I don’t think I’ve ever danced so hard in my life.
By the end of the week we were all completely exhausted. After churning out two papers, I began the insane memorization for the biology exam, which meant doing the bulk of my chem problem set the afternoon it was due and turning it in fifteen minutes before the deadline. This probably doesn’t sound that bad to most college students, but I’m not a procrastinator. I hate being behind and last minute. But it all got done, and though I have to essentially go backwards and forwards now, catching up on old work and moving ahead with new material, this weekend was enough (maybe too much) of a break to compensate. My point: this weekend was well-deserved.
On Friday night I abandoned the plan to start my junior essay and went to Lansdowne for the pre-game party with the girls instead. We loaded on to the shuttle (which was really a yellow school bus that made us feel like elementary school kids, which was a little strange in that it felt natural). The gimmick is that they open five clubs and you can go from club to club for the price of one—but when we got there the only one open was Avalon, which isn’t that much fun. But we did fulfill Amy’s lifelong desire to dance atop a table (well, it was really a stage meant for dancing, but any elevated surface will suffice). When the others finally opened we went to Embassy, which played really good music but was too hot (temperature-wise…haha). We ran into Maciej, who is such a cute dancer. I will forever think of him as our little freshman buddy (despite the fact that he’s a foot taller than us and now a sophomore). After Embassy we encountered bathrooms, exits, and abandoned bars, trying to find the connecting clubs. We finally made our way to Axis, which was nice and cool (again temperature-wise) and whose DJ said he hated Harvard because he was broke (at which point I thought…so are we). After Axis we took our hip school bus back to the Square. I somehow mustered the energy to read Little Women before heading to bed, so instead of going to sleep with remnants of the sketchiness of the whole Lansdowne experience in my mind, I was left with wholesome images of the sisters knitting and acting out scenes from Pilgrim’s Progress…
The next day was anything but wholesome. Melkis and I got into the tailgate around 12:15 and didn’t leave until 2:30. Those two hours felt like two minutes. The first thing we did was get food—clam chowder, chili, sausages, hamburgers…warm food in cold weather has a wonderful capacity to make me incredibly happy. Then we found Amy and Jen, already intoxicated, at the Adams tailgate. The atmosphere and energy of the tailgate is so amazing. Thousands of people are just swarming over the fields; strolling outdoors among so many people is such a simple pleasure. Clubs, houses, organizations had their individual setups, food, drinks and music. Once we got our fill we danced nonstop for about an hour and a half. In a moment of impulse we climbed a high wooden table, where I got some nice aerial photos of the crowds, and where we got to dance on yet another elevated surface (to Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems too!…Sigh, favorite dance songs) before police officers made us get down. That was a first. Also for the first time in awhile, I didn’t find myself thinking that I could make a better music mix, because they played my favorite Britney Spears song ever (Crazy)...and BILLY JOEL. Who else but us would go crazy for We Didn’t Start the Fire? And a lot of junior high and high school dance music, which everyone knows I have a soft spot for. I must say that we were the craziest dancers there; I don’t think we cared that most of the time we were surrounded by people who weren’t dancing. At one point Amy backed up on me so aggressively that she spilled punch all over my jacket. And proceeded to yell repeatedly, “I’ll wash it with SHOUT!” (with loud emphasis on SHOUT). And so it was that we were able to keep quite warm in the 40-degree weather. I had five upper layers, two lower layers, three pairs of socks, two scarves, and three pairs of gloves (overcompensation for freezing every part of my body freshman year) but I shed most of this after a little while. I would post pictures of the girl-on-girl dancing action but I’m afraid Amy and Melkis would kill me.
It was perfect.
Oh and…yes, we made it to the actual football game…briefly. We watched five minutes and saw our team score a touchdown, then went home to recover (in case you’re curious, we beat Yale 35-3). Later I went to Amy’s to try to do work, though we ended up talking about everything from minesweeper and eggplant pizza to friendships and college experiences. Tailgating in the morning and trying to write about Kafka at night—not easy.
Tonight was the Bob Dylan concert. None of us were too familiar with his music and his voice has been going downhill for a long time now, but it was worth it to see that woman in her thirties, way in the back, totally alone, and dancing like mad to every song, no matter how slow and mellow it was. I don’t care if it was drunk or sober frenzy; that kind of unrestrained passion can be so admirable.
