Well. This is for anyone that might've had the crazy idea that I'd write before the school year was over. Honest to gosh I forgot about this until about 5 minutes ago. So I won't be offended if you did too.

Basically...spring's here and I'm lovinggg it! The warm weather makes writing a paper better. I'm not quite sure how but it does. And the flora around this place... INCREDIBLE. It truly is. I am in awe on a daily basis. In the spirit of which, I've actually put one of my earlier goals into action. A couple days ago I started a notebook of my... field notes, I guess I would like to call them. That is, my own classification system of the plants and trees around campus, including [horrible] sketches, [ridiculously wordy] descriptions, and [extremely off] measurements. Also part of my regimen is to climb the tree if possible, smell, touch, taste?, haha I don't know. Oh, and to also say "Hello (name of the plant)" every time I walk past it. And in the spirit of simple-mindedness I've decided not to go to the internet for any part of it. I thought about doing a little bit of researching after every plant I added, but then decided it'd be more fun to do it all by first hand experience. After all, I'm behind a computer screen or a book most of my days so this is a much-needed form of learning.

ANYWAY. Enough of that.

Spring soccer is pretty awesome. We practice only a few times a week and it's great to have a lot of the girls back together. The weather has again added in making it all the more pleasurable. I just had a crazy past week, turning in 3 papers, but finished it off with a great weekend. A couple friends and I went to a reggae concert in Philly on Friday, a band I had never heard of who ended up playing mostly Beatles covers during the show. It was actually really cool. Then on Saturday, Iz's mom was in town so a couple kids from Swat and myself went out to this French restaurant to meet her. Very cool lady, and not what I expected for Iz's mom. Although it did hit me on the train to meet Iz and her mom that I hadn't thought much about her having a mom at all in the first place. So that was an interesting realization.

This week I'm finishing up and submitting a video for a contest dad e-mailed me about. Iz and I filmed all of it at her farm house and the video has the potential to be pretty weird/stupid or surprisingly okay. We'll see. And then I also want to try and push some summer plans a little further. We will also see about that one.

Because of my horrible blogging abilities, and because I know you all have been sitting patiently in front of your computers for me to post something... here are a few pictures from our camping trip one of my friends took. I was going to attach some posters I made for the environmental group I'm in but for some reason they don't want to.

Love you , miss you.

ps the blonde who's rock climbing is IZ not ME. I wish..

And that's it for Spring Break.

I've been mourning all day.

But Georgia was aweesome. We drove all through the night Saturday and arrived around 10 am Sunday morning to set up camp on Pigeon Mountain. Surprisingly lots of campers there..mostly college students on spring break though, so maybe not so surprisingly. Anyway, there were 9 of us from every class (which I thought pretty cool), and nights around the campfire singing along with the mandolin, harmonica, and guitar, looking our absolute worst, made us a pretty tight group. There were some definite characters on the trip I'm not sure I ever would have hung out with otherwise. It was great. Lots of good memories. Our daytime activities were rock climbing, hiking, and spelunking. Three people in our group are big rock climbers so they did that almost everyday we were there. I think all of us gave it a shot, too. I gave it a bit of a lame attempt, I think because I didn't want to spend my limited time there learning something I won't do for maybe another year or so. That said, I went off exploring on my own, maneuvering over fields of rock and taking every couple of minutes to stretch out on one and doze off in the sun. I even found a flat-ish one to do some yoga on. Very serene. Spelunking was my favorite, though. I had no clue that was the official name, I would've called it 'weaseling your way around a cave.' Which is exactly what it is.

