new, and while that’s incredibly exciting, it’s a little unnerving. 

Granted, if you ask me tomorrow I might be fully ready to get out of here. It’s a day by day thing. But today it’s a beautiful day on campus and I’m thinking about how many classes I have left with each of my favorite professors. So I’m a little less excited for those things to end. But I guess the best thing about something ending is that something else always starts. I don’t know what that something will be yet, but I’m pretty excited to find out.

[knowledgeispowerful]

WAC Sports

It probably won’t surprise you when I say I’m not the sportiest person in the world. But I do like attending games at WAC. Because my freshman year roommate was on the girl’s volleyball team, I attended almost every single one of their home games. I didn’t really remember the rules when I started going, but by the end of the first semester I was a big fan and would go whenever I could to cheer them on. 

It’s a lot of fun to go to our games and just feel the support and love for all the players. Also, it’s just a really fun change of pace to go from a classroom to a gym or the stadium. From my dorm you can watch all the baseball games, and I love wandering outside to watch the guys play. They are always blasting music, and you can hear the crack of the bat echo across the field. Especially when it’s a nice day out, tons of people flock to the baseball field. 

The one bad things about where I live is that I can’t easily hear the Victory Bell. The Victory Bell is a large bell hanging near Cain Gym which our teams ring whenever they have won a game. When I lived in Middle Hall sophomore year I would hear the bell ringing across the field and love knowing we had won another game. I always wanted to ring the Victory Bell. 

But even just watching players ring it after games is a ton of fun. I never thought I’d be a big sports fan, but I love being loyal to our sports teams and cheering them on whenever I can.

[knowledgeispowerful]

Food!

Since I got a car I have been eating more off-campus than I used to. So I’m going to share a bit about some places I love in case you are looking for somewhere to grab a bite to eat. 

Plaza Tapatia-Want Mexican food? This is definitely the place to go. It’s a really short walk from campus, less than 5 minutes from the Western Shore, and has a huge menu so you can find something for everyone. I personally love their sizzling chicken fajitas, but I have yet to try something there I haven’t enjoyed. Also, some of their portions are a bit large so you can take extra home for another meal. 

Café Sado-When I first started at WAC the nearest sushi place was 45 minutes away. Now its 5 minutes away, and is extremely popular with WAC students. They have great sushi (BOGO free if you are ordering for dine in) but also have a full option of other items if you aren’t a sushi lover. 

The Freeze-More of a grab-and-go place than a sit down restaurant, the Freeze’s menu consists of items like great burgers, chicken tenders, cheesesteaks, and of course milkshakes (hence the name). It’s next to Plaza Tapatia so it’s a short walk, and it’s really great food and big portions for a small price. 

Lemon Leaf/JR’s-I don’t go to this one a lot (not for any particular reason I just don’t get there), but I love going there with friends or family when they are around. They have a great variety of food (I had an awesome salmon steak sandwich there last week) and are also connected to a bar so you can get drinks with friends there if you aren’t really hungry. 

Luisa’s-Another great place to get food with family when they are around. It’s a little more expensive (not too bad but still) but it’s great Italian food. It’s a lovely place, slightly classier, but not so much that you have to dress up. You can still go in jeans and a sweatshirt and enjoy the warm lovely environment and great food. 

Play it Again Sam’s-This is a sort of coffee shop/bakery sort of place downtown that’s highly underrated. It’s a small wonderful environment with great drinks and some pretty great breakfast or lunch menu items. Since it’s also not super popular, it’s a nice quieter environment to hang out in. Definitely check it out. 

Evergrain-Evergrain is probably the most popular place in town. A coffee shop and bakery, you can buy anything from cookies to baguettes in the bakery, or you could get there ever popular Nutella latte. It’s one of the closest stores to the river, so you can grab your food to go and walk down the street and eat down on the dock. It’s quick, cheap, and delicious, so you will always find WAC students there. 

