In the course of a letter to Pat

Hey all

today i was writing a letter to the one and only mr pat barnes and as i was describing what it was like to be away from home (and by home i of course mean tms) and this is what came out. its really true, even though i didnt realize it till i wrote it

Life here is so not Mountain School. Life is less pure. You can't just do and live and love, you think about doing and living and loving first. Here, survival of the fittest is typical and/or academic: college, sports, etc. At Mountain School, the only survival of the fittest competition is loving, loving everyone and everything and every place and rock and twig and leaf you see until your heart just explodes and you can barely breathe for how beautiful it all is. That's life, and the most beautiful thing of all is that I know when I look back and remember that life, that pura vida, I'm not romanticizing at all. That's the point of Mountain School, really: to teach you how to love, how to love everyone and learning and all forms of life, including yourself.

love you

we planted all of this!!!

http://public.fotki.com/mtschool/fall-2010/first-day/opening-day-fall-46.html#media

What's that? A twofer? They are shorter entries. I suppose so. You've been good. Also, Tobold, my apologies in advance.

Day 7 (written day 8)

So I really didn't get any work done today. I took notes on my iPod, so I'll do my best remembering. Breakfast was cinnamon rolls, which were sugary. History was quite long; it seems that class always drags on. I had a quiz in Precalc, which was easy. Very basic things- I did everything except the second part of the bonus question. It'll be pretty easy, I think. I stumbled through my Spanish presentation on ham being imported for the first time in a while, and for the rest of the class we listened to other people. E. Sci. had some great demos explaining the origins of the universe- it's a very different class, day-to-day, but for the most part I like it. Cosmology is fun.

For lunch I went to the History room with an egg salad sammich, and a hummus sammich to discuss the Saturday morning skits. They were pretty good, but I spilled some hummus. My Work/Activity was a science hike, which took us all around the Mountain School property. On the way back, Jake, Jimmy and I took the shortest topographical route across Siberia. It was cold and windy. Afterward, we unloaded some meat for dinner, and Jimmy fell down the stairs. He's okay now. Hallie has a weird way of playing Slide.

In my free next I looked up some words for English, even though I would only end up using one. There was a nice discussion in English, and I feel prepared for my essay assignment. We read from journals after that- Jack read from mine second; the passage describing the song. He said he liked my writing in the comments. Dinner with Dan and Shizuei was pork chops and applesauce, with insane potatoes on the side. The pork chops were alright, but the applesauce was not at good as home's.

Sam and I helped Sarah and Rachel hand up some lights in Tobold, and afterward they visited Miles. Upon heading back into the dining hall I saw Kit, where we talked about the skits more. I went to the library to waste some time and ran into Danny. We discussed the skits some more. We then had a discussion at Tina's house, Jay, Claire, Steph, and Megan B and I, about a school, Summerhill, that lets kids do anything they want to. Jay is a pretty cool guy. We had some hot cocoa and brownies, along with a very well-structured discussion.

When I returned to Miles, I saw Hallie, Rebecca, and Adrija admiring our common room. Yay, I suppose. In the time before our formal meeting with Kit and Comfort, everyone in our dorm jammed to Blowin' in the Wind. The meeting was just a laugh riot. I have to write that TMP article. [TMP is Milton's independent (read: better) newspaper. I never did write an article.) We'll be performing Blowin' in the Wind tomorrow. Most likely I'll do homework and laundry tomorrow.

Day 8

Hrrrm. Tired. There was a pretty awful party at Tobold. Let's see... breakfast? Oh yea, oatmeal, coffee cake, and an orange. My oatmeal went stale pretty quickly. Danny and I performed in a series of skits describing bad behavior for groups of five as they rotated around campus. We were demonstrating being loud in the library. Sometimes I got carried away; I called Sam a socialist because he was “impeaching my first amendment rights”.

Hallie, Megan K, Gabby and I helped Liana move ram poo from a stable to the compost pile at the top of the hill. Lunch... was a soup and a lot of leftovers, I'm pretty sure. I then went with Hallie to Miles to do some Precalc homework. Megan B tagged along. It was easy because I'd done this before, but they hadn't. I made the decision to do laundry at around two, and I didn't leave until after five. At least Shizuei was there. We had fun.