Friday afternoon in stats section, before all the excitement and while I was still bogged in the long stretch before relative freedom, we were comparing the happiness of students during childhood and their happiness after coming to college. The inspiration for this was a hypothetical situation where a girl just celebrated her birthday and starts talking to her friend about how they’re getting older and how things are just not as simple and carefree as they were when they were younger. Melkis and I read about this, looked at each other and said, “This is exactly what we talk about all the time.”
So yes, we had to go back to studying after all the fun and there’s so much work ahead…but I don’t think what comes before and after matters as much as I feel sometimes. Sometimes these moments can be purely carefree, untouched by what you need to accomplish the next moment.
I love this picture because no one looks normal.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
how oddly things coincide
It feels so nice to wake up in the early afternoon from napping to mellow music and then to have some (relatively) free time to write.
So this picture summarizes my weekend: the Jimmy Eat World concert and "studying" for the organic chem exam I had this morning. On Saturday night Melkis, Steph, Jen, Amy, Jackie's friend Zach and his roommate Richard and I saw Jimmy Eat World at Avalon. I was running on very little sleep and food, but once they came on, I didn't care at all. They played such a good mix from Clarity, Bleed American and Futures. Midway they sang "For Me This is Heaven," and the background lit up with those twinkly star lights. I think those four minutes of bliss will last me for a long time. The rest of it was wonderful too. Their music reminds me of that girl in the Coke commercial who hands out Coke bottles to people she walks by. I want to be that girl, but instead of soda, I'd like to somehow package bits of JEW songs and pass out bottles of Jimmy Eat World goodness to strangers on the street. Little cures for troubles.
For the rest of the weekend I tried to maintain that feeling while cramming for orgo. I've never spent so much time in the Adams House library before. During the many study breaks I took I had a lot of time to just look at it, and enjoy how pretty it is. I like that it's just one room, like it would be in an actual house. I like the creaky chairs, the wooden panels, the old books. I forget sometimes how un-modern our campus and environment is, compared to California. There's something about being in an old place that makes you feel like you know more about the things around you, even when, like in my case, you don't.
At around 11 yesterday night Henry came in and joined me at one of the single tables at the end of the library. I don't think people realize half of the time how much their company matters. The first thing he did was make me laugh by informing me that he had a seven-pager due the next day for Helen Vendler's poetry class, and that he hadn't started. I spent a good ten minutes just listening to him type and wishing that I was writing an essay on poetry instead of figuring out how to synthesize organic compounds. But it was the same way last year, in reverse...when I was inundated with English papers I found myself actually wanting to do chem problem sets with the girls. I'm so difficult, mostly because I really resist specialization; there's too many things out there. After going back and forth for awhile, I feel this is the best balance. And now that chemistry's over, I can catch up on novel reading and paper writing.
A little later Henry asked me to read the first page of his paper (he writes crazy fast). I love reading essays written by people I know. It sounds stupid, but something so endearing comes from connecting every interesting phrase and grammatical choice to the person who wrote it. I don't think you can write anything and not have it say something, no matter how little, about you. This is why, even though I know they don't mean it that way, it makes me feel trusted when people ask me to read their writing.
I think I'm going to nap again...
So this picture summarizes my weekend: the Jimmy Eat World concert and "studying" for the organic chem exam I had this morning. On Saturday night Melkis, Steph, Jen, Amy, Jackie's friend Zach and his roommate Richard and I saw Jimmy Eat World at Avalon. I was running on very little sleep and food, but once they came on, I didn't care at all. They played such a good mix from Clarity, Bleed American and Futures. Midway they sang "For Me This is Heaven," and the background lit up with those twinkly star lights. I think those four minutes of bliss will last me for a long time. The rest of it was wonderful too. Their music reminds me of that girl in the Coke commercial who hands out Coke bottles to people she walks by. I want to be that girl, but instead of soda, I'd like to somehow package bits of JEW songs and pass out bottles of Jimmy Eat World goodness to strangers on the street. Little cures for troubles.
For the rest of the weekend I tried to maintain that feeling while cramming for orgo. I've never spent so much time in the Adams House library before. During the many study breaks I took I had a lot of time to just look at it, and enjoy how pretty it is. I like that it's just one room, like it would be in an actual house. I like the creaky chairs, the wooden panels, the old books. I forget sometimes how un-modern our campus and environment is, compared to California. There's something about being in an old place that makes you feel like you know more about the things around you, even when, like in my case, you don't.
