Chicago Uncharted: Intro and Lianna Carrera

As I will be living in Chicago for the next year and wish to keep up with my sense of travel, adventure, excitement, discovery, and blogging (the essentials of life), I have decided to kick-start a project which I will call--until I change my mind and rename it--"Chicago Uncharted". The basic principle is simple and not original: I will document the lesser-known restaurants, shops, people, experiences, etc that I find in and around Chicago that I think are especially worth one's interest, in hopes of spreading the word.

Lianna Carrera, photo by DuckDuckCollectiveBlog

This first installment of Chicago Uncharted features one fantastic female. Her name is Lianna Carrera and I had the honor of attending college with her for one year at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. During her last two years at the college, she treated her fellow students to the budding beginnings of her comedy career, and after graduating in 2007 she travelled to Chicago to follow her comedic dream. Her quick wit and unique view on life (courtesy of being a lesbian raised by a deaf mother and Southern Baptist Minister father) make her a unique and refreshing voice in the world of comedy. She has massive potential and To provide an example, here's a video of one of my favorite bits from her, performed at the R-MWC student center in 2008.

Check out the rest of her stuff on her YouTube account; it's all hilarious and pure gold. In fact, you should probably just Subscribe to her now. While you're at it, Bookmark her Site, Like her on Facebook, and Follow her on Twitter. You won't regret it, and it doesn't take a Macon Woman to know that Lianna Carrera is going places. In fact, she already has! Her tours have taken her to Europe and Africa and back, and Chicago's lucky to have her between her jaunts abroad to rock the world.

Keep an eye on her now, you'll be able to brag about how you-knew-about-her-before-she-was-famous, and everyone will think you're cool. And isn't that what life's all about folks? Help Lianna help you: follow her early and follow her often.

Except, you know, not literally. That's illegal.

Graduation

I am now a Randolph-Macon Woman's College Alum. It's a bit weird to say, and I'm not sure if I'm totally used to the idea, but one thing is for sure: I had a wonderful weekend. Tony drove down from Chicago and my Mom, Dad, brother, and sister all gathered from Houston, Princeton, and Durham to join me at Macon for my final weekend.

Graduation weekend at Macon begins with the Baccalaureate Ceremony in the Chapel Saturday morning. The speaker this year was Dr. Schwartz, my philosophy adviser, one of my very favorite professors, and overall one of my favorite people. So, of course, we had to go, and I'm thrilled that we did because his wonderful speech made me cry.

Reena and I carrying the Daisy Chain

Later the day on Saturday is Daisy Chain. The sophomores (our sister class, as we are both Evens, aka graduating in an even year: '10/'12) wake up extra early and weave us a chain of daisies. The seniors gather on the steps of Martin and wait while the sophomores walk down the hill singing to weave through the seniors. Once the seniors and sophomores are reunited, we sing a few songs, then the seniors weave away with the chain to the Sundial, where Garden Party begins and we all get refreshments after standing out in the sun wearing robes and button stoles for an hour. It's also a good opportunity for families to meet the professors whom their daughters/sons have known and talked about for the past four years.

Dr. Schwartz, Dr. Cohen, and I at Garden Party

And that concludes the frivolities on Saturday. Sunday is all serious business, when we lose the button stoles and silly hats for honor cords and... well, silly hats.

Our hall: Reena, myself, Megan, Sam, Alex, Kelly on the steps of Webb

Our day began at 8:15 sharp, and thankfully, it began in the Dell. One of the most desired events for a Maconite is to have graduation in the Dell, and that's a huge thing I wanted from the year. After all the shit our class has had to go through, it seemed the least the world could do to make our exit from Randy Mac much more pleasant than our entrance. It looked shady for awhile, and I nearly bruised my knuckles with all the knocking on wood I did all year to ward of jinxes, but thankfully the storm clouds cleared up Saturday night and it was sunny and beautiful all Sunday morning. I can not express how thankful I am for this.

Me with my sister and squire

The reason we had to be up and ready at 8:15 would of course be for graduation rehearsal, where we practiced walking and the squires practiced hooding their grads. A squire is someone whom the graduate chooses to walk with them and drape over their fancy hood in the middle of the ceremony. I was my sister's squire at her graduation from R-MWC in 1999, and 11 years later my sister was my squire at my own R-MWC graduation. I love it when things come full circle; it's the playwright in me.


The ceremony itself was wonderful and featured the 97 year old ex-President Quillian as the commencement speaker (and an all-too-fitting performance of Minnie the Moocher by Touch of Harmony). It was a beautiful day and ceremony, and I'm so happy that so many of the people whom I love could be there. Speaking of the people whom I love, here are just a few of them.

Me, Mom, and Dad

Me with my brother and sister, Jenny and Jody

Caleb, Rhiannon, Kelly, Sam, me, and Struble

Dr. Cohen and Dr. Stevens, my Classics professors and the two best mentors I could ever hope for. Also two of my favorite people, on and off campus.

There are many other people who helped make my graduation special simply with their presence and support, but I'm afraid if I don't stop the pictures now, I will be here all night uploading them.

