Day 2. Unless people don't want me to, I'll keep posting this regularly--please comment with any thoughts. I want to have this up so we can all remember it, but I don't want this blog to be flooded with my ramblings on food and classes.

Day 2

I woke up in the middle of the night saying my address (we were all doing it in a dream) and found my top blanket off. I was quite hot and put it back on. At a reasonable hour I woke up to my alarm, but then couldn't get out of bed. I finally got out and participated in a discussion about security at airports and the inauguration.

I decided not to go to broomball and instead help out at brunch, since I was on dish crew anyway. Making a fruit salad yields sticky hands and mangled grapefruit. The apples and oranges turned out ok. The actual meal consisted of me eating too much and talking with my Spanish teacher, who seems pretty cool. Alden sat again at our table. During the clean up, I first washed some trays, but then took the task of taking plates, bowls, cups, and silverwares back to their piles in the dining room after they'd been sanitized.

After that whole debacle was done with, I met with Susie to get my schedule. I have an easy early week, but after that it picks up in terms of frees. Jack Kruse gave a talk on safety- whenever we walk into a room, we have to wonder how we might die in that room. Chipper. Our next activity was a scavenger hunt of sorts- with our dish crew (Sam, Kiana, Gabby, and Phoebe), we had to answer a question (How many sheep are there? Who is their guardian? was ours.) in a creative way. Our group decided to do a skit where Sam was trying to fall asleep, counting sheep to aid him. I was Nigel the llama, telling him off, because they were my sheep.

Nextly, we had a hike to a spot where we spent 30-40 minutes in solitude. We got our packs, complete with a small sitting pad, and 15 of us hiked with Alden along the Inner Loop, with him choosing one person to sit in a place every so often. I was the second to last one: I mostly laid back, listened to the wind, looked at a few birds, heard a chainsaw (which Isaac would later tell me might've been a snowmobile. In his skit Shizue said his name was Ian. There was also some funny unintentional double entendre that went unnoticed until the performance: “We have no bulls. I guess they came and went.”), and observed how weird trees are. They have a start, but just sort of sprout out and don't really end. The one I was looking at (not an evergreen) was also too scraggly. Most trees in winter are. On the hike back my legs started getting cold, event though I was wearing long underwear (something I appreciated yesterday. It really does help cut down on how much the wind cuts through one's jeans.).

Dinner was very good again- mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken, carrots, apple crisp for dessert. Talked with a lot of people- Shizue, Hallie, Megan, Jake, Charlotte- we played Telephone and Word Association afterward with about 15 others. We then had a big discussion in the library afterward about an Ayn Rand article: How Can One Be Rational in an Irrational Society? It was about whether judgment is right or wrong. I think that people need judgment and opinions to be a person, and the other side was saying that snap judgments hurt interpersonal relationships. No moon tonight like there was yesterday- also have a headache. Tomorrow is the first school day; I'll have to set an alarm early. Classes should be fun.