Sorry

My apologies for not writing anything at all for a while. Finals were this past week and I think things went well. I did well on my Chem final that's the only one I know about so far. Other finals felt good. Anthropology was a 30 question multiple choice test that took me about ten minutes to finish, that was nice. Math is my only iffy one - I felt good but for math that doesn't mean much.

After my anthropology final on Friday I ran to a friends house where we all made gingerbread houses. We had made the pieces on Wednesday and meant to use them on Thursday but people were busy and we were all feeling too lazy. Instead on Thursday three of us went to La Vie en Rose, a French bakery, to read and study. It was really nice to get to know the girls better and it was really chill - read, come up with something to talk about for a while, then when conversation waned, go back to reading. That quiet time reading my anthropology notes probably saved me on Friday's final.

The Christmas lights look amazing this year! If you would like to visit, the address is: 2509 227th Pl NE, Sammamish. Please bring some canned food for a food drive! There is a canister at the end of the driveway.

Courtesy of Erin Christensen Photography

Nothing

Dead week this week, finals next week, nothing going on...

It Was a Good Weekend

This weekend was amazing, I had so much fun! Partying, rugby, capture the flag, homework, meeting people, dressing up, Girl Scouts!

For about a week, some girls from the rugby team had been preparing a huge game of capture the flag: boys rugby v. girls rugby and friends for both sides. It turned out though that the boys had a game Saturday so they went to sleep early instead of running around in the dark late at night (I know, lame right?) and it was cold so most of the people who said they were going to show up didn't. It ended up with approximately 20 people, mostly girls from the team, but a few boys that had heard about it through the grapevine. We split into even teams and the game began. Our "field" was Red Square and the buildings around it. After an hour of running around neither team had managed to get the flag across the line so it was declared a stale mate with a rematch planned for later (hopefully with more people in attendance).

Saturday was a busy day for me... I woke up at 6:30 to go to a martial arts class that I have to walk two miles to. The class was really good that day, I learned a lot. And for the first time pretty much ever, the girls outnumbered the boys...crazy... Well, I got back to campus around 10:30. At 12:15 I made my way to Arntzen Hall where Girl Scouts from all over the state were coming to get a tour of Western behind the scenes, ask questions, and go to a volleyball game. As a Campus Girl Scout I was a tour leader and question answerer. The girls ranged from 4th - 12th grade. My tour group was on average in 8th grade. I liked them because they had lots of questions so there was always something to talk about and show off my knowledge. The first thing everyone did together was go to Carver Gymnasium and meet the girls volleyball team. That was one of the few times I've been dwarfed by such a large number of women all at one time. Outside of one girl, everyone was 5'10" (my height) or taller. Anyway, everyone got to ask the women questions, get their autographs and cool posters.

From the gym, my group went to the planetarium which was super cool! I had never been before. It was really interesting! And I think the show changes depending on the season because we mostly focused on constellations seen in the winter.

Next we went to the Environmental Science building to meet a grad student studying geology. He showed us several wave pools they have on the basement floor to study erosion. I thought it was pretty interesting and while he was a great teacher, his vocabulary was a little above the levels of these girls, though I think they still thought it was cool.

All the girls listening to the geology Grad

So this was now 5:20, and while the girls were getting a tour of a few of the residence halls I skipped out because I had other plans. My floor was having a night out as an excuse to dress up. We all prettied up and went to Jalapenos, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Bellingham. Because there were several other large groups (there were 14 of us) we all had to pack onto a table that probably should have held 8-10 people. It was definitely interesting. The food was great though! When we were leaving a group of boys walked in and we all got some looks, it was fun :). We wanted a picture of all of us together in front of the restaurant but we neede someone to take the picture. One of the best dressed of all of us went back in to ask the boys group, she says that one that took the picture nearly jumped up.

