10 THINGS I WISH I HAD DONE LAST SEMESTER

By Stephania Romaniuk

1. Participate in the Art New York program: This unique opportunity offers students the chance to work and study in New York City. It places students in a gallery, museum, or similar art institution with the aim of fostering an understanding of how art is produced, collected, curated, written about, displayed, or otherwise presented. http://www.rochester.edu/college/aah/undergrad/offcampus.htm

2. Gone cross-country skiing (luckily I can still do that this semester!)

3. Taken Psychology 101… And Economics 101… And every other introductory course the school offers! Why does everything have to be so darn interesting?

4. Made more canvases in art class: The great thing about the art studio here is that we have unlimited access to making canvases throughout the duration of our course. The less-than-perfect thing? The process is time-consuming and who has room in the dorms or a cramped apartment to store multiple canvases waiting to be used? I did witness some students make as many as 10 small canvases for a singe project, however, so not impossible…

5. Spent a day making pyrohy with my Slavic friends – actually, this is one I did. Thanks to the initiative of a certain Political Science major, we ended up making about 60 little potato-filled dough dumplings, slathered in butter, onions, and garlic. Ahh, what a treat!

6. Attended the opening of Hatch Recital Hall – this was about at the time that I was starting to panic about a certain lengthy paper whose due date was looming, which I guess was consuming my time and brain a little. I heard from others though, that the opening festivities for the new hall were a blast.

7. Road-tripped it to Toronto, Ontario, Canada for the CD release of the Ukrainian Art Song Project’s latest installment: the complete works of Mykola Lysenko. The event took place December 5th, and while weekend jaunts to Toronto are usually no problem, finals were rolling around as were cars on the road (unfortunately, in these winter months), so I opted out of this one.

8. Gone to a number of fantastic concerts at Eastman – more student recitals and symphony or orchestra recitals, the Steven Isserlis (renowned cellist) concert, the Prism concert in Eastman Theater (where individual numbers proceed uninterrupted for about an hour, each group being situated at various points within the theater), and so many more…

9. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” and Lupton and Phillips’ “Graphic Design: The New Basics”… As it happens, I get to read them now over Winter Break.

10. Saved some more money for an upcoming recording (my debut!) I’ll be doing. Luckily I still have a few more months before I need to pay in full… That, and some generous relatives who I visited over the holidays….

Hopefully I’ve shown a bit of what I consider to be the University of Rochester’s greatest strength and its weakness – so many incredible things going on around campus and the city that I feel disappointed that I could never do it all. Luckily that’s what Take 6 is for. Right?

Thanks for reading, and until next time!