I wrote my English journal (3 pages), and read the Spanish reading. Dinner was fried chicken, green beans, and rolls. The chicken was good- the green beans were meh. Here's what happened next- there was a broomball tournament where my team won a game and a lame party at Tobold. We performed Blowin' in the Wind in the Dining Hall, and it was pretty sick. We discussed what we might get in town tomorrow- I think Rafi and David are going. Grargh. I'm too tired to write/remember any more tonight. (Day 9 Addendum: It was cold and windy. Patrick was out of control at the Tobold party. There was talk of gerbil-rockets and impossibly gross drinks.)

Ya'll check it's ya boi, MiltonIAN

You know the war fo' the turf? Well it's on again

It's goin' get crunk: kickin' an' screamin' an'

Here comes a blog post, now I'mma fill you in

Day 6

Haha, oh wow. There was actually not that much work today. I did it efficiently when I did it, and it also helped that Spanish and E. Sci were very easy. So, back to breakfast. I swept the offices and listen to some Led Zeppelin. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, Song Remains the Same, and Trampled Underfoot are all excellent songs. For breakfast, I had some tasty mush and cinnamon that Matt called grits, a yummy muffin dubbed zucchini by Chelsea, a banana, and some milk. Oh, and an orange. Part of this complete breakfast.

Spanish was pretty fun- we read a song about photos of a lover in the singer's mind, and the second verse had some sick photography references. Dark rooms and whatnot. We then played a conjuguemos-esque game. On my team was Nora, Rachel, Patrick, Yomalis, and on the other team was Anika, David, Freddy, Adrija, Megan... I'm missing someone. Adrija might've been on our team. Either way, we won like 18-12, so that was fun. I sure do know my present tense.

E. Sci. consisted of a pretty interesting cosmology lecture, which ended before he explained why we were and were not the center of the universe. I finally get the Doppler Effect- nothing actually happens to the sound waves, it's just apparent. [My dad's a physics teacher--I'm sure this makes him proud.] The homework was just a retelling of the lecture, so that was kinda boring. History had another good discussion, though at the end I was spacing out wondering what the boxes on the windows were for [To catch flies!].

In English we had a pretty boring discussion of the poem- again. Jack told us we needed to bring three words we were sort of sure of, in terms of definition. Because it was Thursday, I had dish crew, so I ate my leftovers (spaghetti with fettuccine sauce, a hearty soup, a green salad, and a butterscotch brownie), or at least some of it was leftovers, and headed into the kitchen to clean dishes. I took Sam's job as the one who loads dishes into the sterilizer, and Phoebe took them out. She was really quite and impatient... I don't know.

My Work/Activity was Outdoor Program, wherein groups of three or four hiked around the inner or outer loop. Hallie, Chartlotte and I took a wrong turn right at the start and had to find our way to the signal flags. We had quite a good time. Memorable and whatnot. It just occurred to me that I have not been taking photos. Or, rather, any photos at all. Huh. [Someone should get on that... >_>] After the hike, we tried to see Miles dorm, but visiting hours didn't start until 5, so I instead got my laptop and headed back to the dining hall, but the girls were gone. They were in Tobold, and on our way back they lamented the state of their dorm in comparison to ours.

I had a free after that, so I looked for an article for Spanish homework. I chose one about pork vendors shipping into America again. Hey, I'm typing quite well with music playing. Maybe BNL is just like that for me. (On a tangent now that I just have to write: Arya just psyches herself out too often. She thinks too much and gets herself depressed, coming up with great reasons for that depression, and sometimes I feel like I have to come to the rescue... after which she bolts off, much better until the next one. She's a great person, but with that one fatal flaw... hrm.) Precalc was mostly review for the quiz; I think I'll do well. Sequences and series aren't that hard. Some of the bonus homework questions had odd directions... I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

Megan B and I did E. Sci. homework after class, and when we thought we were going to be a little early for dinner it turned out we were late, and got in after Rachel finished her humble. There were no seats left, so she, Nora, and I sat at one by ourselves, eating our bread, salad, and turkey stir-fry alone. It was, again, very good. After dinner I went back to the library and did some work, some facebook, some Digg... during my free I rewrote the roof speech from the Hangover to fit the Mountain School for my humble. It's going to be sick.

Charlotte and Steph walked with me to Miles, but visiting hours again were not on, having ended an hour ago. I read some English and History in the dorm, then rushed to Rafi's room to see what he was calling us to see. It was Nell. Nothing exciting. Later, Dan came over with popcorn for check-in. I now have four more pages to read for history; maybe 20 minutes. Tomorrow I'll try and do work for a free weekend.

