236 Years and Counting

Rather than sleep in to catch up on sleep or wake up early to go out and take advantage of the free day, I had to wake up early today to work. I woke up at 9:15 AM (in summer, anything before 10 AM is early) and went down to Starbucks to get breakfast (I had thought the dining hall was closed, but it turned out to be open). Now stocked with food for breakfast, I met up with my debate group in front of Carman Hall for a study session. Two days seems is very little time, in my opinion, to prepare for a debate, but, then again, the other group only has two days to prepare as well. It also helps that the 4 people in our group are all on living on campus, whereas the other group is made up of mostly commuters, so they most likely did not meet together today. Our group was outside (the weather is fantastic, by the way) for about two hours working.
After this, I went back up to my room and found that my roommate, instead of waking up early to go the beach, had slept until 11:30 AM and was stuck on a pretty empty campus. Because of the holiday, the majority of people were off campus using up their free time, and I saw only a handful of students that had stayed on campus for the middle of the day. As a result, it was just the two of us left, and even though I didn't want to spend the money, he convinced me to go get crepes at a place around the corner from campus. Don't get me wrong, I love crepes; but cafeteria food is free to me, and I like free.
After eating, we crossed the street to visit the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. While I am technically Catholic, I don't regularly attend church at home because I feel that we all have our own ways of worshipping, and God can accept that. I am not extremely religious, but I feel it very important to stay close with God, and whenever we (my family) are out of town we always visit a church where we can pray. I picked this habit up from my mom, and now that I am out of town, with my family thousands of miles away, I felt it especially important to speak with God and thank him for protecting my family, and pray that he would continue to protect them. In addition, though, the cathedral was a masterpiece of both art and architecture.

We returned to campus (across the street basically) and I promptly laid down to take a nap for about an hour and a half, as I hadn't gotten very much sleep the night before. On the other hand, I feel like I say this every day, so today was no different, I just had the time to sleep more this afternoon. Anyway, I took my nap, and then woke up and did some more work. I received some criticism for doing work on such a beautiful summer day when there is so much to do, but I have to have by tomorrow an essay topic (which I need to research), notes on 4 Supreme Court cases, notes/preparation for a 5 minute debate speech, and a quiz to study for. And this blog. I did not want to have "la pistola a la cabeza" ("a gun to my head") while I raced through my work, so I thought I'd get some of it out of the way earlier. I ended up using the majority of my time sleeping, but at least I accomplished something. Sleep is something I am always behind on, so anytime I can use to sleep is an accomplishment for me. I'd still say I accomplished quite a bit of work, though, and after eating, me, my and two of my suitemates went with about 100 other people and RAs to Riverside Park to watch the July 4th fireworks. As we reached Riverside Park, the group spread out, and the group of 6 I was with ended up around 91st Street. We were quite a ways from the fireworks, but it was a magnificent show nonetheless. More important than the fireworks, though, was that, 236 years ago today, the United States declared its independence from Britain. I know I complain about many of America's problems, but, at the end of the day, I am very very glad to be an American citizen. I only complain because I shoot for perfection; America is a magnificent country to be a part of and one I am proud to celebrate.