Really, I'm here.

I am back at Bard, the land of chain smokers, sprinkled in anorexic girls and boys with bouncy walks. 

Social Stuff: This Friday I went to Smog with Amanda and Sumedah. There were a ton of people, but I left after an hour, a little after 12. Seriously though, so many people, many freshmen, it doesn’t matter.

Thursday I came over to Hannah’s dorm and we had dinner, after I had gone to the club fair and danced with Lila to help recruit for the Bard Science Journal (which I just signed up for) (this is where I got my face painted last post-by the art collective). At some other points in time various other similar things have happened; nail-painting and looking at peoples rooms before and after they were decorated.  

The weekend before that I went back to suburban Boston to photograph a family friend’s bar mitzvah party. I talked to a freshman on the train there, stayed a night in NYC with another family that was going to the bar mitzvah and then stayed a night at home after the party, bringing back to Bard a small suitcase full of stuff I forgot the first time around (travel mug, my neuroscience textbook…) The same family drove me back to NYC, we had lunch and then I took the subway->rail->bus back to Bard. 

The weekend before that I went to Amanda/Lila/Hallie's house in Tivoli for dinner, and then we went to Liz’s birthday party in Redhook, and some other party after that which had already died by the time we got there, we stayed for one song, which happened to be one I like (Crystallized by the XX).

I also went to the budget defense forum where clubs vied for more funds. I hadn’t gone to one before. This is how it works; first there are the friendly amendments. Clubs come up on stage (this was set up outdoors) and ask for money, saying what their purpose is and how much they are hoping to get. Other clubs will donate: “5 dollars from the boffing club” “20 dollars from the Bard belly-dancers collective”  “5 pounds from the half-naked lunch club” (yes, these are all real).  My favorite one of these came for the Bard Moderator (a semi-annual sexuality and body politics magazine that has writing, art, and photographs): “Two years ago the Bike Co-op donated 200$ to the Moderator in exchange for an alley-cat naked bike photo shoot. This photo shoot never happened. We now donate 15$ to uphold that contract” After that go the hostile amendments where club heads attack other clubs, saying they have too much money, and that that money should go to them (this actually didn’t last very long). 

Oh! also at the very start of the year I went to the Amanda Palmer and Grand Theft Orchestra show. It was fun, they even sang a song I know from when she was the Dresden Dolls.

trying to get used to being around people so much. even when I'm alone at Kline, it's still filled with faces I recognize from just being at such a secluded school.