The first week of Idris Goodwin's class, Writing for Performance - Watch the Clock, was a creative week of performance poetry. This is my second class with good ol' Goodwin (good young Goodwin, rather), and has already become one of the most bonded groups of students I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with …
Continue reading "Schoolin’ the Middle Schoolers with Poetry"
Today in class we debated whether or not there is a civil religion in America. Again, we used Durkheim's definition of a religion: a unifying set of practices. We discussed the rituals we participate in (like voting or saying the pledge of allegiance) that reinforce American’s shared value system rooted in democracy. We talked about …
Last Wednesday I handed in my senior thesis, "A Sociological Study of Debutantes." Sociology of Religion started the following Monday and it was my first class since before Thanksgiving break. I was excited to finally be able to forget about my thesis. I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy to forget. Our …
My host mom, Charo, spends a lot of her day preparing meals for the family. It's a rare sight to not find a pot of chicken or lentils or sausage slowly stewing away on the stove all morning. We've been eating a lot of hearty and warm foods specifically for winter, but also some Spanish …
I know I'm really sick when I can't fathom the idea of consuming coffee. I became really sick last Monday. Last Monday of the block. 4th Week Monday. Monday of doom. The Monday of all Mondays in which one would most desperately turn to coffee, in which being sick is a devastation of great proportions. …
In honor of Valentine's Day, I've decided to write about my new love: Granada. This past weekend I traveled to Granada and spent three-ish marvelous days soaking up Granada's culture and "studying" for my final exam by only speaking spanish. I truly became enamored with this city and cannot wait to go back again. One …
We've moved on from atmospheric physics to atmospheric chemistry, and have spent our time looking at different constituents of our atmosphere and how they get there. One interesting (and complicated) reaction we have focused on is ozone formation and depletion in various layers of the atmosphere. In the stratosphere, the second layer of the atmosphere, …
Reviews are in. Pictures are loaded. Results: weather is looking beautiful to put it lightly (if indicative of a changing climate). Weather balloons are a critical to our understanding of the structure and behavior of the atmosphere. Without the twice daily weather balloon launches which take place simultaneously at over 800 sites around the world, we would not …
(FYI, "Encantada" directly translates to enchanted and is how the Spanish say "pleased to meet you.") Well, this is my first post, but I've been here for just about two weeks now and there are about a million things to write about. For everyone's sake I'll give you the condensed version. First, the basics: There …
Make tea. Drink tea. Drink too much tea with too much honey so you get too hyper happy too quickly and crash from the sugar high at six in the evening. Hike through Palmer Park on an absurdly warm January morning. Think about studying. Study. Think about studying some more. Study. Think. Study. Drink more …
