Entries tagged with "graduation countdown"
Graduation countdown (from yesterday): 1 day
posted by srah on May 4, 2002 9:01 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
1 day. Okie dokie, today's the big day. Thank you (and in some cases, goodbye) to Alex, Roommate, Bob, Cheryl, Dively, Jillian, Erin, Kelly, Stephanie, Carl, Bo, Theron, Kurt, Paul, Todd, James, Keven, Lewis, Denny, Larry, Andy, Meredith, Chris, Jaclyn, Juliette, Freddie, Sophie, Denis, Françoise, Jean-Pierre, Pierre, Noémie, Joachim, Marie, Cheryl, Harini, Robin, Darcy, Christianna, Antoine, Fanny, Mariana, Pénélope, Vivi, Shunkers, Sarah W., Lindsey, Mommy, Daddy, Alfie, Grandma and Grandpa Munsell, Grandma and Grandpa McNitt, Aunt Pat, Scott, Uncle Reg, Auntie Averill and Dennis, John, Michael, Ellen, Krista, Nancy, Diane, Fred, Geir, Karen, Amy, Molly, Lisa Lew, Dan, Joh, Tara,...
Graduation countdown: 2 days
posted by srah on May 2, 2002 1:34 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
2 days. I hope you're not expecting these to get progressively better. Freshman year, we had a night where we had three fire drills in the pouring rain the night before a final exam, beginning around 3am. By the last one, people were refusing to go outside. Jillian even slept through one of them. I just thought of that because I've been through four fire drills and a potential one (it was all smoky but we left before anything went off) in the past month....
Graduation countdown: 4 days
posted by srah on May 1, 2002 9:35 AM
Tags: ckane, england, graduation countdown, roommate, scotland, travel
4 days. When I went from Grenoble to visit my roommate in Aberdeen last year, we had quite an adventure. We had a train to catch at 6am. I was up and ready at 6am, but I hadn't considered the thought that the first bus goes by around 6:03. For some reason I couldn't get the phone to work properly and couldn't call a cab to the train station, so I went to the nearby phone box, and I couldn't get my phone card to work. What was I going to do? I was going to let Cheryl down and...
Graduation countdown: 6 days
posted by srah on April 29, 2002 2:41 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
6 days. Freshman year, a game of multilingual Uno broke out on our hall. French, Spanish, German, maybe even some Samoan found its way into the game as we called out numbers and colors and tried to translate things like "draw two" and "reverse". The only rule: no English. It was a level of multilingual fun we don't even get in I-House....
Graduation countdown: 7 days
posted by srah on April 27, 2002 11:43 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, john hannah, john hannah dot net, my favorite posts
7 days. One week to go till I'm sitting up there, either sweating in my graduation robes in the hot sun or with the rain running off my taller neighbor's mortarboard and all over me, while some investment-guy alum blathers on to us and PT lisps about how excellent our class is and rah rah Liberal Arts at Work. Can you tell I'm looking forward to it? One day last summer someone signed the guestbook on my website, leaving their name as "John Hannah". 'Yeah right,' I snorted, and went on with my life. Then a few days later, he...
Graduation countdown: 8 days
posted by srah on April 27, 2002 11:36 AM
Tags: bastille, graduation countdown, grenoble, study abroad
8 days. Last year in Grenoble I went out for a walk one day with nothing to do. Cheryl was out doing something else and I was bored so I wandered around downtown for a while and ended up on the quais of the Isère, just below the Bastille, one of the smaller of the mountains around Grenoble. So I decided to climb the Bastille. It's not like I needed climbing ropes or something - it's just a zig-zag walking path up the mountain. But since I hadn't really planned the expedition, I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt,...
Graduation countdown: 10 days
posted by srah on April 24, 2002 8:52 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
10 days. One weekend last fall, Ligia, Juan, Alex and I all ended up at I-House with a bag of marshmallows and a can of Pringles. Juan put a little Pringle hat on top of a marshmallow head and then went to find a way to make it stay. Gradually, Marshmallowstein was born. He had a straw for a body and two more for legs, toothpick arms, and later even had clothing. Our artistic creation lived in Ligia's refrigerator for months afterwards....
