Merry (late) Christmas!

Oh boy. So a week ago exactly, I left cold, frigid, windy Iowa to come to a slightly less cold but much less frigid Utah to spend Christmas with some of my mom's family. I've hardly been on the computer, but I figured I should probably update on here while I have a down moment. :D

So what have I done since my classes ended almost two weeks ago?

-Skiied in Utah (and was ran over by a kid on a snowboard)
-Played countless hours of the Sims 3: World Adventures
-Ran approximately 49 miles (not all at once!)
-Made friends with my cousin's dog
-Read 2.5 books (The Time Traveler's Wife, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and am reading People of the Book)
-Had two Christmases
-Been on two airplanes
-Spent way more time with my family than necessary ;)
-Bought text books!
-Daydreamed about next term
-SLEPT A LOT

So I hope everyone is having a nice break and had a good Christmas/winter holiday! I'll try to update at least once more before spring term begins! :D

Yay winter!

Yay winter!
Boo finals!

This weekend all I am doing is running, updating my blog and STUDYING LIKE CRAZY. I might eat a few meals. ;)

I am moving to a new room the day after my last final (last final: 11 am Monday, moving at 1 pm Tuesday), so I am double packing. Packing to go home for break and packing for moving all the stuff I don't need to bring home. I've also had to go through all my books from this term decide what to keep or get rid of and decide if I should sell them to the bookstore or sell them on Amazon. It seems like an obvious solution, since everyone rants about how the bookstore gives you no money back. But sometimes, the books you get at the bookstore are in the such bad shape that you can't sell them worth anything online OR the books just sell for cheap on Amazon (like... 64 cents) and aren't worth the hassle. I listed about 8 books on Amazon. No takers yet. ;P

I have found a great alternative to treadmills, however, though. No more Eby cardio room for me! There's an indoor track in Clark. I run in lane 3, which is 230 meters. I ran 4 miles on there today (28 laps). Tomorrow, my dad and I are going to run 9 miles on the track because the streets are too gross to run on. That's 63 laps. We're crazy. We know. But it beats the slush and the hot, hot, boring, boring treadmill! I currently worship that track. It's the only place I've been able to run all week thanks to the blizzard.

Now off to study important dead guys from Western Civilization! Yay!

SNOOOOOOOW!

IT IS SNOWING! Just in time for lots of indoors-time while I study, study and study some more for finals. It is the really nice, light, fluffy December snow, too. There's no wind thrusting snow into my eyes, there's no dangerous ice, it's just fluffy, nice snow. It's not even an "OH MY GOD I AM FREEZING!" temperature out yet, so it's a very pleasant walk to and from the library. :)

Here are some pictures. The first ones, I took last week. The second ones, I took this morning. Enjoy!

Dear Eby Weight room/Cardio room...

Dear Eby Weight Room/Cardio Room:

Please turn down the heat. I know it is nice to walk into a warm building when it is cold and blustery outside. But honestly. Running in a room that has basically no air flow when the heat is turned up to probably 70+ degrees? It's nearly unbearable. I prefer not to be drenched in sweat after running a mile and a half, nor do I enjoy having to stop my run 2 miles short because my calves are cramping because it is SO DARN HOT.

Thanks,

Kristine Gift

In other news: FINAAAAAALS! AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

WHERE DID THE TERM GO?!

Thanksgiving Break is over. It was nowhere nearly long enough. It was constantly go-go-go(!) between family and friends and work and running and sleep... but it was nice nonetheless. I got to see a few friends I haven't seen in (what feels like) forever, with promises to see them again come Winter Break, so I'm excited.

But now that I'm back, I have been thrust into the horror of what we call FIRST FINALS OF FRESHMAN YEAR!!!!!!!!!!! It's scary, I know. (Though one friend of mine gets to leave almost a week earlier than me because she doesn't have finals. I'm green with envy!) This week and next is totally crammed with papers, final review sheets, speeches/presentations... ack! I've taken to making step-by-step schedules for every day, including classes, meals, running time/showers, and homework run downs. It's worked pretty well so far (I'm managing to finally blog because it is on the schedule!).

