Fishbowl

Anna Noyes '10 and Kate Hermanns '10 got a fish for their room in the Art House. There was much debate over his name last weekend, but at last check, nothing was settled upon. Suggestions ranged from the Biblical to Julep (derrived from paint chip for their wall color). It's important to match your fish to your room. Anyway, I terrorized him with my camera while "Flight of the Conchords" was getting set up on Anna's laptop. Now the fish is in the bowl and in this blog. Welcome to the campus community, Nemo!

A secret about BC Admissions Blogs: if we're posting pictures of our friends new fish, chances are we're a bit overwhelmed. I'm trying to figure out if I want to start planning another semester abroad, if I want to double major in French & Creative Writing (or just choose one!), and how to make an academic plan that incorporates all of this into the next five semesters.

It's not that there isn't a ton of support on campus to help me work this out, it is the number of waking hours in the day and my own indecision. I picked Beloit so I would be in a place where I could get help planning out my education. It's a matter of using my resources. So, I'm setting up appointments to make sure I get into office hours with my advisors. I'm running at next week and midterms stocked up on Vitamen C. I'm just trying to keep up with my laundry.

Spending those few lazy minutes in the sun between classes is doing wonders for my mental health, but that fall feeling is creeping up. Time to break out the fleece jackets, kiddos. Stay warm!

The Parents Day Orphan (Who Wasn't)

Ok. So, maybe this title is inappropriate, but it only means to refer to those Beloit students like myself whose families are too far out of range, or those unable to get a flight thanks to the Chicago Marathon to make Parents Weekend. Thank you, runners of Boston and your want for direct flights.
I was bummed not to show my family Beloit in the fall. I was sad they couldn't go to the Farmer's Market with me. I was devastated I couldn't make use of their rental car for a trip to the Apple Hut. Most of all, I wanted to get some use out of my cribbage board. I guess I'll have to settle for sending them pictures of fall in Wisconsin (or the lawn in front of Middle College, as pictured above). Beloit is scenic in an entirely different way than the Green Mountains, but there is something to be said for 80 degrees on the last day of September.

I actually spent most of my Sunday down at Pleasant Street Coffee House. I had a stack of work to get done, but I also happened to have my digital camera. So, being the be creep that I am, I decided to take pictures of all the people I knew as they walked through with their parents. Wierdly, none of these students are men. We are not by any means an all-female institution. It just so happens that between the hours of 1PM and 4PM only women brought their parents out onto the patio. Go figure. Here's my montage of parents with their students, looking freshly caffeinated and probably a little harrassed:

Above: Megan Armstrong '10 and her mother were waiting for coffee on a bench by the river when I approached with my camera.

Above: Briana Berkowitz '11 and her dad hanging out by the Rock River. I'll shamefully confess that I don't know too many first years, but Briana's twin sister was my prospie last spring when they came to visit so I've formally made her acquaintence. Thank you, Gold Key.

Above: Rachel Berzon '08 and her whole family got in on this shot. They were also kind enough to inform me that Rachel's brother never smiles. That wasn't my fault.

Above: Emma Holt-Sawyer '11 and her mom posed for me. Like I said, I don't know many first year students outside those in my classes or those who stayed with me as prospective students. In any case, I don't know Emma. I got a little help ID-ing her for the blog, but this was the first picture I took. I'll admit that I got a bit excited about my "orphan" idea, so when I recognized the first Beloit student-parent duo on the patio (note the name badge), I asked them to mug.

I'm a monster.

Everyone was a great sport about it and taking pictures seemed like a fine excuse to meet some of my friends' parents. All I can say for myself is that if Krista hadn't done such a great job covering Apple Fest, this sorry post never would have happened. And now, it is done.

As Decided in Commons at Dinner:

I'm declaring my "Veggeversary" (or veg-a-versary, if you will). The jury is still out on when the festival will be, but I'm celebrating eleven meatless years-- more details to come when I choose the arbitrary date.

This inspired holiday has come to my mind at this time of year before. It was in this very season that I first decided to lay off the beasties back in the third grade. My best friend at the time insisted we had to "stop hurting the animals" and quite naturally, I agreed. Sadly for "the animals," my friend gave up her stand when her parents started planning the Thanksgiving dinner. As I got older, I only found more reasons not to eat meat. I've never stopped my boycott. Now, Thanksgiving is gobbling just below the horizon and preparations must be made far in advance. I won't have time to fly home to the Green Mountains, but I just might piggy-back my new feast onto Turkey Day. There is a certain vein of irony to be considered here...

