We are approaching sweater weather...

... and I could not be more pleased about it.  Yesterday was the first real chilly day we had in Portland, and I'm looking forward to wearing sweaters (quite possibly my favourite article of clothing) and jeans and boots to my humanities conferences.  Fall is quite possibly my favourite season - I love the bite in the air, and I love hiking in the Presidential Mountains over Columbus Day Weekend and seeing the New Hampshire forests on fire.  I love apple-picking, and I love apple cider and cold morning when my father lights the fire in the woodstove in our kitchen.  This fall, I'm not sure I'll get to do or experience any of those things - here in the Pacific Northwest, fall through spring is the rainy season, and it's mainly an experience of wet, cold air, of hot coffee and hot-water bottles in bed.  I'm looking forward to this just as much: I'll go home for a week in October, so hopefully I'll get my fall in New England fix, and I'm excited to find out what fall is like here!
Anyone who has lived in the Pacific Northwest have any suggestions?

(something about this photo seemed so sweet.  From here.)

Blood

Yesterday I donated blood.  There was a blood drive at school, and I skipped lunch to donate.  It's pretty incredible to make somewhat of a difference by just lying down for half an hour - however, if you're the type who feels faint for the rest of the day (like me), don't do it.  They probably don't want your blood anyways, and there are other things you can do to help.  And it will result in your lovely dormies doing things like carrying you home (this is very embarrassing; don't let it happen) if you do in fact donate.
Have you given blood before?  Did you faint?

Dormies

My armchair and ottoman.  The book on the arm of the chair is the pocket Oxford French-English dictionary and in no way could fit into a pocket.

Everyone has their people at college.  For my parents, it was their group of friends at Foley House (and some guy named Omar?  Mum and Daddy, am I getting this right?) and for my darling Kuzu, it's her customs group.  For me, almost two weeks in, it's my dormies.
Reedies like to put "ies" on the end of everything.  If you go to my school, you're a Reedie.  If you're a prospective student, you're a prospie.  If you live with me in Chittick, you're my dormie.  Living in Chittick - a building that can apparently be taken apart with a screwdriver - is one of my favourite things about college.  Here, my people are excellent.  We live in the gourmet dorm and so last night M made tongue tacos and G made fresh bread and garlic oil and A made carbonated grapes (more on how to carbonate grapes later, I promise).  I love eating meals with my dormies, I love talking on the balcony to E and T (I'm really not sure if they want their names on the Internet, so you'll have to bear with me on the whole alphabet soup thing), I love it when W comes into my bedroom and stretches out in the armchair and we talk about boys and French homework.
Really, I love the community that my dormies and I have made.  They are kind and lovely people, who make dinner with you and quiz you on your French words and yell at people who are mean for you.  It's kind of like a surrogate family - when A makes sourdough bread it's a strange crossover to when my father and I used to do that in our kitchen, and when N yells at someone for being a jerk I am immediately reminded of my darling brother.  So thank you, my dormies, for making Reed a home away from Cambridge, and for helping me find a family on the other side of the country.

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.