Six of us set off one day to find the cave we had been hearing about. The sign we came up to had us fill out a card with the time we went in and how many were in our group. Just in case we didn't happen to come back out. Looking through the pamphlets, I realized our ill-equipped-ness: no helmet, no knee pads, no first aid kid, no rope. What were we getting ourselves into? After dropping our card into the wooden box with little confidence it would be our saving grace were we to get lost in the abyss, we followed the trail. Shortly after we came up to around a 5 foot opening in the ground, kind of diagonally cut across the side of the mountain. You couldn't see at all down into it. There was no chance that was the opening, I insisted. We're not going down there. With my whining we walked a little further on the trail until the group decided that was definitely the entrance. We returned to it and sent one of our guys down it. He dropped his flashlight down into the dark. Well. I thought. What the heck. We figured out our order and entered the cave. It was very wet and muddy and you had to crouch down to make it through the first tunnel. But it immediately opened up into an incredible room with rubble everywhere. Complete with water dripping in the background. I made everyone turn off their lights for a couple seconds to put into perspective that we were in the pitch dark. It was crazzzy. We picked up a joke of a map where we filled out our card but it didn't help at all. It just added to the terror with names like "Pulverizers Squeeze" and "The Bat Room". We searched the room and dropped down into little passages to look for a continuing tunnel, but with little luck. I finally ventured upward over some boulders and found one and we were off. It was so much fun from there on. We were shimming down narrow passageways, loosing our shoes in the mud, crawling on all fours. Ahh it was so much fun. I want to look for caves closer to do a lot more spelunking in the future.

But now I'm in a different kind of cave. McCave. Which is what our library McCabe is known as. And I'm doubting this one will be much fun.

Love.

So it's the first day of spring break.

And a couple days ago I decided to go with the Outsiders club, the outdoors club on campus, to Georgia for 5 days. It's a twelve hour drive and we're leaving in less than an hour! I just packed all my stuff up with the determination of packing light, making sure everything was absolutely necessary and...

ended up with a huge duffle bag.

I'm a little embarrassed because I'm sure the rest of the kids with have the clothes on their back and water bottle. Okay, that's an exaggeration but something like that.

I'll be sure to write when I get back. I've packed 6 books so it's not like I'm taking a break from my studies.. sadly. But it beats reading in the library.

Love you guys, miss you guys.

love.

Whata past couplea days.

I had one of my friend's cut my hair. Of course it curled up while she was cutting it and I now have a very interesting curly bob-ish. But whatever, hair is hair. Actually made me a little nostalgic.. bringing me back to the disastrous days of mom's haircuts. :]

I gave blood the other day. It took 17 minutes to fill up the little bag, which is the upper-end of the time limit according to Willis (the guy attending to me). But it was actually an interesting time because the older 80s music they were playing mixed with the strange room we were in made for a really eerie setting. At one time Thriller came on and a good number of the workers were doing the dance, while students were lying on the blue beds, blood draining from their bodies. Haha I don't know, I was amused.

Today Iz and I biked into Philly. The ride there through run down burroughs seemed pretty dang long and tiring. But also cool to see the gradient of change from Swarthmore to downtown Philly. Once we got downtown, the adrenaline kicked in. Iz zips around so it was a challenge at times to keep up, but made it even more fun. It was a totally different perspective on the city being on a bike. You're part of the streamline of dizzy traffic, but also have an autonomy that the cars and taxis don't have taking crosswalks, backways, sidewalks. Really exciting.

But the point of going was to join some of our classmates outside the Philadelphia Convention Center where the International Flower Show was being held. That was the site of our protest against mountain top removal, an incredibly destructive form of coal mining in mountains that yields a very small amount of coal. We were at the flower show because PNC is a bank that funds the event. PNC also happens to lend money to and handle the transactions of major coal companies that practice mountain top removal. Our little group was outside of the convention center, with a guitar and banjo, singing renditions of She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain and other mountain themed songs, with our own twists on them targeting PNC. We were also handing out sheets of paper that said "Where have all the flowers gone on Appalachia? Ask PNC."

So that was an experience too. I miss you guys. I've been thinking a lot about summer lately and I can't wait. Spring break plans are formulating.. all I know is it shall be grand.

Lovee

Jeez people, I'm really sorry. I don't know what my problem is.

Tonight I'm parked in my bed in the dorm. I'm sick of the library and we're supposed to get snow starting tonight. So that's also just great. Not too long ago Nat and I had a great skype sesh.. I always go into it thinking oh, 20 minutes or so, just catch up..but no. An hour. But, what can we do? She was glad to hear the news that she had played a persuasive role in: I've decided I'm going to spend the summer at home. The original plan was to look for a more serious internship in NY or NJ or stay in Philly, all with friends I've met here, but there will be time for that. My summers at home (and time, in general) are winding down. Regrettably. So that's that. I think I can still do some cool stuff even though I won't have the fancy schmancy NYC internship. That's overrated anyway, right?

