I moved to Pine Lake

I moved to an offsite nature based campus known as Pine Lake. I now live in the building called the Lodge, it's the largest place here and holds about eight of us.

My room looks relatively the same, but I now have a single instead of a double. The room is not made of cinder blocks and I also get two closest, both a major plus. I also get a dresser, and a smaller window but there is always deer outside which makes up for the lack of sunlight.

We have a lounge:

And a full kitchen, finally a break from the "Commons."

October Break: A great visit to New York City

This is Barnard. I visited Zoë. She and her roommate Flo met me at the bus station where we immediately went to China Town and had some dim-som for lunch. It was awesome. Her friends Jody and Mal joined us. Jody, who could speak Mandarin managed to order us something vegetarian in Cantonese. Jody ate chicken feet, yum! 


Zoë also gifted me with this beautiful hot/cold water/tea flask. I also bought two semi-fancy indian chai cups for $2.50 each, I should have got them in India! We also ate really awesome Indian food two meals in a row.





There was of course, beautiful architecture...

...and people.

We had a great Polish dinner with my friend Nicole from Hartwick. Our first home cooked meal in almost 2 months. After we finished we had really good green tea and went on a walk through Green Point to the waterfront.

This is my favorite, our characters captured.

Leaves

Great Empty Space

I did not have the guts to do either of these, but I can now belay anybody on this (since I am tied to a tree on the ground.) It is hard to tell but this is a good 30 plus feet in the air and you have to be over 6 feet tall to get even close to the bar.

Early in the morning, fog in the valley, lit by the sun.

October 2011

I look out at the valley almost everyday. Sometimes it's covered by fog or rain, but most of the time I can see to the other end. It is where the sun rises, which I have yet to see emerge from the ground. 


I am doing ropes course training. It is an excuse to be outside for 8 hours straight and do no homework. I like it a lot, soon I will have the highest paying work-study. 

I took this sunset photo with my Mom and Susan, we were drinking coffee and eating chocolate in front of Latte Lounge. A woman walking a pig passed us during this moment. The pig was ugly, with a fat forehead that rolled over his eyes and hooves desperately needing a trim. Honestly, I want one.

Angela Adams. A joke with Jen.

Sometimes I feel like a traitor. I am capable of slipping in with a group that loves a specific things, like dungeons and dragons, the wilderness, sports, partying -even though I don't... I can never fully settle or identify, though I always fully appreciate the people and the moments shared. Am I wrong? Am I resisting? My roots are never permanent, am I too malleable? The roots I do have mostly reside within, but even those move occasionally. This is the muck of the self identity crises. 

A magical building

Here at school there is a very interesting old library. It's about 5 floors with the museum on the 1st floor. It's a fairly retro building filled with matching (kind of weird) art. To one side there is a theater, and on the top floor a place called "the loft" which is an academic help center.

They go fairly crazy here making up "interesting" names for locations. Another example of this is "the pit" which is a room about 3 feet lower than the rest of the floor because it is tucked under the theater. The pit is full of old oversized art books and various other collections. The awesome thing about the library is that it's packed with comfortable (hotel like) furniture in every corner. Even at the back of the windowless archives there is couches, chairs, and desk tucked in the corners.

There are two elevators in separate locations. My favorite is the industrial one that opens before it's actually at the floor. It is loud, completely metal, and has a counter that clicks for every floor instead of numbers that light up.

I have yet to go on the first floor, but this is already my favorite building on campus. I would say I have covered about 60% of this building. Many of the rooms are locked and full of rare books or other mysteries. There is a fancy meeting room on the 4th floor that looks exactly like office scenes in the show Mad Men. There is wood panelling, ultra-modern clocks, and lighting to match, simply unbelievably awesome.

Also there is a place called "table rock" which is a large flat rock on the top of the hill that looks out over part of Oneonta. It is only a 10 minutes walk from the campus and well worth it. I would advise to go during daylight because much of the trial goes through the woods.

Finding the observatory

The storms have passed for now, but their clouds still linger. It has been a full moon or at least close to a full moon for the past few nights. I want to look at the stars but the brightness of the moon and the partial cloud cover greatly reduce my chance of seeing anything.

At last I found the observatory at the top of the mountain. I joined the astronomy club the other day at taste of 'wick (please change your name for next year, please!) I also joined the psychology club and the the Hill Top news paper. There was no radio stand but I have a feeling my persistance will get me in soon.

The following morning of the discovery of the observatory there was a town wide garage sale that shut down Main Street and required a band. Yes, required.

Oneonta has some of the greatest and most diverse amount of architecture I have seen in a long time.

This was painted almost overnight for 9/11. While it's not the message I expected to be painted on this wall it is a great statement. 9/11 is so much more personal here than in Maine. This evening there was a candle light ceremony with people crying very hard. There is a lot of mixed feelings about 9/11 here. Many of the students from New York City feel the decade mark is the sign to move on but not to forget.