Carleton!

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I've had an amazing first (almost) three weeks at school! The move-in went well... THANKS JIM! And the first few days were of course... awkward. But things have fell into a semi-routine that I really enjoy. The people are awesome. The classes are awesome. The campus, too, is pretty awesome. I've actually only ventured into Northfield once since Jim left, and that was to go to Sweet Lou's Waffle Bar. I had a Twin Cities, which would have been better named "strawberry and banana heaven." Sweet Lou's closes at 2 AM on the weekends, so my friends and I (the group I was with that night were all Jewish and until around 3 in the morning they thought I was Jewish too... ?) went there around 1 in the morn. It really hit the spot since we had spent the night playing Apples to Apples in Dacie Moses (the cookie house) waiting for our chance to bake cookies. When it finally came around, our cookies took forever to make and tasted horrible. In fact, they didn't even come out of the oven as cookies. It was just a full tray of mush. My twin cities waffle made up for all of that. And from that small taste of Northfield I can say that it's awesome too!

I don't shower on Sundays. Because I know that I'll be studying for most of the day and 90% of the students will be too. It's a lot easier to study here because everyone is studying all the time. In high school none of my friends really spent time on stuff, so if I was going to study I'd be missing out... but now if I don't study I'll feel out of the loop. It's a welcomed change. I turned in an exercise for my English class and did really well on it so I guess that's some indication of the results of studying. The exercise we did doubled as an outline for a paper and I just finished my paper about two hours ago. It's not due until tomorrow at 2, but I'm glad to have finished it tonight. If anyone wants to read it and offer some suggestions that'd be awesome, since it's our draft form and won't be graded for another week. Let me know!

Sorry, I'm not trying to talk exclusively about classes or anything, but I think I finally figured out why I was so unmotivated and disinterested in high school. Because the classes really WERE boring (sorry, Tom). Here, I don't memorize, do busy work, or get stamps for ridiculously banal, unoriginal assignments. What I do is... I read a bunch of things that make me see these new (or not so new) insights into things I'm somewhat familiar with. I think about them. Sometimes I take notes on them. And I form my own opinions and perceptions of them. I go to class, sit in a circle and hear other people talk about what they got from it. Then the class responds. Or the prof (the teachers here are amazing) points out topics of interest or focuses the classes ideas. Then we all learn from each other. And we use our ideas to help others. And others do the same with theirs. And we push each other to think further or differently or more openly. We walk out of the classroom more insightful than we came in... every day :) I love it.

I have a bunch of other stuff I'm really excited to share with everyone, but I've been in front of the computer for too long today! I'll definitely be back on here soon though!

Keep it cool!