As for honors, this semester I managed (with a GPA over a 3.9) to qualify for Cum Laude, and graduated with that honor after years of working to recover from a rough first semester, and without my entire junior year to help (since I went abroad, all my credits that year counted as Pass/Fail and didn't affect my GPA). I wore an honor cord from Eta Sigma Phi, the Classics Honor Society.

Also, Dr. Cohen submitted my senior paper for consideration for an award from the College's Writing Board. Out of the other papers submitting, four out of four judges voted my paper first place, earning me the title of Best Senior Paper. After working on my project (a play on the trial and death of Socrates) all year, it was a huge relief and honor to receive such an amazing award.

Oh, yeah, we rocked college.

Reading "Wow"

I was asked by a campus reporter to submit a story from Reading, something that shows the behind-the-scenes joys of the program and something that made me go "wow"! It took me a day to narrow it down, and while I cut out getting mugged in France, finding an apartment for myself in Athens via a one-in-a-million-chance-rendezvous in a Tube station, and dancing Thriller in silence with the rest of my house in Trafalgar Square, I thought this was a nice moment to relay. Not as epic, perhaps, but it was more relevant to the Reading program itself.

It was a dark and blustery night. I'd been listening to the Beatles my whole life, so just being in Liverpool was a dream come true. But I was beside myself that night because my friends and I were all talking about going down to the Cavern Club, the venue where the Beatles got their start. It was still a thriving club, and we'd heard the night before had had mediocre music, but we decided to go give it a try, if only for the novelty of being there. We fought the wind (we must've looked like those men in the old movies who hold onto lamp posts, it was that strong) all the way to the pedestrian center of Liverpool and finally arrived in the Cavern Club. I think the next moment is a memory that will live in my head forever. As I led the group down the spirally stair case that descended into the cave-like club, I slowly came to the realization that the air was filling with the sound of the climax of Hey Jude, being sung by a live band. When I finally reached the bottom, it was like I walked into one of my childhood dreams: the room opened up from the tunnel of the stair well and exploded in sound as an entire mob of people sang the final words of "Hey Jude" in front of a stage littered in color. To me, that moment was the very meaning of the word "perfection". It was like bringing my parents to the Westminster Tube stop right under Big Ben and telling them to look up right as she starts ringing. Or finding the perfect pair of Wellies while standing in a shoe store in Bath, my current shoes completely soaked through and leaving puddles on the floor. Or cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my housemates, my new found family in my home-away-from-home. Or eating meat pies in a shop called Sweeney & Todd. Or seeing Les Mis in Covent Garden. Or going to Midsummer Night's Dream in the Globe Theatre. Or watching Harry Potter in Leicester Square. Or taking the train into Paddington Station. Actually, it was perfect like spending a year of my life in Reading, England with some of the best people I could ever care to meet. It really doesn't get any better than that.

R-MWC in retrospect

Jenny and I on the day I moved in.

Jenny Baird, as she was then called, graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in May 1999. She, the world-wise older sister, regaled me, the excitable middle schooler, with tales of her college. At age 11, I was amazed that this small college had a creative writing major, a study abroad program in England, and—this was the icing on the cake—horses! I’m now neither a Creative Writing major nor a horseback rider (though I did make it to England), yet at Macon, in the one year that I did attend Macon, I found something even greater.

Reena and I as first-years, Day II of the strike.

As a senior in high school, I was plagued with a crippling mental affliction: I hated women. I saw women as the older versions of the stuck up, bitchy, rude, and mean girls at my high school, and therefore not worth my time. I also hated being a woman, and hated the role in life that, according some traditionalists with whom I surrounded myself, I was supposed to play. Luckily I had an older sister, and she helped keep that ray of hope that women might one day be redeemable in my eyes. Along with her tales of horses, writing, and England, Jenny inspired me to follow in her mature, intelligent, and caring footsteps and was in my eyes what I later learned had a name here: a Randolph-Macon Woman. I told myself that if Jenny could go to a woman’s college and enjoy it, there must be something that female companionship had to offer; I should give women a chance, and R-MWC was the right place to do it.

Jenny was, consequentially, the first person I called after I’d made my final decision. The conversation went something like this:

“Jenny, I know where I’m going for college.”

“Katherine, that’s wonderful!” There was a pause. “So, if you go, you’ll be graduating in 2010?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You’ll be an even, then.”

“I guess I will, yea.”

“You know I was an odd, right?”

A pause. “I think that might be a problem, Jenny.”

I hadn’t even arrived and already I felt like I had an identity at Macon. But being here was an experience that I never expected. Within the first week, I had more female friends than I’d ever had in my life. There was something about being surrounded by women and hearing about women and thinking about women that helped me see how amazing and strong women really are. It helped me love being a woman, to stand up for and respect myself more than I ever had before. I discovered that the value of single sex education was more than classroom-deep, and that this place was more than just a college. Thanks to R-MWC, I have learned to proudfully define myself not only as a Classicist, a writer, a traveller… but also as a woman. And I will forever strive to achieve that highest accolade of respectability, maturity, womanliness, and class: the title of a Randolph-Macon Woman.

Submitted to the Sundial campus paper in response to a prompt asking seniors for articles answering the question "What does R-MWC mean to you?"