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She steps outside and the air feels refreshing.

She takes a deep breath and holds the coldness in her lungs until it burns.

She feels alive.

She walks down the sidewalk loosing her footing with every step.

She finds it hard to walk in, but is not annoyed by the difficulty.

The snow packed sidewalk makes her slip in a drunken manner that makes her smile.

Nature is playing with her.

The wind is howling in her ears and slipping inside her coat sending a shiver through her body.

A shiver that she does not welcome, but understands.

Her hood falls with the push of the wind, exposing her naked ears.

At this point her cheeks have rouged and her lips are dry.

She puts her hood back up but to no avail. The wind is stubborn.

It wants to play and it won’t allow her to hide.

She eventually gives in but still tilts her head shying away from the wind.

She is not in the mood to play.

The wind dies for a moment allowing her to peer into the sky.

She stops walking and stares in front of her for a moment squinting in the sunlight.

Just then a snowflake falls on her lips and surprises her by its delicate presence.

She’s been kissed by winter.

t is commonly accepted that language is an essential part of life. The benefits of knowing more than one language, however, provides more than it takes. Languages open the boundaries between different peoples, cultures, nations. It is not unimpressive how much knowing more than one language can do. In our native tongues, we are comfortable; we are confident of our competence and skill in the familiar.

To those who know or learn another, however, there is more to the world. The comprehension of multiple languages is, to borrow a cliché, greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing more than one language helps each one to be seen not only more clearly, but also in a different light. Connections will be drawn, realizations made. There is nothing so uplifting as the process of gaining insight, of making sudden discoveries in addition to simple understanding. Every language is a branch or form or relative of another, alive or extinct. There are similarities to be sought, changes to be uncovered. You will understand why your own language functions the way it does.

Even brief encounters with other, unfamiliar languages are like looking through windows you never knew were there.

Sometimes, one hears of, or even encounters, extraordinary individuals who have mastered half a dozen (or more) languages. This induces a certain amount of envy, to be sure, but mostly a sense of awe. But, more commonplace an occurence, are the ordinary people all over the world who speak two. Sometimes one wonders: how many people speak English in addition to their own language, as opposed to native English speakers, many of whom speak only English?

Learning languages may not be the center of everyone’s focus or foremost of priorities, but ultimately, it really is or will be one of the most enriching and valuable experiences one might experience- not to mention the merits of learning in itself. Discussing such matters is in this University setting is rather redundant, I realize (most need no encouragement), but the message is for everyone. Learn another language; one can never know too many.
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Drop cap credit to Jessica Hische; visit for inventive and impressive illustrations.

I never actually possessed my own Legos when I was a kid; I only played with the ones my cousins had whenever I went to visit them for the summer.  Even then, though, I thought it was a difficult medium to work with,  I had such elaborate designs of houses and castles in my head… and not enough

time or Lego bricks to make them.  It was frustrating.  On the one hand, I did make do with the limited resources I had but on the other, I knew that my dreams of building a house with two wings or a building of five stories always lurked in the back of my head, waiting to be realized.

Imagine how crazy I would have gone if I had nearly a million or more Legos!  I could have built sculptures!  And indeed, someone has.  Nathan Sawaya has become a Lego artist, building breathtaking and museum worthy creations from a childhood favorite medium.  While the designs are relatively simple-seeming, resembling enlarged and more sophisticated versions of childhood creations, they are also reminiscent of past sculptures from old masters.  Should Sawaya’s national tour be taken in by an art museum, would Rodin and others would be rolling in their graves, complaining about the nonsensical route classical art has taken in the new century?  Or would they applaud the innovative efforts of Sawaya to make Legos into more than just child’s play?

Then again, innovative use of everyday objects wasn’t readily accepted when it first debuted with Marcel Duchamp’s satiric sculpture, “Fountain“, in which he turned over a urinal and submitted it to an art competition as a work of art.  I wonder what contemporary artists would have to say about Sawaya’s work as an artist.

It’s that time of year again – time for American Idol madness. I have been a watcher of American Idol for years, though I tend to stop watching full episodes part way through the season, season 8 being the one exception. The Adam Lambert vs. Kris Allen debate was a common topic of conversation with my friends and family. After the amazingness of season 8, last season was a bummer, and I’m really hoping to see some great talent this season.

Based on the first round of auditions, I’m not sure about this season. They have shown some good singers, some strange personalities, and some typically bad attitudes. I am still depressingly unimpressed by most of the singers. Two singers that have stuck out to me from the quagmire though are Jerome Bell and Naima Adedapo, both from the Milwaukee auditions. Jerome Bell’s audition was amazing; he really payed attention to every musical aspect – utilizing dynamics, tone, and expression to their full extent. Though Naima Adedapo’s vocal wasn’t as technically impressive as Bell’s, there is still something in her voice that I liked.

