January 30, 2001 (idea)

Sunday I returned to school at Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm sure I'll start missing people at home, I'll miss my kitty, and I'll miss Portland, Oregon and its cheap sushi. But for now, I'm excited to be back on campus, excited to see my friends here, and I'm excited about my classes.

. So I arrived Sunday night, came back, started getting settled in. I headed over to the new Campus Center, which was just completed. It's beautiful: lots of windows, lots of light, and everything's new and shiny. And next Monday the food service moves over there; with any luck the food will improve along with the facilities.

Monday, classes started. My German class is great, with a professor that seems just as friendly as the last one, but who seems to be at the same time a much better teacher. I'm starting a Spanish conversation class, which looks to be about what I wanted, and seems to be at about my level of skill, thankfully. And it'll help me develop listening skills, which I need work on. And then there was conditioning, a PE class which turns out to be exactly what I hoped it would be—a general excercise class, or in other words something that'll force me to work out thrice weekly.

My roommate and I traded closets, so that each closet would be on the same side of the room as its owner's bed. That was very good, as it forced me to clean and organize the closet. A healthy start to a brand new semester.

I got a postcard from Bozon, who found my address on my homenode. Thanks, Bozon!

It got all icy last night, and it was fun stuff making my way over to the dining hall for dinner, but I survived without breaking anything.

Finally, today, Tuesday. My cartography class was today, and taught by a very happy, smiley woman whose voice modulates wildly when she gets excited. Very fun, and it looks to be an awesome class. I get to stare at and make maps all day, woohoo! And then there was economics, which should be interesting. It's a bigger lecture class, and the room's a bit too small for the number of people. We reviewed basic math important to econ, and talked a bit about constraints and productivity, which the prof tied into the movie Cast away.

Tonight I played Boggle with a friend, and soundly burned her bum, 131 to 93. And we both had fun, I think.

More exciting stuff: I went to a meeting of the Mac Weekly, the student newspaper here at Macalester, as I had been told about by one of the photography editors. What I didn't know was that it was a staff meeting: I've been designated the official photography staff, to work under the two photography editors. This means that I'll get more frequent assignments, I think, and that I'll have access to the office with my ID card and will be able to use the darkroom. This was a total surprise, and it made me feel good.

Came back to my room, did some homework, read some nodes, and wrote something on defensive cycling. A nice, relaxing end to the day. Now I go to bed. It's been a good few days. I'm happy.