Raindrops keep falling on my head...

The first rainstorm of the spring has arrived! I find this terribly exciting. Umbrellas sprout across campus in various hues--yellow, bright red, polka dot, navy, black. Campus is refreshed. Gone are the last vestiges of snow and slush. The air is warm and fragrant with a hint of growth to come. Standing beneath a pine tree after a hard rain is heavenly. The crisp tang of evergreen, the delicate beads of moisture clinging to needles. Nothing makes me happier except possibly the sight of worms poking through good black earth. Now I can believe in my heart that spring is really here.

I began weaving my overshot today. My design has proven slightly larger than I had anticipated but I guess it doesn't matter. It is only a table runner after all. It feels good to finally be weaving on the loom. Nothing I hate more than setting the whole thing up. Painstaking and time-consuming work. But that is momentarily behind me. Now I can focus my attention on the process of weaving, which is most enjoyable. It goes pretty quickly too. I am already almost done with my first band of pattern. Not too shabby since the rest will be broadcloth.

I spent most of Saturday outdoors, which was incredibly uplifting. I didn't plan on taking three walks around town. It just sort of happened but what a pleasant diversion. I woke early on Saturday and decided to take a walk around the neighborhoods bordering campus. It was a lovely day--sunny and warm. The streets were sleepy, hardly anyone stirred. After lunch I went for another walk with my friends down to the Rock River. Mallards were swimming and a lone fisherman sat on a picnic bench casting. We ended up downtown and walked back to campus via the park. Naturally we stopped to swing and play on the equipment. Across the street we could see the campus Poetry Garden where a youth group had gathered with a bunch of balloons that they released before we left. A chaotic and lovely scene with all the different colors drifting away, fading into the horizon. After dinner my friends and I headed down to the Pleasant Street Coffeehouse to relax and read their fascinating coffee table books. If I have one piece of advice for incoming freshmen it is as follows: take advantage of gorgeous days by exploring off campus. You never know what you might discover.

Between the Doors

It is strange being at work while the sun shines and students frolic outside on the muddy grass. How I long to join my peers in a game of frisbee or tag on the burial mounds but alas, I have my occupational duties to attend to. It has been a lovely spring day in Beloit with temps in the 50s and minimal breezes. One can't help but be cheerful about such lovely weather in the Midwest, especially as winter seems particularly persistent this year. Again we are to expect some slushy snow/rain tomorrow with highs in the 30s. Lame.

It is advising week on campus so students are busy picking out classes for next fall and stopping in to see their academic advisers for signatures. Nothing like mapping out the future to get a person excited about life. There will be a new academic schedule next fall that will cause all the upperclassmen endless confusion for the first couple weeks but the incoming freshmen will be savvy from the get-go. Lucky freshmen. I get to bypass the entire process next fall since I will be off campus but will have to deal with the change come spring semester. I looked at the fall course offering for fun even though I won't be on campus and it seems like there will be quite a fascinating array of classes. I'm a little jealous actually. Some of the classes look pretty neat. Ah well. There will be other fall semesters for me, though not many.

Speaking of the future, my FYI is getting together for a reunion dinner this Thursday at my adviser's house just up on Chapin Street. We're ordering in pizza, catching up on old times, and getting advice on choosing a major if we haven't already done so. I guess I'm going more for the free food and company than for the advice but it never hurts to have a second opinion. I liked my first year advisor though I haven't taken any other classes with her besides FYI. This dinner and the major declaration fair will portend the end of the SYI program and help wrap up my first two years at Beloit. A little sad but I'm excited for what the future holds--a semester in Chicago and the Real World.

One Foot in the Door

Life is a folly. Beloit's delicious spring weather has met an untimely end in a cold snap that brought another couple inches of snow to campus on Friday and has yet to leave. Many students refuse to face the reality of the momentarily winter-like visage of Wisconsin and walk around in scanty clothing and play frisbee in the slush. While I long to wear flip flops and short skirts again I am not foolish enough to pretend it isn't cold in a futile defiance of the weather. I wore my boots to Madison this weekend and was shocked to see UW students prancing around puddles in sandals and capris. Crazy.

I went home with a college friend to celebrate Easter. While I really longed to go home, Beloit doesn't designate any time off for the holiday so I joined someone else's family temporarily. We left campus on Saturday morning to catch the Van Galder bus to Madison. For $7 we were able to purchase round trip tickets to Madison through Student Activities. No one can beat that price--it is unbelievably low. We arrived in Madison around 2 PM and headed to Middleton, where my friend's family resides. For the uninitiated, Middleton was named the best city in America to live in last year. I have journeyed to Middleton twice and while it is cute and friendly I don't know if it is the best city in America. After all it is only a suburb of Madison, WI. Everything is subjective, however. At the house we began the preparations for Easter dinner--veggie lasagna for the vegetarians which include only my friend and me.

