Libby McIntosh’s Campus Journal

Back in the Saddle Again

Hi everybody, happy almost Thanksgiving! Well, that’s what I am really looking forward to. I am trying to get all caught up on my homework this weekend so I don’t have to tote home my 3,000 page Norton Anthology of English Literature and huge Political Science textbook. Last week was so terrible. I got sick on Wednesday and had a terrible cold all weekend making it very difficult for me to want to do my homework. (this is not advised, especially at the end of the semester when the big final projects start piling up). This week is definitely looking up though. On Friday is the Wind Symphony Concert. I play the flute and we are playing a really fun concert accompanying a couple of soloists and playing an arraignment of English Folk Songs. Saturday night is Fall Ball, our big fall semester event. Once again the event is being held at the Crystal Ballroom in downtown which is really cool. The floor kind of bounces when you dance on it. This year they are really taking it to the extreme with a Dj and a live band. Hopefully it will be a fun time, a chance to get dressed up and forget about all the homework for a while. On Sunday there is a performance of the opera Dido and Aeneas (based on the Aeneid which everyone reads in Exploration and Discovery their freshman year) which I will hopefully have time to attend.
Since I brought it up, perhaps I will share a little bit about the required first year course Exploration and Discovery (or E&D if you are in the know, or Ed if you are my roommate and I). Everyone reads essentially the same texts in the first semester that usually include the Bible,  Descartes, Plato, The Aeneid, Galileo, and Frankenstein. While it may not sound that exciting, each professor usually adds a couple of books around the theme of their section of E&D. My class was called Wisdom and Folly and we read the strangest book ever called  The Ice Storm, but it was interesting to talk about. In the spring semester teachers choose their topics and their can be some pretty odd offerings. The strangest I have heard of was Vamps and Vampires, but others include Civil Liberties, Understanding the Maya, Books and Brooks and a lot of others that I cannot remember at the moment. E&D is not as painful as it might sound, it also is a great topic of conversation when you get bored.   Hope this has been a little informative, next week I will have lots of fun to report back to you all as I won’t be stuck in bed all weekend. Stay healthy!
Libby

18 November 2009

Raincoats and Recipes

Hey everyone, how is it going this week? Last weekend we had this crazy amount of rain. On Saturday morning it was bright and sunny at ten and then by 11 it was pouring. I thankfully was on a knitting club outing. We went to Michaels and this really cute knitting store to buy yarn. The ladies in the store were so nice to us, we were all mesmerized by the yarn ball winder (that is probably not what it is called but oh well). I got a couple of skeins of yarn to make a shawl (I think), hopefully it will take a while to complete so I will have something to take my mind off work.  When I got back my roommate was soaking wet. She is a tour guide and had to give a tour in the storm and ridiculously did not bring an umbrella. I have a piece of advice for you all, no one is too cool to use an umbrella, they keep you dry (and your clothes) and keep your books from getting soaked.  Were any of you here on Saturday for the Open House? It was a ‘perfect’ Portland day… But truly, if you were here, it usually does not rain that hard.
On Sunday I was really excited because I got all of my homework done on Saturday and my mom and my aunt came to visit me. It is nice to be able to get off campus and see the rest of Portland. We went and had lunch and went to some of the suburbs surrounding Portland and I finally bought a pair of rain boots. It is sad, but yes I have lived here for over a year and just now bought boots.
I am afraid that I have come down with a cold, the downside of living two feet away from another person is that when they get sick you are almost certainly going to get sick as well. I am pretty sure that I do not have the flu, as that would be really inconvenient but I feel sufficiently bad that I am about to go to bed and hopefully sleep for an eternity…or maybe 10 hours. Hope everyone is doing well!
Libby
PS. I thought I would give you a ‘tour’ of my dorm room in Stewart Hall. I live on the upper split which is the part of Stewart that connects to Odell.

