The last barrier standing between me and being done with my BA thesis was getting a release form signed by my advisor. It’s finals week here at Williams, and she had to proctor the final two-and-a-half hour exam for ARTH 102: Introduction to Western Painting. It was taking place in the massive subterranean auditorium in Bronfman, the same place I took that final exactly three years ago. With her signature, I finished the undergraduate major. Simmer that for a bit.
The comparison up on screen when I walked in incidentally, was one of Monet’s cathedral façade pictures, next to what I think was a Frank Stella – an unusually nuanced formal comparison. As much as I complain how little the 101-102 survey in art history reflects any of the actual practice of the discipline, a question like the one I saw put up during that final forces me to admit how many rather abstract concepts they offer to the class. Of course you can lead a horse to water, but…
This last week the crew has been, in apparently time-honored Williams tradition, been vacationing down on Hilton Head before actual graduation. In point of fact, we’re not actually on Hilton Head, but on one of the nearby South Carolina barrier islands, Dafuskie. Bonnie’s parents have a beautiful house here, and we’ve had an awful lot of fun, as well as utter relaxing time on the porch or on the beach.
Most exciting was getting to ride on a horse for the first time in my life – from the same stable where Bonnie first learned to ride when she was little! We just did a basic trail ride, walking for about an hour down through the forest, down to the beach, and then back up through (of course) the golf courses. “Gus” was very friendly, though definitely raring to go – a somewhat overenthusiastic squeeze by myself set him into a trot, which was all well and fun, until Ruth’s horse decided that this was what we were doing now and burst forward without warning. Hilarity ensued, natch.
Now we’re back with only one week left in Williamstown (as students, at least). In between the dozen or so open bar events we’ve got to go to, I’m hoping to put up the video from GQ’s really awesome end-of-semester concert, recycle all the course packets lying around my room, and hopefully do one last hike up Stone Hill with everyone. Full circle, indeed.
