After the main meal, we slowly and painfully make our way to the gray cage for the desserts, only to put us that much further over the edge. I don’t believe in saving room for dessert, and yet I still eat it…the resulting feeling usually makes me never want to eat again. At least until omelettes the next morning. While in the gray cage there is also usually a picture taking center that goes with the theme (this year’s was Fall in Maine). It is also where the trashion show takes place. The trashion show is just what it sounds like, a display of clothes made out of trash. The creations, all made by students and with recyclable materials, are worn by models down the runway and judged by a panel of faculty, staff and students. The creations are pretty incredible. My track captain, Dana, won last year’s category of Most Fashionable.  Here are a couple pictures of her incredible design and the rest of the finalists…

This year I have been interning at Farwell Elementary school which is another, newer and smaller school in a different part of Lewiston. Because of it’s location and district, this school has a much less diverse population with fewer ELL students and the highest average socio-economic status of all the schools. Farwell has also been the most successful school according to state-wide testing for the past three years. This could be do to school demographics, but I believe it also has a lot to do with their incredible new principal Nancy*. I work directly with Nancy as an intern doing everything from organizing files or dsitributing standardized tests to researching important new initiatives. We most recently just created a wiki site and forum for the school to post ideas, links, questions, etc. Also on the wiki we posted my research on Response to Intervention for Math, Behavior, Smartboard and other literacy resources. We are both really proud of what we’ve accomplished this semester and I think it could genuinely change the nature and productivity of communication in Farwell and hopefully spread to the rest of the district as well.

Tuesday was our first day and it seemed pretty easy, just a few short sprints. I could handle that. It was the medicine ball workout on Wednesday that DESTROYED me. I mean, when I woke up this morning I seriously considered skipping class because it was too painful to even get in the shower. I know for a fact that I have, in 15 years of playing sports, never been this sore. It’s like I’ve been hit by a bus. Twice. I can’t even laugh without wincing in pain. So naturally, I went back again today and suffered through 6×200′s. normally an easy workout, but today, exceptionally hard. It’s made me realize first, that I’m not as “naturally fit” as I foolishly had thought and second, I will NOT be blowing off pre-season ever again.

1. The Pasta Bowl.

• Grab a black bowl and head over to the pasta station. You can use anything plain, from fusili to linguini, but make sure not to put in too much or it will be impossible to mix later. While you’re there splash some pesto, olive tapenade and sun dried tomato paste and mix it around.
• Next, grab some butter from the toaster station or olive oil from the salad bar.
• While at the salad bar, add spinach, cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes (cherry are the best for this) and anything else you want.
• Then, next to the drink machine and the trail mix, you’ll see all the different spices. Sprinkle on Basil, Chili and Garlic Powder.
• Mix it all around, pop it in the microwave for 45 seconds, and you’re done!

nom nom nom

I’ve always said that fall birthdays are the best. Now, I know I might be biased being born in October, but I swear there is something special about this season that makes it ideal for birthdays.

For one, New England looks absolutely gorgeous. Growing up in New Hampshire, I got to spend my birthdays jumping into piles of leaves, run around outside for hours without being too hot or too cold, and make an endless amount of cool craft projects involving leaves. The move to Singapore was a bit of a buzzkill, I’ll admit. When every month looks and feels exactly the same, the year kind of goes by in one giant blur. Sometimes we’d carve pumpkins and decorate the house, but it just wasn’t the same when the pumpkins would start to rot after a few days from the humidity and the skeletons we put up scared the neighbors.

Which brings me to point number two: fall is host only to the best holiday ever – Halloween. Do not even try and argue this point with me. What is better than dressing up and walking through your neighborhood with all your best friends AND getting endless amounts of candy for absolutely no reason? Nothing, is the correct answer.

Halloween at Bates is the best because 1) it is socially acceptable for you to dress-up and parade around the streets again 2) you celebrate no fewer than three times (with three different costumes, of course), and 3) The Halloween Dance. I know it sounds a bit like…middle school…but Dances at Bates are the highlights of the season. They’re always packed, everyone’s always in a good mood, and there’s always fantastic music and costumes. What more could you ask for?

