Its Humid but we Live On

So, matriculated. The most exciting part about that was going to the bunny ears afterward.
They spin, a bunch of people got on.

We went out to the bigger waterfall, then we hiked, then we ended up at Montgomery Place. We picked a peach as we left. It was a very slow and idealic (and humid) walk, after which we went swimming.

I am taking four classes: Intro to Psych, Fysem (mandatory), Calc I and High Renaissance (art history).
The reading lists are quite extensive (and expensive).

Fysem includes (for first semester) the following: Genesis, Plato's Symposium, Vergil's The Aeneid, St. Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno, Shakespeare's Othello and Galileo's Discoveries and Opinions.
I've only read Inferno out of those.
The reading list is the same for all freshman. My teach taught at Harvard until this year, which makes me feel like I have to fill in the shoes of Harvard students.

n the bright side we are supposed to be the more attractive grade, go genetics. And my dorm is known as 'the chill kids who love cheese' (Cheese is GOOD, man! and a luxury)

Below: Sam jumping at Blithewood (which is gorgeous) and dorm-mates on the spinny swing.

Past couple weeks...

Matriculation is tomorrow
I will no longer be pseudo-student and shall become full-fledged freshman
We had a very short class-orientation thing where they told us how to get classes ect. It sounds stressful.

Transfer students arrived today. I was thinking about how strange it would be to transfer here. Also; I've noticed that, aside from foreigners, nobody really has accents. I don't have a Boston accent. Lauren doesn't have a Tennessee accent. Madlin doesn't have a Texas accent. And even those from other countries; D is in the states for the first time, but she doesn't have strong Vietnamese accent.

What else. Two weeks ago I first went to the
community garden after going to the waterfall. We ate tomatoes and raspberries and strawberries and smelled the basil.
Bard also had a Rocky Horror bonanza on Friday the 13th, but it wasn't as enjoyable as when I went with my friends in Harvard Sq. a few years back. I also went fire-walking, which sounds a lot more badass than it is. And we have had two nail-polish parties with some of the girls in my dorm. We had a dorm bonding thing with pancakes. It was the first time I had homemade pancakes. One of the counselors, Audrey, was with us, and the next day she brought tomatoes and zucchini and squash from the community garden. Sooooo good. We've gone to pick some more since, eating it as a second dinner with rice.

I also got to see my friends and family this weekend. I was really exhausted, but it was still nice to get so many hugs and kisses and walk around holding hands and catching up on life.

photos: random couch..., cabbage, Maximilien playing upright bass, Hannah on a swing.

Abraham Mendoza

"To the Bard College Community:

It is my sad duty to inform you that Abraham Mendoza, a rising sophomore at Bard and a Peer Counselor, fell to his death this afternoon while hiking at the Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskill Mountains. He was hiking with a group of other Peer Counselors who immedi..."


yesterday was not an easy day.

Anna de Paris

Anna is leaving.
She had been gone for about five or so days, Hannah and I were worried.
She is going back to Paris and coming back next year.
I think it is really brave to decide that; to be able to evaluate ones state and realize that perhaps the obvious road is not the one to be taken, or not to be taken at the moment.
I just came back from visiting her. We talked on the ground in front of her porch, and she was getting frustrated at herself, that she couldn't formulate her thoughts, that she couldn't process what was being said. She would start a sentence and then stop, and then bring her eyebrows together in internal pain and frustration. I do not think I have ever seen a person so thoroughly exhausted. So Hannah and I led her inside to sleep.
I met her parents. Anna said something in French and her father asked me if I knew what it meant; it was something along the lines of lighting strike. Referring to the type of love she has for me. Hannah was given a book, and we made small talk about a plant that is to stay in America, the fact that my camera signified my photo interests, on Hannah and me informing Anna of the pitfalls we encounter so that she can avoid them. When her mother and I introduced ourselves to each other, she recognized my name; I had been mentioned. Which is strange to think, since Anna and I, while instantly friends, have only had a couple of brief conversations.
The French really are passionate.
So I am in a strange state now: happy that she will rest, and find her peace, and made a decision when some decision clearly needed to be made. But for more obvious reasons sad. I was hoping to see her throughout the year, to get to know her-a process which will now have to start in the form of letters rather than conversation.
I will reflect on the other things that have happened in the past week later (for stuff has happened, photos have been created), but not now.