Two weeks from now, and I'll be back home for a month. It's going to be awesome! Christmas is right around the corner (and between study sessions, I'll be doing a lot of online shopping... eek!) and it's supposed to snow tomorrow. :D Winter is almost here!!

PS: If anyone cares, I managed to win National Novel Writing Month! 50,067 words! I finished the 15th of November and neglected my novel the rest of the month. Can you say Decemb-o-wri-mo?

HOME!

I am home for Thanksgiving break! Since my parents live 10 minutes from campus, it's not hard to get here. I come home about every Sunday to hang out with the fam before/after I go to work at Hy-Vee. But now I get to actually come home. Sleep in my own bed for a while, sit on the big, warm couch, watch the big, pretty TV... ah... the joys of home.

It's strangely weird and exciting at the same time to be home. I get to shower without wearing flip flops. I can sleep in basically complete darkness and sleep without worrying about anyone else hearing my morning alarm. But now I have to pack a TON of stuff to... come home? I am so firmly rooted in my room at Coe that it's almost a pain to have to come home. So much clothes, toiletries, power cords... ugh. It's just way to complicated (but welcomed anyway)!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I am really excited to be getting some good, quality food in me. I'll be gorging myself on my great-grandma's fresh bread, lots of turkey, potatoes and gravy, non-dried-out baby carrots.... yum.

And seeing high school friends will be the highlight of my week (shortly followed by my own bed... because that's always awesome). I've already met with two friends who I am meeting up with again this week. It's going to involve a lot of food, a lot of talking, a lot of being awesome and happy and stuff.

Then again, I fear that the end of the week will come to soon and I'll be piling back into my dorm again... ::sigh:: Let's cross our fingers that it doesn't play out that way. :)

Fun week!

This week has been so busy, but in the best way possible. :) I have had a ton of reading to do, but nothing boring, so that's a plus. I've started back up running this week after taking a week off, and the week off helped a ton. I'm running faster on day-to-day runs than I was a month ago.

On Wednesday, Hana Pestle came to Coe. She was amazing. She played a bunch of original songs that you can find on her Myspace as well as some really great covers. She played "Creep" by Radiohead and did a really awesome cover of "Zombie" by the Cranberries, which she finished by mixing it in with "Paparazzi." It was a really fun night, followed by a ton of writing for National Novel Writing Month (nearly at 50k now!)

Then last night, I went to the Coe theater production of "She Would if She Could." It was three hours long -- pretty much on the dot -- but it was really, really entertaining. I wasn't always quite clear on what was going on (or, rather, who was lusting after who). There was a ton of innuendo and between each scene there was a funny sexual song. It definitely wasn't for kids, but watching old men in the audience being serenaded by one of the actresses in the cast was hilarious for everyone in the theater. There are going to be more showings this weekend and next, so I would definitely recommend going; it was a blast.

WHAT IS GOING ON?!??!!

IT IS NOVEMBER 7th AND IT IS 58 DEGREES OUT AND COUNTING!!! I just went for my first run in a week (yay for healing my legs!) and it was HOT. I had to take off my shirt, which I haven't done since the beginning of September! This is crazy! It is supposed to be up to 72 degrees today, which is just so weird!

These prospies wandering campus have it so nice! It's a gorgeous day for touring campus. Whenever I came to Coe for a campus tour, it was cold and windy and cloudy and gross. :P

I definitely plan on soaking up some sun today... probably going to be the last chance to do so for MONTHS AND MONTHS so I better live it up while I can! NaNoWriMo, outdoors style? I think so!

NOVEMBER!!! :D

Can I just throw it out there that I am LOVING November so far?

My most stressful week of my life (last week) is over. I got my laptop back last Friday, right in time for National Novel Writing Month. I finally get to start training for my marathon (Green Bay Marathon, May 16). It is that comfortable cold during the afternoon that makes it awesome for running/walking around/being outside. There is a lull before the hectic holiday season. It's just a great time to be alive and living at Coe College. :)

But I really want to stress that... IT IS NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH!

For those of you who aren't aware of that that is, NaNoWriMo is a writing challenge in which you write 50,000 words over the course of the 30 days of November. This is the 11th year that it has been going on, and the fourth year that I've attempted the challenge. I finished my sophomore and junoir years of high school, but fell short my senior year because AP Lit got th best of me. But I am well on my way to winning it again this year! Five days and 18000 words in... I'm way ahead of schedule (by about 9000 words!). It's been a breezy.

