Three Cheers for the Weekend - Cheer Number One

I just had my first real Oberlin weekend - that is, a weekend that did not include at least one night spent sitting in my room with Whitman gazing at our respective screens. (Although it might yet. We'll see.)

I'll summarize it chronologically, rather than, say, alphabetically, which would be a lot of work and not very enlightening for any of us. Therefore, Friday night:

The curtains open on me, in a fairly comfortable chair reading Jared Diamond; Sam, on the couch, reading some other, indubitably less prestigious book; and Whitman, in one of the lopsided wing chairs, staring pensively at nothing. He and I began a game of chess, but were interrupted by Brenna 2*, Kelly and the glimmer of a plan. We'll fast forward to the four of us (sans Sam, still studying) climbing up the stairs to the astronomy tower to take advantage of public stargazing night. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. As well as the dome telescope, trained on a ring nebula, there were four smaller scopes set up to view other celestialities. Once we'd seen everything, we stood on the edge of the deck and talked about fall break, and home, and homesickness.

We next headed to Slow Train for a performance by Isabel Roth and Friends. The highlights included two songs she wrote as a freshman: "Fearless," a reaction to the then-new admissions campaign; and one whose name I didn't catch, but included the lyrics:

"You are wonderful all of the time / but I just don' t have all of the time. / And if I'm honest with myself, it's probably / better for my health / if you and I take some time for ourselves."

Her upbeat, catchy tunes are still stuck in my head. Less pat, though, was The Hurt Locker, which we decided to watch in our room. The experience was a study in contrasts: four college students, cozily wrapped in fleece, then thick walls, then campus security. We are protected from war by borders and oceans and parents who love us. We sat on my bed and watched men die, silently, horribly, and did not move or speak except to arrange the blankets.

And then it was midnight so we turned the movie off. We got granola from the kitchen. Whitman and Brenna went off to bed, and Kelly and I did Midnight Crew, and I went to sleep and forgot all my dreams in the morning.

I woke up in a wonderful mood! I ambled around the internet, then downstairs to sniff out breakfast. After a few lazy hours I biked to Wilder to get a package of mine.

Well, that was the plan.

I went around back to one of our bike racks and my bike, Jeffrey, was gone.

Now, I always have to qualify that "my" right there, because Jeffrey isn't actually mine. It belongs to the bike co-op, and was supposed to be my temporary bike before they opened. I was going to rent a bike that was a few inches taller, and could brake in the rain. However, they were a little short of rentals this year, and so Jeffrey has just stayed mine. I'm sure I owe them hours for compensation. We'll work it out.

Anyway, that doesn't change how I felt: Jeffrey was gone, and I was devastated. I knew I should have locked it up. But I never did, and now it was gone, and it was awful. Whit let me borrow his bike and I cruised North Campus, searching for any sign of my beloved. I made it down to Wilder, the Student Union here, before picking up that package at the mailroom and heading back.

The package contained Virginia salted and chocolate-covered peanuts, which brightened my mood considerably. (Thanks mom! Made my morning!) I went out for one more round before giving up for the afternoon and giving Whitman back his bike. And I found him! (I mean, found it.) Jeffrey was in front of the dining hall, about fifty yards from Keep's back door. The thief - borrower? - had left my water bottle in the holder and neglected to use a lock, so I ran home tugging Whit's bike with one hand and mine with the other. 

"I promise to lock you all the time from now on," I told Jeffrey, loudly. Some passing girls didn't even look up. This is Oberlin, after all.

In the Interim ...

I have a post about my weekend in the works, but while you're waiting, here are some cute animal pictures!

As I type, Beatrice is having a great time checking for treats in my hair. This next one, from the Ginko Gallery, is a little less current:

Hope you're all having a spectacular week! I'll check in soon.

All in a Day's Work

So my co-op is in its third week of interim, but almost all of our elections have been taken care of, and the chaos is generally sifting out into a kind of lopsided order. I have been elected to one position each in Keep Dining Co-op and Keep Housing Co-op (which are two separate entities, because we have dining members who do not live here, and also because the health department cares a lot more about our food than where we live). The first of these is KitchPoCo, and this is what we do:

The three of us help run Commando every Sunday, which has a lot more to do with this than this. Along with a rotating crew of co-op volunteers, we scour the kitchen from top to bottom; we sanitize the fridge, de-lime the Hobart, and empty the greasetraps (which actually only entails throwing out the old greasy tinfoil and putting in new tinfoil, but you can imagine a grislier scenario if you prefer). We have to do occasional walk-throughs to make sure we're pretty much up to health code, and check the fridge temperatures once a day to be sure they're not running hot and ruining our food. We also get emails from the All-OSCA Cleanliness and Maintenance Coordinators when they inspect Keep. (These are students like ourselves, so although it is possible to fail these inspections it is intended as a learning experience.) Finally, we go to the All-OSCA Non-Foods Coordinator with equipment requests: a metal spatula, for instance, or a squeegee to use on the Hobart tray. This last job would probably be easier if she held hours more than twice a week.

Cleanliness Coordinator is a housing job, and it's a lot more low-key. There are four of us, three of whom run cleaning shifts and one of whom inspects as necessary. Every Keeper - except those with other jobs, such as Non-Foods Buyer - has to do one cleaning shift a week. We scrub toilets, clean sinks, and sweep, vacuum, and mop, as well as make the lounge presentable and occasionally dust. ... Who am I kidding? We never dust. We do do a pretty great job though.

So, those are my jobs. I've also KP'd and crewed, since everyone has to help out during interim, but talking about cleaning things is almost as tiring as actually cleaning things. I'm going to go grab a snack and maybe see if Beatrice is out. Ciao.

Cockatiels!