I Think We Should Play A Song

So today I was listening to some Led Zeppelin and it reminded me of all those days cleaning the office while listening to "Trampled Underfoot". Quality times. Then I got sad because I wasn't cleaning those floors anymore. But then I was like hey, I'm not cleaning floors! I'm moving up in the world! But then I realized that my town is at a lower elevation than Vershire, so I have actually moved down. But then I realized I've grown a few centimeters since May. And then I found $5. Sick story, right?

These posts may be a bit long now, but trust me... they shorten up as the sanity fades.

Day 5

Oh man I have a lot of work today. I'll have a lot of work tomorrow. Let's get to recapping. Slow morning, but I did devise a system for my chore: every other day I'll do a different part of the office. One day I'll sweep the stairs and central office, the next I'll sweep the adjoining offices. Breakfast... pancakes! And a type of mash I think. I had wood crew first thing, which was awesome. How to cut down a tree: Mark three feet up from the base, saw in a quarter of the way, chop at an angle until you've cut to the end of your cut. Then cut from the back of the tree, until it falls. I worked with Phoebe and Patrick. Phoebe was surprisingly vicious with an axe. We got two trees down, with plenty of sugarwood, or wood for the maple sugaring process (somehow). Lunch was next, and I was very tired after sawing the three-foot sections off of the trunk, and lopping the limbs off the tree and putting them all in a brush pile “about as big as a dead horse”, said Jack. Cool guy. I was also tired from the cold and the walking; my work gloves are not as good as my mittens.

Lunch was a type of kale soup (so I heard) and a selection of bagels and toppings, prepared by Charlotte. Following Bruce, I made a bagel sandwich: a cinnamon bagel with egg salad, lettuce, and turkey slices. It was very good, better than I expected. I had a free next, and went on facebook and checked email in the library. Responded to Mark Kernohan's email, learned I got a B- in math and an A- in Spanish. I'm quite glad that my final Colbert grade broke the A barrier, and that I got above a D in math for once. Yay. I sort of guessed that history wouldn't be that great, C, and English was meh at a B+. But Marine Biology yielded an A- for the semester, so that's a plus.

My two classes for the day were History, where we had a great discussion about Organization Kid and workaholic students (where I finally got my point in after being shut down a lot) and English, where we drove for 15 minutes up a mountain with Jack giving a lecture about the history of Vershire and how nature and old Vermont coexisted. It wasn't until we reached our destination, an old cellar hole, and reread Directive by Robert Frost that I realized how awesome the speech was: he used quotes from the poem as we passed what they were describing. That moment, with his voice and those images and words, was incredible. It was also cool because it was snowing and I could see on my jacket that snowflakes actually did have the shapes we always draw them as. I melted them with my breath (moment officially and successfully killed!)

After we got back, I looked for Susie for our advisor meeting, but instead of meeting we hooked up flags for the faculty curling game and paraded around campus waving the symbols of Canada and Malawi. [I think I meant flags.] The next few hours were work: I read some history and some English. For dinner, there was spaghetti, green beans (which had an odd flavor.), and bread. I talked with Susie to make up for the missed meeting before. We covered a variety of topics. After that I headed to the library to do Spanish, which was insultingly easy (present tense activities? For 24 pages?), and more history, which was long. I sat with Sam and Megan B (I sat with Charlotte earlier. She burned her hand making bagels.) and during a break chatted with Elias (this was before dinner) and Kasey. I really want hard Spanish again, though I suppose some review of commands wouldn't hurt... I sent a message to Nacho saying it was easy. I want to see him again.

After that I went back to Miles (with 2 flashlights!) and Sam and I went behind the sheep barn to throw away some trash. We would've gone to see the cows, but they were too hard to find. I did more history work the dorm, while having a laugh with Jimmy, David, Taylor, and Rafi. I wrote in the English journal about the song Electricity during the check-in, and after this I'll read a Spanish article, listen to music, and get ready for bed. Tomorrow will be a tough day. Focus will be necessary.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING

Spotted: Dr. Horrible!!!!

Hey guys its Rachel and I am totally not kidding I am in California with my family and we were driving up to Lake Tahoe and I saw a bright blue car with a license plate that said DRHRBLE and right as I interpreted it I looked over to see who was driving the car and it was Dr. Horrible himself! The whole situation made me remember our sleep out and I started laughing like crazy... sadly my parents had never seen Dr. Horrible's little musical number and they were terribly confused when I tried to explain. Still, it made me think of all of you. I miss you like crazy!

hey its isaac again. soo little change of plans, anybody that wants to come to vt for labor day weekend is welcome. i know of a few people coming so the more the merrier. facebook or call me if you want to come.

