The UW Chronicles: Volume X: Homecoming and Christmas Coughs

Well, I’m sitting here, my back up against a pillar in the SEA-TAC airport watching people talk on cell phones, grade papers, stare at me. And for no particular reason. I look like every other college student on her way home and there are a lot of us, it's like the exodus out of Egypt or something. I’m tired, the day has worn me out. First of all, I hate packing. Second of all, I got to the airport about four hours early because everyone thought it would be insane, and that it would take me about two hours just to get to the airport. It took me half an hour and I’ve got about an hour left to wait. Oh well.
I’ve been getting over a chest ailment too. I had a dry cough for about two days, then I started hacking stuff up and my throat was dry and very ticklish. It was very unusual, I’ve never felt that way before. Then I noticed that everyone was coughing. I even saw an older man with an inhaler out as he walked along Stevens Way. I found out what the problem was…pollution. It hasn’t rained for a week and a half now and it has been very still. The pollution from the city just hangs out and mixes with the fog that creeps in from the Sound. It just hangs there and makes everyone sick. I hadn’t experienced this in Marin, and I was outraged. Why do we drive vehicles that produce noxious gases that make us sick? Why do we condone the release of tons of harmful gases into the atmosphere by factories? Harmful gases that filled my lungs with gunk and made me cough uncontrollably in lecture…why do we hurt ourselves like that? Why do we hurt the Earth like this? I just don’t understand it. My roommates were surprised at my outrage and frustration and said that I would get used to it. I don’t want to have to get used to it. I want air that is clear and free of toxins. I want everyone to be able to breathe clean, sweet air, the air that I took for granted in Marin. And now I’m going home to that air and the beauty of Marin, the crickets and the sounds of the creek outside my bedroom window, instead of the ROTC doing drills and the buses screeching, instead of the people above me playing with rubber balls at 2 am and the drunk students swearing outside as they walk home from Greek Row. I have gotten used to these sounds and no longer rely on my earplugs. These sounds have become the background of my college life, and I expect that the silence that exists in Woodacre will keep me awake now.

Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving,

Erinn

P.S. Back home from home now (say that five times fast, and yes, I did have trouble getting used to the silence in Woodacre) and the dry cough spiraled out of control into a full blown hack until my ribs hurt cough. I think I was sick and the dry, polluted air exacerbated my lungs. Yuck. But home (home home in San Francisco) was wonderful and fun. It was strange to have come from this totally different world of college and staying up until 2 am, and having papers due the next day world to the barking dogs, nine year old sister, driving my car back and forth over the hill, cooking on an actual stove with my mom world. Strange, parallel-ish realities. Coming back from SEA-TAC in the shuttle was beautiful (by the way, not having a car doesn’t kill you, it’s actually quite easy when you live in a city and is quite gasoline guilt-free and empowering.) Seattle really does it up for Christmas. The whole city was lit up, from the Christmas tree on top of the Space Needle to the lights strung on radio towers, it was amazingly beautiful. The water of the Sound was black behind the lights and the fog glowed orange. The next day rumors flew that it was going to snow, but you could already see the snow that had fallen on the Cascades, it was so clear. Mount Rainier was bright white and beautiful against the crisp blue sky, and the mountains that had a few weeks earlier been dark are now brilliant with the whiteness of fresh snow. It didn’t snow in Seattle, but it did snow three to four inches everywhere BUT Seattle. We were disappointed, but oh well. It’s almost the end of the quarter (eight days of class left) and I have a presentation to do tomorrow and an astronomy quiz and a paper to turn in for English on Friday, and I’m sick so I’d better get some sleep. See most of you very soon. All my love.

The UW Chronicles: Volume IX: Sunshine, Sickness and Swelling

Our cluster could be a study in virus transmission. We went to Ikea to buy the necessities (microwaveable Tupperware, mugs and can openers) and came back with colds. Damn Swedes. I woke up this morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Runny nose (funnily enough the nostril that was clear was the pierced one), soreness and all over ickiness. I stayed in bed and got my astronomy lecture notes from my cluster mate Elissa and dragged myself to English 198 and then sat through a Geography lecture with the sniffles. We're all sick and making soup, drinking tea and complaining about how icky we feel.

