We Like Grass

By Tamika Whitenack I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which I can live better and be more conscious of my presence and reduce my consumption and environmental impact....it's a little overwhelming, and sometimes I feel like I really shouldn't be doing anything other than sitting outside wearing clothes made from the local leaves on the ground or something. In an effort to address this craziness, I've decided it would be interesting to take stock of one of my typicalish days and sort of assess what little things I feel like I can realistically do. A typical day in the life of Tamika: Wake-up in my bed and my pajamas: be mindful of what bedding/clothing I buy-what is it made of, who made it, how far did it travel? and how often I wash it Brush my teeth: what goes into my toothpaste? can i buy a better version or make my own in a better way? can i be conscious of how much water i really need to use to brush my teeth? Go to the bathroom: should i flush? af...

Hi friends! Somehow I've already had quite the week, and it's only Tuesday night. College has changed me in many ways, but one of the more surprising ones was my music taste, and that's what I spontaneously want to talk about tonight. As y'all might know, in high school I was a pretentious butt about music. There was good music and there was bad music, and which side of that line you fell on said something about your character. However since coming to college I've found myself listening to, and enjoying, much more of that "bad" music than I used to. There are a couple of concrete reasons for this, like never getting speaker control during my 2 months on the spin bike and the general music taste of the team/parties, but also some less concrete reasons, like how I think I'm less sad than I was in high school so have less of a need for my weird-indie-sad music. Don't get me wrong, I still have my ~quirky~ music taste, but I often find myself wanti...

By Tamika Whitenack There are two weeks and two days of classes left, which feels very much like we are approaching the end of the year. Yikes! In a month, I will be heading home. What has happened this week? On Wednesday we had our end-of-year awards event for the ALANA Center, which was a fun event to honor students and eat lots of good food :) Later that evening, there was a lecture/talk by Junot Diaz on campus. This was a very good event. I hadn't read that much of his work before except a bit for my freshman writing seminar, but he did a few short story readings and then a lot of questions. The Q&A session was cool because he very intentionally focused on women of color and was super charismatic in his answers, he really wasn't afraid to be honest or to call out Vassar and other institutions about issues. On Friday we had another farm trip, this one to Rise and Root farm. This farm is owned by four women and seemed to be a bit of a smaller operation than a lot of...

Hi friends! It’s been a long while since I posted anything… It was the kind of thing where at first I was like “I just missed a week, I’ll get back on track next weekend!” and then all of a sudden a month and a half had passed… My bad. Needless to say, school got a little hard… So now I have way too much to talk about! So here are little summaries of a lot of things! New Orleans I went to New Orleans over Spring Break with the Wind Ensemble! This was super fun! About 35 of us went, along with our conductor and a person from the music staff, and all of the students stayed in a hostel which was exciting. There were ten of us to a bedroom, giant communal bathrooms, and a large communal kitchen and living room area with couches, guitars (?), and a TV. I actually really liked the hostel living situation. We had two performances, but the trip was mostly free time in the city, which was so different than EC band trips. New Orleans was a fun city, but not really for ...

By Tamika Whitenack On Sunday, I ran my first official half marathon at Rockland Lake State Park! It was called the Hook Half Marathon and was a lovely course by the lake, through some trees, and along the Hudson River. I felt very strong and was on a runner's high for the whole day (although it was a tad bit colder/windier/grayer skies than I would have liked). The experience made me remember how important running is to me, and the many other things it touches in my life. For my happiness class, we write 20 gratitudes each week, so I think I'll format this post as gratitudes. As a side note, I highly suggest taking the time to write down a few of your own gratitudes each day–it always makes me feel rather warm and fuzzy inside. I'm grateful for a strong, healthy, body that is physically capable to run and run fast and for a long time. I'm grateful for my love of running and the way in which that love can bring me happiness, strength, and peace. I'm grateful t...

By Tamika Whitenack I've been thinking a lot, and learning a lot, and overall feeling like a little flower. There were two things I considered blogging about, but I couldn't choose just one, so I'll include both! Lifestyle changes: I've been doing a few things a little differently to maximize aspects of my life, and it's going really well! I feel a lot more present in my life and just healthy in general. Some of these things relate to the happiness class, some are holdover from the farm, some are just me striving for a better lifestyle. -Eating dinner earlier -Eating more salads instead of stir fries -Waking up at 7am every week day morning -Not turning on my phone unless I have to, and making sure to turn it off before bedtime routine starts -Checking email/text/FB during certain times of day (ie:once in the AM, once PM, once evening) -flossing -non-screen time activities for 5 min before bed, doodling is my favorite -not eating processed foods Thing...

Hello, all! I've been quite absent from this blog for a while, without much of a good reason. You'd think that I would have put something out over spring break, which was originally the plan, but I have no idea what happened. That seems to happen quite a bit more often than I would like, which would be never. Alas, such are my woes. Curses. Final's week studying/practice summed up. I'm not sure if I should be proud or horrified. Anyways, where have I been? If you could plot the locations I've been over time in the past while, the results would indicate a rather sedentary lifestyle. Starting from the 2nd half of winter quarter, other than class the overwhelming majority of my time was spent either at my desk or in the dorm lounge (studying for midterms/finals). Over spring break, my room was the location of choice (recuperating from midterms/finals). Maybe a chunk of time spent at LAX when a flight was delayed and then delayed again when they found a dent in...

By Tamika Whitenack Aha! I will finally write about this very interesting topic. This has been a long week, but it ended well and I am looking forward to this last quarter of the year. My two new classes are both lovely, one of them is focused on achieving happiness and the other is visits to local farms! But, the topic of interest here is what I think about as I fall asleep! My mind is full, always, and I am a bit of an obsessive planner. Thus, my falling asleep time is perhaps not as relaxing as it should be (I noticed it was much better while I was at the farm, but life here is a little more busy). As I fall asleep, I am usually planning for the next day. I've already planned out my schedule for the next day on my white board, so the things that I consider are more like the details of the day. I think about what I'm going to wear, both for my run/workout or for the day in general. I think about where I'm going to run. I think about what I'm going to eat for each ...