Graduation countdown: 11 days
posted by srah on April 23, 2002 9:43 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
11 days. In the spirit of yesterday's cannibalistic song posting, I will post another making-fun-of-people song, which also happens to be a memory from my four years at Albion. This is a song I wrote for Mary Grace, the very stupid girl in my Europe Since 1500 class. It can be sung to the tune of "Amazing Grace". Oh Mary Grace, I wonder why this class drags on so slow. It is because we must explain the things that you don't know. Oh Mary Grace, put down your hand. Don't share your point of view I hate to say that...
Graduation countdown recap
posted by srah on April 21, 2002 11:35 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
Less than two weeks to go, so let's look over the old ones (mouse-over for titles)... 54 | 53 | 52 | 51 | 50 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 45 | 44 | 43 | 42 | 41 | 40 | 39 | 38 | 37 | 36 | 35 | 34 | 33 | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13...
Graduation countdown: 13 days
posted by srah on April 21, 2002 11:34 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
13 days. Our Geology TAs were named Gabe and Magda, but Jillian and I, being the clever Geology students that we were, nicknamed them Gabbro and Magma. Ha ha! We had a lot of fun in that class because Gabbro was sort of cute but dumb and we had two hours to do a lab that often needed less than an hour. We were usually the last ones there because we were amusing ourselves by playing with the fossils....
Graduation countdown: 14 days
posted by srah on April 21, 2002 11:34 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
14 days. My sophomore year, I took Intro to Earth History, a Geology class (lab science credit), with a bunch of other non-science majors from my freshman-year hall. I think the Sophomore Slump was beginning to set in and they were so happy to see each other again that they would very rudely talk through the whole class. And I, unfortunately, was associated with them. One day he kicked our side of the room out but I stayed, because I knew I had done nothing wrong....
Graduation countdown: 16 days
posted by srah on April 21, 2002 11:33 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
I haven't done one of these in several days. Maybe I'm getting low on memories. 16 days. One day Stephanie, Erin, Julie and I went to Felpausch but instead of making it just any trip to the supermarket, we brought along cameras and pretended we were on vacation at Felpausch. There's a lot of light in supermarkets. I have a nice picture of Erin sitting on the cheese case....
Today's graduation countdown: 17 days
posted by srah on April 17, 2002 1:03 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, host family, study abroad
17 days on the 17th. Huh. When we went to visit Denis and Sophie's cousin and her kids in St-Etienne, the six-year-old cousin Charles latched on to me. It was interesting because he'd seen me about a month before and had told me that his cousins were beautiful but I was moche. Well, little Charles. I was bored and lonely and bombarded with French. We can't all be looking our best under these circumstances. Poo on you. But on this visit, he followed me all over the place and wanted to sit next to me at dinner, sit on my...
Yesterday's graduation countdown
posted by srah on April 17, 2002 12:59 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, schoolwork
18 days. This graduation countdown is for all of the sleepless nights, staying up writing papers or working on projects. There aren't many, because I really like to sleep, but there have been a few and they usually consist of zombie-ing through the next day. Let's hope I don't have one tonight. I'm making good progress. Except for the fact that I'm blogging right now....
Graduation countdown: 19 days
posted by srah on April 15, 2002 5:42 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
19 days. One day in our freshman year, Stephanie, Lewis, Jen and I stayed up all night, eating tuna dip and giving (Jen and Lewis) and receiving (Stephanie and me) makeovers. It was actually rather spectacular in my case, being the makeup-less troll that I am. Heh heh. I'm glad I've never had any homework to do during my four years. It makes spontaneous fun-sessions more possible. Well okay, maybe I've had a little homework, but nothing to interfere with my dazzling social life or anything....
