So, thoughts from the past 24 hours:

I really love Reed.

Mondays with four classes running from 9-1 and two doctor's appointments and a voice lesson and orchestra rehearsal and a study session are harsh.

My doctor here referred me to a neurologist for my dizziness problem. Probably barking up the wrong tree, but it's worth a shot.

I hate the Logan airport. A lot.

The PDX airport is pretty nice, especially at nine at night when nobody's around.

The hungrier you are, the better airline food and Commons food both taste.

I love music.

I really miss Heather.

-Jenn-

So, first off, Thursday night. It was quite a happy night, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was my impending departure for Boston (where I am now) to visit Heather. It was spiffy also because of the multiple meetings I went to--a QA discussion/meeting and a VOX meeting. Both were really productive and I'm just so excited about getting involved with both groups.

Earlier Thursday I'd run into Dhyana behind Commons and talked to her for a while. She vowed to hang out with me more. This was very exciting, because I heart Dhyana, but I was honestly really surprised when she showed up towards the end of the VOX meeting and then hung around until it was over to see me. Apparently she had been looking for me all evening, because a couple of people were happy to see she had found me. She was dressed (and speaking) like a pirate because it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Anyway, we hung out all evening and it was so cool and I was just generally flattered that she enjoys my company.

Early early Friday morning (4 AM) I got up and went to the bus stop over on 39th. The first bus drove right past me, but I caught the second one. Then I took that to the transfer center and took the MAX to the airport. At the airport, I went through security only to find I'd left my Leatherman in my bag. So I had to FedEx it to myself, which meant FedExing it to my home address, since they can't deliver to the P.O. box that is my school address. Not so cool, but not disastrous. So I went through security again, clean this time, and eventually got on my plane. The rest of my trip was fairly uneventful, other than trying to find my way around Newark International Airport. When I got to Boston, I called Heather. She had just woken up and was on her way to get me, which meant I had time to sit and people-watch and stuff. When she did show up, we got on the wrong shuttle to go back to the T at first and ended up going around and around the airport in circles a couple of times before we realized that we were on the wrong bus. Eventually, though, we got back to the T and then back to MIT.

MIT is rockin'. Heather's floor is very cool, and they seem open & friendly enough, though Heather says they haven't been huggy up until this weekend. A little bit of touchiness can go a long way in changing a community. :) Friday night Heather and I danced on a picnic table and it was beautiful. We also helped set up the trampoline and jumped on it and sat on it and curled up on it. It was gorgeous. I was so happy. It just made me remember even more how much I've missed Heather. I'm so happy when I'm with her.

Anyway, this morning--Saturday--we got up and went to the T station to meet Jai. It's soooo awesome to see her again. We went with Heather's hall to a chocolate brunch--this breakfasty thing at a hotel where everything is chocolate. They have chocolate crepes, allll sorts of chocolate cakes and truffles and sauces and drinks and other dishes... it was amazing. I got reaaaally tired afterwards, though not much more than I get after any carbohydrate meal. I've been eating vegan chocolate most of the time at school when I actually do eat sweets, so... it was just wonderful. Yummmmmm.

After the brunch we all went outside and a bunch of us ran through this fountain. It was great, because we were all in pretty nice, dressy clothes, and... yeah. It felt good and spontaneous and yayfor. I've been being so spontaneous here. I think it's just that I notice it here, because at Reed everyone else is even more spontaeous than I am. But it made me realize that I am definitely a Reedie now. It's really a part of my identity. I love Reed, even though it's sooooo far away from the east coast and all of this.

After all that, the three of us went back to Heather's room to hang out. Heather found out about a bad grade and got upset (though she controlled it very well) and I was so glad I was there to be able to actually give her a hug. I really wish I lived closer and had the mobility of a car, because so many times I've wanted to just drive over and hug her. I would do it even if I lived in, say, Providence. It would be worth it.

We went grocery shopping after that to get foodstuffs for Stressball and for tonight/tomorrow's foodmaking. We got spinach for our quesadillas tonight, which was especially worthwhile. The quesadillas we made were in a pan on the stove, not by microwave, and had chicken and cheese and soooo much spinach. They were amazingly delicious. I want more at some point. I think I get to take home the rest of the spinach, unless Heather has now decided to keep it. :)

After dinner we went and sat on the trampoline and gave each other backrubs and talked to boys and about boys and we had a lot of fun conversations and it made me miss Reed. Not actively, but enough that if I weren't going back I'd be sad, if that makes sense.