We also just signed up for classes. I was going to petition for a fifth class, but that class is full anyway, so I think I might just chill with the four I have (which were all ones I wanted):

-Western Civ SINCE 1500

-US History since 1865

-Topic: Novels (::excited!!::)

-Topic: Dante (::more excited!!:)

Next term is going to rock.

But maybe not as hard as the month of November. :P

St Louis trip!

The fun of college is that not everyone you know lives within 10 miles of the school you go to. People come from everywhere and have all kinds of different stories they want to tell you about where they come from. One of my best friends that I've met since coming to Coe is from just outside St Louis. Coming from Cedar Rapids, it is pretty easy to show everyone my neighborhood, and she was totally jealous. So we took a roadtrip down to St Louis this weekend so I could be shown around her town.

We drove down on Friday (it rained the entire way) which was exciting. We went out to dinner and got "St Louis style" pizza (which basically means it is REALLY REALLY flat and the sauce burns your tongue) and saw "Where the Wild Things Are".

Saturday was a blast, though. We went to a marching band competition for her high school...

and took the MetroLink to Forest Park...

and went to the zoo and saw lots of animals...

as well as went to "The Loop" and did a TON of walking around basically all day. When we finally go to bed around 2 in the morning, we were totally exhausted.

Sunday was pretty chill. We went out to lunch, did a lot of packing and last-minute running around before we left around 3:30 and drove all the way back to Cedar Rapids... again in the rain. (But at least Saturday had gorgeous weather!)

The weekend involved a lot of Lady Gaga, poor gas mileage and lots of walking around, but it was a really lovely break from the stress of school. Now I'm totally overloaded with the weekly homework and the homework I didn't do this weekend (which all seems worse since my computer is in for repairs until God knows when and I am using my dad' big beastly laptop instead... ::sad::). It was totally worth it, though. :)

Fall Break! Yay!

So today is the final day of Fall Break. :( So soon!

Both of my roommates (I only have 2 now ::sniff, sniff::) went home for the long weekend, so I've had the whole room (and sometimes it seems, the entire floor) to myself. I've stayed up late watching tear-jerker movies and done almost all my homework for the week. It's been eerily quiet in the dorm. Hardly anyone is moving around! It's like a ghost town!

I went to the library yesterday and saw about 4 other people. Normally the library is full of people checking Facebook, texting instead of reading, trying to chat quietly with their friends... I went to lunch yesterday and they hardly had any food options and there weren't even tables because they were trying to clean the caf! I saw about 10 other people there. And I saw 2 people on my floor. All in all, a grand total of about 16 people all day. It's been very lonely. :P

But an excellent time for homework and organization and downloading free software trials (::cough:: iWork 09... ::cough::) and, in general, being a bum. It's been a really long weekend and I'm running out of things to do, so I'm glad my roomies and all my friends will be coming back today! The campus will actually be lively again!

In the meantime... a couple of pictures!

Our door after my roomie Bekah got into ASA. :)

My two desk monsters. One from Target, one made for my FYS.

All I can say is.....

BRRRRR!

Where did summer/warm fall go?!

I am sitting here in my dorm room with the air turned to 80 degrees, so that it won't turn on and turn me into an icicle every 5 minutes, listening to the wind whistle and howl outside my window. (This sound fills me with dread every day around cross country time...)

It is kind of sad that we've already gotten to the cold, windy part of fall. The warm, sunny autumn days that are reminiscent of summer are the best. It still lends a fun, whimsical feeling to the school year. But once it gets cold, I can't go out and get distracted in the sunshine... so instead I have to buckle down and get things done. Yuck!

I will tell you though, that cross country in this weather is all sorts of fun! It is colder, so I run faster, and feel awesomer. :P And it's like a game to try not to get blown off course by the wind when it's gusting at 40 mph. And sometimes, you can even compare who has the reddest legs at the end of practice. I just hope it stays this temperature for our HOME MEET at JONES PARK on SATURDAY MORNING around 10:30. (::hint hint...::). Because then we're going to smoke it!

And in case no one caught that serious pimpage...

