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Immersion in Alexander Skutch’s Philosophy: Beauty, harmony, and anthropomorphisms in the birds and nature of Costa Rica

A huge thank you to the Keller Family Venture Grant and the President’s Special Project Funding for giving us, Emily Biben and Jaxon Rickel, the opportunity to purse an independent project in Costa Rica. Our project was titled: Immersion in Alexander Skutch’s Philosophy: Beauty, harmony, and anthropomorphisms in the birds and nature of Costa Rica,…

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Living Simply with No Technology in Costa Rica: An Exploration of Happiness

When I initially pursued this venture grant, I was experiencing anxiety everyday. I was confused with myself and my place in the world. I was longing to be content, to stop spending so many hours each day questioning myself, feeling overwhelmed, and crying for no apparent reason. It was during the first week of third block, in my Intro to Psychology class, that I learned anxiety and depression are natural feelings the brains produces when in an identity exploration phase. I was relieved to discover this, but knew I couldn’t just ignore these feelings by continuing to endure my extremely busy schedule at school (class, track practice, writing for the paper, working and homework). I started thinking about taking time…

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How has it been five days?

Holy cow I can’t believe that our trip is already over. To say it was a whirlwind is an understatement. We were able to fit in multiple museums, historic sites, great food and Hamilton twice. It was all-incredible. Looking back on this trip, we can’t help but connect the dots that have led us to this moment. The photo of us that we posted was taken in St. Kitts which is a small Caribbean island that is half owned by St.Kitts and half Nevis which is owned by the Dutch. Nevis is where Alexander Hamilton was born and lived for his childhood. It is crazy to think how different that…

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Ellis Island

Today we braved the cold and made our way toward Liberty and Ellis Island. When we got off the subway we were bombarded by sales people trying to convince us and every other tourists that you should utilize the water taxi tour services because – insert any reason you can think of – why using the National Park Service services won’t work. After ten minutes of listening to two different people try to convince us to not walk the 200 ft to the National Park Service ticket counter, we finally got away and got on the ferry. (which is way cheaper then the Water Taxi services). Our first stop was…

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Hamilton pt. 2

If you were wondering “Hamilton” is just as good the second time as it was the first time. Our seats this time were in the lower section of the theatre which gives you a completely different feel of the show, because now we were able to gain a closer look at the performers subtle gestures and facial movements they make during the show. I am so happy that we had enough funds to be able to see this play twice. There is so much that goes on during this play with lighting, dancers, and prop movement that are so subtle yet key to the execution of the performance. Some of…

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Dehydrated

To sum up today in one word it would be dehydrated. My jaw was on the floor from all the unbelievable monuments, people, and performance that we experienced today. We started the day all the way downtown at Federal Hall, which where George Washington took the inaugural oath to become President.  It was a remarkable building inspired by Greek architecture, that still makes you feel miniscule even though towering skyscrapers surround it.  As we entered the building it was hard to not be overcome with shock and amazement at how young our country is, that these artifacts and buildings that are still around are barely over 300 years old. As…

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Happy 259th (or 261st depending on your source) Birthday Hamilton!

After a long day of travel yesterday (Karina’s flight was almost 5 hours long and mine was diverted to Rochester, NY for about an hour) we settled into our Washington Heights apartment with some burgers and Netflix. The plan was to start today early with a trip to the Hamilton Grange, continue to an event put on by the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society (AHA Society) at Trinity Church then visit the Fraunces Tavern Museum nearby. But that itinerary just about went out the window this morning when we arrived at the Hamilton Grange and saw signs stating that the house is only open Wednesday to Sunday… Change of plans: We…

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Hamilton

Hi, we are Kaimara and Karina who have been best friends ever since our new student orientation freshman year. Kaimara is a senior History major and Fem/Gen minor from Chicago, Illinois. She loves reading, traveling, good food and can typically be found somewhere inside the library.While Karina is also a senior majoring in Economics from Pueblo, Colorado. She loves food, art, and moose, and can typically be found walking around campus stopping to talk to everyone, enjoying the outdoors, or playing sports. We both continue to challenge one another to constantly learn, and grow through their conversations about education, current events, and history. We have both dreamed about applying for a venture grant together since freshman…

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How NOT to do Shakespeare, or How to Enjoy bad Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

Title: The Comedy of Errors By: William Shakespeare Location: Temporary Theatre (National Theatre), London, England Date: Oct 28, 2015 In Attendance: Soeren Walls, Anubrat Prasai   Soeren and I had different opinions about this play. I actually enjoyed the play. Given the intended audience were children, the play was quite good. The acting was bad but funny. They also engaged with the audience and children were having a lot of fun watching the play.There was a lot of physical humor involved. There was a point where they even had fart jokes – in a shakespeare play! It was really interesting talking to Soeren after the play. He was upset about the…

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