Creeeewww!

Here are a few more crew photos. These were taken last Friday. On Fridays we dress up in our brightest craziest clothes. Good times, good times! This morning I'm doing my French homework, and after class today I'm probably going to go Erg a 6K so I have something to measure my progress off of. We'll see though. It might wait until later this week. Love you all! <3

the team.

This is my team. I'm towards the left. My coach is the one in the hat on the right.

post-regatta

So here I am. Laying in my bed. Nearly dead. But my regatta went very very well. I had a ton of fun and I really gave it my all. I'm probably going to go to sleep soon, my friends are going to an "animal party," which is basically an early halloween party where you dress up as your favorite animal. I would have gone, but I am exhausted. Here are a few pictures: my AMAZING new lights, the bruises on my foot which are even worse now, and some envelope art! I love you all! <3

Clean Room.

Here are a few before and after shots of my room last Saturday. The befores are on the top, the afters on the bottom!

Thanks for the lovely package Mom and Kirsten! The cookies are delicious, and I already have the lights up! THey look amazing. I'll post pictures later!

Fleet Foxes

My trip to Seattle was absolutely fabulous! We got there yesterday a little after noon, hiked up the hill to Seattle U, and met up with Mariska and Emily! It was really really really ridiculously amazing to see them. We caught up, told each other about our respective adventure over some Vietnamese noodle soup at Pho, and then wandered through the neighborhood on the way back to SU to see their rooms. At SU, of course, we ran into my arch nemesis William, and our mutual hate was apparent. It seems like Ishka and Em are having a great time, and hopefully, they'll get to come visit me next month.

After that, we headed to Andy's house (a beautiful house, a great family, they were so kind to us!) to put our stuff away and then off to the Fleet Foxes concert. We had these insane nosebleed seats so we looked down on the band, but I didn't mind, they were dirt cheap and the sound was great! Amazingly enough, their intricate 5 part harmonies carried through BETTER on stage than on the album. They are magnificent musicians! I bought a shirt, and then we headed to an all night diner, where I had my first pancakes in THREE MONTHS! Good God how I miss pancakes!!!!!!

Today, after leaving Andy's house, we spent the early afternoon downtown. Hannah got her eyebrows waxed, we did a bit of shopping. I got a great day-glo green hoody, because I was forced to throw away my blue hoodie because the zipper broke. We got back to the school a little after 4. It was a spectacular weekend!

I got a few good shots, a few group shots, and one really cute shot of Mariska by accident! I will post the before and afters of the room cleaning later!<3

ohhh xkcd. you touch my life.

strangely disturbing...

I was watching the communist manifestoon (the communist manifesto set to cartoons) and F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom as a review for my IPE class, and I stumbled upon this strangely disturbing cartoon that has been banned from TV. It is based on Mark Twain's unfinished piece Mysterious Stranger. A little food for thought as I continue my studying this evening.

I also need to make note that I changed my song of the week a little early. I found myself obsessed with Muse's Knights of Cydonia after the crew retreat. However, after getting my hands on a copy of Nightmare Revisited (the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack remade by many artists) I am in LOVE with this song, especially the beginning. I've always loved Polyphonic Spree, but something about this particular song really rocks my world!

autumn.

Here are a few photos to celebrate autumn! And sadly, I got a runny nose around dinner last night and now I'm full out sick. I'm still taking my vitamins and trying to get better, but honestly, this couldn't have worse timing. I have my French midterm today! Luckily, however, my comm professor cancelled class instead of giving us a midterm. I'm going to try and recover through a hot shower now. Later!

Spokane Floods (part 3).

I'm not going to explain much about these ones. They are from a place called steamboat rock. My class decided to hike to the top of it, and as I couldn't walk the day before, I passed and simply strolled around our campsite and took photos. The whole time, I kept thinking Mom would love this place so much. I went to the most beautiful beach of the river and saw these birds that were smaller than the leaves and made the trees look like they were alive. The very first picture is of my class on top of the rock without me. Haha. Alright. 

