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.