recent tracks:

since i've been in mn

day 1 (12.30.2004): arrive at airport, wait 3.5 hours for shuttle. saved from boredom by becca davis as well as a short family phonecall and from hunger by a roast beef sandwich. upon arriving at school, run around frantically trying to get into allen house, find car and cristina. eventually find cristina, hang out at her house, then run into charles, transport frog and fish to allen house, have pumpkin pie at charles' house, talk to summer, go to bed.

day 2 (12.31.2004): wake up in time for brunch/training at ariela's thanks to adam's phonecall. staff bonding/meetings occur. then comes a quick ragstock trip resulting in 25% off blue wool mittens and scarf (which have rarely left my presence since). ra banquet, trip to airport to get lauren. elizabeth comes along for the ride home. now it's time to party like it's 1999. go to burton, mudd, evans, hill, charles' house, allen house to ring in the new year on central time with lauren and cristina (and a phonecall from summer). happy 2005!

day 3 (1.1.2005): we're graduating this year! wake up and go to mondays with lauren to try to make sure i know when geoff is getting in but people are constantly on the mondays computer. "help" lauren unpack by talking to julia and making music playlist. break and conversation with charles, then trip to airport for geoff, battling hail and freezing rain and all sorts of nastiness. after waiting over an hour for checked baggage, take nick too and head home, stopping at cub for provisions. then dinner at geoff's, then home for the night for a nice but short phonecall and then sleep.

day 4 (1.2.2005): day of action! room cleaning and business attending. chapati lunch with lauren and adam, mmm. buy books, clean the fishbowl, vacuum, throw away papers, wash clothes and sheets. then it's time to pick summer up! on the way, andy and charles and i see the life aquatic with steve zissou and i enjoy it quite a bit. then there is summer at the airport! i get to see pictures of her new years celebration on her new digital camera while we wait for luggage. then it's back to carleton, and we move summer back in and hang out with anna until fairly late..

day 5 (1.3.2005): first day of classes. and track. american courts starts off with a bang, seems like it'll be shockingly fun. track also starts off well; the new head coach seems like a good guy, and of course leon is great. lifting is better than expected, too. class days blend together some in my memory...

day 6 (1.4.2005): first piano lesson goes pretty well. first advanced logic class, also seems shockingly good. engaging prof, good material, plus no tests in any class for the whole term! neal and i have honey roasted peanuts at the break in the middle. kitchen with lauren for breakfast and reading before and after piano. a tougher but still pretty good track practice, spend all evening with summer and anna in davis once again. then stay up forever trying to figure out LaTeX and creating new blog.

day 7 (1.5.2005): sleep in a little more but get up to read for class. lunch, reading/smoothie with summer, class, track, shower, then marc's birthday dinner also with summer and anna at the ranch house. delicious but overdone steak smothered with onions, peppers, cheese, and bacon. plus a side of mashed potatoes. mmmm. then a strawberry milkshake. thank you allens! finally talk to home, then take neal to pick up his coffee paraphernalia from his break home. coffee then with andy, then to the krlx meeting! pick up summer and lauren on the way. you should help name our radio show for the term if so inclined. perhaps suggest general topics to draw from? more frogs? something to do with laveranues? hmmm. evening full of discussion. congratulations to summer and geoff on their interview invitations!

now here i am. it's technically now the beginning of day 8 (1.6.2005). it oughta be a good one. why not?

american courts has been very interesting so far and making me happy about the thought of going to law school. there is so much change that should be enacted in the world, and somehow it all comes down to words. luckily i tend to enjoy that sort of thing.

i think i'm having a nice little "college is ending" crisis as i'm writing this and realzing how much more i want to know. i want to take another four years and take only history and polisci and sociology and religion courses. i want to understand christianity and islam and buddhism and hinduism. i am really torn about next term already; there's a virgil seminar, a history class on byzantium, a class on environmental policy, and an english class i've been looking forward to since i started at carleton. maybe i'll have to audit one... i hope i have opportunities to study some of those other things in the future, though, not to mention returning to some more creative things like art and music classes. anyway, keep recommending books to me; that's one way to take care of these things. and speaking of books, i just have to reiterate: if you've known me all this time and still haven't read the mezzanine, you ought to check it out from the library right now and read it. in such an overwhelming world, it might help you step back and have a little appreciation for even littler things. it's nice to have that sort of appreciation.

did you know that i used to be in favor of the death penalty but i'm not any more? it was a pretty gradual change, but one only entirely effected very recently. with the thought i've put into it in the past year i could probably justify this opinion with the same arguments that most death penalty opponants use, but i think it's more just a change in the way i think about things that i already believed than any new facts that i came to recognize. it's kind of weird how that can happen. the death penalty, anyway, seems to be purely a punitive form of punishment. while i'm not a big fan in general of the idea of the criminal justice system as inherently rehabilitative, i definitely don't think it should be purely punitive. i guess i think of it mostly as a means of protecting the public while also attempting rehabilitation of the criminal, although since rehabilitation is not always possible, that protective aspect is the most important one. the death penalty really offers no more protection than imprisonment, and since it is irreversible it is therefore unnecessary and potentially dangerous; my previous belief was that it was merely a far overprescribed sentence, since it's only supposed to be called for in particularly extreme cases but is frequently applied to cases decided on primarily circumstantial evidence.
i guess it'll probably be more surprising to some of you that i ever favored capital punishment, but before i came to the previous reasoning i felt it was an important provision to allow for; after all, if soldiers are not only allowed but encouraged to kill at will in war, carefully considered cases should be provided with the same sorts of rights. but these days war seems to be an overpresribed sentence, too. and i'm not just referring to bush, but also to any terrorist groups, and to any number of other conflicts throughout the world. and while the world may not be any more bloodthirsty than it has been at any point in history (remember, i'm pretty solid when it comes to roman history, and the romans were not a gentle or peaceful people by any means), that does not mean that there is not more blood being shed than should be. perhaps by changing our attitudes toward our own people, we might be able to take a step in changing our attitudes toward other peoples, and their attitudes toward us.
ah, to live in an ideal world. at least there are nicholson baker's shoelaces.

i don't know why my brain is following the tracks it is right now but i think it ought to be done for now. goodnight.