2 Weeks to SUMMER!

…and campus sure is busy!  The roses are blooming everywhere, and it is so beautiful!  I took a picture with my phone but it’s not loading – which is probably for the best, since my limited photographic ability in combination with cameraphone technology wouldn’t do it any justice.

This weekend was pretty boring.  I didn’t do much of anything because I was sick, but I did make it to the Theater Department’s production of King Richard II, which was SO GOOD!  This was the first non-musical, main stage show that I’ve seen (I don’t know why) and I was SO impressed!  The set was great, the costumes were perfect, and the actors are so talented!  In fact, all of the shows I’ve seen at Oxy have been really impressive, and I think it’s cool that non-theater majors can be involved in the productions as well. If you want to look at some shots of the production, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxyphotos/sets/72157623747985405/.  This is the official Oxy Flickr page, and they have gorgeous photos of pretty much everything that goes on on campus, so definitely poke around!

One thing I didn’t make it to that I’m pretty bummed about was Springfest.  This was the first (hopefully annual) music festival on campus, and this year Nas, Mayer Hawthorne, and a popular campus band called the Ugly Sweaters were there, among other artists.  There was also free food from Kogi (www.kogibbq.com), a Korean BBQ truck that stops by the Oxy area every now and then, and Wurstkuche (www.wurstkucherestaurant.com), a German sausage restaurant that has a ton of different exotic sausages, including vegetarian options!  SO upset I missed it, because I’ve been wanting to try Kogi, and Wurstkuche is like my personal heaven.

We’re also distributing the yearbooks this week, which is excellent!  We only just started today, and it was so exciting to see everybody enjoying the books on the quad during lunch.  Everybody so far has seemed to be very happy with it, which is great, and of course I think they’re awesome!

Otherwise, this week is the last week of classes (my last week of classes EVER!) before finals, so everybody’s running around trying to finish all the things that are due this week.  I’ve got quite a few things to finish up myself, though, so I’ll catch y’all later!

On the way…

So yesterday I did my presentation for DWA (International Relations of East Asia). The format was 20 powerpoint slides, with 20 seconds per slide, so the powerpoint was pretty long. The presentation was approximately 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

I must say I had been pretty nervous, but it was a great change of pace from most presentations, and really quite fun to find all of the pictures for that powerpoint. Having been to Laos, I put some pictures that I had taken on one of my trips. My presentation was on the relationship between China and Laos, and how that’s affecting the historically very close relationship between Laos and Vietnam.

I don’t how I did on that presentation, but I certainly hope I did well. I suppose I’ll find out in a few days.

Today is Founder’s Day (a.k.a. Employee Recognition Day), so there’s catered food out in the Quad which is quite yummy. I would be down in the quad right now for the ceremony, but I need to take a Chinese test later today, and I have class before the ceremony ends (I don’t want to rudely leave in the middle). But it was nice! Everyone got free food and cupcakes, and the cleaning lady in Haines this morning was pretty happy about Founder’s Day – she finished her work a bit early.

People sang and performed dances in the quad, too, and I think President Veitch is going to give a speech as well. The Marketplace and Cooler are both closed until 2:30, and most of the administrative offices are closed right now, too, so the staff can attend the luncheon.

So Happy Founder’s Day everyone! I hope your days are going well, too.

Glee Club Spring Concert/Physics Comps

So there are two things that just happened.  Both were pretty important.  The first was the Glee Club spring concert.  For this concert we combined with the College Chorus and some string players to sing the famous Fuare Requiem.  The past couple semester the Glee Club has had the opportunity to sing pieces such as this.  It’s an opportunity that most singers don’t get in college.  In addition to the requiem the Glee Club sang a few songs and I must say I think it was out best performance yet!

The other thing that happened was physics comps.  As part of the physics major students are required to do a 30 minute presentation and write a 15 page paper about a current topic of study.  My choice was slow light.  With the help of my professor I found an appropriate article that outlined the theory behind slow light and also compared that theory to experiment.  I was fairy nervous about the presentation, but it seemed to go well.  What’s nice about the physics major is that after this year I am essentially done with my major.  This gives me the opportunity to really take advantage of the fact that Oxy is a small liberal arts college.  Sorry that my posts are either about physics or Glee Club.  They are really the two things that I spend most of my time on 🙂

Wrapping Up!

Wow!  The last few weeks have flown by, and I know that the next four weeks until Graduation will as well!

One of the things that I’m working on this week is a presentation for my Asian Studies class – Modern Japan.  I’m working in a group to relate themes of the anime movie Akira to other aspects of modern Japanese history.  The movie was really cool, although I’m still trying to wrap my mind around some parts of it, and I’m excited to explore the role of military power in Japanese history and in the movie.  If you haven’t seen it and you’re at all interested in anime, secret military experiments, or superhuman mutants with crazy superpowers, you should definitely check it out!

