Grinnell, part 01

/Even hundred posts. This is the 101st. I really like Blogger.

So for the next half hour or so, I believe, there's a movieish thing continuing here at Grinnell, but I'm not going to it partly because I really, really needed a shower after Ultimate today and partly because I'm just tired (again, mostly from Ultimate). A small part of my staying in my room is you guys, too, that you may hear from me at all. I know that I'm unconscionably busy right now with, like, social stuff, and once the semester starts, I'll have class (though probably less hanging out), homework, and regular real Ultimate (and, eventually, swimming), but I still kind of really wish that I could have taken some of you kids along with me; people like...well...everyone of whom I can think who would read this blog (and to whom I'm probably going to send a link) would love it here. Every single kid is cool, or, if not that, at least exceptionally satisfyingly and refreshingly deviant from stereotypes. I love it.

By the way, just so that I can get it out early and not really think about it the rest of this post/whatever, I've played Ultimate every day since Sunday, relatively hard, and my wounds (larger than small scrapes) include a mildly sprained and swollen toe, a largeish hip bruise, several small leg bruises, and a painful (right) thumb bruise. I'm pretty excited about this whole playing for real thing; it's a whole lot more organized than I'd ever experienced. I get the disc a lot and tend to play...everywhere on the field, every position (that I really know), and I know that I don't play very prettily with regards to form, but I guess that I'm still strong enough a player to draw some attention. Woo?

This semester, unless they (and all of their respective sections) fill up, my classes'll be my first-year tutorial (each kid gets one; supposedly it basically teaches college writing) is Old English Rediscovered. 'Tis an 8:00-9:50-type class, but my professor (read: advisor) is really cool and is letting us start at 8:30 to go through the end without a break. Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other days of the week will be computer science (fundamentals of), philosophy (intro. to), and math (linear algebra) from nine through almost noon, basically. After speaking with my advisor, I've decided to reconsider dual-majoring--not that I've given up on it, but I'm at least going to think about it more. Evidently any degree from "the liberal arts school Grinnell College" means that I've done more than merely my major to most places--i.e. evidently each major is only about a fourth of each student's coursework, so like a class per semester. Maybe I'll get to take a lot more of those intro. courses than I thought.

Actual, among the courses which I want to try but probably not push past the 300-levels at most are:

• psychology
• biology
• physics (ish; I've decided that I wouldn't be able to, say, major, maybe concentrate (Grinnell concentrations ~= minors); just too much stuff to memorize and know, not to figure out)
• political science
• anthropology
• French
• Italian

My potential majors/concentrations, as it stands right now, are:

• math
• computer science
• philosophy
• Latin
• linguistics

...Ish. And those lists are incomplete, but they're reasonably close right now.

So when I went canoeing (that'll be a post itself...more later), there were about twenty-fiveish kids divided into four nearly even groups with two older, non-first-year "leaders", i.e. upperclassmen who knew what they were doing and could make sure that we didn't do anything too bad. Of course, spending about a week with the same group of people helps you get to know them and spending five or so days with the same group of seven people really helps you get to know the others. I've been hanging out with kids from my group a lot these past four (since Saturday evening) days that I've actually been on-campus, but I've also met some really cool other kids whom I see frequently.

Jebus, college is so much fun. I'd expected it to be so, but it is dramatically more so than I'd anticipated and for which I'd allowed myself surprise. Betsy told me not to expect altogether too much from the place and I think that that helped (unlike situations such as not expecting much from movies which end up being worse, even, than I had thought so consistently possible).

I'm not going to lie; I got distracted and now it's like twenty minutes later. Ad Lorton just dropped by my room on his way to another one on my floor, but I was already [plans]'ing at that point, so I was already lost.

Regardless, one story which I want to relate in particular (and about which I feel slightly guilty) happened last night and this morning. See, one of the girls from my GOOP (that canoeing pre-orientation shindig) group, Cari, has a car and another girl, Erica, spent a whole lot of time this summer chilling in IHOPs around her town and having cathartic discussions and entirely open conversations with her friends. Nathan, one of the first and coolest kids I've met so far, at least hung out a whole lot in a waffle house or something doing comparable things. So last night we all went to Des Moines (about fortyish minutes away from Grinnell), drove around until we felt like we were at least somewhat close to one, and stopped by a BK (it was closed, so we swung around to the drive-through). Since Cari was driving, I told her to ask for pancakes. And she did. After a long pause, the menu left the advertisement and went to the screen on which it displays whatever items you've ordered and the total. After a bit longer, the man told us that they don't have pancakes. So we asked for the nearest place that did...and he gave us easy directions to IHOP! Success! So we definitely drove over and had some extremely tasty breakfast food; things like fruit and chocolate pancakes, respectively, crepes, hash browns, bacon, and eggs. /Drool. We were also flipping out really hard when we found out that at least that IHOP is open twenty-four hours each day. Yeah, that's right.

I went on a "bakery run" yesterday morning/carried over from the night before. Evidently, at about two each morning, this certain bakery in town opens up via the back door when the baker gets in to start baking stuff for the day. So a bunch (maybe a hundredish or more--probably more, but my estimate's not a very reliable one) of us new (and old) Grinnell kids went over and bought cookies mostly (everything else was sold out by the time I was only a few yards away from the door; the line stretched from the front door of the bakery through the area with all the ovens etc., out the back, around the corner, and around the corner to the front--then out into the street a bit, too, I believe, but I was towards the middleish when we made it there.). It was awesome.

So now that I've been "posting" for about an hour, I think that I'm going to run to do more things social. Capture the flag starts in forty-five minutes, contemporaneous with organized DDR and karaoke.

Peace, kids.