There are also some delivery places like Domino’s, Milano’s, or Chestertown Pizza, but if you are looking to grab food somewhere in town, I definitely suggest trying one of these places. Enjoy!

[knowledgeispowerful]

Lots of Lasts

A few days ago I had my last Easter here in Chestertown. I’m always working on shows and so haven’t been able to make it home for Easter since starting college. But I have spent each Easter with my friend Taylor and his family who come down to Chestertown and host a big dinner for a bunch of us. It was a ton of fun, but it was also another last. 

For me, I keep recognizing all the little lasts I’m having. Last advising day, last time I’ll get an email like that, last guest lecturer, etc., etc. But I’ve been kind of ignoring my big lasts. The ones that have been such a huge part of WAC for me that I had to ignore a bit to deal with things. I think Easter was one of them. Knowing next year I won’t be having Easter in Chestertown with friends was really weird for me. It was bittersweet. 

But nothing was as bittersweet for me as performing in my last full production here back in March. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. Hard. And a bit during the show even. I have been acting at WAC since my first semester here and I have changed so much as a person because of the department and the people there and the characters I have played. So ending Silent Sky was incredibly emotional for me. I didn’t cry when my theatre thesis wrapped, but I woke up on the last morning of Silent Sky already an emotional wreck. 

All that day I felt waves of sadness, pride, confusion, happiness, I was just all over the place. For most of that show I could feel the urge to cry. I wasn’t choked up or losing it, but I knew I could in an instant. So when I finally reached an emotional scene where I could cry in act two with my friend Mark, I let it go. I got to say goodbye, or in reality my line “Thank You,” which fit just as much, to the department, and all the amazing times I have had onstage. Then I pulled it back together, finished the show, and let a tear or two fall during the bows. 

While that wasn’t my last time acting here (I still act in class and other little things) that memory is one of the most wonderful of the past semester. Yes, it was bittersweet for me, but I love thinking back on that show and that moment and the overwhelming amount of love I had in my heart at that moment for everything WAC has given to me. I know in a few years I will still look back on that moment with as much love as I do now. Time and space cannot change that for me.

[knowledgeispowerful]

Trial by Fire

There are lots of benefits to going to a small college, but one of the biggest? Getting to participate and learn things hands-on. This isn’t a sit in the big lecture hall, watch the TA do what it is you’re learning sort of schools. 

Sometimes its tons of fun. Sometimes its difficult. Sometimes its just plain weird. For example, I don’t know how many other colleges will take their ecology class out onto a boat to catch and examine fish (before releasing them again) to analyze the river based on what organisms lived in it. That was a weird morning. Fun, but weird. 

But I have known WAC was a hands on college since my first proper weekend of college. I’d just finished my first week of classes and had decided to go spend a couple hours in the theater to see if I could meet some people or help with anything. I knew the theater was where I wanted to be, and I knew getting involved was the fastest way to become part of the department. So I wandered into an afternoon work call, where they were putting up the set for the production of Clybourne Park (we were actually the first college to ever do the show). I helped lift a huge wall and hang it in place, I set up risers for alternative style seating, helped lay down the big living room floor for the show, all sorts of things. Eventually one of the professors came up to me and asked if I was alright with heights. I didn’t think I was, so they put me in this little elevator lift called the Genie, which lifted me up so I could work on the lights hanging above the stage. 

Turns out I’m not great with heights, which I realized some 20 or so feet above the heads of all the people I was trying to get to know and hopefully impress. I was shaking so badly I made the entire Genie shake along with me. I didn’t say anything though (even though they could all totally tell as I found out later on) and worked on a couple lights until one was stuck and the technical director went up to fix it. 

But it wasn’t being afraid that I remember the most about that first hands-on experience in the department. It was that they were willing to trust me, a girl they had just met, to handle expensive lighting equipment for a faculty show. They barely knew me, and it meant so much to me that they were already giving me a chance to do something I probably wouldn’t have done until my junior year at another college. 