Something else that is going on this week is the Economics Honors presentations!  I’m not doing an Honors Thesis, but one of my best friends is, and I am SO excited to see it!  His topic is about Zhu Zhu Pets, the toy hamsters that were all the rage this past holiday season.  I actually have two of them and I think they’re adorable and hilarious, and make great dorm-friendly pets!

The last, and MOST EXCITING that happened today was that the yearbooks have arrived!!!!!!!  I am so excited!  They look absolutely wonderful this year, and the print quality is better than in years past.  We expanded our Student Life section this year by a lot, and added tons more events like Winter Wonderfest, Love Your Body Day, the MLK Day of Service, and Labor Day Weekend.  I’ll post a few pages from it later, but the website we have it on is down for maintenance.  But, here is the cover:

2010cover

Well I’m off to get some more work done, but I hope all is well, and I’m excited to meet more of you on Friday!

Summer Plans

Whew! This semester is going by EXTREMELY fast. Only like 3 more weeks.

This summer I’m planning on working at Institutional Advancement in Coons (they seem REALLY nice!) in the mornings before moving on to my other off-campus job in the afternoons. My job at Institutional Advancement will essentially be as a research assistant to one of the people who works there.

Unless something goes very wrong, my boyfriend and I are planning to live in an apartment off-campus, about a block and a half away. It’s really small, but it’s very serviceable and seems quite comfortable. Because it’s so close, we can go home at lunchtime!

I’m trying to work out spring housing now too, since I’m going abroad. I’m not entirely sure I want to live on campus. Living on campus is GREAT, but I probably won’t get my roommate choice (partially because my roomie is most likely studying abroad in the spring – either Jordan or China!). So I’m going to at least look off-campus, maybe find something with a few friends or get my own room.

Well, we’ll see. It’s more than six months away, so I’m not freaking out too badly…yet. 😀 I’m a worrywort (and did I mention I’m a spaz about nearly everything?).

Ta ta for now.

Busy Busy Busy

So I think April is out to get me, but maybe it’s my own fault. I haven’t done enough for the research papers coming up, but I’ll manage somehow. This week is just crazy:

Kines: debate, problem set (Quiz this coming Monday, too)

Chinese: character quiz, test, homework due (usual weekly thing…)

Contemporary Chinese Politics: research paper outline, annotated bibliography, and intro due this week (presentation next week)

DWA: Okay, so not too much for that class this week, but I DEFINITELY need to work on that presentation some more. We’re doing this presentation style called pecha kucha (it’s Japanese lingo, apparently), which means we have 20 slides that advance automatically every 20 seconds, so we really have to know our stuff. I think it will be fun and interesting, but it’s going to require a lot of work before we can finish.

Some good news from today: Marla and I found out that we can take the service learning course in Beijing and still have 16 credits! YAY! That means I might be able to tutor English in China for credit!

Non-sequitor: A few weekends ago my friend said she was going to donate her hair and shave her head (buzz cut, not completely bald). I had been thinking about cutting off my hair, so last Friday, we both shaved our heads. The hair has been growing back extremely fast (since when does it grow this quickly?!), but we’ve gotten some interesting reactions from people. Some professors haven’t reacted while others were fairly astonished; one of my friends was speechless for a few minutes, it was rather funny.

It’s been an odd experience to not have much hair, but I rather like it; it saves me LOADS of time, not having to deal with it.

Anywho. I will be meeting some of you on Thursday and Friday! For those of you who are coming I hope you enjoy yourselves! If you need directions feel free to stop and ask any student, we don’t bite. 😀

Dance Production

A few weeks ago, Oxy had its Dance Production performance.  This featured 15 different styles of dances that students here choreographed and put together.  One of the best parts about this production is that you have such a broad range of dancers from being trained for several years, beginners, and even people who have never danced before!  A lot of the times you have people trying out new styles that they have never done before.  In my dance this year (salsa), we had 14 dancers.  Only 3 of us had experience in salsa dancing, but we all learned together and created a spicy dance number =)   Here are some pictures of dance production.  Let me know if you have any questions on dance at Oxy!

Theater and more!

Congratulations to all of you who have gotten into Oxy!

I’m not a Theater major or minor, but I have spent my fair share of time up there (meaning in Keck theater, which is at the top of the hill on campus and which hosts almost all of the Theater classes and events), so I thought I’d tell you a little about it!

Last Spring I was in the Musical HAIR. The Seating in Keck is entirely adjustable. So we took out the seats and flattened the floor to make it one big gym-style stage. (That’s me in the navy blue shirt, pushing the ‘car’.)