Beautiful Weather…It must be Fall

Costume Number 1

First off, let me explain away the connotations surrounding women and gender studies courses. It is not, as many believe, a bunch of angry women sitting around scorning men. In fact, many of my WGS courses have included my peers of the opposite sex. That’s what makes them interesting, because you do have an array of experiences to draw upon and acknowledge. To understand WGS courses you need to be able to recognize the power dynamics that affect everyone, everyday and in almost every action and interaction. Confused? Don’t worry, I felt like I was in a different universe at first. Let me give you an example. Did you ever stop to think why there is now a “Ms.” option for women’s titles instead of just Miss and Mrs? The use of Ms. is actually a very new concept, started by people who realized – Hey, why is it that men only need one prefix, Mr, whether they are married or not? Why is it so important to acknowledge whether a woman is single or married and not a man? It’s a subtle difference, but says a lot about our expectations for each gender.

How about the use of “girl” and “boy” colors like blue in pink. Wanna know a secret? It’s all a scam! Contrary to what you may have thought, babies don’t actually come out of the womb thinking, “I hope my parents got the color of the nursery right!” The girly pink and boyish blue weren’t actually invented until the early twentieth century. When the trend of gender-specific children’s clothing caught on, there were major debates about which color to assign to which gender. At one point, the colors were completely switched, with the pinkish/red denoting strength and thus assigned to males.

It’s the little things like these, little things that add up to BIG things. Like the idea that maybe being bad at math but sensitive to emotions isn’t really in our DNA as women and is socially constructed along with, well, a lot of other things.

I hope you see where I’m getting at with the major epiphanies. Although my little tidbit may not have had quite the same effect on you, I like to think that Bates has a way of bringing out something in its students. An intelligence beyond the mysterious green light. I don’t like to think of moments like the one in my gender class so much as life changing, as they are life defining. It causes me to think critically and reflexively about my entire identity development. But also to approach the world from a different angle, to add another layer of depth and understanding on top of what was already there. To me, that’s what a liberal arts education is all about.

But somehow, we overcame the Black Hole that is commons, made some PB&J’s to go, and were on the road by 11. The mountain is a definite favorite amongst Bates students, probably because of its relative convenience and incredible views. The trail head is about an hour away heading west from Lewiston. Warning: Do not rely on google maps directions. After turning onto a suspicious dirt road and coming across several threatening private property signs, we decided to turn off and ask some real backwoods Mainers for directions. The two men sported impressive beards and despite being slightly amused by the helpless out-of-towners, proved very useful. Despite their thick Maine accents, my roommate Julie managed to piece together the last few unmarked turns. We arrived at the trailhead and were greeted with probably ten or so cars (including one with a Bates sticker!) and some hikers who had already been to the top and back.

Tumbledown isn’t a very difficult or particularly high, but it’s interesting because of its three open summits and the incredible Tumbledown Pond. The pond is located at 2,800ft and is surrounded by the three peaks. As you can imagine, there are several different trails but we took the most popular one which leads straight to the pond from the main trailhead. In total, the climb is about 3 miles. It starts out pretty easy and gets more difficult as the incline steadily increases. I knew this wasn’t too challenging of a hike because despite being very out of shape (or out of season, as I like to refer to it) our whole group had no problem making it to the summit in about an hour. Around the halfway point we finally encountered the owners of the mysterious Bates sticker in the parking lot! It was yet another group of Bates junior girls, slightly more ambitious than us. They had left much earlier in the morning and were already on their way down, probably because they managed to avoid the gravitational pull of the chicken patty.  After brief hello’s and recaps of the night before, we headed in our separate directions.

When we finally reached the summit we were all taken away by the spectacular views and sparkling water. It was the first time on Tumbledown for the four of us and we were struck by the incongruence of a body of water at such high elevation. It just seemed wrong, and yet, what made more sense than a clear pond to cool off in after hiking in the hot sun? Despite our conviction at the trailhead that we’d all jump in, Carla was the only one who mustered the guts to put her head under. I made it till about mid-thigh before I decided you couldn’t pay me to go further (my usual thought regarding the water in Maine). After drying off we found a sunny spot that shielded us from the wind and ate our delicious commons-made pb&j’s. Despite not being our most creative commons creations ever, we were all convinced that they were by far, the best pb&j’s we’d had in a long time.  We sat around for awhile soaking up the vitamin D and buying time so that we would be “forced” to move all that work to Sunday.

The way down was a little more difficult knowing we were about to leave this sliver of tranquility to return to the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives as Batesies. A quick pit stop at an ice cream stand made us all feel a bit better, especially when “two scoops” turned out to be enough to feed a family of four. When we pulled into our spot outside commons an hour later, we were all happy to be back but also glad that we broke away from the Bates Bubble for at least an afternoon.