And I always seem to get sick when it's sunny. It was a thin sort of sunny today. Watery, like a thin egg yolk. It made me smile and then grimace at how pale I've become. My forearms used to be tan and the hair blonde, but they're becoming pale and the hair's darkening. I've become even more of a ghost than I was before. I tried to sit on the balcony and enjoy the sun, but the brisk cold drove me back inside. The leaves were so yellow and crisp and the trees looked even more bare without their customary shroud of fog or cloud cover. It was pretty, even through swollen eyes and the pounding of a sinus headache.

In other news, our dorm room door got swollen shut. I gripped the doorknob with two hands and braced my feet against the closet door, to no avail. Finally we were knocking on our own door and I even contemplated calling Jessica one room over on my cell phone.

Finally, Audrey heard our desperate cries and kicked the door open. We tried various remedies to ease our door's constipation. Audrey hung all her six foot tall, 180 pounds on it and eventually I attached my hair dryer to an extension cord, jumped on my bed and blow dried the top of our door. Pretty soon the blow dryer overheated and shorted out. The top of the door was warm to the touch and the slight bulge that I had felt earlier was gone, so we went to close it and it worked! It even closes quieter than before. Halleluia ingenuity! Living in a dorm (a "ghetto" one as my roommate puts it) and being a very cheap college student teaches you that necessity really is the mother of invention. We invent all sorts of ingenious ways to make life more bearable. I make wonderful black tea in my plunger pot, and cook pasta in my water boiler, and Patricia makes stuffing by pouring boiling water into a bowl of ready made stuffing mix so she can feel like she's at home. Our shower rod is held up by duct tape and we hooked up a sound system in the bathroom so we can sing in the shower to Frank Sinatra. It all works out, and we have a lot of fun molding our strange habits and hobbies to dorm life. And I'm certainly a better, more adaptable person for it. We're like Darwin's finches, we all have our own little ecological niche.

The UW Chronicles: Volume VIII: "Fair"-istas and the Beauty of a Cold Climate

It was cold this morning, my breath hung in a crystalline haze behind me as I walked briskly to my Astronomy 101 quiz section at 8:15. The cold air stings my cheeks and wakes me up, and has done wonders with my usually pimply skin. In other words, we are quickly moving towards winter, and it is quite apparent in the bareness of the trees and the bulk everyone is beginning to put on, scarves, hats, jackets and mittens. I have finally conceded defeat and have begun wearing close toed shoes, I am no longer a stubborn flip flop wearing Californian.

In other news I worked the Fair Trade, Shade-Grown, and Organic coffee booth this afternoon. You see, us Earth Clubbers decided to give out free "conscious coffee" and I suggested that we make little informative wallet-sized cards showing where you can buy fair trade, shade grown and organic coffee on the Ave. Then we decided to make them laminated because it's Seattle and it rains. Now we thought this would be an easy process, but little did we know that we would be sitting in the copy center for three hours last night from 6:30 to 9:30 cutting out little laminated cards. By the time we were done we had made one hundred and one cards and had bonded considerably. Today we handed them out along with steaming mugs of coffee and our little spiel which goes a little like this: "Fair trade means that farmers get a living wage and that some of the profits from the coffee go to education and healthcare, shade grown means that the coffee is grown under tree canopy, unlike most coffee which is grown on deforested land where the soil gets degraded every year, forcing farmers to deforest another plot of land. This allows for 140 species of birds to flourish, unlike sun grown coffee farms where only 5 species of birds are found. Organic means that no "-cides" were used, pesticides, herbacides etc. and no chemical fertilizers. It's better for you and it's better for the farmers." We then declared ourselves "Fair-istas" which is a play on the esteemed title "barista." I had always said that my dream Seattle job was to be a barista, a fair-ista is even better.

Laura and Alli of Earth Club (and my mug "Stan" in the middle) enjoying the fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee.


I'm popping Laura's bubbles (muhahahaha!)


Pigs are friends, not food...a member of CARE (Campus Animal Rights Educators) nurturing her inner pig across the sidewalk from our table. I wanted to wear the chicken costume, so I guess I'll just join their club too.


