Transcending Summer Session

After several weeks of concentrated work, summer session is over. The professor liked the papers I wrote about the Transcendentalists, so I'm optimistic about my grade. More importantly, I learned how these American poet-philosophers fit into the development of both the American character and of philosophy around the world.

While I haven't evicted Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman from the house entirely, it's been refreshing to put them aside for a few days. It was fun to revisit them so many years after high school, but I'm glad my senior thesis won't be about Thoreau and his influence on the 21st century perception of nature.

Speaking of the senior thesis, we have our first assignment, and one of my classmates is having a senior thesis party next week. I'm not sure if beer, notebooks, or both are involved in this kind of celebration, so it will probably be a learning experience.