Hey all

A brief review of recent things, and some things to come:

School is actually over for me at this point. I have no more finals, though I do have a final draft of a paper due tomorrow morning (I basically am finished). Seniors graduate this Sunday afternoon and I'm sticking around on campus to watch the fun and say goodbye to some friends I've made. The last few days were interesting: I got to see several capstone presentations by graduating seniors both in my major, biology, and several creative writing presentations. A capstone is a culmination of knowledge in a major study area that takes a whole bunch of time to complete, often including writing a 50-page paper and maybe a presentation. It really depends somewhat, such as for biology majors, because what you end up turning in depends on what you want to study intensively (presumably something that interests you deeply). Anyways, most of them were pretty interesting, covering a broad range of topics, from brownfields, to the migratory patterns of a bird that travels from New Zealand to Monterey Bay and back each year, to leatherback turtles in Trinidad, and the fire history of the boundary between prairie and forest on the Principia bluffs. Very cool stuff.
I saw Spiderman 3 a week or two ago, and was sadly disappointed. Lots of cheesy acting and plot summaries...in fact, the plot was overall pretty bad, all of it playing out as nothing more than "a week in the life of spiderman!" which isn't my idea of an interesting movie...usually.
Softball intramurals on campus finally came to end this past weekend. The postseason was set up as a bracket, so Lowrey played Freshman, Buck/Syl played Ferguson, and the winners played each other for the championship. Well, the freshman did not show up for the first game, so they forfeited, so Lowrey got into the playoffs by default. Oh yeah, I live in and played for Lowrey. So Ferguson won their game on a walk-off homerun...pretty dramatic and certainly uplifting for their cause. Wellsir, they had another thing coming in Lowrey. We scored 4 runs in the first inning, they came back with 1, then 1 more, then we got 2 more, then they got 1, then we got 3 more. So we were up 9-3. I drove in a few runs and had a 2 or 3 base hits total, so that was good. The best part, for me, however, was fielding. I played left field which is where most fly balls go, especially in this game. I made about 7 or 8 total catches, 4 of them while sprinting full speed, and another I caught that would have been a homerun. I also threw a guy out at home. So, I don't mean to brag about it, but it was a good time because everybody from Lowrey was screaming their heads off cheering for me specifically, which felt really cool, and I got tons of high-fives and all. We won the game 11-7, called due to lightning with 2 outs in the last inning, but we were going to win anyway. I was the unofficial MVP and the hero of the house for a day. Yippee! I don't know if anyone took pictures, I'll have to find out.
Academics have been great. I've been getting A's on almost everything, which is a nice new thing for me. My teachers are all fantastic, and it's a lot of fun talking with them basically every day and frequently in non-classroom settings. I'm friends with my professors, how cool is that?!
So I leave Principia for the summer in 4 or 5 days. I'll be home in chicago or in Iowa for 6 weeks, which definitely includes some time spent with new Prin friends who live nearby. I leave for Dancing Rabbit around July 15th and I'll stay at least through the end of August. I return to Principia on September 5th or 6th, not sure. It's going to be some fun times. I can't wait for cicadas!

WGM IV

Everything, All the Time

Went on a fantastic journey last week from Sunday through Thursday at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We camped out every night, made our own meals (usually), hiked the 2nd highest peak in the park (highest elevation ~ 6500 ft.), talked with a graduate student who is doing some neat research on Black bears in the park, visited the Cherokee Indian Museum in Cherokee, North Carolina, and did some research for a tree biodiversity study. The hike was 5 miles in each direction and took us about 8 hours including a stop for lunch at the summit. The trip has inspired me to haphazardly (for now..) plan a camping trip for a week or two in June before I start my job at Dancing Rabbit on July 16th.

The concert I mentioned in my last post was fantastic. I may have mentioned it, but it's worth repeating that the Decemberists are easily my favorite band right now, so it's always a pleasure to see one's favorite of something. I bought 2 t-shirts, and I was with fun people, and everything was just great.

I just found out today that I have been awarded a Unit Scholarship, which means my teachers either from the classes I'm in now or from last quarter nominated me for it and now I'm getting $1,000 for next year's academic term. A nice surprise in my mail box.

Though I don't ever get a chance to watch them, the Cubs and Red Sox have been doing, recently anyway for the Cubs. I'm hoping to catch as many games as possible live in Chicago, again, before my job starts.

Later this week I'll be choosing my classes for the fall quarter...not sure what I shall take, I haven't spent much time looking at what's available yet, but there's plenty of time: I don't sign up until next week.

I'm officially going to off-season basketball practices. They have about 90 minutes of scrimmage on Sunday nights and 2 1-hour sessions of skills development on Mondays and Wednesdays. Nothing fancy really, and the coaches aren't there (NCAA rules), but it's still fun to be playing and learning.

Everything's great in school, and it's enjoyable. What's up with all of you out there reading this?...Lemme know!