Friday, October 29, 2010

Cell Phone Updates that Didn't Update

October 20: So, I hate chorus.  Like, legitimately.  Especially full chorus, which only happens once a month or so.  At that time you have 125+ (75 or so males) freshman in a room singing songs.  All the Freshman. Even the tone deaf ones. However today was the lucky day! We took a music notation quiz after taking three weeks of notation classes, which I found very interesting (Update: I passed the quiz and didn't miss anything!!) Then...full chorus!  So, today I ended up drawing, playing hangman with my friend Rebecca, and writing lyrics to cheesy 90's hits.  After this, I ate lunch then ran back to my room (you know, the usual) and created my "90's-tastic" Radio Station on Pandora. My life just got so much better.

October 21: Last night, while  putting on my pants I realized that I had some majorly sore spots on my leg.  When I woke up this morning I decided to wear a dress so that I could show off my awesome bruise. Apparently this feeling makes me an official "hell bitch" (which is what kunai means in ancient greek).  For a while, I had stopped going to kunai because I was so exhausted all the time. However, I have recently gotten a group of girls that encourage each other to go after our long day of classes (Deemed "Hell Day", Class from 9-3:30.)  We've decided to bring each other presents sometimes to make going much easier.  (I posted a picture of my bruise in a previous post).  I think the amount of bruising that I have may be a result of the fact that I have no soccer socks or shin guards and the shoes that I wear for Kunai have holes in the pinkey toes and people often step on my foot with cleats. Ouch.  I did the splits last game because it was slippery. Another awesome move that I made involved me getting pushed down on the ground, then I James Bond rolled over and kept moving.  I felt like a boss.

Pictures of School


I really can never get over how beautiful the campus is here.  I'm sure the weather helps it, but it's so gorgeous.  The top was right after the first hurricane hit us and the Reflection pool on campus was actually filled (Legal restrictions say we can't have water in our reflecting pool). And the bottom picture is when I was reading Plato on back campus by the Tennis Courts! It's so nice to be comfortable outside in late October. And reading outside is always so cool! 

Pictures from School

Last Saturday night, my friends and I rode down this slide in the Boy's dorm.  It was so much fun!

My Kunai Bruise! Someone stood on my leg while I was standing up! Awesome!!
)

Lunch with Mr. White

So, this story starts last Monday in Seminar and ends...whenever I'm done being excited about it--which, for the amount of tired I am right now, should have been hours ago.  Anyways, In Seminar we were talking about The Republic (btw, most Johnnies consider completion of the Republic indicative of birth.  What freshman hear most often at this time of year--"Oh you're reading the Republic, You're Finally going to be a real person!") and it's very hard to explain, anyways I got called out by both my teachers, but I didn't exactly think that they won.  So, at the beginning of Seminar yesterday, my teacher, Mr. White, called me up to talk to him about this point.  (I was, first off, excited that he remembered it, but also very excited that he realized that I had a point and was not done--VERY encouraging)  We talked about it up until the beginning of class--at which point I asked him out to lunch. 

After Seminar, I went up to him to schedule lunch.  My friend Mr. Liu was there talking to him and we had some awesome conversations where Mr. White was very complimentary of what I had to say! Score! As I was getting up to leave, I asked if he was alright and he replied "I think I'm just going to sit here for a while."  (Background: There are several stories that Mr. White has cancer or some disease and that he is going to die relatively soon.  I don't understand why he would be teaching, but whatever.  He also misses some classes sometimes and doesn't always look his best (sweaty etc.), which is very scary because he's a very nice man.)  So anyways, I stayed and talked to him while he was getting up his energy and finally left Seminar at 10:51.  Worth every minute.

Tutor-student lunch dates are a very common occurrence here at St. John's, but unfortunately, Mandee is too shy to ask her tutors out.  Generally these lunches take place in the Dining Hall on campus, but he told me that he was taking me off campus!  SCORE! Dining Hall food is really getting to me at this point. (Lunch was...AMAZING! Salmon BLT. TDF.)  We had AWESOME conversation. I was able to talk to him a little about my feelings on speaking in class and he talked to me about the way a perfect seminar should work and how different it should be from a conversation that we have in small groups. At that moment, it encouraged me to talk in Seminar, but Monday is a long way away.  Then we talked about the Republic.  And Plato.  And Moby Dick.  He told me this quote about "pleasurable deaths" that involve basically being suffocated by the thing you love. Then he relates that quote to Plato and just the amount of material that is in his works.  So cool!  There's apparently an essay from one of the Tutors here that talks about how the Republic, like many of Plato's writings, is written like a specific myth.  So cool!  Then we talked about how the ideas that Socrates is actually trying to find are just so difficult. Then we talked about Socrates' dialogs show how he knows the people he is talking to and his knowledge of what they would say in response to his argument might actually hinder his quest for virtue, justice, etc. 

Anyways, still reeling from this.  Mr. White used to terrify me because he is so insanely brilliant, but now I think he is awesome!

New York Photos 2

Mandee and Shemmy on the Subway <3
View At Central Park!

New York Photos

My Delicious food from the Vegan Cafe (Foreground Pasta, background chickpea fries.


Staten Island View (Better in person)



Shemmy, Mandee, Staten Island Ferry



Cell Phone Updates

Wow, so those Illegible posts to the side-Updates from my phone. I swear, I don't generally write like that. I'll try to copy those all down from my phone later. Also, I really want to blog about my lunch today with my Tutor! I tried to nap and failed because I'm still so excited about it--2 1/2 hours later. It was AWESOME! However, I'm about to be late to Kunai, so I'll try to get back later tonight.