My friend Queena, she's such a cow, and also a member of CARE. That little sticker says, "Meat's no treat for those you eat." And it has an anxious looking and quite plump chicken on it.


Someone enjoying our coffee and conversation.


Our beautiful sign exclaiming the fabulous-ness of Tully's Compadre Blend, which is fair trade, shade grown and organic and is sold on campus.


Bubble war: Yecelica and Amanda engage in a soap sud battle


A nice young woman enjoying our coffee in her re-usable mug! Yay!


A clear, cold day. Mount Ranier in the McMahon lobby window.

P.S. I was really touched by the comment left on my previous blog...thank you to whoever left that, and by the way, who did leave that? But thanks again, it made me feel much better.

The UW Chronicles: Volume VII: I See Dead People and Other Consequences of Going to an Urban School

They found a body. Not of a student, so don't worry. My friend Jessica and I were walking along 45th, past the frat houses through the autumn leaves, when a Seattle police car came screaming up the side walk and screeched to a halt right in front of us. Two others came up behind and the officers stepped out and walked to a wooded area about twenty feet to the left of us, next to a sidewalk that cuts through a little patch of woods on North campus. A bike had been left there, a helmet dangling from the handle bars. I remarked that maybe there was a dead body, and boy, when I saw the silent ambulance stopped at the intersection and the cop cars beginning to block the streets and paths I had a very bad feeling.
We walked down past the squad cars and did our shopping, shampoo, soy milk and the like. We were assaulted four times in about a block and a half, first by a scrawny guy with a scrawny beard asking us to save the children, oh, and give him our debit card numbers while we were at it. Then we walked across the street and began jogging after spotting "La Rouche", a particularly aggressive and very radical leftist newspaper. Ah, but they caught us, a woman exclaiming, "Have you reached your full potential?!" And we both stammered yes, yes we have, "prove it!" she screamed after us. I yelled back, "I'm vegan! And that's good enough for me!" She didn't follow us and we finally got to the bank to deposit some checks.
Then as we walked out a woman approached us saying that her purse had been stolen and that she needed a dollar to get a bus. She obviously didn't own a purse, and the bus costs a dollar twenty. We declined, and sprinted across the street.
Fortunatly we also saw a dancing hot dog on our journey and a message in the sidewalk that said "Go Vegan!" It was quite amazing how much happened to us in the space of about sixty minutes.

After we finished our errands we walked back, passing yellow police tape, and frat boys standing outside their houses, smiling and waving to the news cameras that had arrived. As we passed a police car that blocked an entrance to the woods I said a silent prayer, and thought, well the leaves are turning orange and gold, and the sky is clear and bright, if today was my last day, I don't think I'd mind it. When we got back to the dorm, Erin screamed that a dead body had been found in the woods off of 45th, and we watched footage of the young man's final resting place, where we had been less than ten minutes before. Life is such a strange creature.
The sunset is turning the clouds pink and orange tonight, and the air is still. The cars and buses continue to lurch by, and the trees stand silent, red leaves dangling stiffling from bare branches. The world rumbles on, and today I've come to the realization that it is a very beautiful one.

The UW Chronicles: Volume VI: The Taste of Sweet Success and Conscious Caffeine

Two very meaningful things happened this morning, and it’s not even 11:00 yet. Firstly, I had my Astronomy 101 quiz section, and in that quiz section I received my score for my first mid-term. I got a 3.8, which is really good! And I was happy. I think I know exactly what questions I got wrong, so I’m feeling pretty good about the exam right now.

Secondly, I had my first cup of Seattle’s finest attraction, coffee. I had my mug (what am I talking about?! I ALWAYS have my mug, it’s glued to my hand) and they were giving away steaming mugs full of organic, shade-grown, fair-trade coffee at the Students for Fair Trade booth in the middle of the Quad. So I said, fill ‘er up, and while I’m at it I’ll sign a letter saying that Brazil should stop exploiting coffee farmers and laborers, and reject Free Trade policy and begin to trade fairly.

