Walks and Pushkin

Hello everyone!!

I can't believe it's already mid-November. It's crazy how fast time goes by in college.
Thanksgiving is next week, and I'm super excited. This has been a tough semester, and I'm looking forward to just being with my family. I'm super thankful for their constant support and love.

I love taking walks during my breaks between classes, but the past few weeks have been so busy that I've been cooped up in the library studying or on one of bridges catching up on some reading. Today, after orgo, I decided to take a short walk during my one hour break. It was so nice to be outside. It can feel so constricting to be inside all day and stare at a book or computer trying to focus and learn all of the material I have to know. It was good to just walk down Park Avenue and breathe in the crisp fall air. I have another weekend full of papers and studying ahead of me. ugh. But I'll get through it. I keep telling myself to focus and not fall behind.

(I love this poem by Pushkin. It talks about how short life is and the continuity of life.)

S.

Poem of the Week

Wandering the noisy streets,
Entering the crowded church,
Sitting among wild young men,
I am lost in my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years will fly,
And however many are here, we shall all
Go down under the eternal vaults.
Someone's hour is already at hand.

Gazing at a solitary oak,
I think: this patriarch
Will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived the age of my fathers.

When I caress a dear child,
I'm already thinking: goodbye!
I yield my place to you: it's time
For me to decay and you to blossom.

I say goodbye to each day,
Trying to guess
Which among them will be
The anniversary of my death.

And how and where shall I die?
Fighting, travelling, in the waves?
Or will the neighbouring valley
Receive my cold dust?

And though it's all the same
To the feelingless body,
I should like to rest
Closer to the places I love.

And at the grave's entrance
Let young life play,
And the beauty of indifferent nature
Never cease to shine.

Alexander Pushkin, 1829