We hit the town and shopped along Monroe Avenue in Madison which I have visited on several occasions. There are a lot of cute stores on that stretch of street and we meandered in and out of several. We enjoyed dinner on State Street at Frida's, a lovely Mexican restaurant named in honor of the painter that features fabulous chips and giant murals of Kahlo's paintings. We went for an evening drive along the back roads of Middleton where farmland still dominates. It was peaceful and beautiful. Dusk was settling along the hills with towering clouds tinged blue and purple. We stopped at a couple old country churches to admire the architecture before heading back to my friend's home. The evening was spent watching a silly movie with my friend's little brother and enjoying ice cream sundaes.

Sunday I awoke early to my friend and her brother peeking into the guest room and urging me to get up and hunt for Easter baskets. In this household the Easter Bunny hides the baskets and everyone must search for theirs. I was still pretty sleepy but I rolled out of bed and trudged up the stairs. The hunt was on. Everyone quickly found their respective baskets and enjoyed the spoils. My friend's parents are especially generous people and included me in this annual chocolate smorgasbord. We ate breakfast quickly and headed to church. The choir sang the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah, which I absolutely love. Back at the house, relative began trickling in and introductions were made. Lunch was at 1:00. Our bus didn't leave until 4 so we entertained ourselves with conversation and looking at old Beloit College year books from when my friend's stepdad attended. He graduated in 1987 and it was hilarious to see which professors from today were traipsing around campus in the 80s. Some departments were much smaller back in '87 and the majority of professors were male but other than that, not much has changed at Beloit. Similar student body and attitudes. But what fun it is to unearth the past.

We were back on campus by 6 and I spent my evening catching up with folks back home, comparing festivities and weekend plans. This has been my second weekend in a row to leave campus for fun and relaxation in a neighboring city. Now I am besieged by wanderlust and want nothing more than to explore the area around Beloit. Dangerous times, spring. In only six weeks I will be finishing up my second year at Beloit and while I am nervous about all I must accomplish during this time, I am filled with wordless excitement. Hurray!

Spring colds and other fun

So today I feel a little like Death--or a rusted leaky sink. Spring colds have hit campus full blast this week. My journalism professor was pretty sick last night but refused to cancel class out of pure stubbornness. He hasn't once canceled class due to illness in all his years of teaching so, by gum, he wasn't about to start. I woke up to mental fog and utter exhaustion this morning but popped two aspirins and dragged myself to class. I am also stubborn when it comes to skipping class--or work, especially since we are understaffed this evening. I am the only SOI on duty tonight so hopefully I can hold the fort together. Should be interesting anyway.

All I seem to do is warp looms. In weaving class I am beginning two projects simultaneously and as such have been consumed with the tedious process of warping two rickety harness looms. Warping involves working with thin strings and poking them through metal vents without tangling or otherwise harming them. In truth, not terribly exciting. Makes me wish I had an apprentice that I could assign to the task. Alas, in this class, I am the apprentice! As I bend over the loom, fiddling with thread, visions of Silas Marner dance in my head. That was not supposed to rhyme actually but I guess I'll keep it out of sheer laziness.

I am currently working on writing a delicious new essay about family vacations. I begin with my pink cowboy boots--emblematic of the era when I fancied myself a sheriff and occasional outlaw back in '93. This obsession with cowboys permeated childhood vacations because my father also loved the idealized West and so we practiced our own form of Manifest Destiny, eventually making it to Oregon in '98. Writing about travel is truly fascinating, which is why I love my creative nonfiction class. My professor has a personal interest in travel writing (like Bill Bryson!) and encourages the class to use writing as a path to discovery. Also, the fact that he bakes cookies for his students doesn't hurt.

Shootin' the Breeze

It was hailing/sleeting on my walk over to Admissions this evening. Just a friendly reminder that winter hasn't lost its grip on Wisconsin quite yet. Soon thunderstorms and gentle rain will take the place of ice slicks and sleet. I can hardly wait.

This past weekend has been chockfull of entertainment so I have plenty to write about tonight. First of all, Friday night was deliciously low-key. I went to see a documentary that I've wanted to see for years called "The Real Dirt on Farmer John." Perhaps some of you have heard of it? Anyway, it's about a Beloit alum who runs an organic farm and CSA (community supported agriculture) in northern Illinois called Angelic Organics. I went to visit the farm with my FYI but didn't get to meet Farmer John. The documentary was shown in cooperation with the Spiritual Life program at Beloit and they served us popcorn in little cups. Pretty sweet. I went with a friend of mine. I'd recommend the film to anyone who can get their hands on a copy, especially if they are serious about spending the next four years of their life at Beloit.

After the film my friend and I went back to my dorm to hang out and chat. Soon another friend of ours wandered in and joined the party. We managed to polish off a bag of chips and a box of Girl Scout cookies--Samoas, my favorite. Conversation ran all over the spectrum from Ethiopian cuisine to modern farm policy. Typical Beloit night.

