Let’s talk yearbooks.

I’m not a very nostalgic person (amazing memory notwithstanding). I never join the “You know you’re a 90s kid when…” pages on Facebook, mainly because while I spent the first four years of my life I did not really experience, remember experiencing or enjoy experiencing half of the things they talk about (mostly due to them being on television; read one of my earlier blog posts for my answer to that).  Likewise, I only have one or two yearbooks that I never look at (partially because I’m not very nostalgic, partially because I have all of two pictures in them… and only one is me actually doing something that isn’t posed), and we have my sister’s senior year yearbook that no one looks at.

I think part of the reason I am lacking in nostalgia is because I don’t really revel in some of the things I do; if I move up a grade, I move on from there because I feel that I don’t want to get stuck reminiscing on the past year when I’m supposed to be focusing on the new year. There are a few exceptions, such as all the theatre shirts I get from the plays I perform, but then I actually want to remember all that goes on because theatre is awesome and High School… isn’t.

But just because I’m not nostalgic doesn’t mean other people are just like me; there are dozens if not hundreds of people that like remembering all the things they did in school, even if it’s mind-numbingly boring. For them, yearbooks are a portal to the past, and I can respect that. Also, I’m sure there are quite a few more people who like reminiscing than there are people like me who enjoy moving on and not remembering, so while I might not purchase one myself I still say yearbooks are an important aspect of any school (above elementary level; there it’s just silly).

Why am I talking about yearbooks? Well, Wabash might not have one this year.

You see, due to the Student Senate’s “infinite” wisdom, the yearbook was cancelled due to them deciding that it was not worth the money. I’m not a senior, but I would think that some of them might be a bit disappointed that they won’t be getting a yearbook this year. And it’s not just the seniors; yearbooks make for good propaganda/recruiting devices. If you have one laying out when prospects come by, they can thumb through it and see how great Wabash is and want to come here, but since there won’t be a yearbook the prospects do not get a good idea of what goes on during Monon Week or Chapel Sing . So, kudos to you Student Senate: you just knocked out one of our possible recruiting devices because it was “too expensive”.

I think what the Senate should have done was, instead of just canning yearbook altogether, see if there would be demand for it. If there are people that actually want the yearbook, then you should get them one. If no one wants it, go ahead and can it, but you can’t make these decisions without seeing if the masses aren’t going to vocally disagree with you (*cough*President Hess*cough*). I for one would love to give a few opinions about the goings on around campus, but since Student Senate never seems to be at a time I can meet up with them that leave me at an impasse. Could they at least send out a little survey so I can voice my opinion?

So yeah, save the yearbook. Because people care about it.

I am a cute ninja

Since I’m doing whatever I can to not go outside, and since I don’t have class on Thursday, I thought I’d tell you all about my interpretations of winter here.

With the aforementioned cold, I find myself bundling up more than I ever did in Oregon. Even during cold snaps in Oregon, I just threw on my hoodie and pushed on (I call it Oregonian stubbornness- just like we never put raincoats on or use umbrellas when the weather would otherwise call for them, but here I’ve got my sweater, my winter coat, my gloves, my had and my scarf (the latter two my grandmother knitted for me. Thanks 🙂 ). Even then I’m still a bit cold (partially because I only have jeans), but it’s better than nothing.

Currently, I’ve been surviving on a steady diet of tea (English Breakfast Tea, mainly). I already mentioned my love of tea last blog post, so I won’t mention it again (although, if I start shooting fire out of my hands I might have to work on my philosophical ramblings… and grow a beard). I would like some soup, but you have to make du with what you have in these kinds of situations.

On a different note, squirrels are adorable when they run around in the snow. When it’s deep enough, all you can see is their little heads when they look around. They’re like little snow gophers. Sadly, they’re not the most photogenic of rodents, so I was not able to get a picture of them doing this.

Anyway, one of the advantages of being inside quite a lot is that I get a chance to talk to people. I do live in a fraternity (Kappa Sigma for anyone that’s wondering), but it seems that sometimes I don’t really get a chance to talk with my brothers. Being inside most of the time I feel that I get a better chance to do so, although they have their own classes so such interactions are usually fleeting.

On the subject of interactions, there was a snowball fight last night. I would have gone, but Dork Club came up. Beat the DePauw orks, so that made me happy.

I forgot to mention this last week, but I made a new friend.

This friend is very helpful. This friend will get me pointed in the right direction, so that I may be able to get out of college with a running start and get closer to success (whatever success means, but that’s a different topic).