And you know what? I LIKED it. All of my cluster mates were like, uh oh, Erinn likes coffee. Of course, I’m a light weight, I put like a cup of vanilla soy milk in it and two packets of sugar. Speaking of sugar and food and such, I haven’t gained the freshman fifteen, in fact I’ve stayed at my previous weight, I work out just about every day now and we students are like cattle, we walk EVERYWHERE (in herds.) And there are stairs and hills everywhere, and we have to dodge squirrels which randomly propel themselves out of trashcans and scurry across the sidewalk. They’re quite frightening.

One time I caught a squirrel sitting at the base of a tree in front of McMahon chewing off the bits of meat from a hamburger wrapper. He looked at me with one beady eye, and seemed to say, “What are you lookin at you damn herbivore?!” And I was like, OK, and backed slowly away as he went on chewing menacingly and staring at me with that one big black eye. Carnivorous squirrels…scary.

Anyway, the leaves are changing, and I was going to take some photos because they’re quite pretty, but there was a huge windstorm the other day and most of the trees are looking very self-conscious, being that they are naked. I don’t think they would appreciate me taking a picture of them. Supposedly, it snows a bit in the winter here, and campus is just gorgeous. I definitely take a picture of that for all of you.

Well, I’m listening to this song by folk goddess Ani DiFranco called Little Plastic Castle, and it compares us humans to goldfish with short memories and one of the lyrics is: “…the little plastic castle is a surprise every time…” And that’s how I feel, I feel as though Seattle is a big fishbowl and that the UW is the little plastic castle that is a surprise every time. I just can’t get over certain things, like the Space Needle lit up at night and how it feels like it’s in a snow globe in some tourist trap, it’s just so beautiful. And when you can see Mount Rainier it is just amazing. The sunset lights up the snow on the peak and it glows orange, and during the day it’s a stark white against the gray of the sky. The buildings are also amazing, I mean, where else can you study in a reading room that looks like Hogwarts from Harry Potter? Brennan Figari thought the UW looked “fancy.” Yes, it is beautiful when the crows lift off from the spires of Suzzallo Library at around 6:00 pm every night in great flocks and the sky is speckled with moving black shapes against the gray.

Well, enough of that, I must go take a shower now and go get my laundry. I love you all and miss you.

The UW Chronicles: Volume V: Fremont is the Center of the Universe and an Upcoming Test on Other Less Important Parts of the Universe

I'm sitting at my desk drinking hot chocolate soy milk (I worked out for forty five minutes today, so I deserved it) and I'm listening to Ani DiFranco, a cool, indie, guitar strapping, dreadlocked rock chick, and the wind is howling outside. The clouds were moving so fast today, just sweeping across the sky. I described them to Grandy as those Halloween spider webs that you can buy, all stretched out over the sky, leaving a little blue stripe before the dome of the sky meets the earth (horizon-astronomy term, yes!)Except they've been pulled a little too tight and there are holes of a deeper shade of grey. It's beautiful. I thought I'd be depressed by the greyness, but it is not a homogenous grey, it is full of holes and shades and it has a tattered beauty. The Space Needle is bright tonight, and you can see a little sliver of all the cars going over University Bridge. Just the other day I witnessed the bridge opening up to allow boats to pass underneath it. My mouth was agape as I stood at the crosswalk with Laura, the co-president of the UW Earth Club. She let me have my moment, and then we went over to her apartment and had dinner and discussed Earth Club stuff.
I saw a bridge open up just yesterday too, in Fremont. Fremont is this funky little artsy Seattle neighborhood, and my friends Dani and Jessica went with me. We hopped on the 31 and passed the famous Fremont Troll which resides under a bridge and holds a VW bug in its cement hand. When we arrived in Fremont I immediatly gravitated towards the only Peet's Coffee and Tea that I know exists in Seattle. I practically ran to it, my friends just had to sprint to grab the door before it closed behind me. I ordered a Chai latte and wow, I was home.
We walked around the little thrift stores, went into a record shop and just as we stepped outside noticed something written in the concrete to our right.

