We Like Grass

The farm/ecological preserve, feat. a heron By Tamika Whitenack Pretty running trails! goats somewhere in there pretty purple flowers Main circle I made a large omelet that I put too many vegetables in almondmilk mocha ice cream bar there is an animal in there, somewhere snazzy room decor feat. discarded book covers from the library

Hi Friends! I’m officially done with pre-orientation, which is nuts! I’m a little relieved but also a little bit not. Like Tama, I’ve been incredibly busy and haven’t really been sleeping, so this is about to be one big ramble… I’m going to organize this by day to make it easier for myself. Move In Day! This seems like so long ago! Moving in was actually pretty easy, and kind of fun. My room is pretty small, but I think it’s comfy. There’s also lots of storage which is great! My roommate and I decorated in our own ways a little bit, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The view from the door My side! After all the check-in and move-in and goodbyes, I met my FIT group and leaders! I had two leaders: a senior guy and a sophomore girl. Both were pretty cool, but the girl is only a year older than me, is a vegan fitness nut, and ran cross country but is now a thrower, so we got along pretty well. The older guy is a baseball player and econ major who seems k...

By Tamika Whitenack Today was my first day of classes, and it is sort of late now (my computer just reminded me that I am waking up in 8 hours, potentially), but IT WAS MY FIRST DAY OF CLASSES, so I am going to do a quick blog about it. I woke up this morning and felt decently well rested because we actually tried to go to sleep at an acceptably early time last night. I did core this morning! I have been seriously slacking in the core department but now that classes and routines are starting again, I've decided to commit to my morning abs/core (and daily plank per Dad's suggestion). After getting ready, I went to the Deece with my roommate for breakfast. Today I had a large plate of fruit (grapes have made an appearance, yay!) and a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and sunflower butter. We sat with a few other girls from our floor that we get along with well and mainly chatted about how nervous/excited we were to start classes today. I had to eat a little bit quick...

By Jae-An Wang Although I still technically have another month until my summer ends, I highly doubt that anything of particular interest will occur between now and then. And so here I am. This summer has been pretty laid back, especially compared to these last two summers when I was with the ILC and Global Glimpse (check out my other blogs). With my brother off interning in Taiwan, and being quite inconveniently situated in Pittsburg, I ended up staying home most of the time, not quite doing nothing but doing just little enough to feel like I'm living a somewhat unhealthy lifestyle. Between long sessions on Quora and catching up with everyone else on Game of Thrones, I've read a few books, mostly easy reads like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas  and Room  (would recommend). I'm currently chipping away at The Plot Against America , an alternate history book centered around an anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh winning the 1940 presidential election against FDR. Fascinating ...

By Tamika Whitenack I am about halfway through orientation! Today is Day 4, and I am feeling pretty okay. Orientation has been somewhat busy, full of move-in and meeting people, learning my way around campus, lots of information sessions, and the daunting task of figuring out a class schedule that works! At the end of each day, I’m tired and ready to sleep in my new bed, but for some reason my body still seems to like waking up early...so it goes. This early awakening may partially be a result of the sunlight through our windows, but it gets rather warm on the fourth floor of Raymond so my roommate and I like to keep our windows open. Weather at Vassar the first two days was sweaty and hot, but it has since shifted to milder temperatures and I’m quite enjoying it. We also had a loud and bright thunderstorm one night, and the bursts of lightning were quite exciting to my roommate and I. lightning!! My roommate does have a name, her name is Talia. She is from Belling...

Hello readers of this blog! Emma speaking. I have just returned to civilization after spending two months in my favorite place in the world, otherwise known as Camp Gilboa . While I was gone, our country turned even more to shit, they finally cleaned up the left turn from Richmond to Key, and my dad replaced me with a life-size cutout of Bernie Sanders. I’m having a really hard time fitting my entire camp experience into a blogpost. It’s really something that is best shared when spoken out loud in bursts of “oh, and this one time.” I’ll try my best, though. So camp is split into two sessions: first session and second session. I spent first session working with kids going into 8th grade, and I spent second session working in the kitchen. The two experiences were about as different as you can get. As one would expect when working with middle schoolers, they were a handful. They drove me crazy every day with their conniving grins and inability to listen for more than 10...

Hi friends! As of when I’m writing this, I only have 2.5 days left in the Bay, which should be terrifying but I’m mostly just really excited to get to school. But this post isn’t about school, it’s about my summer! So here’s a jumbled account of what the past 3 months of my life have looked like. The majority of my summer was spent developing a daily routine and enjoying my last few weeks of being at home, which I was worried would be boring at first but I am now very happy with how my summer turned out. One of the biggest constants of my summer was running (I know, typical me). Because I plan on running on the Tufts Cross Country team, I was given a summer running plan and a training log to fill out. Partially because of my love for strict routines and partially because of the anxiety-inducing training log that my future coaches and captains could see, I ended up following this plan religiously for most of the summer. I even got a gym membership at the Y and went to the gym to li...

Summer is over?!? Apparently. This post will serve to update you on everything that has happened during my summer. Personally, I’d say it was a rather eventful summer, and I enjoyed most of the shenanigans I took part in.   Due to the fact this was my last summer before college, combined with it being a somewhat busy (I actually had a real-ish job?), this summer felt noticeably different from past summers. It passed very quickly, and I felt relaxed in that I didn’t have the thought of another school year looming ahead, but at the same time, preparing for college was arguably more time consuming than any ECHS summer assignment has ever been. Enough with my musings on the nature of summer 2017. Let me write about what I actually did these past 3 months! The beginning of summer (literally went to the airport right after graduation) started with a trip to the East Coast and Dartmouth to attend the graduation of that dear sister of mine. Yay! Mariko has a college degr...