Graduation countdown: 20 days
posted by srah on April 14, 2002 11:16 AM
Tags: france, graduation countdown, srahfam, travel
20 days. The best thing about traveling in France and England with my family this summer was relaxation. I'm usually so committed to a schedule and to being where we're supposed to be when we're supposed to be there. But with my family, everything was an adventure. We were going to go to Verdun, but we were all tired so we stayed in Nancy and walked around there instead. We got lost in Paris and just walked around for a while and ended up seeing the Canadian embassy and the George V, which is not some backpacker's hovel, in case...
Graduation countdown: 22 days
posted by srah on April 12, 2002 4:16 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, study abroad, travel
22 days. Over my February vacation last year, I was reading some French book and sitting by the bus stop to get the bus back to Nîmes and various people began to join me. Quite a few of them spoke English, but I was lost in my book and don't normally talk to strangers, anyway. I got onto the bus and sat behind two Americans. They were talking amongst themselves and I wasn't really paying attention, but I caught words here and there. Then one of them turned around and said, "Mademoiselle, vous habitez ici?" ("Miss, do you live here?")...
Graduation countdown: 24 days
posted by srah on April 10, 2002 12:55 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
24 days. An RHA tradition that has been lost in the past few years (I swear, I leave campus and the organization falls apart) is the a-salt-ing of new members. Or old members. Or anyone we want to a-salt. This often consists of putting salt shakers in people's pockets or backpacks when they're not looking or taping salt packets all over their office/room door. For a while, The Great Salterini was stalking our advisor via email. We even have salt-related t-shirts from two years ago. Bring back the salt!...
Graduation countdown (on time this time!): 26 days
posted by srah on April 8, 2002 9:01 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, grenoble, study abroad
26 days. Last year, my favorite professor was Dominique. He was our main (sort of "homeroom") teacher in our three-a-week language classes. He had a very entertaining and mimicable way of talking and I miss him just thinking about it. He always went around the room to get answers, so everyone got a chance to or was forced to speak. On the last day of class, we bought him a card and a nice pen and he took us all down to the cafeteria for coffee and tea and to exchange addresses with everyone. We were all very sad when...
Graduation countdown (late)
posted by srah on April 8, 2002 8:44 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
28 days. Freshman year, we all happened to have to do laundry on the same weekend. We got into our pyjamas, brought somebody's stereo down there, and had a dance party in the laundry room. I have a picture of us all standing on top of the washers....
Graduation countdown: 29 days
posted by srah on April 5, 2002 2:14 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
29 days. It sounds like so much less than 30. Mmmm. *shivers in delight* Freshman year I was at Briton Bash, the beginning-of-the-year activity held to introduce new students to campus organizations. I was walking along when suddenly I froze. Stephanie looked at me funny. "Scottish accent," I explained. I looked around but couldn't see, at first, where it was coming from. Then I spotted him. Hmm, he looked as good as he sounded. From that day forward, the Attractive Scot was known on the hall as "srah's husband". After several weeks or months or so, I even discovered his...
Graduation countdown: 30 days
posted by srah on April 4, 2002 11:04 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
30 days. My sophomore year, my friend, Trivial Pursuit rival (we are still even, I believe), and crush-at-the-time, Kurt Medland, was selected to be on College Jeopardy. This was months after I had gone through the process and had gotten to the second round at U-M's tryouts. We were all very proud of him and made a video clip to support him, got Kurt Medland t-shirts, made him a campus celebrity, and watched him on TV. He did really well in the first round, but choked in Final Jeopardy. Luckily, he still managed to make it to the second round,...
Graduation countdown: 31 days
posted by srah on April 3, 2002 4:53 PM
Tags: graduation countdown, iced tea, study abroad
31 days. The first time I ever had peach iced tea was sitting out in the back yard chatting with Denis. We had run out of Coke, so he got me a peach iced tea instead. I knew I didn't like iced tea, but I was thirsty and a year abroad is all about trying new things. I'm glad I did. I believe it was a Nestea. They don't seem to have peach Nestea anywhere around here. Peach Nestea is pretty impossible to find, at least where I've been shopping. It's also hard to find peach Lipton except by the...
