Morning Runs

It is getting to the point in the year (already!) where it's kind of scary to go running by myself in the early early morning.  At five-thirty the canyon is dark; even when I return the trees are gloomy with shadow and I find myself jumping and accelerating every time I hear a stick break or something that seems out of place.
The canyon is one of my favourite places on campus - truly, it's one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been, and to run in a wildlife reserve is a huge luxury that I don't have at home.  I love going for walks in the canyon in the daytime, to wander through the light-dappled paths after French and sit and think or read the letters that my darling sister sends me.  It is a haven from my lovely classmates and my schoolwork - and it's comforting to know that just up the rise is the library, or that I can see the blue bridge from quiet hollows where the solitude is breathtaking.
But running in the canyon when dark is fading to light is scary.  The shadows are pretty dark - sometimes you are relying on what little you can make out in the half-light and your sense of hearing (hard to do while you're listening to music) and there are times when I just want to turn around and run back the other way, back to my dorm room where I can do sit-ups or read.  Sometimes I do that, really...
Maybe this is just a sign that I have to start waiting until a little later in the morning now.  Have a lovely Wednesday!
(photo from the Reed College website)

Thinking Deeply

When I was on my Backpacking Odyssey, we got a talk about the Honor Principle and violations.  The Honor Principle is different for everyone; your idea of what it means changes with how much time you've spent at Reed and what you do with your time, who you hang out with, etc.
One of our expedition leaders told us to think deeply about what the Honor Principle meant to us, for both the practical reason of if you're ever called upon to defend it you can, and also just so that you know what you want, who you are, what your morals are.  I have been told time and again that Reed almost forces you to have a strong sense of self, an idea of who you are that you can explain and defend to your own questions.  I don't have that yet, I don't think.  Granted, this is the beginning of my second week of classes - I have time.  But in between my Humanities paper and my Bio readings, I have been thinking deeply about who I am and what I want and how far I am willing to go.  I figure this will be an ongoing internal conversation for basically the rest of my life.
Is this a normal college thing?

Happy September

What are you guys up to this Labor Day weekend?  Today was activities fair at Reed, which was super cool (they had a bouncy obstacle course thing!) and the end of my first week of college classes.
I have to admit, that what with all I'd heard about how Reedies do nothing but work, I'm pleasantly surprised at the workload.  Don't get me wrong - I spend hours doing my homework each day - but I still have time to talk, and to sleep, and to just hang out.  Apparently this changes in the following years, but right now Portland is gorgeous and my friends are lovely and college is this incredible community of people who talk about Agamemnon and girls and what we're making for dinner tonight (I'm in the foodie dorm).
Hooray, Reed!  Hooray, September!

Love Reed

That's what they told us the first day of O-week.  Love Reed.  It's what they told us at Noise Parade when pots and pans were clanging and Homer was ringing in our ears.  It's what they tell us (in different words, occasionally) every single day.
Yesterday I hung out with people I barely knew - this upperclassman kid A in my dorm and a couple of his friends - and they were so kind to me.  I had barely met him, and then his friends were inquisitive and nice and we talked... well, about Agamemnon a bit (that's normal for Reed, trust me).  Sitting there with older upperclassman strangers, talking about Agamemnon.... that's them saying Love Reed again.  And again.
I chose a pretty great place to go to college.

College, Again

Today is my second day of actual classes!
After yesterday, when upperclassmen dressed as the Greek gods and goddesses welcomed the freshmen outside of the Humanities lecture (Hum 110 is the one class that everyone at Reed takes) and we learned to sing the first lines of the Iliad and the Odyssey, after I met the French Language Scholars and almost cried for Paris in French and after a short bio lecture, I am so happy to be here.  I love going to a school where the gods and goddesses welcome you to humanities, where at certain parties the entire school chants "Homer, Homer, Homer," where my friends can come and sit in my room and talk about everything - gossip and coffee and Penelope's shroud.
As you guys knew (to some extent), I was pretty worried about going off to college - worried and excited, but still.  Pretty damn scared.  However, my darling Kuzu said something about it - that she was worried before she left but she can't remember it.  Her group of friends at her college are lovely and accepting and she's super-happy.  I remember thinking "well, yes, but that's you - they're going to laugh at me and think I'm silly and not get my jokes."  To those of you about to start college, I don't think that's true.  My friends laugh at my jokes and, yes, they laugh at me sometimes, but we also talk about serious things and light things and that's how it should be.  So if you're starting sometime soon (like the lovely Alexandra), don't worry.  Thus far, it all works out fine.

First Day

Today is my first day of classes as a college student.  I got up early here in Portland, and now there is mist on the canyon and at nine sharp the entire freshman class will be sitting in the lecture hall, ready to start Humanities 110.
I am finally going to be a grownup.  LIke in high school, I will be held accountable for my work and my actions by those around me, but now I have the Honor Principle (look it up but I might talk about it sometime soon) making sure that I do what is right and kind and honorable, and my friends (new friends, but still, quite close, the same kind of geeky people) to talk it through with.  Today I will sit in my first lecture class of the year to talk about the Greeks (hopefully Drew will have saved me a seat) and something - I don't know what - will happen.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm even expecting.  But I'm a college student now - hello, world!

Dorm Room Extravaganza

Exactly a week ago (plus a couple hours), I moved into my dorm room.  That night, since none of my sheets had arrived and my sleeping bag was with the rest of the backpacking stuff, I slept under an alpaca poncho that my mother had brought me back from Peru, a giant suitcase standing in the middle of the floor.  I returned on Tuesday, and my parents saw it for the first time.  We had different opinions.
I remembered the Cross-Canyon dorms at Reed from my first visit as a high school senior - full of light and brick walls, and Chittick (my dorm) nestled into the hillside above the lake.  My parents saw the room at night, with ugly artificial light and no furnishings.  I believe my mother really thought that I was moving into a prison cell.
Since then, my parents went into overdrive.  Plants, curtains, a bookshelf, a rug.... I still need more pictures on the wall (the poster is one I pulled off of a wall in Paris after the gallery show was over and they no longer needed the advertisements).
Since I am an idiot and forgot the cord that connects my digital camera to my computer, please accept these awful cell phone pictures of my bedroom.  Given that I've spent less than a week in here, I'm quite happy with it (one of my dormies described it as "walking into a forest of cool."
When you were in college (or if you are), how did you decorate your dorm room?

(Are two of those of the same space?  Kind of.  Dorm rooms are small.  Pictures by me.)