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Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
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10:37 am
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Alas, around 3 weeks since I promised pictures, but here they are! However, in order to get to them, you must first read my longwinded description of everything and anything in Grinnell. Now, let's see how I can get creative with this, I can recount things backwards, in chronological order, or in apparently no order whatsoever except for whatever my stream of consciousness throws at me... I think I'll go with the third option.
Classes: I'm currently taking: Anthropology, Math, French, and, my tutorial, A Study of Place. I really like my anthro class, very interesting stuff, and the teacher's pretty cool too(haha Natis, my knowledge of the Neanderthals is expanding more than yours ;)). For French we're learning about the occupation of France during WWII (there's this poem we had to read last night written by a prisoner in Auschwitz that I have to post up here sometime soon). Math is a bitch, I never understand what's going on in class (thank god for the math lab!), and I'm pretty sure I failed my test yesterday. Tutorial is good, I really like the subject matter and the people in my class, we just finished reading this book Recapitulation, which ended up being pretty good.
Though I'm constantly busy, homework is not killing me as of yet (though this week I've been bombarded by tests!).
Weather: Erratic, that's the best way to describe it. In one week we've had extremely thick fog, sunny 80 degree weather, and this morning it was 30 degrees with frost on the ground. 'nuff said.
Fencing: Oh my, where to begin? I'm already getting giddy and excited and dissapointed that the next fencing practice is on saturday, since work on thursday night has deprived me of attending practice on that day. Last saturday began my enthusiasm with fencing, when I had three hours of practice and had my first match. Apparently, I'm a pretty fast learner, though I have to work with distance (damned shortness!), stroke width, and not being so intimidated by opponent's scare tactics. Otherwise, I'm having A LOT of fun with this and the people there are great, they're a log of fun to hang out with and always give you advice on how to improve. Even the bruises and cuts that come with every practice aren't bothering me at all.
Work: Work in the dining hall- certainly not a first rate job, but not quite as bad as it seems. The first week was a bitchslap, but it's gotten much better. I'm finally preparing the pasta in the pasta station rather than just cleaning pans and burning myself with taking the hot pasta and sauce out if they ran out. As a dish washing machine loader, at least saturday nights have a good pace now rather than a bombardment of plates, trays, containers, cups, etc. that runs for miles and miles (however, I do occasionally get the huge wave of water that drenches you when you put something too big into the machine). Finally, silverwear sorter (shudder), probably my least favorite because of how heavy the stupid silverwear trays are and how fast they fill up, though I have fallen into the rhythm of this. I now have a gash on my arm because of work (trying to cover myself from tidal wave fo the dish washing machine), which compliments my fencing bruises and cuts quite nicely.
Favorite parts in Campus- there's a little statue of Ganesha in a small tree grove that I am absolutely in love with. I believe there's some type of ritual/prayer thing that happens there on saturdays, because every week when I pass by it it's always adorned with something new. Another cool place, though I believe it was sadly taken down, was the swing hanging from the huge tree in north campus. We had some fun there last week when the weather was still nice.
Fun Activities- About two weeks ago there was a workshop called "Drawing for the Naturalist" where this botanical artist came to teach us her techniques for drawing plants/flowers/seeds. It was very cool, although I wish that she had gone more into color, which was the thing I was mostly looking forward to. Visit this woman's site, her art is AMAZING (and it's almost all in color pencil!): http://www.whartdesign.com/. Last sunday the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra came, and I can seriously say that I have rarely heard such an incredible musical performance. The music was mindblowing (especially the saxophone, percussion, and trumpet solos), and the performers had such a great attitude/sense of humor and you could tell they were really into their music. And then, of course, there's the Harris Parties. Truth be told, I've only been to one so far, but it's just so fun to see what they come up with for themes each week (Paper bags over your Head {didn't go too well from what I heard}, Beach Party, Green Light Red Light, and this week it's 80's).