Coe cross country has a HOME MEET on SATURDAY MORNING. Girls run around 10:30 and boys around 11:30 (I think). It is at JONES PARK. You should come and cheer us on, Kohawks and future-Kohawks!

Happy October 1st!

Rain.

I am pretty positive that every time a Coe student sees rain on the forecast, something dies a little inside. Umbrellas just can't keep your feet dry on the Coe campus!

Looking out from my third-floor window, I see many students with umbrellas or soaking wet heads. I see people running, others walking no faster than any other day. We all have different ways to deal with the cold, windy, miserable rainy day. But most of us still have a problem with our feet! There are puddles the size of lakes on some parts of the sidewalks and rivers running straight through some of the paths! A lucky few have rainboots (something I ought to invest in, really...), the rest wear flip flops because they dry the fastest. Others who are not so smart, such as myself, wear canvas shoes... so their feet can freeze all during class.

Rain is the one part of the college experience I just cannot stand! At least in high school I only got wet coming in from the parking lot! But I'll just have to wait and see how well I do with snow... and ice... and winter... Yuck!

In other news: Midterm is fast approaching (or over in some of my classes... woo hoo!) so this is going to be an active brain week! It will then be followed by a dead brain week. :P

SO BUSY!

I have seriously never been so busy in my entire life! Oh my goodness!

The last couple weeks have been so crazy! Between cross country, class, eating meals and doing homework/watching movies for my First Year Seminar, I haven't even had time to breathe! I'm being forced into learning some pretty decent time management skills, thank goodness!

That being said, the last couple weeks have been awesome. :D I haven't done much around campus (far too much homework, sadly), but have been having a fantastic time in all of my classes. Things are really heating up in all of them. We're getting into really interesting stuff, so the homework isn't a total pain... just time consuming!

Tip for (next year's) freshmen everywhere: First semester, take classes you are interested in! Don't worry about filling in all your gen eds your first year! I know plenty of people who are trying to do that and they hate school and are totally miserable. Take things that are interesting and new and what you're passionate about! :)

Anne Fadiman Q&A

For the freshman class's summer reading book, we had to read a book called "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." There were pretty mixed opinions about it when we all got on campus, but personally, I thought the book was fantastic. I read it twice; once when we got it early in June, and again at the beginning of August so it was fresh for orientation week. I completely marked it up like crazy with little Post-It notes so I wouldn't forget where the important parts were.

Well, Coe got the author, Anne Fadiman, to come out and give us a Q&A session tonight, and she will be giving a speech tomorrow. I went to the Q&A tonight (admittedly, I came in about 20 minutes late... very embarassing), and it was really interesting.

Anne is such a fantastic speaker. She seems to always have a lot to say. Other students were asking questions and she always elaborated on the topic. She went into a spiel about an experience she had when she was doing some kind of journalistic research in North Manitoba in Canada with a bunch of scientists, and at the end of the trip, one of them had his arm mauled by a polar bear. She didn't tell us to freak us out, but to prove a point that the scientists who saved their life showed really heroism. She's always looking for deeper meanings, such as with an event like this, when I would just perceive it as scary and that-can't-happen-to-me, but she looks at it and wants to know what she can connect it to.

After the Q&A, Anne stuck around to talk to the kids who lingered and to sign books for those of us that wanted her to. She wrote in my book an adorable personal message regarding my immense use of Post-Its: "For Kristine- Nothing gives a writer greater pleasure than seeing such a well-Post-It-ed book! -Anne Fadiman." She was really, really nice and genuine in person. I am looking forward to her speech tomorrow because I can tell that it is going to be good. She's a humble writer who has made a name for herself through persistence and hard-work and following her passions and she's a real inspiration.

Dear Next-Year's-Freshman...

Dear Next Year's Freshman...

When you get your roommate assignment, make sure you talk to them. Not just figuring out who will bring what (and make sure not just one person brings everything), but that you get to know who they are.

And when you begin living together, be open about problems you have. Do not let them bottle up inside because that just causes drama. And nobody needs drama in addition to their adjustment to college life.

Because it sucks. And when people want to move out, and you aren't entirely sure why, it is really frustrating. And it is very hard to concentrate on your classes.