11 November 2009

Haunted Leg

Hey Everybody, hope you all had a good Halloween! I had the lamest Halloween ever, my roommate went to a party, but I did not really want to go out so I stayed in my room and watch episodes of “The Vampire Diaries” I can’t decide if I love the show or hate it, but either way I am hooked.  I did not even get any candy, oh well, I am thinking about going to Fred Meyer tomorrow and getting some candy for myself (and some note cards). Although Halloween is over I thought I would share a few of the “ghost stories” floating around campus. In Akin (the International themed dorm) apparently Mrs. Akin (who donated the money for the dorm) does not like boys very much because they are messy so she goes around and organizes your room for you when you are not around (wouldn’t every one want this ghost around—I would love someone to clean my dorm room for me). A second story revolves around Stewart, the dorm where I currently reside, and a live in nurse from the 50s….But I think that I will let you read that one in this old edition of the Pio-Log (the school paper) http://legacy.lclark.edu/~piolog/20011026/cover.html
I still get a little bit scared some nights when my roommate is out late…
I had a pretty quiet weekend, other than Halloween I just lazed around my room doing homework and catching up on TV shows. Things are really ramping up in terms of school work. I am finally getting started on my big project for Historical Materials, I am looking at letters sent between the foreign affairs minister’s of Mexico and the US before the Texas Revolution. While it is probably only interesting to me, I am getting excited (and a little intimidated) about the research. Last week I literally sat down in the middle of this aisle with the books on Texas and stared for a few minutes trying to decide where to start. Eventually I went and asked the Reference Librarian for some advice. The Reference Librarians are really helpful, they can help you find books you are looking for, or tell you were to find certain databases, one even helped me find how to cite this obscure source for my research paper last year. It is nice to know that there is someone to help you so you don’t just stand staring at the books with a deer in the headlights look!
I am looking forward to this weekend, the first weekend in a while were I won’t have to write two papers and I am excited about having time to sleep in a little bit. Winter is officially here as daylight savings time has ended and it is getting dark really early, but I guess that just means more cups of hot chocolate for me, I am thinking about heading down to the study break in Stewart, hot chocolate and “Finding Nemo” sounds more fun than reading about the comparative method. Well that’s all for this week, and don’t forget if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at ebm@lclark.edu
Libby

4 November 2009

Say Something

What to write about this week? My dislike of cold weather? I feel like it has been so cold this week, even though it really isn’t, 50 and raining feels cold though.  I am sitting here at my computer shivering with socks a sweat shirt and a blanket on, I guess I could make hot chocolate, but that would be too much work. But back to something more interesting than my coldness.
Last weekend was crazy, my roommate and a friend and I went to a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday. I had never been before and must say I was really confused about all the random shouting at the screen. I can’t say that I am a big fan, but maybe if I watched the movie first I would have actually known what was going on. On Saturday I went to see Half Blood Prince which was playing on campus and I was really excited. It brought back all the happy memories of the Harry Ginny relationship and how much fun it was (and still is) to dissect every part of Harry Potter. Even if you don’t like Harry Potter it would be a good idea to read it, every one seems to have read it and it makes a good icebreaker during New Student Orientation so you don’t just end up watching TV instead of talking to your roommate.  Of course my friends and I ended up in the endless discussion of how unsatisfactory the climactic moment was, but oh well, it was nice to get to something other than write papers.
Speaking of papers, last week I was freaking out because I thought I had three papers due. One on Tuesday, one on Friday and then one next Monday. Well silly me, I thought that October was over already and then I realized on Saturday morning that in fact I only had one paper due! Yeah, so all of this panic and stress over nothing. OF course now that I have turned in my Plato paper I have to work on the others, but I had a much better weekend then I thought I was going to.
This week isn’t really looking up unfortunately. My huge Historical Materials project is looming on the horizon. I am working on editing a series of letters between US and Mexico before the Texas Revolution (Remember the Alamo!). It is interesting but a lot of work. This week I am having a little trouble matching my blog title (if the rest of you are not as big of fans of Gilmore Girls as I am, that’s were the titles are from), but I guess I just think it is fun!