Random night of Funkadesi, drunk people, railroad tracks, and rain- The random happenings of last saturday night/sunday morning. Last saturday has been one of the funnest/best days I've had here. After an amazing fencing practice and a rather slow day at work I came back to my room to get ready for the Funkadesi concert. Funkadesi is a band that has a very unique style of music, which was comprimised of African, Hindi, Hispanic, and Caribbean music. As weird as it sounds, the harmony and beat of all of the music was really amazing. I worked the drink stand for 45 minutes with Jacques (funny guy from Hawaii) and then I met up with Addy (girl I had met in prospie weekend) and a couple of other people and we danced and listened to the music until the concert ended at 12. It being cold, Addy and I decided to go to Bob's, where she got a phone call from her roommate, Lindsay, who was at a tennis party in Rawson (apparently, that's the dorm whose tower building thing appears in all of their pamphlets and postcards). We decided to stop by there, though it had already ended and the remaining people were just fucking trashed and playing beer pong. There we met up with Sam, who's in my tutorial class and in Addy's Spanish class, and we decided to leave with Lindsay and Jill (though Jill kind of wandered away, not wanting us to take her back to her room b/c she was trashed). We decided to go to Highstreet where something was apparently happening, though Lindsay had to go back to her dorm b/c she was tired and drunk. We decided to balance/walk on the railroad tracks to go to highstreet, and Sam's balancing ability, despite being tipsy, was extremely amazing as he hopped from one end of the railroad tracks to the other. He's quite an acrobatic person, he has a unicycle, can juggle quite well (I heard that on sunday he was juggling things on fire), and can hang upside down from a tree branch by sustaining himself up with his arms (I really don't know if that makes any sense, it was quite interesting). All that remained of highstreet was just a bunch of high/drunk people, so we left the second we came in, and, as we were walking back to Addy's dorm, Sam decided that he was going to carry both of us at the same time. He was doing pretty well until he felt Addy chocking him (since she was on piggy back) and we all just fell on the grass and talked and lay there until it started to rain. We went back to Addy's room, where we just plopped down on her bed and comfy chair until the rain ended and Sam and I went back to our dorms. I hope that all of what I just wrote sounds really stupid, but I really had a great time that night dancing/listening to the music and getting to know people better through simple, yet fun, happenings.
Well, I hope you weren't immensely bored by my rantings, I should just post more frequently in order to avoid this... To sum it all up, everything's going quite well here, I'm really liking my classes, all the things there are to do (if you can believe it), and the people here.
( Proof of Existence, as Wallace Stegner would say )
I really hope to hear about everyone else's activities! I miss all of you and can't wait for winter break!
current mood:  calm
current music: In the time that it took me to write all this, many songs
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| Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006
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9:08 am - Hello from Grinnell
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Well, I finally found a break in the day to finally update. Grinnell's gone quite well, I'm really liking it here and I think I'll fit in just fine. My roommate's great, my dorm's good, though I need to make it a tad more homie, and the people here are pretty cool. Orientation has been a bitch, it's been cool to meet all the new people and learn about the college, but it's just been too much of a busy schedule. At least in the afternoons we have some pretty fun stuff to do (such as the hypnotist (which was HILARIOUS), the movie on the lawn, and today we're having a DDR/Karaoke/Capture the Flag night). I talked to my advisor yesterday and it seems like we have my schedule for this semester figured out(hopefully the classes won't be taken when I have to register tomorrow!), and my classes will probably be: my tutorial on sense of place, French 222, Math 123, and Anthropology 104. I like this schedule because it's pretty balanced and I can get all of the basic stuff out of the way (like math). Classes start on thursday (my tutorial at 8:00 am, and even though I have homework due for that day I already finished it). I'll post pictures later on, some of Chicago (the architecture's beautiful!) and others of my dorm. Sorry I haven't taken any of the campus yet, I just haven't had the time to really take the time to do so. I hope that everyone's doing well, can't wait to hear how school's going.
By the way, Mari, I hope your moving into your dorm goes well today!
As for Pau- See, I told you I would update! By the way, you have to give me Susi's e-mail, and maybe convince her to get an lj ;)
current mood:  tired
current music: Natalia's random songs =)
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