So, this year there will be a Veggeversary and it will be joyous and soy-filled and good. You're all invited.

The Saturday Files

Wierd, but true: I'm a NCAA Division Three athlete. Yup. I get a free t-shirt that says "Beloit College Distance" and everything. The backwash here: my high school was too small to support soccer and field hockey and lacrosse and still have runners left over for cross country or track teams, so while I've always loved running I had never treated it as a sport in its own right. It was just never presented to me that way.

So, now I live in the Midwest. While we've got clubs, there's not a big crowd for field hockey or lacrosse or even cross-country skiing. I had to try something new. I got involved with BC Track last spring and now I'm running in the back of the Cross pack. It gets me outside everyday and assures I will always have someone to eat with in Commons. Aside from the dorky team stuff and the help with any social anxiety, I love getting out of town on Saturdays. I've been around this town for a weekend or two and it's the cheapest way to get off campus!

This weekend, we went a couple hours east to the Forrester Invitational. We tied for second on the womens end of things and our men came in fourth. I know this post feels very jock-y so far, but I swear, Beloit College harriers are not that kind of crew. We just wear short-shorts like all the other teams...

(Above:) Coach Eckburg & Joe Cardillo talk to some of the guys after their race.

(Above:) Meet Shelley Quade. She runs fast. Nutrition is important to her. She will be very pleased that I chose to post this post-race photo. The bananas were particularly good on Saturday. Not too brown or gunky, but ripe. Ah, potassium.

(Above:) This is Ian. He's a First-Year. He's making a surprise guest appearance on my blog because he managed to take a nice dive as he kicked into the chute for the finish. I'm not posting this photo to be mean. This is by no means a mockery of his efforts, but an attempt to let our "Buc Yeah!" intensity shine through. Yeah, it's intense.

(Above:) Oh. This is a personal favorite. Coach Eckburg was rather fond of the posters some unidentified team tacked all throughout the course and I had to take this opportunity to pay hommage to Eck's prescription rec specs. Righteous.

There's my Saturday. For the full wrap, you can check out the official Beloit College scoop on what we've been up to.

Hope you're all enjoying the weather. It's apple picking season. It's crisp. It's fresh. It's fall.

Some Housekeeping

Literally. This is the nitty-gritty stuff. I live in a single in Porter Hall. If you check out the Residential Life bit of the Belwah site, you'll see that this is one of the ever-rustic '64 Halls. I lived in the same room last year and love the community. It's quiet. It's spacious. It's conveniently located between the food and my classes. Here's a picture (below) of a certain Ruby Jennings '10 "studying communism" (read: trying to sneak a nap on my bed) during one of my more studious nights last week. I can't blame her. I spend a lot of time sitting by the window myself. I kept listing toward my REM-cycle right after these SOI shifts. And while I love logging the Z's, it doesn't get the Chaucer read.

Aside from the token "hey, check out my dorm room" shot, I want to get some dork stuff out of the way while this blog is young. I'll really resent this kind of entry later in the semester, so it's all getting out of the way right now. I'm somewhere between a Creative Writing and a French major and four months from starting my studies in Rennes, France. So, what does my course load look like? Well, prospies, it looks a little something like this:

Physics 130: Astronomy in the News

This class combines text book readings, current events, and basic physics with an occasional hour out on the roof of Chamberlin to do star-gazing labs. The way distribution requirements work around here, you have lots of options in maneuvering-- for me, it was a matter of navigating the Natural Sciences. As a lit-loving bookworm, I never have to take a Calculus course here and my friends who are Physics majors don't have to take a lit course to learn how to write well or get their Arts & Humanities covered. This may sound a bit "from the mouth of an Admissions Counselor," but I swear, this is all my own enthusiasm for the system. Last fall, I took the nerve signalling course Shanna mentioned in her blog. The amount of writing done in that course keeps it quite disitinct the other lab sciences I had my pick of in the course catalog.

English 195: British Literary Survey

We hop around the Norton Anthology reading and discussing and analyzing and reading and discussing... frankly, I think the visiting professor teaching this course is great, but I am ecstatic to be done with Middle English!

