Happy holidays

Emily Schroeder, a junior, says she plans to work a lot over hol­i­day break—“We make a lot of money over the hol­i­days,” she says, refer­ring to her­self and her boyfriend, who sits next to her by the cozy fire-place in the Yel­low­jacket Union. “We’ll be just work­ing, pos­si­bly mov­ing, and going to church on Christ­mas Eve.” She also likes to have a party with her fam­ily after church and “Eat Christ­mas cook­ies we made the day before.”

Robert John­son, a junior and polit­i­cal sci­ence major, says he will be stay­ing in Supe­rior and work­ing in Duluth. For Christ­mas, he plays game with his fam­ily in which they roll dice to see who gets gag-gifts. “One time I got women’s lotion. It was really smelly,” he said. He plans to go to Duluth Christ­mas Eve and then to Gor­don on Christ­mas day to see both sides of his family.

Syndy Bilges will be doing some­thing slightly dif­fer­ent. She plans to do “some relax­ing, some work­ing, I’ll go to my Dad’s house and spend some time with my kids.” Bilges says she is tak­ing ten days off to be with her chil­dren. “I don’t get to be with them much because I’m always busy with school-work,” she says. “I can’t wait to open presents and relax on Christ­mas day.” Bilges is a junior cohort in the Social Work department.

Becky Seg­bee, also a junior in social work, says, “I am prob­a­bly going to Iowa to see my sis­ter and her baby and her boyfriend, and then I will see the rest of my fam­ily.” She looks wist­ful as she says this. We cook a lot of things for Christ­mas, lots of dif­fer­ent rice dishes. There’s a dish called joy of rice, beans tubergee, fufu and pep­per soup, rice bread, and cas­sava leaf and rice. Segbee’s iden­tity is impor­tant to her and she wishes to clar­ify to oth­ers what her her­itage is.

“I’m not an inter­na­tional stu­dent, and I’m not African-American, because I’m not a cit­i­zen,” she says. “I’m Liber­ian. That is my fam­ily lin­eage.” She also clar­i­fies that she will be cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas, not Kwanza– “Thank you for ask­ing that ques­tion,” she says.

After Chist­mas and New Year’s Day, there will be a few stu­dents who will take advan­tage of J-term to pur­sue new adven­tures and learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, as well as warmer weather.

Rich Smith, a con­tin­u­ing ed. stu­dent in soci­ol­ogy, says he will be leav­ing the U.S. to study abroad in Bali after a ten-day break. “I’m leav­ing on Decem­ber 21. Usu­ally my fam­ily gets together before Christ­mas and we’ll go to the top of the Radis­son like we’ve been doing for the last few years and we’ll eat din­ner and look at the big lights as we walk through Bent­leyville. Smith says the last time he went to Bent­leyville he was a lit­tle under-dressed. Smith offers his advice: “Stay warm, and don’t be under-dressed when you go through Bent­leyville.” Though where, he does not have to worry about being under-dressed.

In Bali, Smith says he wants to study the cul­ture of the peo­ple who live there. “I want to study their dances, their food, and other things,” he says. “As a Native-American, I feel it is also impor­tant to study the after-effects that col­o­niza­tion has had on these peo­ple.” He says that before he goes to Bali, he will enjoy get­ting together with his fam­ily and open­ing presents.

Janet Li, a sopho­more with a major in account­ing in inter­na­tional busi­ness says she will be trav­el­ing to New Orleans, start­ing on Christ­mas day. She was inspired to go to New Orleans because her friends are going, she says. Li will enjoy sight-seeing while vis­it­ing the pel­i­can state.

If you have a hol­i­day tra­di­tion or any plans you would like to share, e-mail us at the Stinger at stinger@uwsuper.edu.