It was a very Julia Butterfly moment. I felt like all my Circle of Life peeps were right there with me. It was awesome. See how far ripples can go?
Fremont is a fabulous place, a sign on the bridge that connects them to Queen Anne proclaims them to be "The Center of the Universe." There are statues of people waiting for a bus, with a man's face on the dog waiting with them. You see, the artist got mad at the guy who was funding the project because the funder said he didn't like his art. I guess you should never piss off an artist.

Jessica feeding a hungry man waiting for the bus a gingersnap.


Dani tries to blend in.

Well, from there we caroused around some thrift stores and found various items of interest. We also got to planning our Halloween costumes. I think I will be a gypsy, or perhaps a hippie. My friends keep saying that I don't need to wear a hippie costume, because I already am one.

A California native finds her hat.

So, to make a long story short we had just oodles of fun. And then today I had to study real hard for an Astronomy midterm (yes, the quarter system goes really fast,) and I've found that Fremont is just so much more interesting then our universe. So, I guess that is where I'll leave you, Fremont really is the center of the universe.

The "French Fry Man" of Fremont gets some action.


Dani and I wearing masks from a funky little boutique, she's a geisha and I'm a conquistador. Aren't we scary?


I'm picking the Fremont troll's nose, and believe me, I picked a winner.


The Fremont troll, what a handsome guy.

We were waiting for the bus back to campus, and took these pretty shots.
Jessica, Danielle, and me.

The UW Chronicles: Volume IV: Brownie Points and Other More Delectable (and edible) Forms of Nourishment

Just got back from my Geography 270 lecture, and again it was a very interesting class. It turns out Professor Jeffries checks the Geog. 270 message board, on which I posted a message about New Right Development theory which is partially based on Laissez-Faire economic policies (check the meaning of Laissez Faire on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire. Super interesting.) The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund rely heavily on these theories, and in effect have told countries that they must remove any restrictions to trade. When Professor Jeffries talked about this in class my hand immediately shot up, "So does that mean countries must peel back environmental regulations in order to satisfy the World Bank and the IMF's guidelines?"* "Excellent question..." Wow, was I nervous, but I did it! In front of three hundred of my peers I asked a question and thirst for that particular piece of knowledge was quenched, yes they do peel back environmental regulations, because in Prof's words, the New Right developmentalists see the environment not as something that needs to be protected, but rather as simply a resource.

*My old(not old as in years,old as in "used to be my"...) econ teacher Bluestone taught me about this stuff, the rabble rouser that he is...OK, are you happy now Blue? :)

But anyway, back to the message boards. I posted some links to various parts of the IMF and World Bank's websites, as well as some links to the Global Exchange website and their critiques of the WB and the IMF. And I just had to include Seattle and the huge protests that took place against these massive organizations in '99. And guess what, my googling paid off, the professor told the class to look at my post because it was particularly interesting and relevant to today's world of development. Sitting next to me was a guy from my FIG (Freshman Interest Group) and he looked at me and said, "Wow, major brownie points Erinn."
My reasoning is that since I find this class so interesting and engaging, and since it challenges and re-molds my own political and ideological views on globalization and the IMF and the World Bank, I want to be an active participant. I am actually now seriously considering pursuing Geography as a major and perhaps double majoring in Geography and Law, Societies and Justice and then minoring in Journalism.
Put simply, I love college and how it expands your mind and your opinions beyond their original boundaries.

But I received something just as delectable as "brownie points" through the mail from my fabulous aunt, Nancy. She is the ultimate baker and even after hearing that I was vegan, she told me she would still bake cookies for me. And before you know it, there's a slip inside my mailbox telling me that I have a package. I was ecstatic and the person behind the counter thought I was a little weird, exclaiming "Vegan cookies!!" But, oh well. I got up to my cluster and munched on them with Jessica, the other Erin and my roommate Patricia. Nancy, they're so fluffy and yummy, and you asked if you should add cinnamon, the consensus is that they could use a bit more cinnamon, but that the chocolate chips and raisins work very well together. Thank you!

Happy, Holy Vegan cookies, notice the halos and smiles, oh and the rays of light, indicating that they are yummy and made with love and without animals! Yay! Yummy! Thanks Nancy!

Oh my, I'm already a "tree hugging, granola eating, radical, wacko hippie." (Quote courtesy of another tree-hugger, JB you know who you are) That fine art on our room door's whiteboard is courtesy of my cluster mate Jessica, isn't it cute?