This is Beatrice, and she is lovely.

Heather, the other human in the picture, is also quite lovely - she's a member of ECO and plays organ and piano for Taize. Heather, however, does not to the best of my knowledge live in the language lab, so I'll focus on Beatrice for now.

She is one of at the three cockatiels who live in the Cooper International Learning Center. (I am also fond of the other two, Iago and Flaubert, but Beatrice is my favorite.) She perches, nibbles, CAWrs and preens, all of which would be really weird for a human being but suit a cockatiel perfectly!

The language lab is my new favorite place, although the Ginkgo Gallery might give it a run when I finally get down there. (They have kittens.) CILC, however, has giant Macs, light, air, and cockatiels ... I can (and do!) read my ERes docs with Bea on my shoulder.

Of course, I do have a special bird shirt, which usually goes right in the laundry when I come "home." It's a small price to pay.

If y'all ever do visit Oberlin, come with me to the language lab. Meanwhile, enjoy this adorable picture of Heather and Flaubert:

I guess she goes for the mohawk.

(This is how the situation would have looked if I'd said that.)

Libraries!

I have been here just slightly less than two weeks and I am already in love with the library.

During orientaton, everbody said that we'd never again have the chance to study whatever we like, whenever we like, for credit. We'll also never have such resouces at our fingertips, which sounds a little sarcastic. I say it sincerely, however, having already spent hours in Mudd.

The first resource made available to me was a free library mug, which I haven't used, but looks just lovely on my shelf. The next day I went back and snuggled up with a childhood favorite, Dealing with Dragons. Of course it would have been a little embarrassing to be seen with a kids' book. (Around finals, there is apparently group fingerpainting and naptime for stress relief, but we haven't collectively regressed just yet.) So I found one of the famous Womb Chairs and read until I was done.

Then classes started, and I abandoned Mudd in favor of the bookstore, where I mulled over required books and tallied dollars in my head. Fresh from high school and aghast at the prices, I bought nothing. I knew it would eventually become a problem.

It hasn't - I remembered OHIOlink.

Those of you still in Connecticut (which is all of you so far) are probably familiar with LiON, which (less eponymously than OHIOlink) links all the participating libraries' collections in Connecticut. OHIOlink is like LiON on steroids. It had half of my required poetry books and all of the required books for my first year seminar. It didn't have my textbooks, but Oberlin does have those on reserve, so I might get away without buying a single book this semester - not including, of course, my Aplia card, which I bought directly from Aplia to avoid the book store's fairly weighty sales tax.

It should also be mentioned, before I close this post, that Mudd has 15 iPads which can be checked out for up to three days.

Cue the ooohs.

Writing Samples for Oberlin Blogger Application

Since one post (or even several) is a poor survey of anyone's writing skills, I have included for your convenience a sample of the last academic-personal writing I was called to do, in sophomore year of high school. (Purely academic writing is too dry, and purely personal writing is - well, personal.) It's a series of several vignettes about childhood, plus a reflection. The tone is very different from that of a blog but I'm flexible!

The writing is after this makeshift jump so I won't clutter up the blog.

A Capella at Fairkid Chapel

At noon today I left my seminar and remembered, just in time, about Noontime Sing in Fairchild Chapel. After ducking over to Student Health on my "borrowed" bicycle, I found an unobtrusive entrance to Bosworth Hall and crept - yes, really, crept - down the hall to the chapel. The orientation booklet has been known to get things wrong, and I didn't want to stroll into ... well, I'm not sure what I was afraid of, but I guess I didn't want to stroll into an extremely awkward situation.

Not to fear, however. There was already a cluster of people with Presbyterian hymnals in the first few pews. I recognized Steve and Heather from ECO, the Ecumenical Christians of Oberlin, and was, in fact, wearing a shirt I'd made at their tie-dye social - more on that later, because ECO is a really phenomenal group.

We opened with a hymn and Peter Slowik, the artistic director of Credo, introduced himself and read a brief passage from scripture. The hymns, it's worth mentioning, are not sung "a capella," which only means "in the chapel." Heather did a fabulous job as accompanist on the organ and piano.

The hymns were some of my childhood favorites - popular, joyful tunes, mostly in major - but even for non-church-goers, the melodies are intuitive and of course the notes are right there on the page. The people there are friendly, and it only lasts twenty minutes, from 12:10 to 12:30. Although it is a religious service, everyone is welcome, and it's a break from the inevitable class-study-class-lunch-study pattern our weekdays tend to take.

For a much more thorough treatment of the service and history, read Marsha Lynn Bragg's account of the inaugural A Capella service. But meanwhile, know that there is a great community here in godless Oberlin and I am getting along just fine!

Introductions All Around

So, I just started a blog, and I guess I'm supposed to do an introductory post. I think it's a rule.

My name is Griff, and you've presumably met me, although if you haven't, that's okay too. I go to school at Oberlin College, which is not yet important to my identity (seeing as I've only been here for a week and a half now) but is really very important to this blog. It exists because I am experiencing communication shock, my impromptu name for a syndrome that affects all first-years everywhere: I am communicating just one kind of information to other first-years (classes, how I like my dorm, what I ate for breakfast) and just one kind of information to my parents, girlfriend, and assorted friends (classes, how I like my dorm, what I ate for breakfast).

This is that blog, and if you all want to know how my first year seminar went or why I was late to econ and rode there on a bike with no seat, no brakes and a flat front tire, I expect you to read it.

If this is the third or fourth post by now, don't be perplexed. I probably imported some previous emails verbatim or decided all of you have to know how I spent last Sunday or something like that.

But for now I'll begin right now, on the second day of classes, which is not as suitably momentous as the first day of classes, but will have to do.