After that we all went upstairs to change for Coffeehouse, which is basically when a bunch of people get together and go hack-- they go up on rooftops, they go shafting, and they go ledging. Jai and Heather decided to go ledging, which sounded really scary, so I opted to come back here instead. I'm proud of myself, too--a year ago or even much less I would've really berated myself for deciding not to go and I would've been really upset. But tonight I just knew my limits and decided the scariness outweighed the fun potential and made the responsible choice without hating myself for it. I can't help it if I'm afraid of heights, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't respect my own preferences. I'm really glad Heather and Jai decided to go anyway, because I honestly don't mind not going. I needed a little quiet/alone time anyway, so this was perfect. My need for quiet time has increased since arriving at college. It's why I like doing my homework--I have guaranteed quiet hours every day with a legitimate excuse for not being too social. It's not that I don't like hanging out with people; I just need some space sometimes. So this is nice.

And that brings us to now, when I am sitting in Heather's room typing. I'm really happy to be here and also happy that I get to go back to Reed. I have a feeling fall break will leave me insanely homesick for Reed.

Sometimes home is in too many places instead of not enough. Ooof.

Happy Sparkle Christmas!!!!!!!

-Jenn-

So, unhappy as I may be at times...
I love college.

-Jenn-

So, my schedule has changed. I needed to change it because I am adding a class in the spring--music theory 2--that conflicts with my current schedule. I also dropped set design, because I don't have the creative energy for something that I'm not particularly interested in. So here is my schedule now, although it's not quite official yet, with my spring class in parentheses:

Monday
9:00-9:50 Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 Physics lecture
11:00-11:50 Humanities conference
12:00-12:50 Russian
1:10-2:00 ((Music theory 2 lecture))
4:00-4:45 Voice lesson
6:00-7:30 Orchestra rehearsal

Tuesday
10:30-11:50 Physics conference
12:00-12:50 Russian
4:30-6:00 Chorus rehearsal

Wednesday
9:00-9:50 Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 Physics lecture
11:00-11:50 Humanities conference
12:00-12:50 Russian
1:10-2:00 ((Music theory 2 lecture))
2:10-3:00 ((Music theory 2 lab))
4:30-6:00 Collegium Musicum rehearsal (yes, I got in)

Thursday
12:00-12:50 Russian
1:10-4:00 Physics lab

Friday
9:00-9:50 Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 Physics lecture
11:00-11:50 Humanities conference
12:00-12:50 Russian
1:00-3:00 Work in the theatre
1:10-2:00 ((Music theory 2 lecture))

Oh yes, and I changed my adviser, too. My adviser is now Ginny Hancock of the music department. I am pleased. And now, having (mostly) dealt with all this bureaucratic crap, it's time to do some real work.

-Jenn-

So, today was going to be my Get Down to Business and Work Day. I really need it. I got up a little before noon--last night was an amusing night but involved staying up until after three--and went to breakfast. While there, we decided to go to Trader Joe's to get some stuff to eat that isn't Commons food.

On our walk to Trader Joe's we saw this avocado-colored refrigerator/freezer out on someone's driveway at 36th and Steele with a sign on it saying "Free--works fine." We decided that we'd try to take it home with us if it were still there when we got back. At Trader Joe's we got lots and lots of yummy food and paid for it communally, so that was very good. Then Susie and I went and petted some dogs while Jay and Lizard went over to Limbo to get some other stuff. I encountered a golden retriever who growled and snapped at me. It was the first time a dog's ever done that to me, and I was surprised that a golden retriever would. His owner said he had an attitude, but that's still really weird.

Anyway, we started discussing the possibilities for this fridge, if it turned out to be there, and decided we should decorate it and use it as our communal fridge. We're college students, right? It seemed really essential and we hoped it would still be there. When we got back, the fridge was still there, but the man who had put it out said two guys had gone to get their jeep so that they could take it home.

