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.

Greetings from Swatland. I am, in fact, alive. Although it's been close.

Finals are pretty killer. Four papers, and one exam for me. Luckily, I'm pretty proud of how disciplined I've been and I don't think I'll be too pressed for time. So no stress, but a lot of mental fatigue.

I have actually done some fun stuff this past week, though. I went to the winter jazz performance students played in- so cool. I don't know what good jazz is, but it sounded pretty to me. I also went to the a cappella concert featuring all of our a cappella groups. I hadn't been to one yet, and it was obviously mind-boggling. I was expecting some holiday songs, and was a little disappointed but it was bomb nonetheless. And then two days ago I went to a mini theatre performance. Different students did about 5 different scenes from different plays. It was a good variety, and made me think some more about acting. I think I want to take a theatre class here, maybe next year.

It's been raining all day today. Doesn't it know it's supposed to snow, not rain? I think the weather is having a bit of an identity crisis. Hah. Stupid joke.

Speaking of identity crisis...my roommate is forcing us to go Christmas caroling sometime next week. Only she's Jewish. Haha. It makes me laugh. She also wants to write her first letter to Santa. It actually looks kind of terrible...like the conquering Christians are at it again. Only it's really not. It's all her. But I guess she's going to teach me a thing or two about Hanukkah so I'm excited for that.

3 essays down, 1 and some studying to go.

Hope you all are enjoying your snow. or lack there of.

Loveeeeee.

Hola.

It's mee. In the library. Reallly not wanting to start on my finals. And thinking about you guys.

I had a sweet day today. Only one class, then met a girl on the soccer team I haven't seen in awhile for lunch. After lunch Alex and I played some tennis... we hit around for bit, did some serving and then played a few matches. He's in a tennis class for PE here and took our outing a little more serious then I was expecting. It was fun though, we got pretty competitive, but in the end he pretty much swept me. Although we are like the exact same skill level. It was just his day I guess. After tennis we swam at the indoor pool on campus and it was awesome. Just breaking the mold of the everyday routine. But in effect I didn't get much work done so now I'm paying for it.

I also went to work for an hour today. I got a job at the cage, if I haven't mentioned already. Pretty laid back... you just fold all the athletes laundry for however long you want to and talk (or listen) to the older guy that works full time in there while he watches you fold. Today I probably listened for 20 minutes about a scandal with the track uniforms. I honestly couldn't even tell you what he said. I have no idea.

Oh yeah, it was 60 degrees today. In December. It's nutsss. Nuts. But supposedly people are saying it's supposed to snow this weekend. So we'll see.

Lovve you guys.

Jeeeeesh. It's been a while. It's the first day back from break!And it sucks. It was so great to be home but that amount of time wasn't enough to miss school and more than enough to make me want to stay with family. Ugh. And these next three weeks are going to be intense. The definition of intense. But in a way I'm kind of excited to be likened to one of those olden day torturing machines that stretches your arms and legs in different directions until... i guess I don't actually know what the end result is. Well, in my case, hopefully a lot of cerebral stretching.

Haha that made no sense at all.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was a blast. Travel was pretty smooth for the most part and I got rides to and from the airport, making life so much easier. Jeff, Lynne, Trey, Payton, Grandma, John and Sandy came over for a big family affair, complete with way too much food, watching football, throwing the football, and playing cards. Wish we could have been with the Browns and Nonna and Papa too, but it sounded like they had a great day in tropical Arizona. I finally got to see my second Husker game of the season but there's no doubt where I'll be for the Big XII championship. That's right, monopolizing the dorm's TV surrounded by pushy Lost addicts. Right when I got back to Swat it was back to the old routine. Stayed up till 3:30 am writing a paper, went to class, and gave my first presentation of my college career.

I said "ethnograful." Instead of "ethnographical." Hahahah. Whatever. It went allright.

But I'm going to lunch with my roomie and a friend so I promise I won't be such a slacker at this anymore.

Byeee.

Yelloo strangers. Dang I miss you guys.

Just finished up class for the day and am thinking of seriously throwing down on some work. For those of you shamefully not following Swat Women's soccer, we lost in the first round of the conference tournament. It was pretty disappointing just because we had so much potential. The game unfortunately ended in a shootout going scoreless in overtime. A couple minutes before regulation time one of my teammates hit the crossbar on a shot but it evened out their crossbar shot earlier in the game. It's whatever though. I'm already pumped for next season and am curious to know what the off season is going to be like. Not having the seniors there next year is really going to suck, though. Really fun group of girls. Pretty awesome season.

I'm not sure I can really report on anything outside of doing work and soccer... I took a little trip to the Goodwill and I got a cooking pan, a sweater, snow boots and an old Polaroid camera. So that was very exciting. When I was checking out my treasures a man behind me saw my film camera and we started talking and he said he has a few lenses he wants to get rid of that would work for my camera and some interesting film he likes to mess around with. We have one big event on campus every semester which is usually bringing in a pretty big band and that's going on Saturday. Girltalk is the band coming, whom I don't know much of but kids here are really fired up about it so I'm really looking forward to it. From my understanding it's a dj-esk guy who mixes different music together, a really popular style right now. Yeah, it'll be fun. Aaaaand because we don't have a soccer game this weekend I get to see the Husker game! Hecckk yeah. Iz also wants to go to this apparently amazing house this guy made entirely out of cement and they give tours and stuff? I don't really get it but it'll probably be another one of her elaborate schemes she drags me off to. So it's guaranteed to be good.

Still flying under the radar of the swine, although more people are getting it everyday. Let's see if I can keep it that way. Hope everyone else is staying healthy. Lovee.

Sorry I'm such a failure at this...I've been busy? Ahh that's no excuse.

As far as soccer goes, we had a really big couple of conference wins and then lost a doozy. That put us in a scary position for the conference tournment, but after some other loses by teams we officially have a bid. I'm so excited because I know we can beat every team in our conference. If we play well. That's a big IF.

School has been pretty nuts lately... 4 am, 6 am, 4 am nights. So i turned in two papers and then did absolutely no work yesterday because I could. Today it's back to the old routine, though. The leaves here are amazing by the way. Just glanced out my window and it's pretty freakin incredible. Fall in an arboretum? Can't get much better. Everyday there are more students here infected with the swine flu. There are a couple in the basement of my dorm and one on my hall, that I know of. It's freaking me out. If you are confirmed to have it you get quarenteened in a room in the health center. No way am I doing that so keep your fingers crossed for me. 

A couple nights ago I went to the opening night midnight showing of the Michael Jackson "This is it" movie. It was pretty incredible- the background dancer's saying what it meant to work with him, all of the rehearsal footage, seeing the artist in his element doing what he has made such an impact on. It was awesome. Now in the next couple days I'll be finishing up work and getting my Halloween costume together. The seniors have decided we are going to be S.W.A.T. team officers, like the cute play on words because our school is called Swat. The idea is a lot better than the costume is going to look. A couple freshman and I walked to Target yesterday and bought black gloves and hats and t-shirts while we ran into a few girls from our school not on the team who had legitimate S.W.A.T. gear in their Toys-R-Us bags. So basically we're going to be shown up hardcore. But whatever. I'm going to see if I can make one of those bullet belts and maybe a few other accessories. We'll see.

Off to the dining hall and then borrowing a bike to go on a little ride with a friend.

Love and miss you guys.