My Commons Life

News & features about the Vanderbilt Commons from the students who live here

Archives for April 2019

The Girl Next Dore: The Next Right Step

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In my last post, Life Happens, I tried to emphasize that recently there have been some big changes in my life and I’ve been incredibly happy!

This is amazing, and I am so grateful to have made such wonderful friends who contribute to my happiness and support me in cultivating a healthy and positive life. But, something I noticed this week is that I also need to remember it is more than okay to have “bad days.”

On Sunday I was feeling really lousy. I’m not exactly sure why — probably either because it was rainy, or because I was exhausted from a 4-show weekend, or I was thinking about Freshman year ending in two weeks, or because I realized I had 100 pages of reading to do. In reality, it was probably a combination of all of these things, but nevertheless, all I wanted to do was be alone and be kinda sad in my bed while watching Brooklyn 99.

But, as I got under three fluffy blankets, I somehow felt like it was a little “wrong” for me to be feeling like I was having a “bad” day. After all, recently I’ve been so happy! So energetic! It’s finally Spring, and things have been great!

I guess in chaos of the past few weeks, and upon the realization that I’ve been incredibly happy, I somehow developed this misperception that being happy meant I couldn’t occasionally have an “off” day, or else I would be “regressing” on this happiness. As I laid in bed watching Hulu, I honestly just made myself feel worse by thinking about my night alone as a step backward.

Yesterday someone told me to emphasize the importance of taking “the next right step,” and this is when I realized what a poorly constructed view I was placing on my “bad day.” Taking the “next right step” means that you are first letting go of the need to overanalyze the broader view of the path you are pursuing. Rather than stressing over an end-goal, you are seizing the course of action that makes the most sense in the immediate future. As I’ve said before, I am a planner. So I’m sure that forcing myself to focus on the immediate will be difficult sometimes, but the idea of the “night right step” sounds like something I can handle.

Taking the “next right step” may mean that sometimes I will need to force myself not to sit in bed on a “bad day” but go for a run instead. Taking “the next right step” may mean that I edit my resume, or apply for another internship, or finish my paper early to get feedback. Or, taking the “next right step” may mean acknowledging the needs of my body and mind — treating myself to the cup of ice cream, a FaceTime call with a friend, or the night in bed with Brooklyn 99.

I’m not sure what taking the next right step will look like for myself or for any of you in the future … but I think that’s the point … and honestly, that’s pretty exciting.

Tonight, for me, taking my next right step is me writing this post. This is my next right step in allowing myself to let go of the meticulous planning and agonizing I’ve been so accustomed to.

What’s your next right step?

Anchor down,
Brooke

CommonsCast Episode 27-April 10, 2019

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On this episode Dean Melchor-Barz reflects on all the “stuff” we’ve learned this year, Zoe delivers the Commons Calendar of events for the week, and she has a great interview with Noah Barboza, President of Memorial House.

CommonsCast Episode 26-April 3, 2019

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In this episode Dean Melchor-Barz implores us to take time to stop and notice the flowers, Zoe delivers the Commons Calendar of events for the week, and she also has a great interview with Dr. Chalene Helmuth, Faculty Head of Sutherland House.

Walker and I Get Our Inner Horse Girls On? (or We Visit the Frist)

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With all of the lovely weather that graced us this last week, Walker and I decided to head downtown and get our class on at the Frist Art Museum. With our luck, we planned our trip on the one cloudy and humid day of the entire week, but regardless, the museum was a sight to see. Located near the front of downtown, the Frist is about a 30-minute walk or a seven-minute drive, depending on how you want to get there (10/10 would recommend walking and hitting up McDonald’s for a $1 ice cream cone on the way). As Vandy students we get free admission — you’ll need your Commodore card as proof — and with your sick new wristbands (peep the photos) you’ll have access to the entire museum.

Now normally I’d recommend setting aside an hour or two to experience all of the beautiful art that the place has to offer, but due to an event that was starting soon, Walker and I only had 45 minutes to make it through everything. It was a hard task considering that everything is so regal and beautiful, but we did our best to document the hotspots of the trip (one of which was their insanely classy bathrooms … yes I did take a mirror selfie in it … I am only a little ashamed).

  • classy af
  • whoops…

The lower level exhibits of the museum are currently showcasing Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art, which ended up being a glorified animal painting fest with lots of doggos and cattle painted onto canvases. The best part of the lower exhibits, however, was a multi-room gallery dedicated solely to nineteenth-century horses. I don’t know whether “horse” is the museum’s new theme at the moment, but there were so many of said animal that I felt like I was in a horse girl’s dream and couldn’t find my way out. That being said, I got some bomb.com photos with the paintings and was able to find my way out in a speedy five minutes without hating the overwhelming aura of “stallions” too much (this may be me being a bit dramatic, the paintings are nice, I swear).

  • so. many. good. boys.
  • more horses?

Next, we went up to the second level to walk through the Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing exhibit. This exhibit focused on the documentary photographer, Dorothea Lange, whose breathtaking black and white portraits worked to expose injustice and inequalities in the twentieth century.

After making our way through the photographs, we ended up at my personal favorite place in the museum: the interactive children’s exhibit. We ended up spending 35 minutes of the entire 45 minutes we had at the museum in this area, and I do not regret a single thing. From a stop motion station to light boards and a portrait drawing circle (surprise, surprise, where you could draw horses), this place truly has it all. Now I’ve been waiting to hit up this area of the Frist since I first heard about it, so it might have just been me, but I could have spent hours in there. There was this sick heat motion sensor wall that worked kind of like how an Xbox Kinect does when it detects your body moving and we attempted multiple still shots including spelling out YMCA (Walker forgot how to spell and ruined it) and anchoring down (an even bigger fail).

This took us way more takes than it should’ve.

Walker’s favorite station was a soundwave board that moved sand into different patterns on the board as it changed frequencies, while mine was the stop-motion station where we created a short film. I tried to document it on video for the blog, but we accidentally hit delete instead of replay 🙁 (shoutout to the eight-year-old boy who tried to help us recover it even though we all knew it was too late).

  • we accidentally deleted it

What I love about the art museum is that you can go to appreciate the details and effort behind the paintings and photographs, or you can go to have a fun time making up stories about why each piece was created. Either way, as long as you’re respectful of the people around you, the guards are extremely nice and enjoy seeing people interact with the art. So whether you end up checking out the Frist for the art galleries inside, or just for the architecture of the building itself (which is beautiful and 100% photo-worthy), the Frist Art Museum will not disappoint. If you have a free afternoon or weekend and you are looking for something fun to do downtown, I’d highly recommend checking it out.

Frist Art Museum Hours:https://fristartmuseum.org/visit/hours-directions

McDonald’s Hours: Open 24/7… SO GET THAT CONE!