Life as a First-Year

Hello!

Today at 5pm I have my very first meeting on the Academic Affairs committee! I was chosen through my letter of intent to join this committee of student government and I'm really excited. I'm hoping to work on the Committee on Academic Standards...which is a sub-committee and works directly with grading policies and the like. I haven't gotten word yet on if I got a position in that sub-committee or not, but I'm sure I'll find out at this meeting.

In other news, I did well on my first Latin test, which is good because it is the largest percentage of my grade thus far and I did even better on my first archaeology exam...so I'm happy with my progress. My only complaint is that Chaucer can be a bit dull and I've been having trouble with the first quizzes, but luckily they won't count towards my grade since she drops the 3 lowest quiz grades. Also, I haven't gotten back my 2 big writing assignments and I'm anxious to see how I did. My Greek lit professor said he'd try to get them back to us tomorrow so the moment of truth is near!

Tonight Jonah Lehrer is coming to Kenyon and giving a lecture on how science is the new art...which sounds really interesting so I'm going to go listen to that. Otherwise I just have to practice violin and do some homework. This week has been pretty laid back in comparison to last week. Last week I had 2 papers and 2 exams. I was pretty stressed.

More news to come!

I have decided to start this blog as it was suggested to me by multiple people as a fun way to update friends and family at home about my goings on here in Gambier. For this first entry I have about 20 minutes to write an update that includes the first month of my time here...so as you can imagine this will be quite abbreviated. I hope to add things later to fill you in on the details and in the future I will try to update at least weekly so I don't have to write such lengthy posts.

I arrived here August 20th for the Writing and Thinking pre-orientation program. There was a good deal of as you would expect, writing and thinking, and at night there were social activities. It really wasn't as fun as it sounded, but it wasn't terrible either. I met some pretty cool people and was able to familiarize myself with the campus. If you didn't know, Kenyon College is in a tiny place called Gambier. It is literally known as a village...and basically almost the entire place is owned by the college. Thus, campus is pretty tiny. The path (known fondly as Middle Path) that stretches from my end of campus (or North) to the far end of campus (South) is only 2/3 of a mile long. So, walking everywhere is pretty easy. The only problem is that there are a lot of hills, the most notable one on campus is the one down to the Kenyon Athletic Center (KAC). So, once you exercise you then must trek uphill. The joke around here is that you get enough exercise walking there and back that there's no need to even go in. All of the athletes here drive there with the upperclassmen who all for some reason own SUVs. I find this to be amusing since I wouldn't think a hill would deter some of the fitter students, but even they don't want to walk up and down it. 

After writing and thinking, there was regular orientation. All of the other first years moved in August 27, and the upperclassmen moved in the 29th. During orientation I met my faculty adviser...who happens to be a classics professor. She's a really great person and I think Kenyon matched me well. After meeting with my advising group, I got to select the classes I wanted to take this semester.

My schedule is as follows:

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays:

9:10-10 Latin 101
11:10-12  Intro to Archaeology
1:10-2 Chaucer: Canterbury Tales

Just Mondays:

2:45-3:35 Violin Lessons
4:50-6:30 String Ensemble
7:30-9:30 Orchestra

Tuesdays and Thursdays

2:40-4 Greek Literature

I really like all of my classes and professors. Because of my prior language experience, Latin is pretty easy but very interesting. My favorite classes are intro to archaeology and Greek literature. I think this is mostly because I have really cool professors. They make their subjects interesting and their lectures are informative and thought-provoking.

Since it is almost time for me to leave for Greek literature, I'll end this here but I'll be sure to post again soon to fill in some details of some of the more exciting things that happened here.

I love and miss you all!