This is my first post on the blog. I don't know why, I read it all the time and I think about TMS all the time, but for some reason I couldn't figure out how to put anything into words. I've spent so much of the summer with you guys, and I've loved it. But next week I'll be home and I won't be working and I just don't know what to do with myself. I'm scared to see my friends because I know they're mad at me for not seeing them all summer. But whenever I'm with them we just talk about the same things we always talk about. The other day we were having a captains practice for soccer and a bunch of returning varsity players came and it was so fun. I forgot how much our team loved each other. Its funny because there is only one girl on the team that I really hang out with outside of the season, but last year she didn't play because she was at the Island School and I'm most nervous to have her there. I've always loved soccer season, and I think that's because its the only time of year when I don't constantly have to worry about where I'm going or what I'm going to do. I think it's the closest I can get to Mountain School. Then at the same time I feel like I might just use soccer season as another excuse not to see my friends. But then I don't know what to do when November rolls around. I don't know if its okay. I just don't know what to do with myself. Its not like I don't like them, I'm just so demotivated. I'm just really conflicted I guess and I haven't really been able to talk about it so I wanted to tell you guys. I'm so glad to have all of you in my life, you've all changed it.

Well done friends!

Now that I have been exposing every feeling I had about Mountain School to admission officers around the north east in the tedious interview process, I've become more and more proud of what we have done, especially when seeing their surprised faces at the experience we had.

Whenever you feel like you can't do something, remember what we just did. Mountain School was hard. We persevered. And we got through the hard times and the good times with style. That was impressive. You are all so damn impressive.

moments that make me remember

So this past week I hiked Mt. Washington and was on the summit of Mt. Clay (a mountain over 4000 ft in the presidential range of the white mountains in NH) when it started to thunder and rain. Not a good place to be! The group I was with made it out safe but we had to move really quickly and had to take this rugged, super steep trail to get below treeline. It was then while I was sliding down rocks and trying to figure out the Sphinx trail that was clearly a riverbed that I remembered you all and the time our Entire semester got lost on our walk to Marc's house. So in the midst of my intense concentration and soreness from the all day hiking event the thought of us all in the woods, lost put a smile on my face!
Thanks! =)

My Secret

I don't have a real chronic injury. I mean its not killing me. I don't have a bone disease that restricts me to a wheel chair, or terminal cancer. I'm not blind, deaf, or mute. My injury seems to define so much of my life. I want the pain to stop. Sometimes I can't even tell if it hurts or not. I have to lie sometimes: I say that it hurts, but I don't know. Is it that it hurts, or that I want it to hurt? Its just that it isn't like regular pain. When a sharp needle punctures your elastic skin, when a boiling pot burns you, when a fist makes rapid contact with unprepared flesh it hurts. My injury hurts in a different way- it is just uncomfortable. The doctors say that they can make it better, but every time I have a procedure done I endure a recovery period of more than a month. At first I can't eat or drink. Later I can't do any of the things that I love to do: play music, exercise, even think (pain killers). Even simple things like smiling are not an option during this period. To be honest I can barely smile anyways. Just another indescribable pain from my injury. I'm really not asking for pity - self, or otherwise. I'm having my fifth procedure in a few weeks and I have seen no improvement just worsening pains.

I have this chronic thing and I really wonder I have the right to chose to remove my problems. Is it really worth it? Each time I give up a month of my life with the hope of improvement. At one point I was driving with some friends and a teacher . They were discussing how people with chronic injuries have a unique perspective on life. I badly wanted to say that I get it, that I experienced it, but I don't have sickle cell, or cancer.

My injury has defined me since I was born: the way people talk to me, the things they say to me. It started as "did you fall?" then "did your sister hit you?" then "what does the other guy look like?" now they say "WTF happened to your ---?" On the plus side my injury has given me the incredible ability to talk with adults. It has also helped me become a periphery surfer. On the down side it has made me uncomfortable with peers who judge on looks. Maybe my pains will go away in a few weeks and I can carry my lessons learned with me. Chances are I will sell my soul for a month with little to no improvement.