28 October 2009

Last Week Fights This Week Tights

Hey everyone, I am back after a very busy week. This has been such a crazy week, studying for my Historical Materials midterm and starting to write 3 papers! A piece of very important advice, do not take four classes that all require massive amounts of writing and reading. I am starting to regret my schedule even though I love all of my classes. This was a really exciting weekend though, a couple of friends and I went to see Oregon Ballet Theatre perform Balanchine’s Emeralds and a bunch of other short numbers for their twentieth anniversary. I love ballet so I convinced my roommate and some friends to buy season tickets to the ballet and we got tickets for 56$ for four performances. Now, mind you we did get seats that were second row as far right as you can be, but it was still awesome. Being that close I could see what brand of pointe shoes some of the ballerinas were wearing and see the sweat on their arms.  I am also in the midst of intense jealousy of how wonderfully they articulate their arms and feet! (not that any of you really care).

Blogger at Work

After we got done at the Ballet we went to Chipotle, a Mexican restaurant downtown. My roommate always makes fun of it and tells me how bad it is, but yet she still eats there. Anyway, I am sure most of you do not care about ballet, but there are lots of other kinds of performances downtown. The Oregon Symphony performs (and next month Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull is coming to play with them, I haven’t decided if I will be able to go or not but it would be amazing!), the Opera, and also various musicals and other traveling groups. There is also a pretty big Indie music scene in Portland but I am not really up on that kind of stuff.

This week is also homecoming week. At LC sports are not a huge deal but we do have lots of fun events going on this weekend. Today they had donuts for free in the Social Science building, Friday they are doing a performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Saturday is the Homecoming Game, a band performance and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince showing. I am excited to get to see Half Blood Prince when I am actually awake. I am not a night owl and by the end of the midnight showing I went to I was starting to nod off. Everything from the Harry/Ginny kiss onwards is a little fuzzy. Other than homecoming events I am continuing to write papers and do my reading. I just read Oedipus at Colonus and had a funny High School flash back to two of my friends ‘rapping’ Oedipus the King (one of my friends was “Papa Tier” a.k.a. Tiresias), an image that is forever burned into my brain. Well, off to hang out with some friends and study for my midterm! And for all you early action applicants, good luck and hope you do not wait until the last minute to turn in your app (those common app servers get pretty jammed—especially if you live in the stone age and have dial up at your house [i.e. me]).

21 October 2009

I Solemnly Swear

So, I decided last weeks post was a little boring…sorry, I was in a rush trying to get everything settled for my adventure home for fall break (mostly frantically trying to do homework). One of the best parts about living close to home is getting to go home for short breaks, and drag friends home to show them around. I would like to say that my roommate and I did something really exciting. But, mostly we just hung out and watched TV. Although I did take her to the small town of Sisters to walk around and admire the small town charm.  It was also nice to get to see the stars (the ones in the sky, I don’t live in LA). L&C is a good place to look at stars too, we have an observatory complete with telescope! We are far enough away from the city that the lights are not too bright. The observatory also had an open house in the beginning of the semester and we got to make s’mores and look at Jupiter (I think), through the telescope. I also got to see my friend tripping herself on flat surfaces. My roommate was joking today that my middle name was “grace” and my friend Eleanor said “It’s my first name”. We have fun teasing her about her lack of walking ability.
Everyone on campus seems to be sick. I had two classes canceled today because the professors were sick and it seems like half of the guys in my ballroom class have been sick.  Every day I seem to hear about the swine flu pandemic, it is turning me into a hand sanitizer fiend. My roommate was teasing me because my boyfriend said he was feeling sick and I automatically jumped sideways away from him. Yes, that’s a little mean, but I have a midterm and two papers to write.  It would be very inconvenient to get sick right now. I had my first midterm today and it went okay.  I told my professor that I did not feel like crying afterwards so that means it went well. But seriously, midterms are kind of scary, but after you do them a couple of times they are not too bad. You also get to compare how much of a bluebook you filled with your friends. Or maybe that’s just me. My E&D professor last year told us he once had a girl fill three blue books in a final exam, like I really needed to know that. Something else interesting about blue books, they really are blue (or sometimes green to connote recycled paper of course). But I kind of hate blue books because they are a weird size and have wide ruled pages so I feel like I am in 2nd grade again practicing my handwriting.  Other than doing homework I have become obsessed with the show “Glee.”  I love how happy it is, it is nice to listen to after a long day of reading Plato.  I have also been trying to finish reading Dracula. I know it is cliché to read it, but all of this vampire talk (well the show “True Blood”) made me want to read the ‘original.’ As usual I have to remind myself that thinking about Plato, Dracula, and generally nerdy things all the time does not make you a cool party guest. Although my English teacher did tell me I know the secret passcode to get into English department events since I have had to memorize the beginning of the Canterbury Tales. Well I really should get back to writing my paper right now, but it is so dreary out I am having a hard time concentrating. I swear that right this minute I will go back to writing my Political Theory Paper (really!).