A few of usAll of us!
Photo Credit: Kendra

When we arrived back at Mathes I got ready for a party. It was a Revenge of the Nerds themed party so everyone was supposed to dress up as some sort of nerd: stereotypical school nerd, star wars, trekkie, LOTR, LARPer (live action role play). I had decided earlier in the week that I was going to be a Star Wars nerd and dress up as Princess Leia mostly because I have enough hair that I could make the buns over my ears. Sadly though I had run out of time to go to Value Village to get some white clothes. I asked around my floor and it turned out my RA had a white dress she would let me wear. The dress is see through though and I had to find something to wear under it and my black spandex wasn't flattering or Leia-ish. I saw my Gi pants and they were perfect! (Gi being my martial arts outfit that you wear with the belt and what-not). Add my metal belt and do my hair and it was awesome!! Everyone loved my costume at the party. I finally went to sleep 3:30 Sunday morning.

I should have gotten a picture of the hair...

ME!
Photo Credit: Socoe

Leia, along with a band geek, Eragorn, and a LARPer

After going to brunch on Sunday I made my way back to the house where the party took place (it was a friend's house) to see if they needed any help cleaning up. They had already picked up all the trash, but after they finished with breakfast I helped them sweep and mop. Them hung out for most of the afternoon before going back to Western for dinner.

Best weekend yet! :)

WWU v. Reed @ Reed

On Saturday (November 7th) Western and Reed had a rugby game at Reed (Reed is in Portland). Instead of a normal practice on Friday we had a chalk talk, a question and answer period in a classroom. There we went through different scenarios, fouls, positioning on the field at different times, etc. Once some of the girls came with the five vans we rented, we all piled in and were on our way to Portland.

4:30 PM
While still in Bellingham someone suggested we stop for dinner once we get through Seattle, someone else suggested Issaquah. I piped in that if everyone was okay with Issaquah we could just go a tad farther into Sammamish and eat for free at my house. With that being the plan I called home to warn the parental units that the house was going to be invaded by seven hungry rugby players in 2-ish hours.

6:30 PM
On I-5 in Seattle just before we were going to exit onto the 520 bridge, the van stops accelerating. Going 15 mph now down the freeway Spaid throws on the emergency lights and makes her way over across four lanes to get off the freeway in Seattle instead of on to the bridge. We park as soon as we were off the exit. Blaze calls the other vans to tell them what has happened and it turns out one is shortly behind us and gets off the freeway to find us. Which isn't hard seeing as we are immediately off the freeway.

Now what to do? I call the parental units to say we're going to be late, if we come at all now, we may just haul off to Portland as soon as we get a new car. Several people are on the phone with several companies at the same time. One girl is talking to AAA, another to Enterprise. Turns out Enterprise is closed now, we waiting to see what will happen with AAA. While Kara is still talking with AAA we find Enterprise's emergency number and give them a call (we rented our vans from Enterprise). Kara gives us the news that AAA won't work because they will only tow 5 miles and while the nearest Enterprise is is 2 miles away they are closed, airport enterprise is open until 11 Pm but that is too far. So now we give up on AAA. A little while later Blaze blows up at Enterprise because she has been transferred 6 times and three times it has been back to a woman she already spoke with. "Talking" to that women again we start to get results. I call Mom again to update her and discover my AAA account will tow us 100 miles. I get on the phone with AAA. Starting to get somewhere, Blaze tells me she got it figured out with Enterprise, I thank AAA man and hang up.

7:15-7:30 ish PM
The Plan: A tow truck is on the way, meanwhile, the other van will drive Blaze to the airport where she can rent a new van and come back and pick us up. The Plan is executed. The rest of us bond while we wait for Blaze to come back. Lots of singing, telling stories, car games, whatever we can come up with to try and stave off the boredom. After maybe 45 minutes we get a call the the tow truck driver got lost but he is now on the way. Half hour later he shows up. Blaze still hasn't gotten back with the van so we ask if he can wait maybe half an hour. He says as long as there isn't another emergency he'll wait as long as we need. Thirty minutes goes by and Blaze calls to say she'll be another 20 minutes.

9:30 PM
Blaze arrives, we move into the new van and head for Sammamish where we have decided to stay the night so we don't get to the person's house that we're staying at at 2 AM.

10:00 PM
Home! The lights are on, the girls in the car freak out and when I tell them that's my house, it's even better. Once we park the car everyone takes a moment to scream and freak out some more over the lights so we don't scare my parents by doing it in front of them. We all unload and go inside for some much needed refreshment.