I think my roommate and I just ate possibly the worst pizza ever made. She claims it's better then the other $5-large pizza place. I disagree. And know we're taking a break from work to watch a Seinfeld episode online. Oh, college.

The big event today was my first day of tutoring in Chester. Chester is the town right down the road from happy, cozy little Swarthmore with a pretty sad story. A very brief background is that it used to be a boomtown pre-WWII until something happened. That something is still something I'm trying to figure out, but basically urban sprawl choked the city, it became riddled with violence and poverty, and the place where happy, cozy Swarthmore sends all of their trash. It's really a devastating sight. Anyway, I got dropped off at a little church (there are around 500 in the town), holes in the stainglass, graffiti on the building. But the kids were amazing. I'm seriously in love. I was basically in charge of the girls that were there and they made me work for it. My arms were yanked every which way to help with spelling, fractions, and word searches. My hair was put up for me. I tried my hand at double dutch. They're actually a pretty motivated group, as far as I can tell. The church staff is in part to thank for that. They are quite amazing. I'll be going back every Wednesday evening for about an hour and a half, but I wish it were more often. Not that I really have the time. It is such a breath of fresh air to be around kids, and the energy they radiate. Ahh I love it. I'm so excited.

I also signed up to work at the mobile co-op in town. In the whole city of Chester they do not have one grocery store. It's unfathomable, really. And I'm again unsure of why. We got a whole packet of info on Chester before we started so when I get a minute I'll look more in depthly and report back.

MIssyou LOveyou.

And... more snow.

SNOWWDAAYY. Well, not quite. A lot of students had class today, but I happened to be one of the lucky few who got class canceled for the day and slept until 1. Beautiful.

On the topic of beauty, I can't remember ever seeing a snow like this. It's literally been a 24-hour blizzard. Blizzard is the word the weather forecast used. And they weren't lying. Everything is white and so gorgeous. Emily and I went romping around in the Crum woods as soon as I got up. I took some video footage, we made a snowman in the middle of a clearing, and basically just walked in awe. I actually don't really understand it. Supposedly it's supposed to keep snowing up until 2 am so we'll see what that does for class tomorrow. I've got a bunch of stuff coming up school-wise so I'm sure my profs will want to have class.

What else, what else. I forgot to tell you about the ceremony we... took part in? enacted? celebrated? Anyway, it's called the Council of All Beings, and it's a "re-earthing" ritual. Our class walked single file out of the classroom and through the Crum woods into an open clearing. The whole walk was in silence. We were to take some part of nature that we saw, a leaf, a tree, an owl, and become that something. Think the thoughts of that something. If they could talk about the human-inflicted destruction of themselves, what would they say? We formed a circle and stood looking around for what seemed like an hour. No one spoke. But when someone felt "moved" they were to start with "I am ____" and talk as that thing about the destruction by humans. When the person was done speaking the whole group replied, "We hear you ____." It was all very interesting. I was a vine.

Officially think Swat is a loony bin? Probably pretty accurate.

Miss you love you.

SnowSnowSnow.

It has been snowing non-stop since yesterday evening and all through the night. We have a pretty incredible view from our dorm room. Only I keep having to wipe the fog off of our window because my clothes are hanging out to to dry on the clothesline in our room. Makes for a pretty stuffy room. :/

Anyway, there's a campus-wide snowball fight at 4:30 and you can guarantee I'll be there. Also it's apparently tradition that you sneak trays out from the dining hall and go sledding with them. So I'm going to try my hand at that as well.

This past week was absolutely insane. I've never felt more on-the-go in my life. Looking back, I don't even know what exactly made it so crazy but I'll tell you, it was. I turned in my first lengthy paper in my Arts as Social Change class, consisting of an interview of a gentlemen on campus who has a pretty remarkable story to tell. I'm decently proud of the final product. I've also been working quite a bit on stuff for Earthlust, the environmental club here. I'm on board with the war on waste initiative, so our goal is to eliminate excessive end-of-the-line waste from campus. Pretty exciting stuff for me. I can't wait to see it actually get in motion.

