How to Stay in Touch with College Friends

Last week I got to see two of my best friends, Jordan and Hattie, for Jordan's 21st birthday. We all met up at her house and spent the afternoon on the lake, visiting Jordan's grandmas, and wrapping things up with her birthday party! It was great to see them again (we'd met up earlier in the summer to see The Fault in Our Stars and to have dinner), plus I was pretty busy the first half of June and it was nice just to get away for a day and do nothing but hang out with my friends.

That being said, it's hard for me to keep up with my college friends over the summer. "Out of sight, out of mind" doesn't really apply. It's mostly just that I have so much going on that when I think about checking in with friends and seeing when we can meet up it's in the middle of something. But, that's no real excuse and being proactive about keeping in touch with my friends is something I need to be better about.

So here are a few things Jordan's Birthday Extravaganza taught me about how to better stay in touch with my college friends:

Friends that eat together, stay together. Meals are quick and easy ways to get together with friends who live in the same area as you. Everybody's got to eat, and you can make lunch or dinner last as long or as short as you need to. Plus, who doesn't like an excuse to eat at fun restaurants?

Group Messaging is your friend. Jordan, Hattie, and I have a group chat that's been going on for a long time. It's fun to shoot each other funny things we come across or things that happen during our days with each other. At school it's easier to tell each other these things in person, but during the summer, when they're not just a walk away, keeping up with your friends on text is an easy way to keep each other in the loop.

And Snapchat, if you're into it. I'm a occasional Snapchat user, but I love to see my friends' snaps of their everyday summer lives every now and then. I'm not the best at always snapping back, but if you like the app it's another great option to keep in touch. If your friends are out of the country, it can also be better than iMessaging depending on their WiFi situation.

Meet them in their element. You know your best friend's college room inside and out, but have you ever seen the park she frequented as a kid? Her childhood bedroom? The tree house in her backyard? Especially the summer after your freshman year, it's fun to visit your friends' hometowns and see where they lived before campus. I loved hanging out on Jordan's lake, seeing her family, and just experiencing a day in the life of my dear friend. Even friends who live close, like my friend Hattie, have their own personal places and neighborhoods that are a part of them. I think this is the best way to stay close to your friends over the summer, and even learn some things about them along the way :)

Plan day visits. If you live close enough, get-togethers don't have to be extended events. Hattie and I got to Jordan's around one in the afternoon and left later that night. We still had plenty of time for fun and for catching up with each other. While of course weekend-long adventures are also good ways to see one another, sometimes all you can squeeze in is a day. And even those days will stand out to you as a highlight in your summer.

I hoped some of these helped! But keeping in touch is a constant effort. I'm still trying to get better at hanging out with my friends instead of hiding on my couch with my technology (like I am right now... ;)). But when you're intentional about it, staying in touch with your friends is much easier. What advice do you have for staying in touch? How do you keep in touch with friends you don't see every day?

What I Read: Cry, the Beloved Country

4.5/5 pineapples

Oh, do I want to give Cry, the Beloved Country five stars so bad. It has everything I love in a book: beautiful language, an intriguing plot, thought-provoking themes, and characters you care about. Written in the 1940s about South African life, it also appeals to my historical side and makes me think about a completely different life than I know.

Alan Paton wrote Cry, the Beloved Country to discuss the issues plighting his home country for many years. The novel was developed as Paton traveled through Europe and North America. After one particularly rough bout of homesickness came Kumalo, Zulu pastor and main character. Kumalo's journey and subsequent story is what pulled me through the novel, but it was Paton's passion for South Africa's issues and lyrical writing that made the reading experience pleasurable.

But here comes the missing .5: Even though the hardships Kumalo endures are only a part of the story, I felt that once they were wrapped up the story should have ended. I raced through the first two books in the novel, but it took me a week to finish the final 50 or so pages. Paton dragged me through those final chapters, chapters I felt could have been summarized in an epilogue and made much more powerful.

If there was a deeper meaning behind the final chapters, focused on Kumalo's community, I missed them. I missed them because I felt like I was forced to read past the true end of the plot, past what I as a reader was entitled to know. However, the last chapter was beautiful, and I appreciated the closure it brought the characters. It also felt like it had a true purpose in the novel, as a way to sum up all the questions Paton was writing about.