When I was in the car Susie, Maddy, Yomalis, Taylor, and Nora I wish that I said something. I wish that I could have trusted them with my secret. I want to ask for forgiveness. I want to smile wide from side to side and ask for forgiveness.

Kinda long today, but I've heard requests for no edits. And, Rebecca, I apologize in advance.

Day 4

Alright. Today. Kinda feeling crazy now, so I'll do my best. This log has been mostly events so far, but in a pseudo-stream of consciousness manner. Waking up was fine; I didn't take a shower because I had first free and would shower then. Breakfast was... oatmeal with cinnamon and raisin scones with some type of icing. I tried the oatmeal, and it was quite good. The scone was as good, but not in an oatmeal way. For morning meeting, Nick, Taylor, Patrick and I presented the Green Cup Challenge information. We're in first place of energy use per capita, and second and third in two other categories.

After showering first period, I had English class, with both Megans, Charlotte, Rachel, Taylor, David, and some other people sitting behind me [apologies! You all are loved.]. It was in the math room with Jack- a nice room and a great teacher, but the seating arrangement (four tables) isolates the class. We discussed journal keeping, and analyzed three poems about that. I apparently read ours very well; thank you Mr. Smith [My English teacher last year--the class was called Performing English]. The poem our group analyzed was about how one might write jewels when one writes a journal, and it's up to time to tell. Our homework was to write three pages in our journal (I'll probably describe Electricity by Sonic Youth), and read the Robert Frost poem people were stressing about yesterday. It might be hard (Spoiler: it kinda is but it's still understandable.).

We then had a farm seminar, before which I snacked on another scone and sat with Rachel and Charlotte who played thumb wars. The farm seminar was interesting- we mainly talked about what we wanted to learn about the farm this semester. I was drowsy. We put up four pages of goals. Environmental Science was next, where we hiked out to a site and saw in real life what we read about last night. Pat didn't tell us we could take notes until it ended, after he described the mindset of a farmer leaving large maple trees to tap for syrup. The hike back was tiring.

At least lunch was good: a hearty soup of some kind with great bread. Bruceworks for Work/Activities was next, and boy was that fun. We took the lattice off of a generator shield so people could get snow of from beside it, we installed two rows of helmet hooks using a massive hammer-drill, moved a bed from Tobold to the shop, and soldered on an extension to a pipe near the greenhouse for... some reason. I don't remember right now. I look forward to building things. Bruce is a pretty cool guy.

My next class was Precalc. It was just standard- I had [Girl who looks like the MA SNL cast member]

Jenny Slate and Rebecca Celli. No?

(I can't remember two names. Awesome.), Anika, and Lex at my table; Hallie, Rachel, David, Sam, and Megan K (a few more- I can only remember these) are also in the class. It was more sequences and series. Fun fun fun. In Spanish, we reviewed ser and estar. You better believe it. I feel really bad not being it the same situation as the Spanish 5 AP people; perhaps I could still take that course by just reading the texts they read and listening to her lectures?

Dinner was, again, good: corn, scalloped potatoes, ham, and biscuits. For the vegetarian option, THERE WAS ACTUAL SUCCOTASH. NOT JUST THE SUFFERING TYPE. I worked with Hallie on the math before and after dinner; we made some progress. I then moved to the E. Sci. room to try and get some work done with Jay, Freddy, Jake, Sam, Adrija, Hallie, and Megan B, but I did a shoddy job and was instead acting crazy, talking in weird voices and whatnot. It was a laugh riot. Now I'm back in the dorm and will finish English work after check-in, then sleep some. Tomorrow I'll do Spanish work during a free, and go to History and English, my two classes. Work some in the evening so Thursday night won't be hell.

Oh, before I forget: soldering was just insane. We had to spread the flux over the pipes, then slide the other pipes on it, heat it up with a propane torch, then at the same time take a solder wire and rub it over the joint as it melted to seal the two pipes together. I kept thinking it would burn me, partially because Bruce said it would really hurt if it did land on me. It was very fast-paced and exciting.