At around 11 yesterday night Henry came in and joined me at one of the single tables at the end of the library. I don't think people realize half of the time how much their company matters. The first thing he did was make me laugh by informing me that he had a seven-pager due the next day for Helen Vendler's poetry class, and that he hadn't started. I spent a good ten minutes just listening to him type and wishing that I was writing an essay on poetry instead of figuring out how to synthesize organic compounds. But it was the same way last year, in reverse...when I was inundated with English papers I found myself actually wanting to do chem problem sets with the girls. I'm so difficult, mostly because I really resist specialization; there's too many things out there. After going back and forth for awhile, I feel this is the best balance. And now that chemistry's over, I can catch up on novel reading and paper writing.
A little later Henry asked me to read the first page of his paper (he writes crazy fast). I love reading essays written by people I know. It sounds stupid, but something so endearing comes from connecting every interesting phrase and grammatical choice to the person who wrote it. I don't think you can write anything and not have it say something, no matter how little, about you. This is why, even though I know they don't mean it that way, it makes me feel trusted when people ask me to read their writing.
I think I'm going to nap again...
Monday, November 1, 2004
halloween
What a crazy weekend. I have to give a disclaimer here: this is going to be purely a long recollection of events. I have no thoughts about anything other than it was all hilarious. I also know I’m going to use millions of superlatives because everything this weekend was the best.
Friday night was Adams House’s annual Drag Night. For weeks we’ve been looking forward to our tutor, Chris, performing Crazy in Love as Beyonce. Right before the show he knocks on our door and asks Melkis to be his Jay-Z. We convinced her that she couldn’t miss out on dancing on stage with Beyonce. So she frantically borrows some baggy clothing from guy friends and practices not cracking up while trying to look ghetto. She and Chris were set to perform in the middle of the show, so we had a few acts to watch before theirs. Before it started we saw baby Ethan in the most adorable pink outfit! He even had a little barrette in his cute wispy hair. The best part was that he was oblivious to it all and was as happy and charming as always. Oh, Ethan.
So Richard started the show with a gown whose slits were quite scandalous. Then a guy with better moves than most girls danced to Nina Sky’s Move Your Body. After him, the guy who was Catherine Zeta Jones-singing-Mariah Carey last Halloween came on as Christina Aguilera-singing-Celine Dion, and was even better than last year. Now I’m starting to forget the order of performers, but soon Chris came out as Beyonce with his tiny tube top (Melkis: Is that a bandanna?) and short skirt. I was getting really anxious to see Melkis go up and watch/hear everyone’s reactions because no one else knew she was performing with him. Then the Jay-Z rap started and she ran up to the stage; it was so so funny because Chris is about 20 inches taller than her, and at one point in the dance he whipped her around so that he could dance in front of her and she looked so tiny and fragile next to him. But she pulled it off really well and none of us could stop laughing.
After that there were some other really good performances, including our house masters singing A Whole New World as Aladdin and Jasmine (Melkis kept shrieking that it was her favorite Disney song). Their costumes were beautiful, and they sprinkled glitter onto the audience. It was so sweet; they are the most wonderful couple in the world. Afterwards we mingled with the other beautiful ladies, including Michael, our senior tutor who never fails to wear the best red dress; Bert, an awesome tutor from Claverly; and Bernard, who is the sweetest person ever. He’s our security/mail/everything man in Adams and he knows everyone’s names and is never not smiling. He also laughs at everything; I love people like that.
After Friday I tried to get as much work done as possible on Saturday so that we could celebrate Halloween. Instead, I slept in and took sporadic naps between lunch and dinner, and after dinner we went last minute costume shopping. We went through all the typical stuff—nurse, Marilyn Monroe, schoolgirl—before Melkis grabbed a fuschia wig and convinced us to get wigs instead. We couldn’t afford much after choosing wigs (Steph got electric blue, as you can see, and I took lavender) so we just got super long and gaudy fake eyelashes (Steph got blue to match her wig, Melkis got silver, and I took black with silver studs) and decided to wear our new stuff with all black outfits. Getting ready is always half the fun. We helped Steph bobby pin her super long hair under her wig, and she helped us put on our eyelashes. Jackie, as a quite bewitching witch, and Yonina, who also went the way of the wig (Amy: Yonina, I like your wig; it’s so messy. What were you doing?!), dropped by and after the obligatory camera-clicking we met up with Amy, Jen and Andrea.
