Sunday, July 26, 2020
By:
Between 5th grade and Sophomore year of high school, I’d spend my summers at a Jewish sleep away camp in Wisconsin. I have many good memories of living in a sweltering cabin with some of my best friends in the world.
Growing up means that I’ve had to leave that place. While I’m glad that I’ve been able to spend my summers in college working, and am especially grateful for the opportunity SPS and FYI have given me this summer, I still long for those muggy nights when all that mattered was the next adventure with my friends and if we were going to the canteen the next day (the canteen had slushies btw).
One thing that we used to do at camp as an evening activity was Rose, Bud, Thorn. If you are not familiar, here’s a rundown: share three things about your week, 1) a Rose is something that you liked, appreciated or was overall good, 2) a Thorn is something that was a bummer, made you sad, or that didn’t go well, and not to end on a sour note, 3) a Bud is something in the next week that you’re looking forward to. In the spirit of camp and the summer, I’d like us all to play Rose, Bud, Thorn, and I’ll go first.
Rose: I successfully upgraded my computer on Saturday! While I would not consider myself to be an expert in electronics, computer science, or computer repair, I decided to upgrade the Mac Mini I’m currently typing this post on. Y’all, before I upgraded this, this machine was sloooooooow, like wait a full minute for Chrome, or Slack, or Spotify to open slow. On Thursday, I decided I’d had enough and looked up how I could improve my performance. As it turned out, my spinning disk hard drive was causing the problem, so I decided to replace it with a solid-state drive. While the thought of taking apart my computer, especially a Mac may have seemed daunting at first, the process was well documented and straight forward. I had my computer disassembled and back together in under an hour and it works like a dream. I’m so happy I decided to try something new and slightly adventurous.
Thorn: I feel like there can be many thorns this week, especially as we all continue to endure this pandemic. One thing I’ve been frustrated about with myself is how productive I see myself. During the pandemic, we receive conflicting signals about what we should expect from ourselves. On one side is a chorus of voices saying carpe diem, make the most of lockdown, pursue things you wouldn’t normally have time to do, and just get good at doing what you do. On the other end, there is a group saying that you don’t need to do anything, it’s ok to just exist, if you want to spend a whole day watching Killing Eve and eating Takis, go right ahead. I think I fall down somewhere in the middle, and unsatisfied with the results from either side. When I sit down to try and make myself be productive, all I want to do is do nothing, and when I do nothing, I feel guilty for not being productive. It’s a fickle cycle, but I hope you can relate to me with my pain.
Bud: I know I’ve said this multiple times, but this week should be the one where I publish my first article with FYI. My mentor Mitch has given me another set of comments and this time it’s much more concrete. I can see the flow of the article shifting and starting to take shape. I am already working on it, but I will continue early in the week and hopefully publish before the time the week is out.
I’m glad I got to share a bit of camp with you dear reader. I hope you have your own Rose, Bud, and Thorn for the week, and maybe you’ll even share it with family or friends.
Cheers,
Hale Stolberg