(Even though I don’t like the Genie still and try to avoid it as much as possible, I think I garnered some respect that day for not complaining even when I was a bit scared. About three weeks later, I was cast in a senior thesis. I met that senior at that Clybourne work call. And the rest, for me, is history.)

[knowledgeispowerful]

No more classes to schedule

The juniors, sophomores, and freshmen have now all registered for their classes next semester. It feels odd. While they were all prepping for registration I kept feeling like there was something I needed to do. I’d see meeting sign-up sheets outside my advisors door and walk over to sign up only to remember that I didn’t have any more future semesters for her to advise. People were getting emails about registration emails and I kept half-waiting for one to show up in my own email even though I will be graduating in just over a month. It’s been weird. But since I really enjoyed registering for classes I want to share my strategy for determining what classes I would take. 

First I would look through all the class sections I was interested in or needed to take something in. I would write down all the ones I wanted along with the time they were held. Then I would take all those times and write up a weekly calendar to see what things conflicted or what days would be jam-packed. 

Once I decided how many I could take based on what did/didn’t conflict on the calendar I wrote down the positives and negatives of taking each class. After that I would write down one of three things next to the class name. Need. Want. Or Would be Nice. Need was self explanatory-it was something I needed for my majors or to graduate. Want was something that I maybe didn’t need but could still be helpful or just great. Wants were often special topics classes or classes that weren’t frequently offered. Would be nice was something I knew I’d have fun in, but it was low priority. If I knew the class would be offered again another semester or that it was just something I knew friends were taking, it would be low priority on my list. 

Then I took that list and the calendar to my advisors and we’d talk it out. It always made the conversations really quick and easy as they’d see all the thought I’d already put into it and would just help me confirm one or two final choices. That way come registration I was completely confident in my choices with registration. 

Don’t rush through or half-do your registration. Those are classes you’ll be living with for over three and a half months, so make sure you want or need to be there.

[knowledgeispowerful]

D-Hall

Hodson Hall is our dining hall (d-hall for short). There are four different areas for food in the hall. There is the upstairs dining hall, which is where everyone eats most of their meals. They have two hot lines with a lot of nice options, along with a salad bar, pizza and pasta bar, desserts, a sandwich station, and an area where they’ll cook some specialty item each day. It’s nice, big open area with lots of windows and natural light. There’s even this upstairs area to go for a quieter area. It’s not a different floor, but this big structure (like two giant circles) that has two smaller rooms underneath it and a large walkway connecting the two area upstairs. It’s hard to explain, but it’s really nice and gives you some great options about where to sit.

Hodson also has three places downstairs. Java George, Martha’s, and Create. Java George is one of the two coffee shops on campus (the other is Sophie’s Café in the library). It has bagels and sandwiches and pastries along with all the drinks, and also has bags of chips and such if you need an on-the-go snack. Java George is open most the day, from the mornings until about 8pm each night. Martha’s and Create don’t open until 11am (4pm on weekends) but they stay open until 11pm at night. They are the alternative dining areas. Basically until 7:30pm you have to pay at these places with dining dollars (money on your dining card). But once the upstairs hall closes at 7:30pm (6 on Sunday) you can use a meal exchange swipe and just pay anything extra with dining dollars instead of paying for the whole meal that way. So once 8pm rolls around Martha’s and Create get busy. Create is a sandwich and sub shop (our own version of Subway). They have lots of menu options or you can create your own sandwich. Martha’s does more grill foods. This can be anything from burgers and chicken nuggets to burritos and quesadillas. They also have things like grilled cheeses and chicken parms, and are constantly trying out new weekly specials to find things to add to the menu. Martha’s is where I love to go after the dining hall closes, but both places are pretty great.

There are tons of dining options off campus, but most of us stay on campus to eat. After all, the food on campus is included in the meal plan, and its pretty good, so really, why go off campus when you can get decent food right in the center of campus at Hodson?