Amy looked so fabulous; she was the self-described femme fatale from Chungking Express and was decked out in a tan trench coat, shiny knee-high black boots, sunglasses (which she wore all night, indoors and outdoors) and curly blonde wig. She completed the costume with a garter gun (I didn’t even know that existed…Amy: Wanna see my gun?) and a cigarette that she carried until the end of the night when it broke. I think she was already somewhat tipsy because twenty minutes after she first commented on our matching wigs, she exclaimed, “Oh! Matching wigs!” She’s hilarious.
We took the five minute trek over to A-entryway where the Heaven and Hell parties were. Hell was on the first floor and you pass Purgatory as you ascend the stairs to Heaven (I’m taking this description straight from my memory of Schmooze emails). We went to Hell first and stayed there for awhile; it was pretty fun except that the music wasn’t loud enough and I kept thinking that we could have compiled a much better mix. We stopped by Purgatory and Heaven but didn’t stay at either for very long. So after we left Hell Theresa helped us find the Crimson (I think I was heading in the wrong direction) but we didn’t get into the party because there was a guest list. It was worth it, though, to see Melkis tugging on the closed door, crying “I don’t have my ID!” and a guy coming up and simply knocking on the door to have someone open it. Melkis’s laugh is normally funny and prolonged as it is but she was pretty hysterical on Halloween; she just could not stop laughing. Then we ran into a guy dressed as Scooby Doo on the street, and for some reason I got into an argument with him about how he wasn’t the real Scooby Doo. And everyone else started singing the theme song. By that point we’d had enough of Adams’s Hell so we thinking of going to Currier (yeah...the Quad...) for their Heaven and Hell. On our way out we ran into some of the house tutors, who apparently told us to go home and I apparently said to the girls that of course they were going to tell us to go home because they were tutors, which I don’t remember saying at all, and apparently I kept insisting that I was sensible…which I think came about because everyone kept saying to me that I made sense. Which is a weird thing for people to keep saying to you, if you think about it. Anyway, in the end Melkis convinced us to go back to our room because it was too cold outside to make the trip to the Quad.
So then we had a mini-party with the five of us in our room, and I doubt I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Jen and Amy requested that I blast Weezer and we were singing on the top of our lungs, with Amy impersonating Rivers at one point. I told them to take off their shoes because it was more fun to dance barefoot and Jen and I had to help Amy take off her boots, which was quite the difficult task. If there was anyone in the room below us, they probably hate us now. Then Melkis put on Beyonce, at which point I think we reached the height of our craziness.
[Amy dancing strangely but happily]
Melkis: Amy, what the hell is that dance move?
Amy: Oh, I'm frolicking in a field.
Throughout most of this Steph was so serene; she had the cutest floating, dreamy expression the entire night. I would put up photos of all this but there’s too many good ones and also I think I’ve embarrassed us enough.
Oh, an aside: Amy and I saw Rivers Cuomo today. Just walking along on a lovely, warm fall day. Sighs.
Friday night was Adams House’s annual Drag Night. For weeks we’ve been looking forward to our tutor, Chris, performing Crazy in Love as Beyonce. Right before the show he knocks on our door and asks Melkis to be his Jay-Z. We convinced her that she couldn’t miss out on dancing on stage with Beyonce. So she frantically borrows some baggy clothing from guy friends and practices not cracking up while trying to look ghetto. She and Chris were set to perform in the middle of the show, so we had a few acts to watch before theirs. Before it started we saw baby Ethan in the most adorable pink outfit! He even had a little barrette in his cute wispy hair. The best part was that he was oblivious to it all and was as happy and charming as always. Oh, Ethan.
So Richard started the show with a gown whose slits were quite scandalous. Then a guy with better moves than most girls danced to Nina Sky’s Move Your Body. After him, the guy who was Catherine Zeta Jones-singing-Mariah Carey last Halloween came on as Christina Aguilera-singing-Celine Dion, and was even better than last year. Now I’m starting to forget the order of performers, but soon Chris came out as Beyonce with his tiny tube top (Melkis: Is that a bandanna?) and short skirt. I was getting really anxious to see Melkis go up and watch/hear everyone’s reactions because no one else knew she was performing with him. Then the Jay-Z rap started and she ran up to the stage; it was so so funny because Chris is about 20 inches taller than her, and at one point in the dance he whipped her around so that he could dance in front of her and she looked so tiny and fragile next to him. But she pulled it off really well and none of us could stop laughing.
