Life at Whitman College

In order to facilitate discussion, and more or less to please Dante, I decided to update this blog with what's going on in my life.

Today is the 26th of September, which means that I've been in school for 3 and 1/2 weeks already. I must mention, however, that I got here on the 8th of August, meaning that I've been around doing school related for much longer. I've only felt really busy this last week, however, because I had my first papers due as well as my first physics test.

Anyways, Chris came this weekend, and we pretty much just hung out and talked about random ramblings. We discussed how Claire broke up with me (and how it sucks to be on the receiving end of a break up talk), and we just talked about plans for his future, my decision to run XC, and other random bits and pieces.

My life's been fairly static, without any real up and downs with the exception of Claire. Whatever. We're really different people when it comes down to it. But I was / am still in denial that it couldn't and didn't work out. But it really puts it into perspective when I was told that Ben and Sarah broke up, and they've been dating for 5 years. Wtf am I complaining about?

I'm running roughly 30-35 miles a week, and I've had some pretty impressive results for never having had run in Highschool before. (Everyone else on the team ran in high school, and I'm outrunning two of them. I'm also catching up with two more people in front of me). So XC is going really well. From a performance standpoint, it's going well, and XC makes me make good life choices like drinking at least 3 liters of H20 a day as well as eating and sleeping enough.

However, it sucks that Claire runs XC too, and is one of my 12 person classes. Again, whatever.

RA stuff has been going really well, and Chris actually came up to College Cabin with my hall. College Cabin is this Whitman owned cabin that people can rent for $50 bucks and just hang out up there. We had a really good turnout and everyone seems to have had a lot of fun. Which is baller. But, RA stuff is still really draining, averaging about 20 hours of commitment alone.

In addition to RA stuff, XC adds another 10-12 during the week, and we're gone every other weekend. Combine that with the fact that I teach two climbing classes, and I'm a student. And shit gets busy.

Luckily, I'm only taking three classes this semester (as opposed to four), and one of them is general physics. Which is a joke after having taken two years of physics prior...

Unfortunately, I'm already stoked for this semester to be over because I plan on going abroad to New Zealand at the University of Otago for Spring semester. Which is gonna be boss. People say it's pretty much spring break and people just go backpacking and exploring on weekends. And school is considerably easier than Whitman. So, I'm stoked.

After having had Chris here this weekend, I still question as to why I am in school from time to time, but I know deep inside that I just have to stick it through and graduate. I've realized that that's pretty much the end in itself. Not necessarily learning for me, but getting the degree. Sad but true. Learning is the secondary benefit to just graduating from college with a decently high GPA.

Also, I won't be coming home this Thanksgiving break because I will be backpacking in Utah with the Whitman College Outdoor Program. Luckily I don't have to lead the trip, but it should still be a lot of fun. I'm super stoked for it.

I also realize, and I told Chris this, that I probably wouldn't have cared much for school except for the fact that we have a really boss outdoor program. Otherwise, the idea of school itself may not have been enough of an incentive for me to come back. The way I see it, I've got less than two years to break free of this thing they call college.

-Michael