Nick's Blog

Bittersweet

The year is winding down, and I feel a bit like I'm leaving Hogwarts for the summer. It'll be nice to get out of school, but I don't want to leave Ginny and Ron and Hermione, and my aunt and uncle are jerks to me all the time. Honestly, I just want some peace and quiet in my broom cupboard playing with my toy soldiers and thinking about being an orphan. Never mind that I'm a creepy magician boy who talks to snakes. They should love me anyway.

But I digress, it''ll be great to have some free time, and I'm excited to start my summer job at the country club. I'm even more excited for the country club paycheck, which is as hefty as the wallets of their golfers. But I'll miss school. I'll miss the symphony and the wind ensemble. I'll miss rehearsals with my smaller groups that are less productive than they probably should be because someone's story reminds someone else of a story and it goes on for way too long. I'll miss winging it in my classes because I was playing video games with friends instead of doing my homework. I'll miss the spur of the moment parties and the late night trips to the park.

What I'll miss most of all is my friends who will be gone. Some of my friends are staying in Denver, but we have one friend that will be going to Canada to go out into the forests and prospect for mines. He lives an exciting life... Some people will be going home. Others have internships in exciting places around the world. Summers at DU are always bittersweet, and I think they should be. It's a good sign that we enjoy being at school. Even though it's challenging, or maybe because it's challenging and we get through it together, we build some really close relationships with our peers and our professors here. So, I intend to live this last week to the fullest before the summer comes and everything changes.

And when the summer ends, I'll be leaving everything I know and heading off to Scotland for a semester. So, I'm going to treasure the security of being home at DU, because I know I'll miss it after this week is done. And I won't see my symphony, my friends, my golden spire at the Ritchie Center, or my fanatical Pioneers at hockey games or concerts for months. And truth be told, I'll miss DU a lot until I return.

Getting out into the World

One of the usual things that one hears about studious music majors or really studious anything majors is that they never get out of the university. Here at DU, we understand that it's important for everyone to make an impact in their community, especially studious people. I mean, what's the point of obtaining all that knowledge if you never use it?

So, our music majors here don't have an on campus concert for the third quarter of every year. Instead, we all find our own performances in the community. My quintet will be playing at a local cafe, and my pierrot ensemble will be organizing a concert at a church in town. It's the second year we've done this concert at the church, and we've really started building a relationship with them. Members of our group have played in services at the church a number of times this year, and I think we've really started contributing to what they do. The church is opening a new community center near here, and I'm really trying to get in on the process so that we can hopefully provide some music for the community center. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Of course our students at DU do a ton of other things in our community as well. Our Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning provides organized opportunities for us to participate actively in the Denver community, and our students take that seriously. We have the Community Engagement Corps, which builds relationships with K-12 students and helps tutor and mentor school kids. We have the Compact Service Corps AmeriCorps program, which provides training and support for students who volunteer to work with school kids, provide preventive health care for underprivileged people, or recruiting, training, and managing volunteers for nonprofit and government agencies to build capacity and infrastructure. And we do a ton of other things through our classes, clubs, and even just on our own!

If you want more information about our service and community engagement opportunities at DU and how we take them seriously, you can check out our Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning website at, http://www.du.edu/ccesl/index.html, or you can come and see for yourself!

The Surrounding Area

My video about the places surrounding Denver:

 

Living on Your Own

I've been talking with some of my friends from high school now that the summer is drawing near, and it's made me think about the things that have changed. All my classes are of course different from high school. My studies are much more geared towards what I'm actually interested in and therefore much more engaging. Probably the greatest thing that has changed is my living situation, though. It's a different life having your own apartment, getting your own groceries, and paying your own bills, but I really think it's worth it.

I won't tell you that not a lot has changed. A lot has changed, but it has really been for the better. Being independent is something I have come to value. My successes are much more fulfilling because I know I've done them on my own, without my parents, and my failures interestingly enough aren't as frustrating because I did them. There are no more all powerful people beyond your influence making your rules for you. I make my own rules, and it's great.

I think DU really eases you into things, too. We live on campus for 2 years here, and the residence halls are like a great big family. You'll have the chance to gain some great friends in your hall, your residence assistants are always helpful when things go wrong, and you still have enough independence to spread your wings.

DU's system is great, and I have really grown because of it. So, to sum up. Independence. Look forward to it.

