Cecilia Garcia Luengas is an English major with a focus on Language and Literature. She transferred from Southeastern Community College in Keokuk, Iowa and recently started her junior year of college and first semester at Western Illinois University (WIU). Garcia is originally from Mexico but moved to the U.S. at the beginning of 2017. Over the past eight years, she discovered a solace and freedom in a once-foreign vocabulary and grammar that prompted within her a flourishing fondness for the English language. Garcia enjoys writing poetry, creative nonfiction, and various types of fiction, including horror. She also loves to sing, play with her two cats, read, and look for new ways to stay involved in her community.

M&L: What is your weekday routine like as an English major/minor?

CG: I am still trying to figure out a stable routine. There have been lots of changes over the past few weeks, so I’m still adjusting to the new and vast environment that WIU has introduced me to. I wake up, get ready while listening to some audiobook, drive to Macomb, go to class, try to get some homework done, and drive home to finish the rest of my homework. It is both a blessing and a curse to have such a basic routine. On the bright side, I will be adding some club meetings to my routine to kill the monotony.

M&L: What are your weekends like?

CG: My weekends consist of deep cleaning my house and doing homework. I know, that sounds incredibly exhilarating. Ah, the life of an unemployed introverted student. I have friends, I promise, and I do go out with them occasionally. I have a very specific and rather restrictive system, so my schedule does not frequently involve recreational activities, unfortunately.

M&L: What book are your English peers reading that lies beyond the assigned texts for class?

CG: I may spend more time at school than at home, but that is not because I am actively socializing. In short, I have no clue! I guess this is the downside of being a commuter student and an introvert. Not living on campus or in town makes me a bit more distant when it comes to interacting with my peers.

M&L: What book has changed your life as an undergraduate?

CG: This is a difficult question. I feel like my answer changes the more I remember which books I have read as an undergraduate, but today, I will say it is a tie between Cadaver Esquisito (Tender is the Flesh) by Agustina’s Bazterrica and Cometierra (Eartheater: A Novel) by Dolores Reyes. It has been a goal of mine to explore more Latin American literature for a while since I moved away from Mexico before I could get access to such content in a classroom setting. The authors of these novels are extremely explicit in their criticisms toward the systemic issues they address in their respective works, and that is something I admire and aspire to do if I ever publish a longer literary work.

M&L: Where do you hang out on campus?

CG: I like to study in the Simpkins student lounge. I also go to the recreational center every other day to exercise, but apart from that, I am not around for too long after my classes end. I miss my cats too much!

M&L: What do you hang out off campus?

CG: If I am out with friends, I am at the movie theatre or at Yummy Chen’s, and if the day is nice, we may go to the park and sit around laughing at nothing and everything. However, if our pockets do not align with the capitalism-fueled eradication of third spaces, which happens rather often, we go to someone’s house and make friendship bracelets.

M&L: What has been or will be your biggest adventure as an undergraduate English major/minor?

CG: I do not know what the future holds in terms of “adventures” related to my program, apart from the obvious task of figuring out my thesis, that is. However, what has been quite an adventure already is trying to find routines and strategies that allow me to get my homework done without feeling absolutely drained. The ironic yet common pairing of my unmedicated attention deficit and perfectionism have made a significant part of my undergraduate experience quite a living hell. Nevertheless, I never get completely dispirited, and after twenty years of accommodating my neurodivergence and the numerous drastic changes that have come my way, I remain hopeful. I would be lying if I did not say it has been somewhat fun to try different strategies. The eventual victories of getting things done following my planner are always rewarding.