Graduation countdown: 32 days
posted by srah on April 2, 2002 9:48 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
32 days. My roommate and I are both Sarahs from Ann Arbor (one called Srah to try to ease the confusion, except when someone asks for "Sarah" on the phone) and we went to high school together. We had some friends in common so we were aware of each other, but we didn't really know each other and neither of us really had a problem with that. Then our senior year in high school, we found out that we were both going to Albion so we talked a little more. When I got to college and had to find someone...
Graduation countdown: 33 days
posted by srah on April 1, 2002 11:46 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
33 days. Dively and I were driving to Meijers sophomore year, quite late at night. It was a foggy, misty night, in the way that horror movies are sometimes foggy. You could see where the layer of fog hung and the clear air above and below it. One of us remarked to the other that this was the kind of fog that only happened in horror movies, the kind where two girls are driving along and suddenly a man with a hook comes out of nowhere and jumps onto the car. As we were talking about this and freaking each...
Graduation countdown recap
posted by srah on March 30, 2002 12:47 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
I want to keep track. I know they don't mean much to you, but please bear with me. 54 | 53 | 52 | 51 | 50 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 45 | 44 | 43 | 42 | 41 | 40 | 39 | 38 | 37 | 36 | 35...
Graduation countdown: 35 days
posted by srah on March 30, 2002 12:44 PM
Tags: baking, cookies, graduation countdown, grenoble, host family
35 days. One of the last things I did, between my final exams and flying home from Grenoble was to make cookies with Sophie. It was something we'd talked about all year, but we never had all of the ingredients. So one day in May, we finally sat down and made them. It was interesting because we had the directions in English and in cups and teaspoons. We had the right measuring utensils, because the Morins had had so many Americans before. We had alsatian raising powder, which was something akin to baking powder or soda or something. We had...
Graduation countdown: 36 days
posted by srah on March 29, 2002 10:25 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
36 days. Little over 5 weeks. Dear me, I suppose I have some term papers and final projects to do at some point. Hmmm. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled daily memory from the past four years. Freshman year, our R.A., Carl, went away somewhere with his band and left his room unlocked. Big mistake. Lisa Lew and I went into his room and stole his comfortable rolly chair. Then we wrote anonymous ransom notes stating our demands, which I seem to remember were hugs for his residents (we were all very odd about Carl and I think all the...
Graduation countdown: 37 days
posted by srah on March 28, 2002 11:29 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
37 days. Freshman year I was in a Film class where the professor sat us down and told us to make movies, then graded us on what we did wrong. Hmmph. Not bitter or anything. Anyway, my Honors buddy Denny and I made several crappy little films in that class that I have on video and will occasionally show to people if I really like them. There was the one where the plot was "Sometimes I want to go to sleep but there's always a party on my hall." It included me wearing bunny ears, some footage from Monty Python...
Graduation countdown: 38 days
posted by srah on March 27, 2002 1:15 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
38 days. First semester of sophomore year, our suitemate was Vivi, the Spanish Native Speaker from Costa Rica. She told us once that someone had asked if she lived in a tree. So for the rest of the year, we would ask her about her home in a tree and pet monkeys and things like that and she would tell us, making more and more of the story up as she went along. You see, she lived on one branch and her aunts' and uncles' families lived on other branches of the same tree. Which is why they call it...
Graduation countdown: 39 days
posted by srah on March 26, 2002 12:09 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, savoie, study abroad, travel
39 days till you can sing this to me. When she visited Grenoble in October of last year, Dr Guenin-Lelle gave us a few things to give to Pénélope, our former Native Speaker, when we saw her. Well, it took a few months, but I finally managed to pay Penny a visit in March. I stayed with her in her parents' home in Aix-les-Bains and she took me to spend the day in Annecy, drive around the lakes of the region and also on a side trip to Chambéry. Pénélope's family was extremely kind and hospitable to me. Their house...
