And autumn reached for her golden crown

In my first year seminar, The Examined Life, we often discuss personal life stories. In the spirit of Story Corps, we ventured around campus in small groups to share stories. The girl in the picture is Mickey. She's one of my good friends here. She's in my seminar and lives down the hall. While we sat outside, leaves were falling around us. Fall has officially hit Vermont.

Business as Usual

Wind Ensemble (Concert Band) meets Tuesday nights at 6:30. Needless to say, I am there. This is my new tuba. She's just a baby, only a half-size, but with a little oil and probablyyyy a new mouthpiece, she'll be ready to go. Ensemble is fun so far, typical band crowd. I'm interested in seeing how we'll turn out.

Speaking of crowds, the Martin Luther King Society held a back-to-school barbeque at Mo's house for the SOAR kids, my summer program. This is a small sampling of the culinary spread. Shown above is homemade mac and cheese, red beans and rice, curry chicken with veggies, bbq chicken and, of course, friens plantains. It was fantastic to see all the SOAR crowd again as well as meeting members of the MLK Society. The MLK society is St Mike's version of diversity club, only more politically active, and with much better food.

Adventures With Maggie

This is Maggie's side of the room. She brought the futon which turned out to be the Best Idea Ever. Not only is the futon an asset to our dwelling, but it pulls out to make a fantastic bed. We know because we tested it for movie night last week. We watched Wind, which is Maggie's All Time Favorite Movie.

Above shown is the amount of boneless chicken wings Mag's ordered one night. 4 1/2 lbs from Wings Over Burlington, which is the ONLY place around to get wings. We ordered three flavors: Honey BBQ, Oriental, and Cajun. I enjoyed the Cajun best.

Maggie and I have taken to adventuring in Btown on Friday afternoons. We both get out of class before noon, so getting downtown is a simple matter of making the bus. We usually lunch at the ever-addicting Boloco, a habbit only endorsed by the buy-one-get-one-free coupons in the SMC bookstore. Last Friday, Maggie and I also purchased some plants for our room. I chose a small aloe plant. Mag's grabbed a giant purple stalky thing. The blossems are orange and the whole plant is roughly two feet tall. If you want to see it, come visit!

Burlington, Sooo Burlington

To celebrate our newfound freedom and the beautiful Vermont weather, Kit and I took a bike ride from campus to Church Street. We had some errands to do, but also wanted to get out into town.

You can see our dorm, Lyons Hall, on the right. After only getting lost a tiny bit, Kit and I locked up our bikes and ventured by foot down Church St.

We shopped around and ate lunch at Boloco, an amazing burrito place that also accepts KnightCard!!

Before we biked back, we lazed in City Hall park.

We also trekked down to the waterfront with ice cream.

A perfect way to end the summer.

Touchdown Lyons Hall

That is where I sleep! Grace Potter posters are up, tapastries are up! The room is spacious but packed. Maggie's things matched mine freakishly well. My sheets are soo comfy and Mom- I found the black pillowcase! I am finally completely unpacked. Classes start tomorrow at 8:15 for me. Spanish 101. I then have my Intro to Lit class and finish with my first Astronomy lecture. I'm free by 2:50 so Mags and I may journey into Burlington before her field hockey practise. We want to look at some plants for our dorm room. Orientation was a blast but is thankfully over. I am looking forward to haveing a schedule I can rely on.

Pack up my life and go to college? Why, I'd love to!

After one suitcase, one backpack, nine drawers, one hamper, one gymbag, and three crates, I am finally packed. The packing took most of Tuesday with a few early hours of Wednesday. But, it is finally done. I wish I could say my room looks bare, but it doesn't. Most of my personal decorations are still on the walls- I'm starting fresh in college. The plan today is to leave around noon. It takes four and a half hours to get to Burlington. My orientation starts on Thursday and my classes on Monday. Excitingg!!!