It's Colder

Low and behold! Five-and-a-half hours north of Beloit, Wisconsin, Minneapolis/St. Paul are dusted in snow. I didn't bring my winter coat on my big Thanksgiving adventure because I don't learn from my mistakes (see: contents of my suitcase over Thanksgiving Break last year). It's colder farther north. It's always colder. This is a rule I learned this weekend.

I don't get a lot of chances to get up to the twin cities because rides headed that way are on the scarce side, but one of my dad's sisters does live up in that neck of the woods, so I take the opportunities when they drive down College Street. I spent Turkey Day baking a pumpkin pie with my cousins up in Minnetonka, Minnesota. They were a total blast. I don't spend a lot of time around 6, 4, and 2-year-olds these days, but they were super. I even got to meet new baby Caroline! I must confess that no pictures were taken the whole holiday, so I've got no proof of how cute these kiddos are except my solid gold word: they're adorable and blond and look entirely like the side of their family that I have nothing (genetically speaking) to do with.

I do, however, have evidence of the day I spent with my Beloit friends at the Walker in Minneapolis. We went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit and came out overwhelmed and thoroughly educated in her life and work. Naturally, this warranted a group picture. We were mere yards from the Sculpture Garden, home of the Cherry-Spoon-Bridge-Landmark Thing (pictured above) that every visitor in the world takes their photo with (see Quinn's latest post, where she unknowingly proves my point). So, we faced the cherry and had someone else's mom take our photo.

Above L to R and mostly very far from home: JuliaBeloit, Danny Zipse (Portland, OR), Anna Noyes (Sorrento, ME), Sean Hershey (St. Paul, MN), and Anacelia Saenz (Austin, TX)

No, Anna's sweater wasn't a planned promo. Yes, we were frozen by the time this photo was taken. In any weather, it was a great diversion and now my nose is pressed flat against the grindstone. I've got three weeks to pass all my classes, pack all my earthly possessions, get a visa for France, and get on a plane to Vermont.

Layer up. The pond in the Sculpture Garden is frozen and so is my nose. A hat might not be a bad idea either...

The Use & Abuse of Caffeine

I'm not actually abusing coffee, but the beverage does seem to aid a bit with the waking hours this gray time of year. I'm getting in some of the best naps of my life, but that's not really what I'm here for. So, I've been search for antidotes to November. Here's what I've got to tide me over until the snow flies:

• My big sister came to visit from Rhode Island. Hanging out and scarfing nachos is better with family.


• Knowing that I'm taking off for another Thanksgiving in the Twin Cities on Wednesday afternoon.


• Those cookies mom sent last week. (No, thank you Glad-Press-&-Seal!)


• Running. Walking. Biking. Breathing cool air outside of my admittedly stuffy dorm room. I love my single in Porter, but I'm already going through lotion like water. Also, dodging the geese down by the Rock River. Those birds are vicious.


• Virginia Woolf. No, just kidding. However, throwing myself into work isn't so bad once I get the pages turning.


• Flight of the Conchords. It's a duo and an HBO show and the best way to understand is to YouTube these seriously funny guys or better yet, click this link to my favorite jam.


• Good company. Whether I'm sneaking off from the library to grab a snack at Taco Bell or walking out Colley Road to gawk around the horse farms, my friends are keeping me out and about and almost entirely off of c-c-caffeine. Except right now, when I am sitting in Admissions sipping on the vanilla frapp I picked up when I took my sister out to the bus stop. Little do they know...

I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving. Start loosening your belts kiddos. There's pie and potatoes and even the vegetarians are planning on overeating this year...

The Woman With All The Answers

(There are no pictures to accompany this post, but it took me a while to articulate my thoughts. Please bear with me, although I acknowledge this is a long one.)

Wednesday was International Symposium Day. I would bother to explain why I got up at 7AM on a day when classes were canceled to attend a bunch of presentations in windowless rooms. But Symposium Days are an important part of Beloit. That may seem overstated as they are just one day out of each semester, but I sat through six consecutive symposiums today that touched upon the role of the AIDs pandemic in various African nations. I went to one talk on shadowing a Peace Corps worker in El Salvador and one on organic farming in Germany. None of these students had an easy time going abroad, but what my friends learned enriches our entire campus. Each of these students comes back with an understanding with depth and color that you can't get from in any classroom. That’s the practical reason we bother with Symposium Days. Plus, sharing is fun.