10:45 PM
We all go to bed, thinking it's amusing that by now everyone else (including the van that stayed with us in our predicament) has arrived in Portland.

6:45 AM
We all get up, get ready in our rugby gear, eat breakfast, pack some food for the road and leave by 7:05

10:20 AM
PORTLAND!

10:40 AM
We find the rugby pitch and warm up for the game. It begins to rain. Before long it's pouring and we decide to have some fun with it. During half time the whole team is on the field dancing, belting everyone song we can come up with that has dancing in the lyrics. Before too long into the second half though we're only warm as long as we're playing. As soon as we stopped moving we would begin to shake. In between plays once it hailed; that stung. At the end of the game though the score was somewhere along the lines of WWU: a shit-ton, Reed: 0. If I had to guess I would say Western had about 40-50 points. We dominated in every aspect of the game. We were going to play an unofficial third half just for fun and to allow the players that didn't get to play some field time but we canceled that due to worries over hypothermia.

12:30 PM
Reed takes us to their athletic center where we can take a shower or sit in the sauna (Sauna! Why don't we get one?) to clean up some. We all change into whatever dry clothes we have, and those with extra (like myself) give it out to those who don't have any. It turns out Reed had a fencing tournament and fencing being fancy they had catering and the extra was open for us to eat. As soon as we were dry and clothed we all headed over there and ate. It was good!

1:30 PM
I hop onto the first van headed back north to Bellingham. I didn't feel like going to the social (party after every rugby game hosted by the home team).

7:30-8ish PM
BELLINGHAM!

So yeah, that was our game on Saturday. :)

Halloween

My apologies for taking such a long time to write another update.

As most of you know, Halloween was this past weekend. I had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls on my floor. Many of us went to various dances together. Friday night we went to a dance in the Viking Union and on Saturday (Halloween) we went to a dance Nash was having. Friday was more fun, but that's okay...

I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts. I loved my costume, but sadly none of the pictures I took seemed to work out well. I may put my costume on again to take better pictures over Thanksgiving or something when I go home. I'll try to get some of the pictures that other floor mates took and see if any turned out better than mine and pout them up.

It turned out my RA was Alice!
( I never realized how long my hair was until I saw this pic)On Halloween I put my hair in a ponytail, I liked that better. :)
Some of my floor mates
(along with some guy who danced with us)

ME!

Vignettes

So this post is to show off some of the smaller interesting things that have happened (and that I also had my camera available for).

Last week, my floor had a cupcake decorating party as a get together. We try to do something every Sunday. We have floor dinner every Sunday night, and most Sundays we have some sort of event planned.

The water pipe that leads to the fountain in Red Square broke, making a hole and dumping 40,000 gallons of water onto Red Square. I sadly forgot to get a picture of the hole once they got the water stopped, ah well. The pipe and brick is now all fixed but there is still sand in pockets over Red Square.

Western's first volleyball game. WWU v. CWU. Western won!
(same time as the broken water pipe)

On the way back from Fred Meyer Tanya and I spied a huge spider with a web full of bees. About half of the bees were still alive, trying to get out of the cocoon.

There are a lot of deer. I followed these two around for a while early one Saturday morning.

Mathes has a great view of the sun setting over Bellingham Bay. Sadly, my room faces campus but there are windows with great views in the hallways.

Since you probably can't tell, those black dots are ladybugs. This morning our room was really stuffy and didn't smell the best so I opened of of our small side windows. When I opened the curtains after finishing classes today there were ladybugs all over the window. Through several counts I guess there were about 15 inside, I have thus far trapped eight and gotten them outside and for now I can't find anymore. The rest are either in hiding or found their own way out.

Rugby and Judo

After much deliberation, I'm sticking with two sports for now: Rugby and Judo. This, as it happens, works out incredibly well with Judo on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Rugby on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (with the occasional Saturday thrown in there).

Rugby:
As you start to get the hang of one thing, you get thrown into the next. The past two practices we have split up into forwards and backs (I think that's what they're called). I'm a forward meaning that I go into the scrum - a big mob thing to get the ball when there is a turnover. There are eight people in each team's scrum I'm what is called a lock. My body size: tall and fairly skinny is well suited for this position. I would try to explain how a scrum is set up and what it does but I feel I would botch it and make everyone confused....so that's just going to have to wait for when next we meet.

