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