Today is my friend Ari's birthday and because of the snow we can't get off campus to go anywhere, but we're planning on making the best of what we've got right here at our dear Swarthmore. Iz and I are thinking about making her a crazy cake. We'll see. There's also a Photoshop meeting today..I wonder if it's still on. Finalllllly a dark room I can use. Awwh yeah. We're having a "fancy party" with the soccer team tonight. Basically it's fancy because we're dressing up. I'm pretty jazzed about it.

I never heard from Dad or Becca last night so I'm dying to know how the art show went.. ehhem. Meanwhile I'll just blog away until they find time to call me. Oh and for Nonna to e-mail me. C'mon gang. :]

kidding.

Love youuuu.

Hey there. So it's 1 am and I've just opened the e-mail containing the person I am supposed to assassinate. Well, not really. But really.

I decided to join in on this game that goes on between my dorm and one other. It's called Assassins and basically you get the name of a person also playing the game and from that time you have three days to "assassinate" them. To assassinate the person you have to... grab the persons butt. Like a serious, 2-handed grab. Haha it's going to be so weird. There are of course rules, like no assassinating in the bathroom, your room, etc. Once you assassinate the person they give you the name of their person they were supposed to assassinate. If you don't do it in the three days, the "death squad" comes after you to assassinate you. Which actually reallly freaks me out. They have no rules. If i know they're coming for me I'm dropping out. Anyway, the girl i must kill lives in the basement of my building so I'm plotting. Haha just a weird Swarthmore thing.

Life's been pretty nuts lately. Iz and I decided to go up to NYC for the day Saturday which was super nice. To get away from campus and... it's just New York. Iz knows NY really well so we just sauntered up and down Broadway and Amsterdam, popping into cafes, we went to Rockafeller Center. That was originally the whole reason I wanted to go to NY but just watching the ice skaters was good enough for me. I walked away with fourteen dollars, smugly awaiting some delicious baked good.

Friday I finally broke in the new video camera, shooting some random scenes with my friends. It was a lot of fun, but really some pretty bizarre footage. I don't even know if I get it.

My workload is starting to scare me... I had an interesting first Spanish test and possibly my first oral quiz tomorrow? No one really knows for sure. I had to write a paper for Spanish tonight containing some themes of a story we read in class. I twisted the story to fit into an episode of The Office. It amused me but I'm not sure what Señora will think.

Miss y'all.

Happy birthday moma :]

Hola.

I'm mumbling spanish vocabulary in a deserted coffee bar with Iz doing work next to me, when I thought, whooops haven't written in awhile. The weekend flew by and so have the first couple days of the week. On Saturday I took a field trip to Chester, the town about 5 miles (?) or so down the road. The bus pulled past the familiar banner of green lawns and beautiful old architecture until the road bled into a different sight. Trash led the way up the broken stoops of the subsidized houses of Chester. It might as well have been worlds apart from my charming college life. We spoke a lot to a panel of older community leaders, ate soul food in one of the 200 churches in the town and went on a modest tour of the town via school bus. Given the time it was a brief introduction but we were sent home with a folder of information. The town really has quite the story.

Anyway, I will be volunteering there for a class that requires us to do so (community based learning) either tutoring kids after school or working at the co-op. The town does not have one grocery store, meaning they do not have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. It's really unbelievable. I can't wait to start.

Other than that, I've been doing homework and spending late nights with my video camera. I've also been checking out various clubs on campus. Yesterday I went to an Earthlust meeting, the environmental group, and tonight was the Sudan Radio Project and Tango lessons. There are millions of clubs and I don't know what I'll end up doing. The radio show seems pretty unbeatable, though. Ayyy yi yi still trying to get back into the swing of things.

Miss vuu.

Heey.

In anticipation of the remarkably long nights I will be pulling very soon, I've decided not to wait. I stay up so late doing pretty much nothing. So this will serve as the blogging time slot. Perfect.