This friend is Wabash Career Services.

Career Services is a free service that Wabash has available. Here, staff and older students give you help on your resume, give you mock interviews to brush up on your skills, and get you in contact with internship opportunities. This is great, because you are getting a chance to get out in the world and learn from people who know how the business world works, and that is vital if you want to get ahead of other college graduates that are nowhere near as qualified as you are *cough* Depauw *cough*. So for any incoming Freshmen that are reading this blog, I would recommend you go to Career Services. Let them help you. You might say “Eh, I just started college; I’ll figure out everything later”, well I say that’s a dumb reason to not do something and you should feel bad for thinking it. Career Services helps you get on track, so you can plan out your majors and your career opportunities.

Also, go on the right day and you get tea. I would say coffee, but tea is better. Tea makes you relax, and it keeps you warm. You can’t be sick of tea, because that would be like being sick of breathing, and since everyone likes breathing everyone should drink tea. Stressed? Have some tea, you’ll relax. Angry? Same thing. Bored? Have tea (I call this the “Iroh Method”: whatever problem you have goes away when you sit in a comfy chair and drink tea).

Oh right, I was talking about Career Services.

Well….

It’s awesome, and you should go there.

And drink tea.

…

I’ll talk about Dork Club next week.

I’ve been rather quiet for the last few weeks, I’ve noticed. There’s a reason for this: I wanted to get through my first week back at school before writing about it (also because I’m ahead of my ESH schedule and don’t want to outstrip myself).

And first impressions are looking pretty good.

I still have Latin and History, and I enjoyed those two classes last semester. I’m a bit rusty in my Latin, and I need to remember just where we left off in History, but I am sure that I’ll be back in the swing of things in a few days. Besides, this is Wabash; I’m not going to give up just because I don’t understand something immediately. That’d be something DePauw students would do, and Wabash is better than DePauw.

School favoritism aside, there are other things I am involved in this semester. As always, I will be attending and reporting on Dork Club meetings (if you missed one of my blogs over break, I got some fancy new toys for the Wabash Space Marines). Also, I have enrolled in two new courses: Enduring Questions and Introduction to American Politics.

Enduring Questions (or EQ) is a discussion and writing based class where you talk about what it means to be a person and how the mind works (like a philosophy class, but not really). I love writing, and I love talking about how people think (I even psychoanalyse myself sometimes if I’m really bored), so I will enjoy that class. We all need an experience where we analyse just who we are and what our purpose in life is (spoiler: Tiger Food), and I think this will be a good experience for me.

The other class is Intro to American Politics. I can’t say a lot about this class yet, since we haven’t really done a lot, but I will say it has potential. I tend to be on the “dumb American” side of the political information spectrum, so maybe this class will give me a better perspective to how our country works and what we can do to make it better.

So, as I said in a previous blog post, I think this year is going to be good; I have a few new courses to get excited about, a few groups that I will continue to support, and other events around campus to look forward to (Like the play- I didn’t get a part, but I’ll still go). And who knows? Maybe something even better will come up and I’ll have an even better time then I imagined I would.

Yeah, this year will be good.

So, apparently there was an email war during break.

I know I should be informed about this, since it was sent to everyone with a Wabash e-mail, but I didn’t see this. I check my emails regularly, but this email war just didn’t catch my eye (and that’s probably not exclusive to me; it didn’t seem incredibly long, like the last email war). So I got to thinking; what’s so different about this one that no one really wanted to get involved?

Well, it’s break; no one really cares.

Before this comes off as overly cynical, allow me to explain; as I have said before, we go on break so we can spend some time relaxing and recuperating from the previous semester. As such, we begin to detach ourselves from the going ons of Wabash. I assume most of us would rather be spending time with friends and family rather than argue over things. This is supposed to be a happy time of year, not a time of bickering and arguing (refrain from making comments about the government). Now, the last email war was at a time where everyone was on campus, and being so close to Monon Week it had the best chance of getting noticed. This one didn’t have such luck, and I’m happy for that.

Also, while I check my emails regularly, I’m certain that there are those Wabash men who don’t possess such diligence, especially during breaks. This does have to do with the above, as we are more interested in family than school, and thus would be a bit distracted and too lazy to check our emails. This is all in theory, of course, as I am only one person and therefore not a good representation of the actions and beliefs of the campus as a whole (again, refrain from making comments about government, or how Wabash is run).

Perhaps there is a way that we can connect better with one another over breaks. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure someone will find it eventually.