The UW Chronicles: Volume III: Late Night Mexican in Flip Flops While Raining and My Four page Long Thesis

It's 11:48 in the afternoon and my english 198 class starts in fifty minutes. You see, this is the class that I didn't sleep for. The homework was to turn in a brief thesis with claims based on one of the questions she gave us about the nature of development theories. By 1:00 in the a.m. my thesis was a paragraph, and my claims ran four pages long. I have written an essay instead and I have no idea what her standards are, so I'll just have to sit tight and see what happens.

Well, anyway, it rained yesterday. So, I guess it was my fourth Seattle rain. It started pouring the day before too, just as my friends Kevin, Drew and I were leaving the IMA (intermural Activities Building, AKA the gym.) On the way back to the dorms our shoes started to squish and it began to thunder and lightening. It was pretty exciting actually. We were idiotically excited primarily because we're all from out-of-state and to be walking in our sweaty gym clothes through a true Seattle storm was an invigorating experience. Whoop, gotta go, my class starts in twenty minutes and it all the way over at Mary Gates Hall! See you!


4:27 pm
I'm back. I was the only person in all of English who had a thesis outline that was four pages long. The professor saw how I went overboard(but on recycled paper!) and just smiled and nodded her head. We'll be writing essays, so I guess I'm ahead, seeing that I already wrote my essay.
Geography 270 was very interesting today. My scottish-pink-shirt-wearing professor talked about Marxist development theories and the radical left wing development theories that arose in the 1960's and are still in circulation today through the anti-WTO and globalization protests that are gaining momentum (especially after the one in Seattle in '93.) I found it just fascinating that development theories that were discussed forty to hundreds of years ago are still making impacts today! I mean, I was just nodding my head at everything that he talked about today, it was fabulous.
Anyway, I have not even begun to address our late night Mexican food outing in the rain! Last night was Jessica's birthday celebration, she's 19, what a baby. Anyway, it was raining and we all got dressed up in heels and in my case, flip flops, and walked to the Ave and ate Mexican food with some of Jessica's good friends. So, if you can imagine, it's about eight at night, raining, and there's a herd of college students with strappy shoes on and little tank tops squeeling as they step in the puddles dotting the Ave and hitting each other with the multitude of umbrellas they carry. The funniest sight you ever saw. I swear. So, that's where the late night Mexican in the rain and flip flops comes from.

Us clustermates all dressed up. And arranged by height. Funny.

Patricia(my roommate), me and the other Jessica (not the birthday girl)


It's "V" for VEGAN! Lien Sandy and me sharing a veggie moment (and a meal), just two vegans in the great big world of meaty Mexican food and a table full of carnivores.


All of us. From left to right, top to bottom: Patricia, Jessica, Jessica (b-day girl with Mr. Sombrero, me, Shilpa (far left, bottom), Audrey, and Devon.


My fourth Seattle rain.


The view through our dorm room window:
The Seattle Spaceneedle and angry stormclouds.







The Suzzallo Library, where I read the last of 106 pages of Geography 270 reading. It's the cathedral of studying, and its reading room was also dubbed by the students, the "Harry Potter" room. The "Harry Potter" room is supposedly the largest reading room in the United States.

The UW Chronicles: Volume II: You've "Only Got One," and It's Raining

I'm sitting at my desk, listening to the rain blowing against McMahon mingle with the music flowing through my headphones. It's my first Seattle rainy day, and I was so excited, everyone thought it was a little unusual, but they just dismissed it as a "California" thing. I've got Frou Frou on my iPod, they're a pretty popular band with a girly name, and I'm tapping my feet to their song "Only Got One" and the chorus is: "It's your life, and you've only got one." This is my college song.

Even when it was blowing and stormy everyone was out on campus, I think a lot of people here understand that they're privileged to be here and that they've only got one chance at doing the best that they possibly can at college and wringing as much fun (and learning) out of it as they can. I'm really feeling that today. I spent about four and a half hours studying Astronomy and preparing for my English 198 class, and I know that those are four and a half hours that were well spent and well worth it.

