We Like Grass

By Tamika Whitenack Perhaps reading this title, you thought this was going to be a big confession. I'm actually just going to talk about something you already knew about me, but in the context of addiction. You think I'm being interesting, but really I'm just using the practice of reinforcement to better understand what we talked about in Psych on Tuesday. Also, please note that I do not intend to offend or make light of addiction by using it to refer to my own "addiction", and if anybody feels that the nature of this post is inappropriate or disrespectful, please let me know! So, what is my strange addiction? Many of you probably guessed already: running. I actually don't think I am addicted any more, which I will explain later. When I "diagnose" myself with addiction to running, I am really diagnosing my past self, probably my high school self from sophomore through senior year. I believe I am in a different place with running now, and will exp...

By Tamika Whitenack I decided it was acceptable for me to post since Jae-An posted. Jae-An talked about blue and yellow in his blog, and I don't feel like writing a normal sort of blog post today, so I'm going to structure mine around Maroon and Gray, which are Vassar's colors. A bit of history: apparently the colors used to be Rose and Gray, and the rose was supposed to be like dawn and sunlight because it was women's education coming out of the dark/grayness. But then when they integrated and starting having male sports teams the colors got changed to Maroon and Gray because rose wasn't fierce enough or something. This may all be total hogwash, but it's an interesting story. In this blog post, I will talk about Maroon (good things) and Gray (not so good things). Maroon: I made currant scones. They were vegan. I'm very pleased with the consistent about of baking I've been able to do on the weekends. Gray: The kitchen has no windows and it was so ho...

By Cameron Rusin Hi friends! Again, apologies for the fact that Tama has written like 4 blogs in the time it has taken me to write one. I continue to not understand how she has time for this, but more power to you. Also this post might be a little weird or dry because I really don’t know what to write about, but do feel obligated to give some kind of update, so here’s what I can remember from this week! Honestly, the biggest thing has been the fact that I got sick on Tuesday. The “Freshman Virus” has been spreading like wildfire, and I thought I had dodged the bullet when I remained healthy through the majority of the xc team and my hall getting sick. But no, my slow painful death had just been postponed. Luckily, being sick hasn’t super gotten in the way of classes, but it has impacted my running which has been annoying. Anyways. I’m still sick, but the end is in sight! This week was also when most of the GIMs for clubs happened, so I attended far too many of those. I...

By Jae-An Wang [This blog was written yesterday, but I ended up not being able to post it until today. Let's just pretend that I posted this yesterday :)] Yesterday, I went to El Cerrito to hang out with Ben and Leon for the last time in a while, which was fun. Besides playing video games and making way too many terrible puns, we also talked about cringy middle school times, and according to Leon, apparently I used to kick people whenever I got annoyed at them. I’m quite glad that I remember very little from that time. I've been to this rest stop far too many times Anyhow, onto today! I'll miss you T_T Morning (~9:00 AM) I woke up this morning at 6 feeling incredibly nauseous, but now that we’re on the road I feel better, which is unusual since it’s usually the other way around. We’ve been driving for nearly two hours now, and are still some 270 miles or so from Los Angeles. It’s a bit cramped in the car, but not too uncomfortable yet. I’m still...

By Tamika Whitenack I promise I will stop posting soon but I want to share one thing from today: It was International Day of Peace. I attended a Buddhist meditation session this evening (it wasn't very Buddhist, more just a meditation session) During my meditation, I tried to individually send all the people I know and appreciate a message of peace. For example, I sent one friend courage and peace of belonging. I hope you all feel loved and peaceful :) flags for International Day of Peace observance

By Tamika Whitenack I was reminded of this last Friday at the nursery school. I forgot to mention it in any of my other posts and spontaneously remembered today. So I am sharing. That's all, thanks, bye.

By Tamika Whitenack Life Update 1: I'm sick! I'm not even in denial, I accept that I am sick. How do I know this? Yellow stuff comes out of my nose, my throat kept me awake one night because it felt like some small clawed creature was in it, and sometimes I cough. But don't worry, the throat thing was the worst and it only lasted a day, so now I just accept this life of tissues and mass fluid consumption and am happy!!! How am I so happy (as in three exclamation mark worthy happy) when I am in the depths of sickness? First of all, I am not that deep in sickness. It's a mild thing. Second of all, I only used that many exclamation marks so that I could comment on it. But I am happy! (more appropriate number of exclamation marks) It could be due to all these mindful/body restorative classes that I am attending... On Sunday I went on a hike, yay nature! On Monday I went to the 20 minute mindfulness and meditation session, and then Yoga for an hour. Yesterday I went to...

By Jae-An Wang This blog is kind of melodramatic. Also, this picture is kinda terrifying. I bumped into my elementary school band teacher at the station the other day. It was quite awkward and very strange. Another thing that is very strange is that I have just a few days left at home. This is a fact that still hasn’t quite sunk in for me; there’s a portion of my brain that for some reason keeps insisting that I’ll never go to college and that I’m stuck in a purgatory where all my friends have left and I will live at home for the rest of my days. Alas, such are the struggles of students of the quarter system. I suppose this sort of “imaginary delusion,” to put it one way, exists because I’m quite nervous. I’m super duper nervous. Why am I nervous? When I ask myself this, not a lot comes to mind immediately. In fact, these reasons came so slowly that I had to postpone this blog by several days. Why Is Jae-An Uneasy? He doesn’t feel ready, in nearly every way pos...

By Cameron Rusin Hi friends! Apologies, as it’s been a good week since I last posted something, but this might end up containing more information than anyone would ever need so maybe it’ll make up for it… but anyways! I’ve been neglecting to talk too much about my experience so far on the cross country team, but it’s been a huge part of my life at Tufts so here’s an entire post about it. There’s a lot of information to be shared, so I think I’ll try to compartmentalize it. Schedule/The Actual Running Part So I have practice 7 days a week as follows: Mon: 7:00 run and 8:00 arm lift, but I’m trying out taking every other monday run off. Most people take every monday run off. Arm lifts are very hard/emberassing for me... Tues: Worst workout of the week at 3:00! Tuesdays are weird because we all get into vans and drive somewhere more interesting than Medford to do workouts. This makes tuesday workouts very time consuming, which is rough because tuesday is my most demanding ...

By Tamika Whitenack   Hi folks. It’s been a grand total of three days since I last blogged, but I promised a blog about classes and I here it is! There will also be a few other notes thrown in because there are some things worth mentioning. Also lots of pictures, hooray! (Apologies for the weird formatting on the pictures, I'm not very good at it) Todos las días, mi clase primero es Español. La clase de Español comienza   a las nueve y media. La clase es muy divertido. El profesor es gracioso y los otras estudiantes son amable. Hablamos mucho en Español. Porque quiero practicar mi Español, escribo en Español. Si ustedes puede, escribe cartas en Español para mi, por favor! Apologies for any grammatical errors in that last paragraph. It’s only week three. My freshman writing seminar is very enjoyable and so far has not been that much work. We haven’t written any long compositions yet, only free-writes, and while this is nice workload-wise, I...