Graduation countdown: 40 days
posted by srah on March 25, 2002 10:13 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
40 days. And 40 nights? One day, early in sophomore year, we were hit by an attack of the Sophomore Slump. After living on top of each other in Wesley the year before, we found ourselves broken up and spread across campus. So Jillian, Erin, Jen and I got together to hang out in Jillian and Erin's room. We sat in the Isolation Corner and sang and danced to depressing songs. We were still sad to be separated, but we discovered that even if we weren't just down the hall, we could always get together when we were down....
Graduation Countdown: 41 days
posted by srah on March 24, 2002 11:23 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
41 days. Freshman year, a group of my friends got sick of the fraternities and sororities on campus and formed our own. It was called Gamma Kappa Epsilon, or "GKE" for short. There were already co-ed fraternities on campus, so we made ours a co-ed sorority. We never got too much done, but we did manage to have a formal, which consisted of us getting dressed up in old prom dresses and hanging out in the hallway....
Graduation countdown: 42 days
posted by srah on March 23, 2002 5:00 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
42 days. Freshman year, Harini and Cheryl came to visit me at Albion over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. We built snowmen and had a grand old time....
Graduation countdown: 43 days
posted by srah on March 22, 2002 9:08 AM
Tags: boys, graduation countdown
43 days. I have a friend. We would meet in the KC and talk about nothing and everything, back at the beginning of the year when no one had anything better to do than sit in the KC and talk for hours on end. I thought, "We have a lot to talk about. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship." But he had other plans, which became evident when he ran home one day and returned with a Pringles can. No, I lied. It did not become evident, it became confusing. "Have some Pringles," he said. "No thanks,...
Graduation countdown recap
posted by srah on March 21, 2002 9:18 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
In case you're just joining us, I have been recording an important or mundane memory from the past four years in my "Graduation Countdown" every day since Spring Break. Most people won't care, but if you want to catch up... 54 | 53 | 52 | 51 | 50 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 45 | 44 More to come......
Graduation countdown: 44 days
posted by srah on March 21, 2002 9:16 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
44 days. My favorite class that I've taken at Albion was English Language. Just like my Computer Science class, I was one of the only ones who was taking it for fun rather than for a requirement. I loved learning about linguistics, the teacher was amusing, and I never missed a class session. My least favorite class was Great Issues in Science, which met two days a week from 8:30 to 10:00. One and a half hour classes are enough of a pain without being at 8:30 in the morning and being about Science. One of the themes of the...
Graduation countdown: 45 days
posted by srah on March 20, 2002 1:00 PM
Tags: food, france, graduation countdown
45 days. When my freshman seminar took a trip to France, we visited Paris and Grenoble, where Albion students were studying, and Noisy-le-roi, Albion's sister city. When we were in Grenoble, we took the télépheriques to the top of the Bastille and ate dinner in the restaurant there. I was peacefully eating my salad when a little friend said hello to me. "Bonjour," said the slug, "Je suis dans ta salade!" Well, that started me gagging. Remember, I thought to myself, you are in a foreign country and you are a representative of the United States. Let's try to understand...
Graduation countdown: 46 days
posted by srah on March 19, 2002 9:21 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, music, study abroad, tv
46 days. I prided myself on never watching Survivor or any such "reality" series and never giving in to popular American culture. Then I went to France and along came "Loft Story". It was the French version of Big Brother, with a twist that the last male and female who remained in the house had to live there together for a month. The contestants were young and beautiful. When the show first started out, Sophie and I were addicted and would watch all of the updates. Our interest waned after a while, but I have to admit that I was...
Graduation countdown: 47 days
posted by srah on March 18, 2002 12:35 PM
Tags: graduation countdown
47 days. I was working on a project for my Film class alone in my professor's office my freshman year and it went sort of late into the night. Stephanie and Sarah got rather concerned and sent Campus Safety looking for me. Apparently I didn't make enough noise in the room, because Campus Safety passed right by and reported back to them that I wasn't there. Which set of another round of worrying. I don't know what they would have done if I hadn't called home. By the way, it is very creepy to be all alone in an academic...