After that there were some other really good performances, including our house masters singing A Whole New World as Aladdin and Jasmine (Melkis kept shrieking that it was her favorite Disney song). Their costumes were beautiful, and they sprinkled glitter onto the audience. It was so sweet; they are the most wonderful couple in the world. Afterwards we mingled with the other beautiful ladies, including Michael, our senior tutor who never fails to wear the best red dress; Bert, an awesome tutor from Claverly; and Bernard, who is the sweetest person ever. He’s our security/mail/everything man in Adams and he knows everyone’s names and is never not smiling. He also laughs at everything; I love people like that.
After Friday I tried to get as much work done as possible on Saturday so that we could celebrate Halloween. Instead, I slept in and took sporadic naps between lunch and dinner, and after dinner we went last minute costume shopping. We went through all the typical stuff—nurse, Marilyn Monroe, schoolgirl—before Melkis grabbed a fuschia wig and convinced us to get wigs instead. We couldn’t afford much after choosing wigs (Steph got electric blue, as you can see, and I took lavender) so we just got super long and gaudy fake eyelashes (Steph got blue to match her wig, Melkis got silver, and I took black with silver studs) and decided to wear our new stuff with all black outfits. Getting ready is always half the fun. We helped Steph bobby pin her super long hair under her wig, and she helped us put on our eyelashes. Jackie, as a quite bewitching witch, and Yonina, who also went the way of the wig (Amy: Yonina, I like your wig; it’s so messy. What were you doing?!), dropped by and after the obligatory camera-clicking we met up with Amy, Jen and Andrea.
Amy looked so fabulous; she was the self-described femme fatale from Chungking Express and was decked out in a tan trench coat, shiny knee-high black boots, sunglasses (which she wore all night, indoors and outdoors) and curly blonde wig. She completed the costume with a garter gun (I didn’t even know that existed…Amy: Wanna see my gun?) and a cigarette that she carried until the end of the night when it broke. I think she was already somewhat tipsy because twenty minutes after she first commented on our matching wigs, she exclaimed, “Oh! Matching wigs!” She’s hilarious.
We took the five minute trek over to A-entryway where the Heaven and Hell parties were. Hell was on the first floor and you pass Purgatory as you ascend the stairs to Heaven (I’m taking this description straight from my memory of Schmooze emails). We went to Hell first and stayed there for awhile; it was pretty fun except that the music wasn’t loud enough and I kept thinking that we could have compiled a much better mix. We stopped by Purgatory and Heaven but didn’t stay at either for very long. So after we left Hell Theresa helped us find the Crimson (I think I was heading in the wrong direction) but we didn’t get into the party because there was a guest list. It was worth it, though, to see Melkis tugging on the closed door, crying “I don’t have my ID!” and a guy coming up and simply knocking on the door to have someone open it. Melkis’s laugh is normally funny and prolonged as it is but she was pretty hysterical on Halloween; she just could not stop laughing. Then we ran into a guy dressed as Scooby Doo on the street, and for some reason I got into an argument with him about how he wasn’t the real Scooby Doo. And everyone else started singing the theme song. By that point we’d had enough of Adams’s Hell so we thinking of going to Currier (yeah...the Quad...) for their Heaven and Hell. On our way out we ran into some of the house tutors, who apparently told us to go home and I apparently said to the girls that of course they were going to tell us to go home because they were tutors, which I don’t remember saying at all, and apparently I kept insisting that I was sensible…which I think came about because everyone kept saying to me that I made sense. Which is a weird thing for people to keep saying to you, if you think about it. Anyway, in the end Melkis convinced us to go back to our room because it was too cold outside to make the trip to the Quad.
So then we had a mini-party with the five of us in our room, and I doubt I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Jen and Amy requested that I blast Weezer and we were singing on the top of our lungs, with Amy impersonating Rivers at one point. I told them to take off their shoes because it was more fun to dance barefoot and Jen and I had to help Amy take off her boots, which was quite the difficult task. If there was anyone in the room below us, they probably hate us now. Then Melkis put on Beyonce, at which point I think we reached the height of our craziness.
[Amy dancing strangely but happily]
Melkis: Amy, what the hell is that dance move?
Amy: Oh, I'm frolicking in a field.
Throughout most of this Steph was so serene; she had the cutest floating, dreamy expression the entire night. I would put up photos of all this but there’s too many good ones and also I think I’ve embarrassed us enough.
Oh, an aside: Amy and I saw Rivers Cuomo today. Just walking along on a lovely, warm fall day. Sighs.
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