On a separate note... I really like the 9:30 check-in talks with Kit and Comfort or Dan. They are very fun. We recorded a sweet answering machine message afterward: “Hi, you've reached Miles Dorm, where Taylor, Rafi, David, Sam, Sam, Isaac, Jimmy, Patrick, Jake, Ian, live. We all live here.” It was another laugh riot. I wasn't even on time for the first few takes- that last one was like the fifth.

i love all of these posts. the other day i watched the movie called the no impact man which people talked about a bit at the mountain school and i had wanted to see for a while. anyway, i am sure at least a few of you have seen it but if not you really should. it reminded me a lot of school and it just taught me a lot about what we have real control over in terms of our carbon footprint.

on another point- i am just so happy with how much i have learned at the mountain school. not just pre calc but such important life lessons about what i can do, world issues- energy, perspectives, similarities and differences and how they are important in friendships.

every day i treasure a new thing that i have learned in the mountain school. there is this quote "every where I go I take another place with me" and i think thats really relevant because i feel like im taking all 45 of you with me everywhere i go and with each passing day

They keep coming. I don't know about you guys, but I miss this place. [Brackets] are my comments after the fact, to clear up anything vague.

Day 3

The first day, Patrick showed me how to play Blowin' in the Wind on guitar. I remember now because I'm listening to it, but won't continue as I can't remember and listen at the same time. [I pause the music.] That's better. Before I start recounting the day, I want to say that things feel right here. It wasn't a drastic shift from home or anything, but I just feel good when I'm on campus. [Not true at this point... I was having fun, but the 'feeling right' was an exaggeration.]

Anyway. I woke up fine today, before my alarm. Jake and Sam woke me up actually, and from there it was no problem getting to my chore (which is starting to get a little easier, I suppose) and finishing it before breakfast. Megan Butterfield was in Susie's office typing up information about bills while I was sweeping; she had a RENT shirt on from when she saw it on Broadway. Breakfast... what was breakfast? It was eggs and toast. A good start to the day.

First period I had US History (It seems so long ago now... I guess today was a long day), where we discussed what History was. It's a good class, full of smart people. Second I went back to Miles and read the article for homework, then went back to the main building for Precalculus: Probability and Statistics. It was another fun class, and we started learning about sequences and series using the tower puzzle where you have to move discs from one peg to another. I did the homework for that fourth, and headed to lunch, which was... Fajitas! Oh man, fajitas and broccoli soup. I had two fajitas and they were good. Sour cream and salsa... yum. I chatted with Arya [A senior at my school] on facebook before Work/Activities. She's doing fine. More pointless nervousness about Brophy [John Brophy, her boyfriend]. Ho-hum. For Work/Activities, Taylor and I went around with Nick checking electric meters in each dorm and building for a national Green Cup Championship. Because Nick measured the school's baseline as being the baseline for January, when no one was there, the change was very high. We then installed a monitor into Underwood to check the constant KwH output of the dorm, which took longer that it was supposed to due to mismatched screw sizes. We would have installed them in Derby, Miles, and Tobold, but more meters were non-existent.

My next class was Spanish AP. We started by reading a short comic strip. I sort of feel bad for everyone in 5 AP, since I'm in an equivalent of 3 or 4 (we'll be doing grammar. Fun, but not a challenge.) while they struggle with whatever Colbert [A notoriously hard Spanish teacher at home] will throw at them. They would fin Dan (or CapiDan, as we call him) good-looking, however. My final class was Environmental Science, a very interesting class. The people in the class look to house great discussions while keeping a light atmosphere in the class, and the teacher, Pat, is the man. His perspective is very intriguing: don't focus on learning what you don't know, but instead focus on learning what you don't know you don't know.

Sofia [Silverglass--Fall 09. A good friend.] sent the Milton people a message on facebook to which I replied, along with some emails from Grace, Dad, and Uncle Mark Kernohan. Dinner was a lamb soup and a tasty biscuit. I learned that Shizue likes Nirvana, and Hallie likes Phoenix. Since it was Lex's birthday, there was coconut cake (or at least cake with coconut) for dessert. Once dinner finished I went to the library to internet a bit, then returned to Miles to do the E. Sci. reading. Dan stopped by to do check-in and we had a nice long conversation on a variety of topics. Jake and I helped Patrick with trig (this happened before Dan stopped by.

It's its own timeline on this page!) and discussed the banalities of math. I played some Minesweeper, listened to Nirvana and Zeppelin, and changed my desktop from the Led Zeppelin stage thing to Awesome Earth [below]. I might read some Color of Magic, or finish listening to Blowin' in the Wind. We'll see. Tomorrow should be easy as well, but we do have a Farm Seminar. Only two classes on Wednesday, so work will be minimal, but I'll still likely do all subjects to get ahead. I like it here. It's nice.