Go Back in Time!

At the Renaissance Faire. heh heh.





My dad's cousin Jill.























Soccer, Fall 2000









Yosemite

Block Four

Almost coming to terms with my essays. I absolutely need a break from intensive all-nighter papers. Here's what I'm taking next block after Thanksgiving:

DA221: Beginning Choreographic Forms: Theory and Practice
Study of the choreographic form through problems dealing with aspects of space, time and motion. Prerequisite: 1/4 Unit of Beginning Modern Dance or Dance Improvisation or prior dance experience is recommended. [which I definitely have] 1 unit — taught by Herminjard.
Dance Theory website. I am filled with so much excitement! even in my present dazed state.

Don't worry, (Dad!) because then after winter break I have: Calculus, Spanish, Chemistry, Political Science.

Stress on the Body, Stress on the Mind

Jenny the RA is driving to Denver Wednesday afternoon, so she can take me. I need to contact Eric or other Jesuit people at DU to spend the night.
Now I'm swamped to my eyeballs in essay writing. We have three six-pagers due @ noon tomorrow and they were all assigned within the last four days.
Cross country post-season checkouts were yesterday. I got those dreaded words from the trainers - well, they're actually letters: "P.T." Pa-tooey. "You've been swimming and icing every day, but those knees are just not getting better." At least our insurance is "really good," so next Block I'll start going to Rocky Mountain Physical Therapy.
Over Thanksgiving I need a pool, or perhaps a bike, or at least a stationary. I will probably rest and sleep all Thursday, but otherwise I need to keep up my fitness. I've been working really hard. Weights or climbing would be nice too. Are any of these places near where we'll be?

Vertical Relief Climbing Gym
- SW corner of Benton Ave. and San Francisco St.
Mission Cliffs
- 2295 Harrison Street in SF
Berkeley Ironworks
- 800 Potter Street in Berkeley
Bladium Rock Wall
- 800 West Tower Avenue, Bldg 40 in Alameda

Thanksgiving Weekend, Block Break

Itinerary (a Mom word). But Midterms = too busy to think. Tell me if this is still right.

Nov. 22nd Flight
Denver to Oakland
United 0449
Depart: DEN 11:37 am
Arrive: OAK 01:18 pm

Nov. 25th Flight
San Francisco to Colorado Springs
United 6378 United Express/skywest
Depart: SFO 12:54 pm
Arrive: COS 04:23 pm

I have to

1. get a ride to Denver on Thursday around 8-9 am.
2. or on Wed, and spend the night with Eric/Eric's friend
   

Mom and Dad, see comments below for my projected expenses for next Block.

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter Three

Championship Woe
Bummer at St. Olaf's [2007 NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championship]
The preview said:

"Colorado College's Julian Boggs is the top returning finisher from the 2006 Championships. Boggs, who was second to Occidental's Kevin Chaves in the West Regional last week, was third in last fall's final."

But Boggs got 13th, kind of disappointing. Still, Alex Nichols got 14th and they're both All-Americans and got these cool medals. CC was 21st of 32 teams. We're proud.
Women were 31st, but it's kind of a big deal that they went.

Party Victory
Sammi said I should go out instead of studying all night, literally, for the seventh day in a row -- for the sake of my sanity, even if I needed to study. And to get out the wiggles. So yesterday I slept all day, then went to the hockey game (I love hockey!), then I made midnight pancakes for myself and for random hall people that were willing to barter with foodstuffs (they were delicious. I got chocolate, bread, and chili) and then I met up with Molly and Chelsea and we went to the XC end-of-the-season party which was extremely enjoyable even though most there were utterly exhausted. We mostly danced around like crazy. Wonderful people. After they collapsed, we went to one of the fraternities' spandex party. Boy, that was a lot of spandex. Also, we saw a deer with huge antlers crossing the street. It looked like a little moose. Some people thought they were hallucinating. Molly and I outlasted everyone at the spandex party and everyone left and we were still dancing and then the fraternity people came in and gave us about a million high-fives after we convinced them that we were sustained purely by joie de vivre and our background in endurance athletics. And pancakes. Man, I make killer pancakes. Right now I'm regretting that I forgot my shiny silver pants for that party. Oh well. They were a little dirty. I did wear the see-through blouse to bowling this month. (Redneck theme)

Aaron's Birthday

Quick, look down at November 7th for Aaron's finished birthday letter.

Hockey Time, with pictures!