14 October 2009

Ballroom and Biscotti

Okay, so I totally stole my blog title from one of my favorite episodes of Gilmore Girls, and funnily enough, its the episode right before she goes off to college! So, life in college, fun? hard? crazy? I guess I would say that it is all of those things, except so much more. But before I get into philosophizing about the nature of college life, (I can hear Plato’s thoughts on the virtue of Philosopher Kings in my sleep, thank you Political Theory!)  I thought I would give you an introduction to my  typical college day (well Monday, Wednesday and Friday).

I tend to get up at 8 every day, last year it was 7 three days a week because I was crazy and took 8 am Spanish, but I returned to my senses this year and do not have class until 9:10. My first class is Early English Literature, which I was totally afraid to take. The Canterbury Tales are definitely not light reading, but I survived and we have moved on to 16th century love sonnets which I adore. Did you know that Shakespeare wrote his first 100 sonnets to a boy? I’m not sure if that means anything, but you read it in a different way with that knowledge! After English I go to Research Methods for Political Science, which is kind of dull. Not the professors fault, but how interesting is it that good theories must be falisifiable? It is a Major requirement and I am sure it will come in useful later, fingers crossed.

After that I get to my favorite part of the day Ballroom Dance class (and the namesake of my title)! My roommate and I planned our schedules so we could take this class together and it is so fun. We get to spend an hour dancing around and there are even some really good dancers in the class. Right now we are learning Foxtrot, Swing and Rumba. Currently Swing is my favorite, but some of the turns in the Foxtrot are really fun when you get going. I love it when the teacher brings her husband to class because we get to watch them dance, it is inspiring. I like getting to dance with the teacher because she can make me do steps I did not even know I could do!  I always come out of ballroom feeling extremely happy. Portland also has a lot of dance clubs that allow under 21 which I hear is really fun. They have blues dancing, swing dancing and salsa dancing, my roommate went blues dancing last night and said it was amazing, they even offer beginners lessons. After Ballroom I eat lunch and then I go to work at the Admissions Office. I love working in the Admissions Office (and not just because you get cupcakes and candy during the winter!). While it’s a lot of filing I think it is way more interesting than sitting in the Library or watching the printer (yes that is a job on campus!).  After classes and work I like to relax and watch TV a little bit before starting my homework. Meal times tend to be the best time to see all of your friends during the day as every one heads over to the “Bon” at about 5:15.
–A note about college slang–Every college seems to have a lot of slang and some of it is annoying, so just so you know
L&C= Lewis & Clark (the place where you want to go!) and as a side note, you are only supposed to use the & sign and not spell ‘and’ out (who knew!) but hardly anyone knows this
Campo=Campus Police (standard on most campuses)
Pio= short for pioneers (our mascot) used in reference in everything to our shuttle, the mascot and our school newspaper the Pio Log
The Bon= AKA Fields Dining room, named the Bon after the catering company and it is the place where we eat 3 times a day
The Raz/Pio Express=The shuttle that takes us to Fred Meyer (the grocery store) and downtown all day
South Campus= The graduate school located up the hill from Forest and Hartzfeld Halls
Lower Campus=The prettiest part of L&C (and my favorite) which is the original grounds of the Frank Estate with the reflecting pool, swimming pool, grass, and rose gardens
Okay, that’s the short edition of L&C slang, more to come I am sure
Anyway, after dinner and hanging out I start my homework, or if its Tuesday I head off to Band. That’s a pretty typical day for me, except some are way more exciting! Oh yeah and for the last part of my title, I really have no idea. I don’t really like coffee, but biscotti is good, I wish they would serve it in the Bon! Hope this is informative and if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me, ebm@lclark.edu

P.S. The pictures are of my roommate and the mountain on our drive to my house in Bend for fall break.

7 October 2009