Which is a part of why I like this book: it asks questions. There is no clear answer to how South Africa can change, only examples of the people and problems that live in it and why some sort of action is necessary. Paton lets the reader decide what is right/wrong, and what might be the change the country needs. Kumalo invested me into this entirely foreign world, but it was the beloved country that made me desire a change in people blinded by fear.

Have you read Cry, the Beloved Country? What did you think? I'm thinking The Bean Trees is going to be my next book... Barbara Kingsolver, here I come!

When Airports Get You Down...

...bring a book!

I recently found myself getting some personal time with gray walls and runways at my local airport, due to an unfortunate series of cancellations. And as I waited, watching my flight get delayed, then delayed again, then ultimately canceled, I finally had some chance to get some quality reading done. While I wasn't flying into DC, I at least had 1940s South Africa and a family's demise in front of my eyes.

It's harder than I would like to admit, to find time to read. But last Wednesday night, and then on the plane Thursday and Friday, I had nothing to do but pour over that book, and finally, finally, get to read. I shot through the first two sections and made good progress on the third.

It's easy to forget how great reading can be. While I was frustrated and tired, I could just escape into a book, where my problems seemed trivial, and worry about characters whose lives had become very important to me. They took me away from the black vinyl chair I was sprawled in, from the gray walls and shut-down shops, and let me pretend that it wasn't an airport I was trapped in, but Johannesburg.

Books let you do that. They take you away from your problems, your issues, and give you someone else's (someone whose problems are almost always way worse than yours) and let you see how they deal with them. If the author is a great one, then you might even learn a thing or two about yourself and your own problems along the way.

I did, fortunately, get to spend a day in DC. And even though the time around that one day was spent waiting (and waiting, and waiting), I was also spending time with my book, in the world of paper and ink.

And that, ladies and gents, is not such a bad place to be.

My To-Read Books of the Summer

Over the school year, I slowly collect any and all books I want to read on my Goodreads "to-read" shelf, waiting for their time to be moved to "currently reading." I start the summer with a mile-long list of books I'm thrilled to read and the excitement of getting to read books I actually want to read. By the time the end of August comes around, however, most of them are left on that "to-read" page for the next year. And I just feel sad.

So: I've decided to make a solid list of the books I can conceivably read this summer, in the hopes that I can not only stay on track for my 50 books in 2014 goal, but not feel so defeated when it's time for school again and many books remain unread. If I can check off at least one list of books, I'll feel a lot better about the countless others left waiting for another year, another time in my life. Hooray for short-term goals!

So, without further ado- the list:

• Boy, Snow, Bird, Helen Oyeyemi. I saw a lot of great reviews for this book, and with a cover that beautiful how could I resist? (My friend Danielle will tell you, I'm a huge judge of book covers). But the plot sounds pretty intriguing too and it's a long book- perfect for the summer when I can continuously read a book for a long period of time.
• A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines. My mom has recommended a lot of books to me lately, both from her collection and my sister's really great school summer reading list. I loved Gaines' novella "A Long Day in November," so I really want to read one of his novels. I recently purchased A Lesson Before Dying at the resale bookstore in my city, so it's definitely getting picked up this summer.
• The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver. Another author I read last semester is Kingsolver, who as a writer really fascinates me. I've only read her essays so far, and I want to get into her fiction. I thought I would start with a shorter novel than The Posionwood Bible before getting too committed, but if this goes well you might see next summer's list start with another Kingsolver novel.
• Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf. I want to like Virginia Woolf sooo bad. But after my struggle with and ultimate defeat by To the Lighthouse, I just wasn't so sure if Woolf was the author for me. But she's so important in the female writer world, I'm going to give her as many chances as it takes! My mom recommended Mrs. Dalloway as a good take two, in conjunction with Michael Cunningham's The Hours. We'll see how this one goes, but I'm determined to actually finish it- I hate leaving books behind, half-read.
• We Were Liars, E. Lockhart. Basically, I'm just really intrigued about this one. It's gotten a lot of hype, but I'm always nervous about young adult novels (they can swing in all sorts of directions, as far as quality of the novel goes). Is it good, is it bad? Is it really that mysterious? I'm curious enough to figure it out for myself.

So there you have it, the five books I want to be sure to read this summer. I'm currently reading Cry, the Beloved Country (um, AMAZING so far, by the way) and once that is complete I will start my mission to read all of these books. What books are you trying to read this summer?