And now I move on to the inspiration for the hyperbolic title of this post: Carol Bellamy. Carol Bellamy is a big deal. Click the link. Read up. She’s got a mighty impressive résumée. Ms. Bellamy attended several of the symposiumsI sat in on today, spoke with our Model UN club, and gave an open lecture on the need for Global Citizens to round out her visit to campus.

She's the kind of speaker who makes you want to change your course of study. I'm not saying I'm about to hop over to the Registrar's Office and change my major to International Relations. At very least, she made me certain that I will go abroad twice. I've been waffling. I've been reconsidering choosing France (as it is a stable, developed nation)-- and she touched upon this as well. Ms. Bellamy cited statistics about study abroad on the global level. In the US-- less than 1% of students (approx. 200,000 annually) go abroad during their undergraduate experience. I'm proud to say just under half of Beloit students study abroad before they graduate, contributing a couple hundred to that annual stat. Let's face it: the NY Times article I linked above runs along many of the same lines Ms. Bellamy touched upon and states them more artfully than I might. To follow this train of thought, click away.

If all the prospective students could have heard her, you would understand why I live on the border of southern Wisconsin over a thousand miles from my family and friends. It would make sense that I want to double major is French and any field that will land me solid communication skills.

In a way, I came here to leave this place. I am comfortable here. I love my friends and my classes and my Beloit Life (shameless, I know). I could have loved my undergraduate experience at many colleges if I chose to, but I remember reaching a point in my college search where I realized that coming to Beloit would push me and provide the motivation to become the a "global citizen." Studying in France is outside my comfort zone and a sizeable hop over the language barrier. Studying in Senegal would be out of my league entirely. So, I'm going to do it. I'm doing it because Senegal is not a country that has the same level of respect for women and their health as the US. I'm doing it because it's likely that I won’t have many more opportunities to choose to live in this kind of transitional climate again in my life. Getting perspective is what we're here for.

I was leaving Pearson's Hall on my way to Middle College for work last night and John Burris, the president of our college, held the door for me on my way out. It was all I could do not to turn to tell him how glad I was to have heard that speech on my way over to talk to prospective students. Some nights, loving this place makes this job a piece of pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (alla Commons).

In conclusion, when it’s windy on the quad or your visa application makes you want to turn on some Sufjan Stevens and crawl under the covers for a week, a Beloit student has to keep a wary eye on the Student Activities Board in case some amazing person might be on their way through Beloit who will remind you why you ever left home.

Puts Hair On Your Chest

Oatmeal, that is. And quite effectively (or so I'm told). It's also my breakfast-of-choice for the month of November.

My weekend was productive. I like that in a weekend. There was coffee and letter writing and great running weather. It has also been great eating weather. It's chilly enough that have to bundle up, but you arrive at Commons wanting warm grub. On the way out, you can bask in the warmth of your own digestion all the way down the Chapin steps before you noticethe chill. Across the office, Californian Quinn is oozing joy that we made it through October without any of the white, fluffy stuff as it did last October. Snow-shmoe. I say it's pleasant.

Speaking of pleasant things, I did some serious eating tonight. The Cross Country team is traditionally hosted by Coach Dave's family at their lovely home in Pecatonica, IL each season for a little something we call "The Breakfast of Insanity." Sunday night dinner is always a challenge with the dining hall closed (as you read every week on the blogs), but today my main challenge was leaving enough room to, erm, fully appreciate the meal. I dined on stuffed blueberry french toast, spinach quiche, hash browns, pumpkin bread, and homemade applesauce. Those of us who were more carnivorously inclined polished off the greater part of a pig in bacon. All of us left drowsy. Thank you, Mrs. Eckburg.

With Thanksgiving looming on the horizon, everyone is scrambling to make plans and looking forward to seeing family and friends at home. It's not a bad study plan, but I'm taking a new tact this year: I'm studying my way towards mashed potatoes. Starch is an excellent and seasonally appropriate motivator. Try it out. Add garlic. Add butter. It's delicious.

Oh, Judy! You Shouldn't Have...

Look! A flamingo, an 80's exercise diva, Old Judy, Young Judy, a pirate, Amanda's Aunt Susan (at Christmas), a lion, Athena, and Avril Lavigne (before she loved life):



Halloween at Beloit is well-done holiday. Everyone dresses up. Everyone. Whether you're out at a dance party at one of the special interest houses or sitting up in a single in the '64 Halls watching free episodes of Grey's Anatomy online, you're in costume.

