Museums and Culture

First, note the awesome alliteration of my blog post.  Before publishing each blog, I always like to think of a catchy alliteration, but not every time can I concoct one.  Luckily, this time it worked!

It may appear, due to the scarcity of postings in the past six months that I haven’t been up to much.  I would like to object to this notion in stating that lack of content does not mean lack of activities.  But, I do admit that my calendar hasn’t been as jam-packed and full of events as last year.  This blog will be dedicated to two things:

1. What I have been up to this past semester
2. How I feel being a sophomore

In terms of course material, I didn’t feel awfully challenged and inspired this semester.  I was disappointed with my history course, something that I am ashamed to admit being a lover of history!  Though the content had the potential of being absolutely amazing (English History up to the year 1603), the professor didn’t require outside reading and went off on many tangents, limiting the scope of the material.  Though I really admired my professor for Renaissance Art History, a lot of the content was already known to me.  My Sociology of Death and Dying class ended up being very repetitive and seemed to have no relevance to anything that I am immediately interested in.

The two courses that saved the semester from being a total flop, in terms of interest, were History of Photography and Science and Technology of New York City.  I originally only took the former course because it fulfilled a Modern Art requirement for my major.  Though I love looking at photographs, I didn’t think I could enjoy a lecture devoted solely to this medium.  I was pleasantly surprised to find this early morning Friday course a joy to attend!  Professor Suchma was a superb lecturer and knows so much about the content that she teaches.  The three hours were mainly filled with her knowledge about the history of the artists, the technology of the photography, and the aesthetics of the pieces.  I left the class excited about what I learned, and proud of the two essays that I wrote (both available on my Academics page).

Science and Technology of New York City, my third Macaulay Honors College Seminar, was tons of fun and definitely a challenge!  Though towards the end some of the material may have gone over my head (cryptology, math, computers), Professor Boklan definitely knew how to make the class accessible and fun to the majority of the students who, like me, were NOT math savvy.  My final presentation on steganography is also available on the Academics page.  To be completely honest, though I loved the field trips of Arts in New York City my first semester, this was probably the most intriguing Macaulay seminar to date.

Though not technically part of the semester, I would like to mention my winter course: History of Islamic Civilization taught by Professor Simon.  Though I was only taking this, again, for the credit and requirement, I actually found that it was quite interesting!  Professor Simon had such passion about the subject and though we never did make it to modern day topics as the syllabus had planned, I learned a great deal.

But what about extracurricular activities, you ask?  Like last year, I am continuing with Wind Ensemble and private clarinet lessons.  For the first concert, I even contributed to the program notes!  Through lessons, not only am I improving on my clarinet abilities, but I’m also learning theory.  Keep this between you and me, but I think I prefer theory to actual playing.  My grandmother has also started up lessons with my teacher, and so occasionally when we schedule back-to-back, we play trios together.

I am still involved with editing the Tribe Magazine for Hillel, but as for overall Hillel participation, I have retreated.  At the beginning of the semester, I wrote a very opinionated piece for the online magazine explaining my reasons for drawing out of the club, which you can read here.  In response to the article, I was contacted by my Rabbi from home, the Executive Director of Hillel, and the Hillel President.  My bold statements obviously made some waves, but I continue to maintain my distance from the organization due to the disappointments and disinterest conveyed in my article.

Creatively, I still have remained involved in some facets of theatre life this semester.  I took on the immense responsibility of set design for the Queens College Theatre Guild’s production of Lysistrata.  My only experience with set design comes from my first semester course, Introduction to Theatre Design, a class that taught me the creative aspects but NOT the technical aspects (Introduction to Technical Theatre is what I would need for that).  At the time that I agreed to the job, those involved had no idea that I was neither a theatre major nor minor!  I needed a lot of help from various people on the crew, but eventually it came together.  Will I take the job again, though?  No.

Things to look forward to for the coming semester, other than the amazing classes that I hope live up to their names, are my job at the Kupferberg Center for the Arts as an usher, and my volunteer docent position at the Museum of Tolerance in New York City.  Both of these positions are new, and in regards to the latter, I haven’t even officially started yet, aside from shadowing a few tours and attending volunteer workshops!  I am excited, though, because both give me the opportunity to be in a cultural environment.

Yes, this is a color coded blog post!  Now to talk about point two: how I feel about being a sophomore!  Although this semester was filled with some disappointments, overall, I am just as happy as I was last year.  Being a freshman, I was so excited for all the opportunities that fell in front of me, and I wanted to take advantage of everything.  I’m not a different person now in that I don’t want to grab at everything that is afforded to me, but I also realized that I don’t have fill every empty space of my calendar to be happy.  

At the beginning of the semester, I was excited to be a more independent and social individual, and experience facets of the campus I had not visited during my freshman year.  One thing that I was absolutely successful in was becoming more independent.  Last year, I would speak daily with my family who live only twenty minutes away from me!  I made it a goal to limit this communication so that I would have more time to do things here at Queens College.  This separation, unfortunately, led to some familial tensions, but in the end, has taught me how to balance independence and the importance of family.  When I dreamed of being more social this year, I had imagined going out to dinner with friends, inviting people over to cook dinner, movie nights, and so on.  This did not translate into reality.  But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t social!  I spent a lot more time in Honors Lounge with my friends, and I did end up going out to dinner occasionally.  I have a very black and white view of the world, sometimes, and this has made me realize that “being social” can mean tons of things!

I can’t leave this blog post without stating one obvious difference between this year and last.  During the semester, I entered an AMAZING relationship with a guy that I met on none other than a Doctor Who dating website – yes, I will scream this fact from the mountaintops, however silly it proves to be!  In the past, I have criticized, or at least believed that, those who have relationships during college aren’t able to fully integrate into college life and take advantage of what the campus has to offer.  My goal is to prove myself wrong, and show myself that even though I have a boyfriend, I can and WILL still be an active member at Queens College.  I know this is not a personal/life-style blog in which I talk about my daily and intimate affairs, but I would like to state that Ian Scott Wilson is definitely a huge support in all that I do in my college life.  Shout out: THANKS AND I LOVE YOU!

Well, that’s about it, I guess.  Sophomore year can definitely be a hard one, especially when you’re Marina having created such a tough freshman act to follow!  But I’m set on creating another great year here at Queens College, and half-way in, I think I’m doing fine.

Marina B. Nebro