Well... midterms are going fine. Crew is going amazing. I had my best erg practice yet yesterday and my best on the water practice today. I learned that most of the team has worked at camp before and that this girl Kathy worked at Girl Scout camp!

I'm loving college. Everything is looking up. 

duckbutt.

I don't have time to make a big long fancy post about my amazing weekend or with more photos from my field trip, but I do have a photo for you Dad.

Not only am I trying to get it so it blows up, but I thought you would appreciate the goose butts.

Spokane Floods (part two).

Sooo.. what happened in last week's episode (or last time's blog post):

We then went on to Lind Coulee a little farther North. In my little discussion group, I said that it was created by slow moving or still water and the other girls in my group were like "NO! blah blah blah it was made by wind blah blah blah you're wrong blah blah blah." When we got into the big group, we found out that the deposits of clay (the finest of the mineral types (finer than sand and silt)) were created by *gasp* slow moving or still water. This is where the flood widened out, slowed down, barely moved. Before getting more narrow at Drumheller.

After that, we went to a gravel pit and dug a hole into the sediment to see what it was like. The same exact thing happened with my group as the last place. I said "This seems like insanely fast water" and the other girls were like "NO! blah blah blah it was made by a glacier blah blah blah" and I said "But it is too well sorted and missing things a glacier would leave behind, and the rocks are rounded, like with running water" and then, treating me like a total retard said "Well, glaciers are made of water. They could have been rounded in a river before they formed a glacier." When we got into the big group, we found out that it was in fact missing boulders and silt and clay, was too well sorted, and was too rounded to be a glacier. It was created by *gasp* swiftly moving water! I was like TAKE THAT BITCHES!

After this, we drove to the end of Grand Coulee and stopped at a magnificent place ironically called:

Dry Falls

Dry Falls is a huge waterfall bed spanning almost 5 miles. The current waterfall is less than 20 feet wide when it is running at it's greatest. When we were there they weren't letting any water through the dam, so the whole thing was absolutely dry except for a few puddles at the bottom. This was created when the floods came raging out the end of Grand Coulee and hit an area with more easily erodible sediment and it eroded into a waterfall.

Here is my class, my teacher is the nerdy guy in the middle.

It was reaaaaaaaaaally windy the whole trip. In the day, during the night, in the morning. These are the ripples created by the horrifically cold wind. The wind is one thing I definitely don't miss about Great Falls.

After Dry Falls we went through this little town called Coulee City which reminded me a little of Cut Bank. We headed up the coulee and had some great views, but they were out of the car, so I wasn't able to take pictures.

Alright, off to get lunch. I'll add the next installment later! <3

Spokane Floods (part one).

Soooo. I have returned! And basically the time since I returned yesterday and getting time to sit down and write this has been filled with business and sleeping. Margaret and I were in the lounge doing homework (actually, she was doing homework and I was messing around) and I decided to take a nap (at 8:30). When she decided to leave, I headed to bed (at 10:00). I sat up in my bed with my computer and did my one reading for one class in the morning (at 7:00). I was ridiculously tired after nearly FREEZING to death the night before and getting little to no sleep in my tent and sleeping bag. 

I am going to tell the tale of my field-trip in installments because it would be quite difficult to sit down and recite the whole thing all at once.

First, I want to say that Washington is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. There is this perfect mix of dark green coniferous trees, medium green leaves on deciduous trees that haven't started to change, lime green leaves on trees just starting to change, bright banana yellow leaves, fiery yellowy orange leaves, flaming red-orange leaves, and an exact sprinkling of crimson that gives an extra autumn-y burst to the forest. I didn't get any pictures because we were driving quickly over the pass, but it was drizzly and it was amazingly pretty.

We left the school around 8:30AM (which means I was up at 7:00AM) in two big 12-seater vans and a cargo van. The whole van was passed out pretty much the whole way to our first stop which was Drumroll Please!!! 