Stuff to Do

We've been having a lot of students come to get tickets to our symphony's season finale concert in the past few days, and I've been thinking about just how much free stuff we do on campus here. We can hear a symphony, wind ensemble, or a bunch of faculty concerts for free. We have the faculty jazz combo playing this evening, and we get free tickets to that as students.

We have free movies shown on a big screen in our main lecture hall every Thursday. They're showing Silver Linings Playbook this week, and I think I'll go see it for the third time because guys have a sensitive side too, and that's ok. We have a bunch of different bands and a capella groups that perform on campus all the time. We have end of the year events and a week when we have a bunch of different presentations, performances, and even themes for our food in the dining halls based on different world cultures. Every year, we have Winter Carnival when a bunch of the students go up to Winter Park to ski and snowboard and hang out for some seriously discounted rates thanks to the university.

And as if it weren't enough that we get all this cool stuff on campus, the university also will sometimes give away tickets to stuff around town, and the various organizations on campus are always doing things. The French club watches films and goes to restaurants and last year we even went to a play about France at the Denver Center. The kayaking club is another great deal in which they drive you out to rivers and put you in a kayak for free.

We have a great deal here, not only because we have great classes but also because of what we get during our free time that, in my opinion, is just as important for developing into a functioning member of society. Sometimes our extra-curricular events end up effecting me just as much classes do.

Study Abroad at DU

My video about study abroad at the University of Denver:

 

 

Denver Driving

My mum told me yesterday after my concert that she's considering a new car, and I might get her current car if she buys a new one. Obviously, I'm excited at the possibility, but I've really been successful up to now without a car in Denver. Denver's a very non-car friendly city. Between the light rail and buses, we have plenty of public transportation (which you get to use for free as a DU student), and Denver is also a very bike friendly city.When I was working at Elitch Gardens for a summer job a couple years ago, I used to bike there everyday using Denver's main bike path, the Cherry Creek bike trail.

I've never owned a car before. The last time I had enough money to buy a car, I spent it all on doing a flute class in London. So, that's where my nerdy priorities lie. And honestly, it hasn't been a problem so far. Sure, it has been pretty inconvenient, and it has been a bit of a limiting factor for what I can do, but I've made it this far without too much trouble. 

So, if you don't have wheels, and you're worried about getting around, don't be. DU and the city of Denver make it easy for you to survive without a car. You might have to plan ahead a bit more, but it can be done, and I'm living proof.

All Set for Scotland

I booked my flights today for study abroad next quarter! And it's off to Scotland for me! I'll be flying out in early September and returning in late December, and guess who's paying for those tickets? Not me, that's who.

I'm really excited, and I'll keep posting on the blog during my time in Scotland, so you all can hear about it! I'm anticipating an adventure of epic proportions. If Tolkien could have fathomed the sorts of things I'll do in Scotland, he would have reconsidered writing books about hobbits. If Homer could have known what sort of wondrous things I'd accomplish, The Odyssey would have been about me. If J.K. Rowling knew what a great time I was having, it would have been Nick Booker and the Sorcerer's Stone... I'm still living under the assumption that Hogwarts does in fact exist somewhere in the world and I just haven't found it yet. I'm anticipating doing my masters work there.

Thus far, everyone has been extremely helpful at the study abroad office, so I'm sure everything will continue to go smoothly. And everyone I've talked to so far in Glasgow has been wonderful. I'm really looking forward to getting to know some new people there. I'm all set to wander the globe for a quarter, and it's all thanks to the University of Denver Cherrington Global Scholars program.

Outdoors in Denver

My video about outdoor activities in beautiful Denver:

 

Friends

I had a late night rehearsal with my band for a show we're playing tomorrow. We had some tension, mainly because some of us can't learn our music by the night before our show.... there's some tension left over. But by the end of the rehearsal, we were all back to laughing and having fun again. And I think it's because we don't just make music together. We're really good friends. We don't get split up and pissed off at stupid arguments. We don't turn a cold shoulder on one another. We stick with each other no matter what.

I'm really glad to have those sorts of friends at DU. They're friends who I can associate with. They're friends I can do cool things like play music with. They're the best friends I've ever had, and I'm glad I found them at DU. I looked at a lot of schools my senior year of high school, and I just felt that there was a different environment at DU. It's a friendlier environment. It's a more accepting one, and that has been incredibly important for me.

You need friends in college. You need good friends to help you through everything, and I've found that here. I've found somewhere where I fit in; somewhere were I can be me and people like it. It wasn't an easy thing to find, but I'm glad I found it here at DU.