Graduation countdown: 48 days
posted by srah on March 17, 2002 9:52 AM
Tags: graduation countdown, grenoble, paris, travel
48 days. Over Thanksgiving weekend last year, Jillian, Erin and their friend Stephanie came from Venice to visit me in Grenoble and go up to Paris. The whole Grenoble-finding-a-place-to-stay-during-a-Socialist-convention story is one for another time. But when we went to Paris, we stayed in a hostel. The desk clerk's name was Frédéric. Actually, it wasn't. It could have been, but we never asked. We just made it up. The guy ahead of us in line was very annoying and didn't pay any attention to what Frédéric was saying. We smiled knowingly at him and waited patiently. Then he serviced served...
Graduation countdown: 49 days
posted by srah on March 16, 2002 9:15 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
49 days. Sophomore year, while studying for a Europe Since 1500 test, Bob and I got distracted and started talking about How Much Andie McDowell Sucks (a lot), and began explaining European history as the whims of the Magic Power Elves, who decide to lend their support to one country or another, and that is why a country is more powerful than others at any given time. It went on and on from there... I seem to remember the Magic Power Elves liked tea....
Graduation countdown: 50 days
posted by srah on March 15, 2002 11:49 AM
Tags: dively, graduation countdown, howie
It struck me during Computer Science class that I had not done this when I woke up this morning. I was going to do it on Grenoble, but the Friday Five inspires me to do it on another topic... 50 days. Freshman year, Dively came to Ann Arbor to visit me over Spring Break. We planned to go out and spend the whole day exploring Ann Arbor. Well, we didn't quite manage that. Jen did spend the whole day in Ann Arbor, but not quite as planned. She was playing with the devil dog Howie when something freaked him out...
Graduation countdown: 51 days
posted by srah on March 14, 2002 11:00 AM
Tags: boys, graduation countdown
51 days. When I was a SOAR leader at the beginning of the year, I was pushing all of my baby chicks from Baldwin to the health center. I held the door for them, then one of them complained that I had shut the door on his invisible tail. Good thing we were going to the health center, then. We spent the trip to the health center discussing whether it would be better to have a tail or the ability to fly. What a weirdo. Who would have thought I'd be dating him now?...
Graduation countdown: 52 days
posted by srah on March 13, 2002 8:37 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
52 days. Freshman year, a prospective student named Phil came to stay with Paul Talbot. But he didn't like Paul, so he went wandering down the hall looking for Leah, who he went to high school with. Leah wasn't home, so he found Jillian and immediately latched on. He spent the rest of the weekend following her around. Somehow Lisa and I ended up at a TKE party with him, where he revealed the way he identified the two of us: "You're short and you're Episcopalian." We're still trying to figure out what it means....
Graduation Countdown: 53 days
posted by srah on March 12, 2002 9:02 AM
Tags: easter, graduation countdown, grenoble, holidays, host family, travel
53 days. Junior year, I had nowhere to go for my Spring Break. I didn't have any friends who were close enough to travel with. Most of my friends were the European students on a shoestring budget who could travel Europe whenever they wanted, rather than the Americans who were travelling all over the place while they had the opportunity and occasionally coming to class. So I thought I was going to spend Spring Break alone and friendless, but my host family invited me along on their Spring Break trip and it ended up being an amazing experience. We spent...
Graduation countdown: 54 days
posted by srah on March 11, 2002 8:27 AM
Tags: graduation countdown
I'm going to try to put down one memory from the past four years every day in my Graduation countdown. It's mostly for my own benefit, as none of you are going to know what I'm talking about. 54 days. One weekend during Freshman year, Dively, Jillian and I stayed up all night long, just for the sake of staying up all night long. When morning came, we danced around on the steps of the chapel in our pyjamas, tried to watch the sun come up (too many buildings) and waited for Baldwin to open for breakfast....