Drumheller Channels

This was the first southern-most stop in our journey. It is right near the Saddle Mountains, and this is where the floodwaters picked up speed again as the terrain got more narrow. We can determine that this was created by a raging flood and not by the river meandering because not only are all the rocks angular, but everything is covered in what is called "scab-lands." This is when all of the "loess" or soil that creates the rolling farmlands is washed away and all that is left is a little bit of topsoil on top of rock. 

The raging water smashed through the area and created unique geological features such as this:

I also took this pictures just for you Dad! It's a fowl... perhaps even a water fowl!

I also saw this picture and couldn't NOT take it.

We then went on to Lind Coulee a little farther North. In my little discussion group, I said that it was created by slow moving or still water and the other girls in my group were like "NO! blah blah blah it was made by wind blah blah blah you're wrong blah blah blah." When we got into the big group, we found out that the deposits of clay (the finest of the mineral types (finer than sand and silt)) were created by *gasp* slow moving or still water. This is where the flood widened out, slowed down, barely moved. Before getting more narrow at Drumheller.

Alright. Now I'm off to crew. I'll add the next bit later!

fieldtrip

Of everything I miss about home (basically my family...) I miss this little lady the most (no offense parents!). Kirsten sent me an audio clip of her saying all of her new words like baby and bike and fish and dog and beebo and balloon and nose and then telling me buh-bye and it made me want to cry! The background of my phone is a great picture of her throwing a fit, tears running down her face, fist in her mouth, scowling at the camera. So I thought I'd put up a few pictures I took of her this summer at dinner eating chocolate zucchini cake (which I would really really really like a slice of right now) and just being her fabulous self. I can't wait to see her at Christmas!

I suppose college really is about trying new things because I'm about to defy all of my instincts that tell me do not go camping after September. I'm going on an overnight camping field-trip an area in Eastern Washington to study its formation by the Spokane floods and the draining of Lake Missoula. We are staying at Steamboat Rock. I'm taking my camera. It should be a pretty good time. I need to go to Safeway (I'm leaving as soon as I finish this post and decide if I'm walking or biking) and get breakfast and lunch for myself for tomorrow. We are leaving at 8AM, but Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and Saturday lunch are all going to be provided. I'm sharing a tent with a couple girls from my class named Corrie and Serena. I'll be back sometime on Saturday. It is supposed to rain, so I will be wearing a raincoat the whole time! Whoop Whoop. I am also going to see if I can rig up some kind of raincoat for my camera.

Tonight, I think Margaret, Valerie, and I are going out to dinner. I'm excited. We are going to walk to this place on 6th Ave called Silk Thai. My peer adviser told me that it is delicious and cheap. I have eaten primarily sub food for the last month. It is time for a bit of a change.

I went and talked to my French teacher about my problems in that class. I know I can speak the language, maybe not quite as well as the rest of my class, but well enough, but I get into that room and I can't function. I understand what is being said, and then I get called on and my mouth refuses to form words. She says it is called language breakdown, and that perfectionists (AKA, ME!) are especially prone to it because when they mess up they get mad at themselves that that just stresses them out more. It is a vicious cycle. I think just talking about it has helped a little though. I spoke three whole times in complete sentences on Thursday without wanting to curl up in a hole and die.

I am also starting to get papers back. I'm not as pathetic and worthless as I thought. I got a 93% on my Smokey Bear case study in Communication. He told me I may have over-analyzed. I thought well, if you weren't so vague! and then he told me he was shocked by my conclusion that smokey needs to be a bad-ass enforcer of the forest. I told him that I am from the home of the Montana Meth Project, and he said I had a point, and that sometimes if there is a lot of shock-campaigning, other campaigns can't get any attention if they don't have the same amount of shock value. I also got a 93% on my International Political Economy paper.

Soooo... off to safeway with me. Love you all! <3