Susie and I rushed back to Steele to find some sort of cart to bring back the fridge and to put our frozen goods from Trader Joe's away. I found someone who had a pretty flimsy dolley and took it back to the fridge. The guys hadn't come back yet with their jeep, but we agreed that the dolley wouldn't work. So the guy who owned the fridge offered to let us use his dolley, and then proceeded to bring it all the way back to Steele West for us, just because he thought he could handle the dolley better than we could. He was really great about it and helped us a lot. And we got the fridge to Lonelytown (Steele West), which is slightly less lonely for it.

We decorated the fridge amusingly, with lots of geeky Discordian-type comments and such. There's magnetic poetry thrown on there in a disorganized fashion. It looks fabulous. I am very proud of us.

Oh yeah, and I have a lot of work to do. Myeh.

Six days until Sparkle Christmas

-Jenn-

So, I know I should catch everyone up my life here at Reed, but right now I only have the patience to relate one particular story. Here goes:

This morning, I was stretching to reach my clothes, dangling over the piles o' stuff in my room, when I looked down to see what I was straining to reach over. I realized that it was a large graffitied cooler with an overstuffed backpack on top. It was not mine. Although several people spent the night in our room last night, mainly because I'm a dork and didn't have the energy to really kick them out, I didn't think it was any of theirs, either. So I called Lizard over and we looked into the smallest compartment of the backpack.

In that compartment, we found a restraining order against Lance Losher, as well as an "inmate request form" from Welks County jail in Colorado. We also found a list of phone numbers, labeled with some familiar names of people in our dorm--Cody, Jesse, and a couple of other names I couldn't remember. I figured then that someone on the hall knew him and he had put his stuff in the wrong room. This is not particularly disturbing, because he wouldn't have had to break in--Lizard and I regularly leave our door propped open when we go down the hall to the social room, just to keep air flowing through and such--so Lizard and I moved the stuff into the hallway and went off to commons to eat and ask Cody & co. if they knew him.

At commons, we found Cody and asked him if he knew Lance. He said he didn't, and suggested that we run his name through the Reed email directory to see if he's a student, and that we ask around the building. So, we went back to the dorm to check out the blitzmail directory. There are neither Lances nor Loshers in the directory. So we asked around, and nobody knew him. Finally we called Community Safety and asked them to come over about the stuff.

Going through the stuff (partially to make sure there weren't any bombs in it, partially out of the glee born of unrestrained voyeurism), we discovered that he was in jail in Colorado at least up until this past Tuesday. We discovered that he was put in jail on the second of September, for fighting in the parking lot of a store, refusing to leave the premises when asked, and "wilfully damaging the real property of the Frederick Police Department by repeatedly slamming his head into the hood of the patrol car." He requested medication for "psycological [sic] and some medical problems" while in jail on the 4th of September and was not granted his request until the tenth.In his bag were a crystal of some sort, tabasco sauce, toiletries, clothes, and a large, poor-quality knife. In his cooler was a t-shirt and a panhandling sign: on one side, printed with the American flag, it said, "With your help I can get beer and become God," and on the other it said, "Spare any GOD--I mean $$?"

The CSOs finally came and talked to us and took the stuff away to lost-and-found. In the meantime we had become quite a large group sitting around the stuff in the hallway, getting our fingerprints all over it and messing it up. And the adventure was over, although the mystery has not been solved....

Lance, who are you? Why are you here? Why did you slam your head repeatedly into the hood of a Frederick patrol car? And why the hell did you leave your stuff in my room?

-Jenn-

So, I'm about to run off to dinner, so no time to really describe Reed yet except that it's awesome and soooo far away from home. Here's my schedule of classes (they start on Tuesday):

Monday
9:00-9:50 AM Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 AM Physics lecture
12:00-12:50 PM Russian
6:00-7:30 PM Orchestra rehearsal

Tuesday
10:30-11:50 AM Physics conference
12:00-12:50 PM Russian
2:40-4:00 PM Humanities conference
4:30-6:00 PM Chorus rehearsal

Wednesday
9:00-9:50 AM Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 AM Physics lecture
12:00-12:50 PM Russian
1:10-4:00 PM Physics lab
4:30-6:00 PM Collegium Musicum rehearsal

Thursday
12:00-12:50 PM Russian
2:40-4:00 PM Humanities conference

Friday
9:00-9:50 AM Humanities lecture
10:00-10:50 AM Physics lecture
12:00-12:50 PM Russian
3:10-4:30 PM Set Design for Theatre

-Jenn-