And day six marches out...

So just came from the common room...where Maggie, Gavin, Andrés and I where discussing art, which eventually just turned into looking up artists on the internet, but originally started as discussing modern art and its purpose, as well as weather or not the fact that it often depends on context devalues it. As well as about more classical art/music, how you currently need a background to understand it, and weather or not that is a bad thing. This makes me happy (though the feeling of "oh my, I really need to take an art history class" has been following me for the past half a year or so, and has significantly increased upon coming here, especially after meeting Anna, who is from Paris and has taken a lot of art history classes and is really sweet and genuine and made me feel a lot better after feeling a bit meh all day, just by her presence, even though its only the second time I have talked with her since I met her at the hike, where we both clicked and both where like...wow, we've actually only talked once, strange).

Today, we had a lecture/performance. Our L&T class had read a piece by Adorno on Berg, and then we had a lecture/performance. The lecture was by our president (Leon Botshtien), and then a quartet played "The Lyric Suite", which was amazing. The pres. gave us some background on how each of the parts was part of the process of adultery (before the woman, woman, first kiss/anticipation of more, the more, guilt, desperation). And while it might just have been that those seeds had been sown in my mind, but I really did feel like the music communicated each of those parts very well, to the extent that I know them or can imagine.

After that we celebrated Andrés's birthday with our entire dorm (as well as some visiting people). We made guacamole, salsa and quesadillas, which was a good break from going to Klien and also made me feel very at home [cooking]. He got mustache pillow cases as a present in the mail, which, in my humble opinion, is pretty hilarious.
After going to a student reading (and reading the translation our class did of "De Profundis Clamavi" which is French), I wandered off to get books from the library. Which seemed endless, and was practically empty. However, I forgot my student I.D. so I left my books on a desk where maybe I'll find them later instead of searching for them all over again.
And then the party continued with cake (which Rosette and Sam made) and disipitated. And then Angela (P.C.) showed us this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKMTCze_fTw,
which I have already seen but still :P.

and then , back to the now, where I have juts come back from discussing art on a level that I don't think any of quite have enough knowledge to really strongly back our opinions, but have enough to make it feel as if you are in good company.

Also: correction from yesterday, The 7th Seal, while an absolutely amazing film, is in fact Swedish. It was interesting to discuss, but the feel of watching it in a theater vs imagining watching it at home...I think we all laughed at some points that we might have found scary otherwise. I don't want to give away what happens, but I really liked it.

and there was another tea party, this time in the common room, which is always a good thing.

Bubble Fall

Tim the Cat slept over last night in the common room. Rosette gave him a pillow and a blanket, and he had gotten some of his stuff so he showered here too.

Had to finish "What is it like to be a bat" by Thomas Nagel for hw. As well as some piece on why feminism is necessary in bio/social research. And also had to watch "The 7th Seal", which is an old black and white German film sit in the middle ages. It definitely had some tragi-comedy elements.

I like that so many people here have curly hair. I was one of the few girls at my school who didn't straighten their hair...and here its like, boys and girls have springs of awesomeness.

First picture is of Adrienne, my roommate. I thought she was French by her name, and she thought I was Brazilian by mine.


We went to the waterfall again.
It's interesting because there is a cement pool right next to the waterfall, so there is intense industrialism on one side and intense nature on the other. There are also broken beer cans and people smoke there sometimes (already...hmm...) but it is a really nice spot, and more refreshing than a nap.