We won today 4 to 1. It was kind of fluffy so we only played with four on our side, and everyone got to take a lot of breaks. Except for me, of course, being the only "good" girl to show up. But like in dodgeball, and like when I played indoor with Carrie Scott's team at Soccerplex, I'm used to not subbing out. [Coed teams must have two girls in play at all times, unless they want to play shorthanded.]

*Oh, right, last night we lost in the quarterfinals of dodgeball so we're out for good. Nice season, though.


Honnen Ice Rink

Defense as usual.


I got one shot on goal tonight, which is better than my average.


I body slammed this big guy. That's him trying to get up.


Just pretending.


Looking better. I don't fall down on my own anymore.

Thanks to Stuart for taking all the pictures. He thinks it's brilliant that my grandma reads my blog.

Artists in Exile

Right now we're studying film: mostly Murnau (Faust, The Last Laugh/Der letzte Mann, Nosferatu, Sunrise) and Fritz Lang (M, Metropolis, The Big Heat, The Woman in the Window)

The whole theory is that American film noir is from German expressionism and Bauhaus. Here's some of my last paper arguing in favor of silent film:

The aesthetic superiority of silent cinema is an argument held by Rudolf Arnheim. In his view, the absence of color and the absence of sound dictate the medium of quality filmmaking. Proponents of silent film will probably philosophize that art is a confrontation of creativity and boundary. It is by working within limitations that artistic effect is achieved. In Arnheim’s words, “such indirect representation of an event in a material that is strange to it, or giving not the action itself but only its consequences, is a favorite method in all art” (Arnheim 107). As in film, the parameters of a sonnet exemplify the literary license taken; the ballerina’s dance is dramatic because of the confines of the human body and the demands of the choreography on it. To Arnheim, film is at its artistic best when the director uses its lack of depth, color, and sound to represent the human condition on an even more soulful level.

Arnheim celebrates black-and-white film for putting a greater focus on the effects of light: “The reduction of actual color values to a one-dimensional gray series is a welcome divergence from nature which renders possible the making of significant and decorative pictures by means of light and shade” (Arnheim 66). In Sunrise, there are two very different scenes of the Man with women: first, a memory of good times with his wife and baby; second, a rendezvous with the Woman from the City. In the first scene it is daylight and very bright, all characters look bathed in white. The Man runs over to hug his family. The characters move very quickly. We get a sense of contentedness and innocence. In the second, the Man and the city woman are embracing in the swamp. It is nighttime; they move slowly and seem to flicker in the shadows. Though the passion is tangible, we get a sense of greed and guilt. We only see half of their faces: the city woman’s face is pale, but not bright, and the Man’s face is heavily shadowed. Later, after he is forgiven and shaved, the lighting on the Man’s face makes him radiant. The transformation is obvious and dramatic. It signifies that his burdens are gone. We get to see the transformation again just to be sure, after the Wife is rescued from the water. Light can be used to romanticize facial expression. A little later, when the man asks his wife to go out boating, the camera trains on her as she moves from despair to hope to joy, the shadows literally lifting from her face. The cinematography highlights this gorgeous bit of acting. In color, we might have focused on the flush in her cheeks or the color of her eyes –pretty, but not significant.

Sunrise, 1927 - the same year as The Jazz Singer. Not a talkie but not silent either, soundtrack and some sound effects were added using sound-on-film (Fox Movietone) system.

Loss?! Loss?!

Mom, I bet you might remember Lawson from the cross country party. He's from GEORgia. Well, Lawson's team BEAT us, 3 to 2. We were missing three key players and our goalie. Still, Sheldo was not happy when I told him. There goes an undefeated season.

Long Time Ago

Dad sent pictures . . . I feel so old.

Me & Luke in BermudaRight after we brought Riley home
Ha ha, remember the pineapple palm tree?

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Dear Aaron,
Here are seven birthday cakes. I made them for you.
Sorry, I took a bite out of one. Perhaps you noticed that the one with red dots has eight candles. That's for seven years of your life plus one to grow on.

I'm glad to hear about your Tae Kwon Do victory. Actually, I am really impressed. You broke four boards . . . in a row, or stacked? How do you do that without hurting your hand?Not everyone gets trophies for winning. That is quite an accomplishment.