Part of being a lock is that locks are generally also jumpers. Jumpers and lifters come into play when the ball goes out of bounds. the other team throws it back in and like in soccer or basketball both teams are working on claiming the bal once it's thrown. The jumpers are lifted into the air to try and get the ball. Today was the first time we practiced this aspect of the game. One thing I have been meaning to get for a while was some spandex shorts: they're just really good to have. And now that we are doing this I basicallt have to get some tomorrow. One of the ways to lift a person is by they're shorts so when they lift me they have to put their hands up my shorts around my waist band so there is a lot of thigh showing. Spandex makes it so I don't get as much of a wedgie and so my lifters don't have to put they're hands in my pants. More comfortablt for both sides.

a general rugby note: I'm exctied! On Saturday, most of the rugby team is driving down to Seattle (Magnuson Park) to participate in a clinic and meet the other college rugby teams from around the state. This is a really great opportunity because not only do we get to practice with other people with different styles, but the coaches are some fo the best in the country. One has coaches college rugby all over the country, and one used to be the coach for the US National Rugby team.

Judo:
Judo is way fun. I'm still only just beginning so essentially all that I do during most practices is fall. You have to fall before you can learn to do anything else. Part of falling is to slap your hand into the mat so that as much of the force of the fall is tken by your arms rather than your head or core (potentially damaging). In order to teach you this and to build up our arms the Sensei has all of us beginners just lay down and slap the mats as hard as we can. Eventually we work up to just running at our Sensei and being thrown: this is when you really learn if you're doing it right.

Knowing how to fall, while painful, is a necessary first step to learn any martial art. Also, many of the Senseis and older students have stories of when knowing how to fall saved them from serious injury, or in the case of one Sensei: death.

I apologize for not having much more interesting things to write about, most of what I have going on right now is school and sports. However, I would like to thank my Grandma, and Aunt Judy and Uncle Ken for their amazing care packages that I got today. THANK YOU!!

Rugby: It's even better than Ultimate Frisbee

So at the info-fair, a big event where clubs have tables to get people to sign up, I signed up to learn more about Flames WWU's rugby team. I have since gone to several practices and loved it! I'm still learning the rules (there are a lot of them and some are rather strange) but I am having so much fun! The girls on the team are friendly and even though we all don't know each other very well yet and are still learning names we all say "Hi!" to each other around campus. It didn't take very long at all to learn that while yes, rugby is a tough sport it's not crazy body slamming everywhere. Even though no pads are worn (excepting a mouth guard) I believe it to be considerably safer than football. We take much better care of ourselves and how we tackle than in football due to the fact we aren't so protected. In football people throw themselves every which way because they have a false sense of protection. In rugby there is a very specific way to tackle as well as fall, and it is practiced a lot to make sure it is done right.

Today there were several rugby games going on in Seattle and a few of us decided to go down and see one of the earlier ones. Four of us rookies went as well as 6 veterans. This was quite the learning experience for us rookies; none of us had seen a game before. As the game went on we were getting a play by play from the Vet's: rules that we hadn't learned yet, testing us on the positions names. A new thing that I learned was that at specific plays in the game when you need the throw a ball back in bounds you can lift a person up to try and grab the ball. I was told that I would be good at this position due to the fact I'm tall and skinny. I'm also apparently suited for a few other positions during other parts of the game due to the fact I'm tall.

I'll update more on the rules and the actual names of the positions and such once I begin to get a handle on them myself.

In other news... I went to the WWU volleyball game against Central today. WWU won!!! though I have to say I was a little ashamed at times to be from WWU the way some of the other participants were acting. Very unsportsman like...but we won!!

Bumps and Bruises

I don't have anything particularly interesting to write about at the moment so I'm updating the world to the fact that you get some random weird bruises playing Ultimate. At the moment I have a bruises at the base of my thumb and tips of my fingers as well as a nice bump and bruise where me and another girl were jostling for the disc and she accidentally stepped on my heel. So yep, that's all I've really got at the moment.