Before studying I tabled for the UW Earth Club and met an amazing, wonderful girl named Laura. She was vibrant, and huggie just like I am. She reached her arms across the table and exclaimed, "So you're the little firecracker they've been talking about so much!" She and I are peas in a pod, I was just appointed the Head of the Earth Week Committee for the Earth Club and she is one of the Presidents. I'm so lucky and honored to be able to head the committee and use the experience I have from Circle of Life to better the UW community and the Earth in the process! I mean, it's the experience I have with Circle of Life and the graduation saga with Julia Butterfly and the Drake Administration that got me this incredible position as merely a frosh! I'm sooo pumped and excited to make this the BEST Earth Week UW has ever experienced. I want to get some t-shirts donated by American Apparel, so we can sell Earth Club tees, and I want to provide composting that can be used in a community or campus garden. I'm going to work really hard to make it a green event, and show the students that living in a sustainable way isn't that hard, even when you attend/live at a fairly wasteful school. I went on a huge search for the paper and cardboard recycling yesterday. You should've seen me, I was a stack of flattened cardboard with legs. I think I'll rent a dolly and I'll do recycling for my cluster (or the whole floor...you know me, I always take it to the next possible level.)

Well, I must go to sleep now, I have three big lecture classes tomorrow and I've had a long and very full day. Until next time.

From left to right: Devon (sophomore), Jessica (frosh), Jessica (sophomore), me (frosh, duh), and Shilpa (sophomore) We all got henna tattoos, mine meant "enlightenment" in Japanese (see below.) I got it on my wrist so that when I studied, I'd become "enlightened."

The clustermates getting ready to go drool over Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean," that was showing on a big screen on the Quad lawns. We're all bundled up because it was, like, below zero outside(at least to me, the California girl.)

I'm theorizing on why the Earth is round(which I am actually studying in Astronomy 101)...no, actually I'm just wondering when we're going to get our damn balloon animals during the UW Fall Fling carnival, does it really take that long to twist a balloon into a little bunny? Nooo.


Facebook me!

The UW Chronicles: Volume I

I’m sitting here in my dorm room eating graham crackers with soy milk (yes, graham crackers are fairly vegan, but the honey's iffy I guess) and just waiting for the rain to come. The sky clouded over during my last class today, but the sunset peeking out from under them was magnificent. While walking across Red Square I looked towards Drumheller Fountain and immediately couldn’t catch my breath. Mount Ranier was glowing white and orange in the sunset and the top was cloaked in dark low clouds. It was just amazing and I thought, wow, I’m so happy that I’m here. California is beautiful, but the beauty here in Seattle is different. It’s harsher and wilder, which makes it all the more brilliant to me.

Earlier I saw a seaplane cut across the horizon, and over campus. You should see me; I get so idiotically ecstatic when I see a seaplane. I scream, “Look! A seaplane!! That’s soooo cool!” And everyone just looks at me and nods their heads, “Mmmhmmm, yes that’s a seaplane, Erinn.” Then they whisper to themselves, “Yeah, she’s from California.” “Do they have seaplanes in California?” “I don’t think so, but they do have palm trees…” “Oh.”

Well, enough of that. My classes were pretty cool today. I had Astronomy 101, English 198, University Studies (a boring little class about the UW) and Geography 270, which is taught by a really neat Scottish guy who just came back from Northern India after doing some research there. He wore a pink shirt and called grades “marks.” I thought that was pretty exciting.

I love where I live; I’m in a cluster in McMahon Hall, floor 9, south tower (Yeah, MacCity PRIDE!) My cluster-mates are all really wonderful girls (we went bowling yesterday and we all got temporary Henna tattoos, I guess the family that bowls and tattoos together stays together), and we decorated our lounge like nothing else. It is our bohemian haven. We have Johnny Depp on the wall, Buddhist prayer flags hanging from the ceiling, rugs all over the place and my lava lamp on the table in the corner. I guess all we need is a flat screen television and a stereo system. Just kidding, well, actually no, I’m not kidding.

But anyway, I’m going to go and work on my homework, yes, I already have homework and it’s only my first day. Welcome to higher education.