Thanks for writing to me on my blog. I read your note to my friends and they said, "Wow, your brother talks very precisely. He sounds really smart." I bet you're a good worker in first grade. I remember in first grade we added up big numbers and learned to tell time and we wrote down stories that we made up by ourselves. You should ask Mom to go through some old boxes in the attic to find those stories. My favorite part of first grade was science, because we learned all about animals and where they live all over the world and how they survive in the desert and in snowy places. I did a report on amphibians. I bet you know what amphibians are, I don't have to tell you.I have lots of friends on my hockey team. It is really fun and we crash into each other a lot, but that doesn't hurt much. We have only lost one game so far. It's a really good team. We always wear green. I think we are going to win the championships and then I get my picture on the Champ Wall. My roommate Sammi is good at volleyball and her team just won the intramural championships. Her team was all freshmen and Resident Advisers from my dorm, and all of them are my friends. I bet the other team was mad because they were all hotshot seniors.
Resident Advisers are older students that live on my floor, and they help us with problems and stuff. They're like big brothers and sisters to us. My RA is Tim. The RA on the floor above us is Andrew, and he's my friend too. We tease the RAs a lot but they're nice.

Are you going to go skiing in Oregon? There is lots of skiing here in Colorado. Colorado is famous for ski mountains. Colorado College sponsors some ski hut trips. I think I might go stay at a ski hut for a weekend with my friend Molly and she can teach me to Nordic ski. Unfortunately Chelsea cannot come with us because she is sick with mononucleosis. Chelsea and Molly are my running team friends.Both our girls and boys running teams are going to the really big deal NCAA Division III championships of all colleges in the country on Saturday. It's like the Super Bowl, but scarier. We have one boy who might win it. Tell me how soccer is.

Happy seventh birthday. I love you.
Love,

Special Note by Chelsea

Ahoy-hoy maties! I do not know any of you, but I would like to send out a special greeting, because everyone needs to be greeted every once in a while. I would like to inform you all that Rafter is doing quite swell. This note is mildly pointless. Perhaps I should stop typing, but I don't think I will. Rafter just gave me a hat, which makes me very happy because I like the hat a lot. Okay, this is the end of my note. Bye!

Sports

Beginner League Hockey: Matt Sheldon (Sheldo) is the coach. I don't know if other teams have a coach, but it gives us an edge. We've won every game so far and the guys are telling me I "played like a champ." Alright, acceptance! Most people on the team are seniors, and they were champions last year, and Sheldo says "we will settle for nothing less than a dynasty." I do want to be up on the wall of champions.
Today we played against a fluffy team, so I played up front and got two shots on goal, and smashed into some opponents three different times (and collided with the goal post once). But I never fell down today on my own accord. Progress.

Dodgeball: The Possums definitely aren't the favored team in the dodgeball league; actually, we're probably the underdog team. True, sometimes we have been shellacked, but every game we get better and better, and when Neil and Twig actually show up, our odds of winning go up 50/50.
-- Update. We lost tonight. Neil didn't show up. I don't think we're making the playoffs. Last game is on Thursday. --

Running off-season: I found my goggles, so I can swim, but I still can't run on my knee. I can run once a week wearing the brace if I take good care of myself.

Pictures of My Hallmates

I don't believe you've been introduced. Here's some of them.

Sammi and Eliza. Eliza likes Alaska.


















Jeff. This is the only picture I could find of Jeff without his girlfriend, not to say that's bad, but she doesn't go here and that would be confusing. Jeff's roommate is Keita but I don't have any pictures of Keita.


















Louisa. She was on my Priddy trip, as was Eliza. She is the sweetest. We voted.





















Stuart and Izzy, both really swell guys. Very different. Stuart plays Guitar Hero a lot. Izzy . . . is Izzy. We love him.


















Alan, he's from Switzerland. He doesn't actually live in our hall, but he hangs out here a lot, like Jose. He's good at all sports, I'm not kidding. Tennis, soccer, hockey, capture the flag. Probably ping-pong and American football too, even though he's never played them.






















Mystery Matt. He left our hall though, so I don't think he counts anymore. Matt, if you see this, I'm just going to repeat it: "Lame!" Your photo is downsized!

Family Photos

Fall at Home: Pictures from Dad

Luke. Stud.

Aaron: How's soccer? Do you play tough like me? Speaking of tough, I don't think it's fair to dress up like a ninja for Halloween if you really are a ninja. It's like Obama dressing up like Obama.

Halloween

The Tale of the Walrus and the Gladiator

Chelsea and her roommates SammiStuart (Snape), Hannah (Bellatrix Lestrange), Eliza (Spartan woman from 300) and Tim (I don't know)LouisaAlan (Chick Magnet)
José

So one of the houses had a techno dance party, and Rufio (Lost Boys leader from Hook) borrowed Chelsea's camera from the couch area. So she got it back with 60 pictures and here are some of them.





The Alice in Wonderland couple were a little obsessed about Chelsea . . . of course because of the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
You know, Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There