And one more tip: Learn to sleep with lights on. It is very beneficial to both you and your roommate. I don't even notice lights anymore, and it is like a godsend. :)

Sincerely,

Kristine

Second post! Yay!

Okay, so I had a really busy weekend. I meant to update my blog Saturday, but never got around to it. I apologize!

We had our first real-deal cross country meet on Saturday. The meet we had last weekend was only 4k for women (2.5 miles) and 5k for men (3.1 miles), and our meet at Grinnell this weekend was 6k for women (around 3.75 miles) and 8k for men (5 miles). It was a lot harder, let me assure you! It was pretty nice standing out in the sunshine weather, but not quite so nice for racing. It was hotter and more humid once I started running than I thought, and I went out a lot faster than I wanted to, which made me finish about 2 minutes slower than I'd anticipated. But it is the first time I have actually raced 6k before, so I am not going to complain. It was fun, but really hard.

Meet results: Girls came in 11th, and guys came in tied for 8th. Woo hoo!

But besides the meet this weekend, I spent most of my afternoon on Saturday reading/snoozing, then went to Brucemore with my First Year Seminar class to listen to and watch a performance of "Carmina Burana." It was absolutely amazing! I loved it. It was really powerful and really well done. There were translations on this big screen and I had brought a blanket to sit on instead of a lawn chair, so people in chairs in the VERY front let us sit in front of them, so I could see everything. And as a former orchestra member (go violins!), it was exhilarating to watch them. They totally outperformed my high school, to say the least. :P

Sunday morning was back to the grindstone for me, however, because I had to go up to Hy-Vee and do a shift. It wasn't too bad, though, because yesterday also happened to be my mom's birthday, so I went home (the benefits of being from Cedar Rapids :D) and we went to Red Lobster and then hung out at the house afterwards and had cake, opened presents and the whole bit.

My family is fantastic and I've seen them every weekend for birthdays or something like that, and it's great. I love being in town. I thought it would be annoying, but now I can't imagine being any farther away! My brothers are still really young (7 & 9), so they miss me a lot and like seeing me at least once a week. And, even though they won't admit it, I think my parents like it too. :P

Anyways, now I am back to my homework (just taking a little break... hee hee). Gender studies, here I come!

Hello!

So I'm starting off on the blog a little late, but it's all good. We're past the Labor Day mark and heading into the many weeks of no three-day weekends and no short breaks, so I thought this would be a good time to briefly talk about what's been going on since I got here three weeks ago.

Okay, so I'm Kristine. I'm a freshman here at Coe, and planning to major in history and minor in either creative writing or religion. I'm a huge self-proclaimed nerd. I love books and history and learning cool stuff.

As a freshman, I've finally gotten (pretty much) used to things. Orientation was a blast, and kept us busy almost 24/7. It was also the first week of cross country practice which left me sore and bitter at living on the third floor of Voorhees (a feeling which hasn't quite disappeared).

The first two weeks of classes have been great. I'm taking classes that I really enjoy, so homework isn't quite as tedious as it was in high school. Right now, I am taking:

-FYS: First Year Seminar. Mine is "Monsters, Freaks and Others" which is really fun. We talk about the psychology behind monsters and why we need them and we're going to be watching a TON of movies this term. My favorite kind of learning!

-Belief and Unbelief: This is a religion course, which is basically an introduction to religion. We haven't gotten into the core of it yet, just talking about the study of religion as a whole and not a specific religion, but I can tell that it is going to be fantastic.

-History of Western Civilization: This may sound like a bore for most of you, but I'm a total history nerd. So I read the textbooks with glee and take as many notes as humanly possible. It starts at nearly the beginning of (recorded?) time, and ends around 1500. So we've got a lot to cover!

-Intro to Gender Studies: This is a wonderful course. It isn't just for women, as it is about gender, not feminism. We're learning about feminism first, but we'll also be learning about male gender issues, among other things. Most of the class thusfar has been an intro and even though there is a lot of work (reading and responding to the readings), it's really fun and it's made me think about a lot of things a different way.

I'm really excited for this week because in most of my classes, we're getting away from introductory materials and into the core of the subject. But before I head off to my 9:30 class, I'm going to watch Ghost Hunters on Hulu, so I'm outta here. :)