Last year, I had a night class until 11pm (self-inflicted, although not the worst course decision I've ever made) and thus missed Halloween entirely. I recall putting on my skiing uniform from high school-- my back-up plan was to be a ski bum last year-- and hopping right into bed. I was the "Grey's Anatomy Kid" described above and besides, there are worse things to sleep in. The sob story here is how I missed a golden opportunity to cut a rug. This year as repentence, I was a young version of Judy Garland.

In group shot at the top of this post, Sean Hershey '10 is the man in drag portraying an older, strung-out version of Judy Garland. To his left, I go to play a younger, sunnier version of Ms. Garland. When I met Sean last year, we quickly discovered that we had both been deeply moved by the Judy Garland biopic "Me and My Shadows." When Halloween came around this year, it seemed like an obvious costume choice-- and who else on campus would think of it!? It was unanimously agreed upon that Mr. Hershey looked better in his dress than myself. To my own credit, Judy was always more about the music than the demanding expectations the studios required of her physical appearance.

In or out of your own shadows, I hope you all had marvelous Halloween!

The Rest of Illinois

There's an image of Chicago's skyline and vast cornfields on the stateline between Beloit, WI and South Beloit, IL that has always left me a little befuddled. (I found the above on Google Images-- same deal although not from our particular stateline-- although the dapper gentleman posting at the bottom is a nice touch for the blog.) When my friends from the midwest told me that Chicago and corn is all there is to Illinois and that this state-produced rendering was spot on, I was skeptical. They weren't kidding.

On Friday morning, the cross country team took off from Jacksonville, IL for the NCAA Division 3 Conference. Two long days later, I feel like I've been on a second fall break. While we fared fourth in the standings (the men tied for sixth), the trip was a nice break from the weight of the brick wall that fell on me upon my return.The workload around here is really warping up and for those of us who won't be going to Regionals, our brains are back on the library shelves. Focusing on Conference was a nice distraction from the stress of school, but with that past us, there was no dawdling at brunch this morning. On a more exciting front: down in Illinois, Allie Hood '08 took my camera around while cheering on the guys. She got some great shots, but as with most pictures from races, everyone either appears to be in extreme pain (fair enough) or half out of their uniform (again, fair enough). In the name of dignity, I think we're all comfortable sharing these few shots:

Above: Men at the starting line-- they're the guys in blue and white with the poorly dyed hair.

Women's Top 20: In the back row on the far right you can find Shelley Quade '09. Amanda Hammermeister '08 is the fourth in from the left on the bottom row.

Left to Right: Heather "Rocks Well" Rockwell '08, Karen Baumann '10 and JuliaBeloit '10 post-race on Saturday morning.

It has been a great season and I'm leaving it feeling healthy and pale as only those who live this far north of the Mason-Dixon Line can. I'm nervous about fitting running into life abroad, but I'm sure going to miss having 20 other girls elbowing me around the Turtle Creek Flood Plane. I'd better go work on my visa application, or I will get to run with the pack for track season after all!

How I Didn't Get Sick Over Fall Break:

I didn't breathe around my sister. Not once. My week away from Beloit consisted of a couple nights with my older sister at her college in Rhode Island, a lot of running on my old favorite trails, and much pie baking (followed by cribbage & topped off with vanilla ice cream).

Breaks are a nice reminder of who/what you've got where, and why you bother travelling back and forth. It's pretty simple. However, in my most recent assessment of priorities, I find Beloit lacks three essentials for me:

1. Mountains. Every time I take the VanGalder back through the flatlands, I'm reminded that the runway at O'Hare isn't the only open space available for landing a plane. This part of the country is beautiful, but if you're concerned with maintaining your naturally-toned mountain-dweller physique, I recommend frequent trips to the StairMasters in the Athletic Center.

2. My family. My homies. Ben, Jerry, & (former) Governor Howard Dean. My people are important to me, but they don't live anywhere near here. Below, my friend Ruthie is posing by a miniture version of the VT state captiol. She's not in Beloit... yet. But I would bet five pounds of the freshest cheese curds at the Beloit Farmer's Market that she'll visit before I graduate from this popsicle stand.


3. And then there's the creemee issue. There is a hot regional debate you may or may not be aware of and it is based out of New England. Creemees are delicious and only found in my homeland. Ruthie and I are both pictured enjoying maple creemees at my favorite local farm. You can't get creemees in New Hampshire. Those kiddos call it "soft serve." I doubt I will find creemees in France at all. There are no creemees in Beloit and that is my final complaint. We've got a fro yo machine in Commons and a DQ down the road, but Wisconsin (and the rest of the world) will never quite taste like home.