college

Thursday Doors—The Kremlin

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

It’s fun for me to search the giant folder of pictures on my computer for “door” and see what comes up. It really jogs the old memory.

This pic came up today.

I knew it was from a slide I took in 1987 on a college trip to Helsinki, Budapest and the Soviet Union, but I didn’t know exactly where.

Guess what? ChatGPT identified it immediately as the Dormition (Assumption) Cathedral in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia.

The distinctive arched doorway with ornate frescoes above it. The icon of the Virgin and Child surrounded by angels and saints. The Romanesque-style columns and arches framing the door.

This specific doorway is the main western portal of the Dormition Cathedral (built by Aristotele Fioravanti in the 1470s), one of the most important churches in Russia and the site of coronations of Russian tsars.

And I do believe ChatGPT is correct because I found this picture in my files as well:

That’s the Kremlin with the Dormition Cathedral—the second cluster of gold domes from the left. The Moscow River (in the foreground) was frozen solid.

I believe this is also inside the walls of the Kremlin. I think it’s Spasskaya Tower, which overlooks Red Square.

There are two possible reasons I do not have more pictures of the Kremlin. Either it was too darn cold and my camera battery froze or our “Intourist” (Communist Party) tour guide wouldn’t let us take photos.

I have a feeling my camera battery froze because I’m not a total rule follower. (I have been known to sneak a photo in forbidden areas.) However, we were warned so severely to not break any rules while in Russia, I may have been “scared straight” as they say.

Here’s a photo of our Intourist Guide Elena receiving some parting gifts from our Russian History professor on the tour bus. Too bad I only got the back of her head.

See, this is why you take pictures people. I had forgotten all of this. I have been to the Kremlin!

Posted for Dan’s Thursday Doors.

Thursday Doors—Trinity College Chapel, Connecticut

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

My college in Hartford, Connecticut had a spectacular gothic chapel on the quad. So Hogwarts! We were not an Ivy League school, but with that chapel on the quad—and scores of rich classmates from the snootiest boarding schools on the Eastern Seaboard—we could pretend we were. A couple of my more diligent classmates were able to transfer to Ivy League schools after freshmen year, but most of us just stayed and partied in Hartford.

My daughter had absolutely no interest in attending a small, private liberal arts college, but we did stop by one day when we were passing through the area. And the chapel still looked gorgeous.

My daughter in front of my college’s chapel doors in 2013.
The same doors as seen through an arch on the day of my graduation in 1987.

Posted for Dan’s Thursday Doors

Class of ‘87

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

I have a couple of updates for you on the college class of 1987 (high school class of 1983). Most of us were born in 1965, so we are turning 60 this year. One of my best friends from college turned 60 yesterday. She broke the ice. Now the rest of us will follow…if we’re lucky. Making it to 60 is not a given. We’ve lost people—mostly to cancer, but sudden massive heart attacks have taken down a few of the men.

I appear to be the only grandparent in my college class of about 500, which is wild. A few people still have kids in high school, so I guess we tended to have kids late, but still…it’s a vivid illustration that the birthrate actually has cratered in this country.

Another observation is that people truly do age differently. Some people look 40 at 60, and some look 80. Money seems to be a factor, but not the only one. Most people are still working, but they’re either talking about retirement or saying they will never be able to retire. “Work ‘til I die” is some people’s retirement plan.

There is both a lot of concern—and a fair bit of bragging—about adult children in their 20s. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child” seems to be true. (But if you’re posting an effusive happy birthday message, with multiple pictures, for a 27-year old who doesn’t even use Facebook, you may need to let go a bit.)

Our parents, if we still have them, are very old now. I know of only one other classmate with two living parents like me. More of our mothers are still alive than our fathers.

For the first and oldest official GenXers, the Eighties was our decade. Nobody has quite so many formative memories of those years as we do. Do not challenge us to an 80s trivia quiz, because we will win. And we will also look back on it all with slightly rose-colored glasses. We’ll forget the bad stuff and laugh about that time we ate pot brownies at school and Mr. Ullman’s physics class finally made sense.

I never did see anyone get pizza delivered to a class like Jeff Spicoli, but that would have been amazing.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out the summer before our senior year in high school.
My 1984 look
The pizza delivery scene

The next generation

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What is your career plan?
View all responses

I’m retired (I think) and looking forward to becoming a grandmother and doing some meaningful volunteer work. So, I’m going use this prompt to provide an update on the next generation.

I’m extremely pleased to report that my son landed a job! He’s a senior in college and this is his first post-grad position. I’m super proud of him!

The college class of 2024 (high school class of 2020) has not had it easy. They had their senior prom, graduation, senior spring sports seasons, and numerous other rites of passage cancelled due to Covid. In addition, many of them (including my son) took their very first semester of college classes remotely from home. MAJOR bummer is an understatement! His second semester, though not remote, was not at all normal. Masks, testing, and Zoom classes from dorm rooms are not fun. My son got put in isolation for TEN DAYS over Easter because he was exposed to a bus driver who tested positive. (My son never did.)

Sophomore year was somewhat normal and thankfully he had a terrific semester abroad junior year. And now, the famous final scene…the last few weeks of college.

So here’s to these very resilient young people. GenZ is in the house and they are going to do things differently. We’re handing them a broken world, but I have faith that they will improve things in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Cheers 🍻 to my son and the Class of 2024 ❤️

The College Experience

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
View all responses

For me, there was no greater growth experience than college. The college experience is like no other. The sheer number of new people and new ideas you’re exposed to in a short timeframe is bound to change even the most “set in their ways” 18-year old.

I was lucky my parents paid the bills and my college had no core requirements whatsoever, so I could take whatever classes I wanted—from poetry to Russian history. (Amazingly, I didn’t take a single science class.) Throw in my semester abroad, internships, guest speakers, drug experimentation, and a winter trip to the Soviet Union, and it really was a mind-expanding time for me.

Hanging out in college: my roommates Ann and Carla and other friends in our on-campus apartment in 1984 or 85. The three of us shared one bedroom, but we had a nice living room and a kitchen.

It’s sad that the liveaway college experience has become so expensive and debt-producing. It’s not fair. I think the four-year model needs to go. Three years of college is plenty, and would be significantly cheaper. “Uni” – as they call it in the UK – is only three years. I mean, maybe a few select majors (like Engineering) need four years, but everyone else (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Business, etc.) could be done in three.

Speaking of the college experience, we went to see One Love, the Bob Marley biopic, based on DanLovesFilm’s recommendation (American critics be damned) and I had fun. There are definitely some weaknesses in the script and I had a hard time understanding the Jamaican/Rastafarian accent, but the music is the music and it’s great. Marley is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and he’s 🔥

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley

So, GenX: I recommend you have yourself a cocktail or a weed gummy (or both) and go see One Love. You’ll have a good time jamming in your theater seat to one of our key college soundtracks.

Related posts:

Legend

College: 80s edition

Semester Abroad

Back in the USSR

Ralph Nader