Technology

An interesting thing I've noticed about Western is the varying amount of technology per classroom. Nowhere have I seen an ActivBoard which I suppose makes sense because they need bigger screens for a classroom of 100+ to see, but still. In my chemistry class our professor switches between using a nice projector onto a huge screen to a chalk board when he wants to elaborate. Anthropology has the same sort of projector set up, but has upgraded to a white board. While my math class has a white board, but no projector. There is an old overhead that he could probably use but I don't believe he will. A friend of mine though says that her professor uses an overhead. I don't remember a teacher using an overhead since the 7th grade. 8th grade was to beginning of upgrading to ActivBoards.

I suppose Eastlakers have it easy though. Friends in the Seattle school district were proud of the fact their entire school had two ActivBoards while we had one in every classroom.

Classes

Walking into class this morning Professor Cahill says it's his birthday. So, being the chemistry teacher he is he makes himself a birthday candle out oh hydrogen gas and a Pringles can. He keeps talking as the flame burns ever lower with the hydrogen gas running out and all of a sudden the thing blows up. So that woke all of us up to pay attention in class this morning (My chem class is at 8AM for anyone who cares to know). Professor Cahill then moves on to the point of the class today, basic measurements in chemistry and and to convert measurements. With five minutes left of class he decides blowing things up and putting stuff in liquid nitrogen is more fun than significant digits. To demonstrate the funness (that's not a word but bear with me) of liquid nitrogen he goes and pours a bunch of it onto the ground so it spreads across the floor steaming and fizzling. So that was chemistry 121. Mostly review of high school chemistry and blowing stuff up - I think I'll enjoy chemistry considerably more now than i did in high school.

My next class was another interesting one, Beginning Martial Arts As far as I'm aware all of the PE classes take place in Carver Gymnasium. once I arrive there this morning all the doors are locked and there are several other people waiting to get in. A few minutes later there are more. After a little while longer we come to discover that you don't actually go into the gym through the front doors, but through the side doors. It totally makes sense right? Anyway, we get to where we are supposed to be. Our teacher comes in takes roll, hands out the waiver we go over it and sign it; we won't sue, we won't come to class sick, blah blah. With all the paper work over comes the fun stuff. Once all of us were spread out across the gym he enlightened us on the type of martial art we were learning: Kempo. Kempo is an American martial art that has no holds barred, anything that you can do to get out of a situation is okay, any nifty trick from any martial art or style of fighting can be used. What we learned how to do today was to get out of a bear hug type hold or a hold called a Full Nelson. this was way fun because we split into partners and essentially learned how to go from being stuck to lifting our attacker up. If we were actually fighting we would proceed past the lifting up and slam them onto the floor or a wall, however we didn't do that in class. He told us afterward that he's not really supposed to teach anything on the first day but you can do this in just about any clothes so it didn't really matter. and we were still able to leave about 20 minutes early.

Nothing particularly interesting has happened in anthropology yet. I believe that what we learn will be interesting but the class itself will be kind of boring. If that makes any sense...At that moment we are learning about what anthropology actually means and what is involved in participating in it. We are learning about cultural anthropology which apparently is one of four pieces of anthropology as a whole.

Finally, math. this class I think will be pretty easy. Most of it seems to be a review of the past to years which will be good to get back into the math mind set before moving onto completely new material.

So, those are my classes.

Ultimate Frisbee

It may seem hard to believe for someone who hasn't seen it with their own eyes but it is my opinion that everyone at Western Washington University can play Ultimate Frisbee. Nearly everyone has at least one frisbee in their room, there is always at least one group of people out throwing a frisbee around if not playing an actual game. As people walk by they join in. Frisbee is the best social event, it doesn't matter how good you are at sports or whether or not you know the people playing you're always welcome to join the game.

Today Mathes (my dorm) was having an ice cream social in order to get to know everyone in the building. After a while when people were trickling away off to their own rooms someone suggested an ultimate game on the turf field. Tanya and I decided to join the fun. Once we were ready we went out but couldn't find those who suggested the game however (of course) there were several people throwing a frisbee around. Inviting ourselves we joined the fun. Once a few more people came we decided to check out the turf to see what was going on.