Saturday I went to Chicago with some other friends. We caught an early bus and arrived at O'Hare airport around 10 AM. My friend Alyssa's father lives in Chicago and was nice enough to offer his services as chauffeur around the city and crash pad. We each chose one place to see and he took us there while offering a history of the neighborhood and anecdotes. In the course of our stay we did the following:
1. Ate lunch in the Logan Square area at a Mexican restaurant called El Cid
2. Stopped at an ostentatious bakery called Pierre's with floor-to-ceiling marble, golden chandeliers, and the motto "Cakes to get married over!"
3. Popped into the Newberry Library to see where I will be spending my time next fall and toured their recent acquisitions
4. Shopped at a couple bead stores along Lincoln Avenue and stumbled into an aptly named used bookstore called "Books"
5. Drove down Devon Street to find a Russian bakery and discovered a Georgian one instead
6. Ate dinner at Giordano's pizza then ran over a mile to catch the 7:30 showing of "Juno"
7. Grabbed a hot fudge sundae at Margie's Candies where the Beatles stopped after one of their Chicago tours
8. Played a mean game of Scrabble

I don't believe that we could have packed more fun into one day than we managed to do. We returned to campus at 2:30 on Sunday and ate some Russian potato dumplings for dinner. Yum! Now it is back to the same old routine until next weekend when I'll skip town for an Easter gathering in Madison. I'm sensing a trend here...

Failure to Communicate

I am not often in the business of quoting "Cool Hand Luke" but today seems to warrant it. In my weaving class I just learned that I am required to weave a muppet. Okay, so maybe not a muppet per say, but we have to complete a project involving Swedish rya technique which produces fabric with a pile similar in appearance to muppet hair. In truth, weaving a muppet would actually be fun. I didn't realize that we had to use this technique for one of our final projects until this afternoon. I had rather hoped to use a rag rug, alpaca shawl, and overshot table runner to round out my projects. But no, rya must find its way into the picture. When my professor showed us a sample of the technique I was immediately reminded of shag rugs and Santa Claus tapestries with fluffy 3D beards. Not incredibly attractive but I will follow the rules and make a fluffy blanket for my sock monster. Such is the way of collegiate life.

Revisions, revisions, revisions. That is the mantra running through my head. I must turn in my first round of revisions for creative writing tomorrow and have the opportunity to revise my Brit Lit paper. The professor told me that I was in no way obligated to revise my lit paper since I would still receive a "pretty good grade on it" such as it is. What 'pretty good' means in terms of grading is a little fuzzy. We'll see how much time I have this weekend. Who 'we' is in this sentence is another mystery.

So Shanna and I have been arguing about whether Paul Newman is the most beautiful man alive. I say he is. She says he's not and Johnny Depp is like nectar. My friend Sarah describes Mr. Newman as a "big sack of nummy." I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Unfortunately some people are not as enlightened. Sorry Shanna.

Back in Beloit

Spring Break has already come and gone leaving a bunch of melting snow and catch-up work in its wake. I always think I'm going to get more done during a week than I actually can but I am resigned to the fact. Considering all the distractions that await me at home--can we just say adorable 4 month old nephew--it is amazing that I managed to accomplish everything that I needed to get done. But I am not going to blog about schoolwork. Rather I will regale you with the highlights of my journey north. So let's pretend that we are sitting together in a cozy coffee house drinking hot tea. I show you some pictures on my digital camera. Unfortunately I wasn't much of a shutterbug this past week so the majority of my pictures feature the local terrain around my house. A couple nephew shots are thrown in for good measure. Some sock monsters too. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What did I do over break? Well, I decided to hit the road and went back home to Minnesota. I took the trusty Greyhound from Madison and made it to St. Paul in record time thanks to my lead foot driver. It was sunny and bright in Minnesota, which made me happy. Wisconsin's grey skies were clouding up my spirits. While the past week was frigid and frostbite-inducing, I won't complain. I didn't go to Minnesota to sunbathe. Since I'm sure all the eccentricities of my break won't be of interest to anyone but myself I will only list the highlights. If you really want to hear a day-by-day account of my spring break, simply send me a SASE and I'll be sure to send you a copy of the daily record I kept for an article I'm writing for my journalism class. Here are the highlights:

1. Spent lots of time playing with my giggly and smiley nephew who spit up on me right before I left for the bus.
2. Ate lunch with my grandma every day that I was in Mankato and had scandalous conversations about family secrets.
3. Reunited with my best friend and vented about crowded living conditions, middle aged suitors, and unrequited love affairs.
4. Made a pair of sock monsters named Izzy and Irwin out of holey socks.
5. Discovered an amazing author--Michael Perry--and read his delightful memoir "Population: 485." Check. It. Out.
6. Danced with my cats.
7. Cooked Thanksgiving-esque reunion feasts for my immediate and extended family.
8. Went to the MN History Center and learned that Lutheranism is one of the 150 best things about Minnesota. Also saw Prince's Purple Rain outfit. That man is uber short.
9. Took an ambitious hike on the Sakatah State Trail in 11 degree weather. Daaang.
10. Hung out with my favorite people in the world watching movies, shopping for socks, cooking, and talking. Low key but so good.