The thing I hate about the audition episodes is that they seem to go on forever, but they don’t really tell us anything about the artists we’re going to be watching for the next several months. It’s easy to pick out the singers we think we’re going to like and to laugh the terrible singers out of the room, but we never really get to see what kind of music we can expect out of each contestant in the future. I’m already bored with the audition phase and ready to see the real music competition get under way, but it looks like we still have another two weeks of boredom left.

The new judges are adding an interesting new dynamic to the show. Much to my surprise, I think Jennifer Lopez may prove to be my favorite female judge ever on the show. She’s almost like a mix between the Kiara DioGuardi’s tough, musical judging style and Paula Abdul’s silly sweetness. She seems able to deliver a real critique to the contestants while maintaining a sense of composure and politeness, which I think is nice. The jury is still out on Steven Tyler for me though. He brings a fun element of comedy to the judging table and often delivers good critiques, but he also frequently creeps me out with the way he’s speaks to some of the younger girl’s in the competition and annoys me by randomly showing off his screeching vocals rather than talking.

All in all, I’d say it’s been an interesting and hopefully promising start to the season. (Please let it be a good season!) When this show has some real talent, I can’t help but love it, but when it’s overrun with nothing but mediocrity, I’m compelled to hate it. I suppose only time will tell; we’ll just have to watch, hope, and see what happens.

I am making it publicly known, possibly against the better judgment that I, a member of the Harry Potter generation is actually a fraud.   I have in fact, yet to read the Harry Potter series.  There, I said it!  Phew…a weight has been lifted.  I didn’t know it was such a blemish on my record until I came to college.  Everyone I met had read them and ostracized me when they found out I had not.   Even though my best friend of three and a half years won’t admit it, I know she is embarrassed that I really don’t know about Hogwarts.

I avoid telling people this sad factoid about myself until it either a. comes up in conversation where there is no avoiding it for I can’t lie or b. I get to know them for a year and a half and feel compelled to share my deepest darkest secrets with them.  Since you reader, have not asked I had to resort to option b, telling you at about the year and a half point in our relationship.  If you kept reading to this point you are probably experiencing shortness of breath, dizziness and I might advise you to begin breathing slowly into a paper bag.  The shock will subside within a few minutes, so don’t be alarmed.

Now that you are at the point of breathing normal again, this is where most people ask, “I don’t understand, how did you not read Harry Potter?!”  Well, like most things in life, I blame it on my parents.  They forced me into sports and didn’t expose me to the fantastical life J.K Rowling created.  So thanks Mom and Dad for ruining my childhood and adulthood and sending me into a life of a recluse.

I will end this story with good news for all.  I have made it my short term goal to complete the Harry Potter series by April in hopes of regaining a piece of my childhood and avoiding ridicule in the real world.  However, when I went to the library to check out the first book, it was already gone!  I knew there were others out there like myself lurking in the shadows.  Come out and let yourself be known…and also, return the book!

From a recent writing exercise:

It is still the dead of winter, but the world around him is coming very much alive. The sun has risen hours ago, but it is not yet midday; the top half of the building is bathed in a wash of warm russet-tinged gold, the tips of bare branches before it glazed as in a tracery of metallic filaments. Already the wash of late-morning light is trickling down the building’s grand facade. It trickles down the flutes of wide columns and into the crevices of cornices and corners, under sills and eaves. Foot traffic is beginning to increase, now. People have risen from their beds, have left their homes, all to some purpose of their own, for some individual or shared goal. They swirl around him where he stands, unmoving, on the pavement.

It is curious, he thinks. How utterly incomprehensible. This building, this bastion of knowledge and learning, pragmatic and idealistic, has been standing here for goodness knows how long. Enduring granite, withstanding the weathering of time. Has it always been this way? Do these people climbing these broad, snow-layered steps see what one would have seen a century ago? Do they see what he sees, a sort of wordless grandeur that stands against the black-and-white palette of winter, a monolith, a stone construct that embodies values now tacit and undefined? It seems to embrace the curious and the strivers and the learners, drawing them into its maw, breathing them out again.

The air is crisp and cold and holds with it the promise of a new day. Snow crystals glitter in the watery but growing sunlight, and around him more people are sweeping past, angling for the building, climbing wide steps, disappearing among the columns and inside. He inhales, tilts his head back to take in the building once more before he urges his feet into motion. Yes, yes indeed.