There had to be nearly 100 people on the field playing full field ultimate. We jumped in. Before too long we discovered that this was rather official, red v blue, bandannas to help find those on your team and a waiver to make sure you won't sue. Turns out once school starts Fairhaven (another dorm) runs ultimate every Sunday at three. This was a later game because school hadn't started yet. I played from 9 PM until 11 PM when the game was declared over. At that point we were down to about 16 players total.

I'm foreseing Ultimate being my sport of choice for about the next four years :)

Moving In

Ignoring a few knick knacks I am as of now officially moved in to my dorm room. Yay!

My mom and I arrived at Western shortly before 11 this morning. After waiting a few minutes in line I picked up my keys and got directions to the Mathes parking lot. Once there we learned the most time consuming part of moving in is the elevator. People were taking everything out of their car, putting it on the side walk, parking the car in the lot and then load by load taking it up to the room. My mom and I decided that she would unload my gear onto the side walk while I took loads up the stairs (it was faster than the elevator). After running a load or two to my room, the gear was all out of the car and then it was just me running up and down the stairs with my mom guarding. The last few things being a box of books and the fridge filled to maximize space I copped out and we took the elevator.

Our next dorm task was to loft my bed. This means setting the bed up several feet off the ground, thus making more space for stuff under it. That was an adventure. Actually checking out the bed parts was easy it took next to no time at all. Setting up the bed was difficult due to the fact they don't give you instructions you are just supposed to know what to do. After arguing over what is supposed to happen we asked the RA how to do it, she didn't know because she had never lofted her bed so she got the 4th floor RA to come and show me how it works. From there it was smooth sailing. :)

In between those lovely tasks of unloading, then lofting my mom and I met up with my brother to go to lunch. We went to a restaurant called the Old Town cafe. It was very good and I really look forward to going there again.

After lofting my bed my mom left and for the next few hours i was just setting up my space! :) At 8PM all the HELPs in Mathes got together in the lounge to get to know each other (which mostly involved playing games). It was fun but I'm not very good in those situations. Once I'm out doing things it will get easier to know people :)

Bed and desk

My half of the room

Book shelf

Oops

So I'm still trying to figure out how this whole blog works so to explain what's going on in the post below, the picture is just of all my stuff neatly packed. I'm rather proud of myself for that. I don't know why there is a bullet point...I'll figure that out later, thanks for bearing with me!

Getting Ready

• 

So after a very long hiatus, I am back to the blog. I have wanted to write something over the past few weeks but nothing particularly interesting has happened. Yesterday (I guess I have to say that seeing as it 12:15 AM) I finally officially packed everything. For a while now I have been piling things we've bought and stuff I've been collecting from my room in a corner in our dining room, it is now all in boxes and bags and about as organized as I get. For about the first time ever I feel like I haven't forgotten anything, though I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I'm just boggled due to the amount of stuff I must bring, MUCH more than I ever have in the past. Once I'm unpacking on Thursday I will begin to discover everything I forgot.

My next task is to thoroughly clean and organize my room. My uncle is coming to visit from South Carolina so as I'm sure many families do, we all clean the house. He will sleep in my brother's room, and my brother will sleep in the guest room for one night and then temporarily move to my room until Ken goes home. David is already talking about just permanently sleeping in my room and then converting his room into some technology,/gaming hub thing.....the nerd... Well I suppose I should be thankful he isn't debating taking out the wall between our rooms.

Move in has always felt so far away, now that it is actually here it is a little scary. I won't see many of my friends for a long time, I'll be in a totally new situation than what I'm used to. So it's scary, but change is good, so a good scary if that makes any sense.

Hey There!

This is mostly just a test to see what my new blog will look like.

To explain myself though, my name is Lindsey (as I'm sure most of you have figured out from my blog title, if not from past experience). I'll be starting my Freshman year at Western Washington University on September 23, and am really looking forward to it. I'm creating this blog mostly as a way to inform anyone who might be interested what I have been up to while away at school, thus preventing the infamous conversation stopper: You: "So what have you been up to at Western?" Me: "I dunno, nothing much." Perhaps by writing my exploits I will better remember what I have been up to, and if the person asking about me reads my blog they can just ask a specific question instead of something incredibly general like what is stated above.