Anthropology 120: The Human Animal

Three hours of this course are straight lecture. The fourth hour, the class splits in two for lab time. I took an anthro course called "Society and Culture" last semester and loved it. However, the jury is still out on this course. I prefer discussion-based classes, so this isn't my favorite way to learn, but the prof on this one is still a great lecturer in her own right. I can't knock that. It's a solid course in biological anthropology. It meets at 8AM Tuesday. I have a midterm on Wednesday. On second thought, ask me about this course again at the end of next week.

French 240: The Character of French Literature

Scott Lyngaas, one of two French professors at Beloit, is leading our class through classics like "Le Malade Imaginaire" and "Candide" up through modern lit such as Daniel Modiano's "Dora Bruder." Aside from being a big fan of Scott from my French 215 course last fall, this is easily one of my favorite courses this semester.

It's a wierd bag of courses, but that seems to be the norm the semester before a semester spent off-campus. Next semester all my courses will be taught in French and after that, I am going to have to pile on the English if I decide to continue to work towards fulfilling that major. I still want to try out a class in the Sociology Department. I would love to take a Philosophy course with my FYI advisor Matt Tedesco. There are so many classes I'm afraid I won't have time to take that have the reputation of making Beloit what it is. In any case, I promise to avoid this kind of wordy-geek-stuff in the future.

Hope your weekend is swell.
Hope none of my friends find this and read that last sentence.
Hope for ripe bananas in Commons at Breakfast.

This Computer is Set to Type in Hindi

...and it is driving me up the wall! In any language, we're already into the fourth week of the academic year here at Beloit. It seems hard to believe, but today marks the end of the first quarter of the Fall Semester.

Although, at a second glance, things around here do seem to be in full swing:

• After a bit of time away, I'm once again working regular hours here in Admissions.
• Every other day it seems I am writing a "big" paper or studying for some exams that will make or break my GPA.
• Cross Country is whipping into gear-- come to think of it, morning practices have had me up at 6AM for weeks!
• And if that's not enough, today there was enough dirt on my dorm room carpet to inspire a schlep across Porter 3rd to put the communal vaccuum to task. If that's not a sure sign I'm living the Beloit Life, I don't know what is. It's funny, but I realized today that aside from my running shoes and my flip-flops, I'm entering autumn unshod. I have tracked a remarkable amount of dirt up to the third floor for someone who doesn't own shoes. Puzzling.

So, maybe we are a month deep out here after all. And while it has taken the better part of September to get my summer brain back into "school" mode, I think I'm there.

Friday Afternoon

For those of you who checked the Summer SOI Blog, I am the same "Julia" who posted pictures of an empty toilet paper holder. This is my new blog. It's allll mine. Welcome. Please enjoy it. I will try to keep up with the pictures and catch your interest with flashy words, but I'm afraid my life is less exciting than it was in the summer months when I had time for road trips and rafting Turtle Creek.

In any case, I've just finished my classes for the day, I've got a date with friends to meet in Commons for lunch in a half hour, and the weather is going to be perfect for Cross Country practice this afternoon. I'm falling back into the schedule of the academic year and it's comfortable, even if it isn't the most exciting thing to read about.

Although, I am being kind of exciting right now. I'm upstairs in the library tapping this out with half a chocolate chip cookie bar in my mouth. You're not supposed to have food in the library. Yeah. It's pretty serious.

I'm such a rebel. Imagine eating this right before lunch on a Friday (please see the image I ripped off Google to the left). Donna Heney, are you reading your daughter's blog?

Speaking of cookies, I just got the best batch of mail in my box. It's sure to be a wonderful day in Beloit when you find this haul waiting in your box:

2 Mix CDs (one from some runners, another from my former WBCR radio show Co-host-- according to the track list, I now possess the tasteless remix of Avril's "Girlfriend" I've been looking for)
1 Package of the aforementioned cookie bars
1 scrap of jeans that were at one point worn by a close friend of mine (I think)
A refill on my asthma medication from my mother (because I'm THAT kind of cool
THE FINAL PAYCHECK for stuffing all those envelopes in Admissions this summer

My Beloit Life is tapped at the moment, but I've got a meet tomorrow in Kenosha. I promise to give you all the gorey details if I trip and fall. Or I'll make some up.

Hope you're all up and on your feet. It's the way to be.
- Julia