You can also look through photos from the most recent plays Buried Child and Stage Door on Occidental College’s Flikr page.

So, the theater department in general… This is the green room:

And there is a huge shop for sets and a costume shop as well. I took Intro to Theater, which I enjoyed a lot, but you can also find other Theater class offererings HERE, in the Course Catalog. Actually, you can find information on all the classes offered this 2009-2010 year in the Course Catalog.

Right now, I’m taking a Period Costume Construction Class. We’re making Tudor period costumes to fit ourselves, and then wearing them to the LA Renn Fest in place of a final exam! It’s only a 2-unit class and its definitely fun, but its still really hard work. I’ve sewn before, but I’ve never done anything as elaborate as the Fashionable Henrician Gown that I’m making myself. And it will be fully lined, so it will look nice and finished and hold up to wear and tear, but doing that is definitely an ordeal. I’ll make sure to post pictures up here when I finish!

Besides plays and classes, there are a bunch of other fun activities/productions that the theater department does. One of them is the 24 Hour Theater Challenge where you have 24 hours to write, rehearse, and perform a short play based around a few strange props, sound effects, and lines. Another is the New Play Festival, which is comprised of staged readings and workshop productions (with full costume, set, etc) of student written plays. It is always a great event, and it’s a good low-commitment thing to audition for! Another two low-commitment performance opportunities are the directing mid-terms, which are short excerpts directed by students and performed in class, and the directing finals, which are staged and performed for the whole school.

One last fun theater club is FANTASTIPROV! They’re the improv troupe on campus, and they’re really good. I saw a short show last night at a hallspread (dorm-meetings/fun events that happen every Tuesday Night at 10 all across campus). And they’re giving another one this Friday at 7:30 in Sterns Hall, if you might possibly be around campus! It will be a full length performance entitled: Fantastiprov: The Musical!

Have a great hump day (Wednesday), everyone!

Rachel

The Insanity Begins

Every April always seems to be the most insane part of the year, since finals are in early May. Some of it is fun insane, and some of it is just insane.

Just recently I got accepted to go study abroad in Beijing in the fall, and I’m REALLY excited! I’ve been taking Chinese for nearly two years to get to this point. On Thursday I have two separate orientations for study abroad: one small group and one large group orientation. I’m actually really looking forward to them; everything is starting to come together.

I’ll be living with a Chinese roommate at Capital Normal University (CNU) in the CET program. Two of my classmates from my Chinese class will be attending with me, so we’re all planning to bungle Chinese together. One of the classes I want to take is a service learning course, which means that we can go out to work with Chinese people in Beijing or the country. Hopefully we get to tutor people in English!

China will be very different, but I think it will definitely be a great place to study. The program looks amazing, and cultural differences are all part of going; culture shock is one worry for me, but I think having a Chinese roommate and a few American friends to help me get out there will really help.

In the meantime, I should probably get back to studying for that Chinese character quiz I have in a couple hours. You never know, I might need these characters in China!

Ta ta for now!

~Frances

Back to normal… finally!

Wow!  Sorry it’s been so long – it’s been a crazy few weeks!

For the past two weeks, things have been full steam ahead with the college yearbook, La Encina.  As the Editor-in-Chief, I have to approve all photos, articles and layouts before they get printed, so I had a lot to catch up on!  We finished on Friday, and I am SO excited to see it printed!  The whole thing looks absolutely beautiful, and we had a blast creating it this year!

After the book was done, the editorial staff celebrated with dinner in nearby Glendale at the Americana.  The Americana is a gorgeous outdoor mall just a few miles away with great shops, great restaurants, and just a great ambiance (there’s a fountain show, big lawns for hanging out, and even an Eiffel Tower replica!).  Plus, it’s right across the street from the slightly less charming, but gigantic Glendale Galleria, a huge mall with every store in the world.

On Saturday, one of my good friends from HS came to visit, and since she lives in Manhattan now, I spent the day showing her that LA is just as cool!  We started off in Orange County, where she was staying, which is about an hour from Oxy (traffic permitting).  We drove up, took the Clueless tour of Oxy (I’ll provide details below!), and had a wonderful dinner at Fatty’s Cafe (http://www.yelp.com/biz/fattys-los-angeles), a vegetarian/vegan cafe just down the road from Oxy.  It was SO GOOD and I’ve been meaning to go for years.  I’m not vegan/vegetarian, and I loved it!

After our dinner we drove around Hollywood and stopped at Amoeba Records and the Capitol Records Building.  She works in the music industry, so she was super excited to see these places in real life!

Sunday I spent the whole day catching up on papers and studying that I didn’t get to take care of during the weekend.  It wasn’t quite as fun, but that’s college!