(Hannah, with whom I went to see the movie and at the bottom Rosette, both of whom live across
from me)

Day 4

Today as the 2nd day of L&T (language and thinking). It feels like we have been doing it forever, partially because its three sections, 1.5 hours each each day (so 9 hours so far makes for a decent chunk of time in the same room with the same people). We have a half hour break each time, but Ms. Cecelia Watson let us out a little bit earlier this time so that we could buy our Antigone books (which we have to read by Friday, but I already read it sophomore year so....in-depth skimming it is).

We do a LOT of writing during the class. We read excerpts and then just write for 5-20 minutes and then read all/part of what we wrote, and again, and again. The first time we had to read my heart was going Baboom Baboom by the middle. Not so much stage fright as 'reading my own words' fight.
My teacher is from UChicago, but some of the other teachers are from here or Germany and other places. The kids are pretty cool, though one of the girls puts me a little on edge: not in a bad way, but she makes me cautious. First day she was in a belly shirt. She has an airy voice and she's moved a million times (last time being Seattle). She seems nice, but something about how she isn't fazed by certain things, like she straight out told me that she had been expelled from her high school when our conversation came to it. Though she is afraid of daddy long legs, which makes her more human :). I guess she just seems like one of those people I might, hypothetically, be prone to be led by, and not quite be myself around, and I want to avoid that best I can.

Today we went to a lecture instead of class for the third segment, it was about Darwin in the 21st century, and the 2nd speaker was talking about how apparently there are now 6 species of giraffe? and 2 African Elephant types? Which her friend had discovered. Plus she was pretty funny. The first speaker nearly lulled everybody to sleep (Darwin's history isn't fascinating and she had a very sleep-inducing voice).

Meals go as follows; you find a person that you know at a table full of people you don't know and sit down. Or you find another confused-looking person and sit down and they sit down with you, even if the first time you talked was right before you walked into the actual food-getting place. A lot of the food says 'vegetarian' or 'vegan' next to it. I've had some salad with fish twice so far, but other than that a lot of beans and tempeh (which I didn't know about before) and salads and fruit (which everyone has started to pilfer to their dorms since dinner ends to early for it to satiate us till bed time). I've been getting up at 7:30, which is good since by the time I left the dining room there was a long-ass line for breakfast.

I have a strong urge to rant about more people, but that might go on FOREVER.
Dorm=cool. Its really funny that one of the kids living directly across the hall is a guy Yulka had pointed out at a bus stop at Harvard, so I've seen him before :). It was really humid and rainy so Adrienne, Rosette (who had planned going there yesterday and I am thankful to her) and I went to the waterfall nearby and it was awesome (of course met MORE people there).Then came back and listed/sang a little while Danny (fm) played banjo, Ethan guitar, Andres the keyboard and Hannah violin. twas an interesting jam. Then went to watch the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is not happy and French.

After which our PC drove us to the "Holy Cow" ice-cream place (me, three boys from our dorm and our cat Tim (who is actually just a kid who happens to hang out a LOT in our dorm, and is thus our pet)).

And then mint tea just now with Adrienne and Hannah and life is good.

Checking In: 3rd day at Bard College

okay: to Mama and Papa--I am alive, well, and functioning. My roommate just gave me a piece of ginger covered in chocolate, and it is really really good. I'm re-reading a piece of Antigone for hw :)

(Man, no, nor imoortal god. Love's
Prey is possessed by madness)


(some time later)

and now I am done and have showered and am going to bed.

some time before that (reverse chronological order) we drank tea (roommate, me and the the girls diagonally across from us) while discussing books and mason jars. We got our student I.D.'s and I looked shell-shocked in my picture (absolutely expressionless and even paler than I usually look). And we had a review of the student handbook and community thing in a mandatory meeting. It was a bit annoying, but I met, as usual, ...at least 6 new people. probably more, but only remember six names. So not too bad.

anyway, bottom line I am happy and excited to be here and meet new people.
I will write more when I am less sleepy.