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. :)