I surprised myself with a little school spirit tonight. After dinner I hopped on the fan bus as it was pulling away from the school to go to the men's basketball game against Haverford. Basically everyone in our conference we have a rivalry with, but for some reason this one is particularly serious. My, how I've missed cheering at sporting events. Telling #21 he looks like Colonel Sanders. Doing my part on D ("D-FENCE"). The game did get pretty heated between the two student sections. We were directly across from each other so that didn't help the situation. Of course, we lost, our team is something like 2-17, but not without chanting the apparently classic "Safety School" to the Haverford fans in response to "Na na na naaaa."

I reallllly like my classes. Like, really. But instead of Globalization which had a prerequisite I did not have, I'm taking an intro Philosophy class. It's called Truth and Desire and I think it'll be pretty interesting. The professor just looks like she was born to teach philosophy. Cute short hair. Older woman. Small frame. Sweaters. Oversized glasses. And boy does she love her some Socrates. Anyways, it's a kick. And thankfully not a lot of shallowly profound jabbering. If something of that sort leaps out of my mouth I'm going to have to give myself a knock on the head.

I think Iz and I are going to go for a bike ride tomorrow and maybe shoot some video. yay. Friday there is a meeting for a program to work with refugees in Columbia over the summer. I hope it's encouraging because I really want to do some cool things this summer. alksjf. We'll see. Miss you guys.

I'm baaaack. Yes it's true. Back by popular demand, The Swat Life has rebooted to serve as your eye into my experiences in Pennsylvania at the charming institution of Swarthmore College. Alllright enough with the cheeseballs and excessive prepositional phrases. Makin me sick.

Nat dropped me off at the airport yesterday after a month back in Nebraska. I can't even believe it was yesterday just as much as I can't believe it's been a month. Travel was murkey. Murkey seems like the perfect word, but I have no idea what it would exactly entail. But finally I arrived, ditched my suitcases in my dorm room, and ran in the rain to join friends in another dorm. Amidst general questions and the even more general responses that come from long separations, it was so good to see the people I've met. It makes me realize the relationships I have already begun to form. Mmcheesy. We proceeded to go to dinner together, bounce from dorm to dorm, and after a few games of Shanghai called it a night.

My class schedule was in interesting shape, but long story short the lineup for the semester is:

Intensive Intermediate Spanish

Political Science: Globalization

Religion and Ecology

The Arts as Social Change

I'm pretty dang excited. Syllabi are as far as most teachers get these first couple days so I'm living it up while I can. After class today I took my sweet time over some peanut noodles, milled around the Bookstore, picked up my new video camera from the mail (soo excited), and went on a run with two of my soccer buddies through town in beautiful 50-or-so degree weather. Glorioussss.

In the evening my good friend Iz and I caught up a little more in depthly, and decided to commemorate the holiday by watching a few of MLK's speeches on youtube. We figured it was the least we could do after the ludicrosity (ludacrisity? ludacrosisity?) of beginning classes today. The nerve. A few of us then decided to check out the meditation club that meets three times a week on campus. The senior that leads it is hilarious and has been practicing meditation for a heck of a long time. Bony Chinese dude with dreadlocks, also head of the Buddhist Club, unaffiliated with the meditation club. They usually sit in a circle on meditation pillows for thirty minutes straight (in meditation, of course) and then closes by eating chocolate or something of the sort. No, but they're actually pretty legit. They didn't have enough pillows so I sat on a chair which turns out to be quite brutal when you have to sit on the edge, maintaining good posture. Because there were quite a few noobs joining today's session, we did two separate intervals of fifteen and ten minutes each. In the opening few seconds I thought I was going to burst out laughing, but I composed myself and really enjoyed the challenge of quieting the mind. All in all, I think I will be frequenting the meditation club.

I'm sorry that when I do post, they're ridiculously long. It just turns out that way. For the remainder of the night I'll be tinkering with my new camera while on the lookout for stinkbugs that have set up shop in our room. It's really not as bad as it sounds. They're friendly fellers that I let go out the window. An exchange that some could say parallel my past boyfriends. Haha wow. Too much?. Yes. Gooodnight.

Love.