Write Around The Corner // Beth Turnbull

I love college. I have met some of the greatest, most interesting people. I have seen amazing, new things. And yes, I've also learned a lot. I'm living the college experience . And although the classes are (sometimes) interesting and I've grown to really like Ramen and Easy Mac, the people I've met are the best part. I've met people from all over the country. Dancers, singers, scientists, writers, designers...the list goes on.  I've met biologists that belt Broadway classics at 2 a.m., I've met passionate poets who love to play sports, I've met dancers who draw beautiful pictures.  The friends I've made could not be a more diverse group, and yet we are still incredibly close. We respect our differences and learn from each other.  Living in a dorm has been a journey for me. I'll admit, like many of my peers, I was nervous before I moved in. Will I like my roommate?  Will I like the other people on my floor?   Will the communal bathrooms be...

“Wow, how did you manage to get these seats?” the usher asked my mother as she showed us to our seats in the very first row of the Benedum. It was pure luck really. My parents, my sister, and I were new to Pittsburgh and we were looking for something to do for a while to distract ourselves from the fact that we had just been uprooted from our childhood home. We were all fans of musical theater and my mother would often play her favorite cast recordings for my sister and me. I loved it. I always sang along, I would even dress up dance on the coffee table. I was thrilled when my parents told me we would be going to see a production of Les Miserables. I had been singing along with Castle on a Cloud for years, but I had never seen the show live before. I had never seen any show live before. I had watched Annie and The Sound of Music countless times on VHS but I had never stepped foot in a theater before. It was a warm summer night in 2007 when we made our way into the cultural dist...

Can you be lost if you don't even know where you're going in the first place? I'm not talking physically lost (although I frequently am)--I'm talking mentally lost. I feel like so many people have these great visions of their lives, and I don't. I go to class, I do my homework, I eat, I sleep. And I do it again and again every day. I'm not unhappy, but recently the uncertainty about my future has been a pressing weight on my mind. I'm past the halfway point of my first semester of college, and I was really hoping I would have figured something out by now. All throughout high school I hoped that something would just jump out at me and I would know what to do with my life. I picked a major I thought I might like at a college I loved and decided to hope for the best. And I'm happy--but I'm still lost. Don't get me wrong, I have some things figured out. I know that in my life I want to do my best to make the world a better place in wha...

I believe everyone should vote. As Americans we have the hard-earned privilege of choosing our leaders. I remember the excitement I felt as I clung to my mother’s jacket as she entered the voting booth and flipped the monstrous lever to cast her vote. It seemed so important--all the businessmen in their suits lined up outside the fire hall, the mothers and their children, the elderly couple holding hands--all waiting for their chance to make history. As I grew older I began to take an interest in the country I was a citizen of and the things I would someday vote for. I couldn’t wait until I was 18 and would get to join the line of voters outside the local fire hall. Now that I can finally be a part of that club I will participate in all the opportunities I have. As I grew older I noticed that the interests of my peers began to move in a different direction. I listened to the talking in the hall, the discussions after class, the arrogant statements. I’m not going to vote. It doe...

Sometimes I feel like no one's listening to me when I talk. I sit silently in conversations waiting for the chance to jump in with my stories--and I wait an awfully long time. When someone finally pauses for breath, I go for it, only to be talked over by someone who feels they have something better to say. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm a wallflower or a social pariah. I am very social, I love to talk and share my thoughts with others--when given the chance. I also love to listen. Have you ever just sat in a public space and listened to the conversations around you? It's fascinating. Being able to listen and soak everything in helps me to control my emotions when I'm rudely brushed aside. But why does our society seem to value speaking over silence? It seems like whoever speaks the loudest has the power. So what are the rest of us supposed to do? They say silence is golden, but being silent is not always a choice. When I am brushed aside a...

If you don't water your plants, they will die. That is a fact.  Keeping a plant alive is simple--your actions determine its fate.  What isn't simple, is a human life. No matter what you do--your actions can't solve everything.  That, is also a fact.  No matter how much you love someone, no matter how many visits you make or don't make to the hospital, nothing changes the ending. The ending is always the same. The ending is always death. There is no way to make a difference in death; it is only in life that the real difference can be made. That's a lesson I'm trying to learn. I can't go back and give her more time--I can't change how it happened. I have to remember the way she impacted my life. I have remember the way I impacted hers.  Death is just the end of life. Death does not kill memories. Death does not kill happiness. Death does not take everything away. Death leaves her legacy behind--d eath lets us keep...

Like many college students I have no idea what my post-grad life will be like. Will I be working in my field? What will my field even be? Am I even going to get a job? Everyone knows exactly how I feel, if you don't, you might be lying to yourself. Being the pro-active, go-getter that I am, I decided to schedule an appointment for myself at the campus Career Development Office. Better get started early , I thought to myself. I knew what to expect, they'd tell me to take a lot of general ed courses until something sparked my passion or something generic like that. Guess what? I wasn't wrong. During the course of my appointment I had the privilege of being introduced to personality testing. I'll figure out what to do with my life. This will be easy. Just do this test and it'll tell you what to do.  I had heard of the Myers-Briggs personality test before but I'd never cared enough to take it. But that Monday afternoon in the career development office, I wa...

Today my English 101 professor instructed us to pull out of sheet of notebook paper. "Rip it out of your notebook. I want you to write down all the words that stop you from doing what you want. All the negatives." And so we did. I glanced around the room at my peers as they frantically scribbled--a flurry of pen against paper. I had my own list. It wasn't short yet it wasn't long. And I knew that everything I wrote wasn't really true. I'm not really stupid. I know that my ideas do matter. It's just easy to let those ideas fill your head on a cloudy day. "Okay," she said, "take that paper and crush it." As we did this she excitedly rushed around the room with the trash can and instructed us to throw these powerless words away. "Words don't have power unless we give power to them," she told us. The therapy session had begun. We had purged our minds of the negative. I thought to myself-- okay Professor Nofsinger,...

I have tried and failed to write three other blogs, so it's a good thing that four is my lucky number. At the moment this blog has no real purpose. It probably won't change your life. It probably won't make you question your beliefs. But maybe you will be entertained, maybe you will be interested, maybe you will even be inspired. As a young, college student I have plenty of questions about the world we live in. Is the world fair? Is it possible that an entire planet can really be fair? Are most people inherently good? How do you even become a good person? Why do I like writing rhetorical questions so much? Basically once I get talking, I have a lot to say. Throughout this blog you will learn about my life, you will hear about my passions, and you will see the world through my eyes. And maybe you won't like what you see, but it's worth a shot. Love, Beth