Five weeks into this new semester I have finally felt that I
have the time to write a short post about what has been going on. Over winter break I had the opportunity to
shadow 10 doctors in all different professions as well as six surgeries. It was a great experience to have a first
year student and really confirmed for me that medicine is what I would like to do! This semester I am taking all introduction
classes: Sociology, Anthropology, Chemistry, and Physics. They are all really interesting, although
right now Anthropology is my favorite class (maybe because we were just doing
biological anthropology and evolution).
Salsa has of course started again, and we are working on choreography
for our showcase performance in April.
There are also four couples working on choreography for a performance in
Los Angeles in May. I learned the first part
of the dance and can’t wait to see how the rest turns out when the performers
dance it!
Some fun and interesting experiences so far this semester:
Frank – named after Frank Sinatra, women dressed in cocktail
dress and men in dress shirts and ties (and the occasional jacket), for the
first hour and a half or so it was all music from the 50s and (after I left) it
turned to more modern music.
Chains – The best way to describe chains might be a high
school dance, only every date is blind date and you are physically handcuffed
to your “chain”. This was our Valentine’s
Day dance. I knew my friends had chained
me to a few people, but they wouldn’t tell me who. I almost backed out the last minute, being a
bit of a control freak, it was a bit difficult for me to relinquish control! I ended up going, to discover that I was
chained to one of the salsa guys, we had a blast and I’m glad I went.
Concerned Black Students’ (CBS) performance – Three of the
guys in salsa were performed a Step dance performance and so I think almost
everyone from salsa showed up to cheer them on.
It was incredibly entertaining. A
girl that lives in my dorm also gave a very moving and emotional slam poetry
performance. It was wonderful that such
an amazing event was put on for Black History Month.
TEDxGrinnell – For the first time ever, Grinnell hosted a
TEDx event. Seven alumni spoke on the
theme “Speak Out!”. From scientific to
moving, it was inspirational to hear these alumni tell their stories. I won the design contest for the logo, so I
got a ticket and a free t-shirt with my design on it! If any of you are interested in listening to
the TED talk, they should be online somewhere (possibly here: http://www.tedxgrinnell.com/home-1/).
Chinese New Year – Again, another one of the salsa guys was
performing so everyone showed up to watch him dance! Of course there was yummy food, and I heard a
few stories found in Buddhism.
The last three events were all this past weekend, I had
quite the busy and culturally diverse experience!
Weather wise, it has been a bit of a
rollercoaster. The first week or two
after winter break, the temperature stayed around 40 degrees, and then dropped
into single digits with negative windchill. It then proceeded to snow 9” and stay really
cold. Today it was -6 when I woke up
with windchill to -18 and now it is 16 with windchill to 3. We are supposed to get snow later this week,
then hopefully we can be out of the woods in terms of snow! It is absolutely beautiful, but I am ready
for spring!!
These pictures were taken Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. For a total of 9 inches.
