Midsemester Examination

Yes, dear blog readers, it is true that I have not blogged since the beginning of the first semester of my senior year. To make up for this horrible crime to humanity I will go over the highlights of my school year thus far, as well as the horrible lows like this past week of midsems. In other words, I will be examining and critiquing the first half of the semester, including my exams (see what I did with the title there. Clever right?

Near the beginning of the semester I got a very unexpected call from my friend Gwen, who I do not see nearly enough, inviting me to accompany her and Annie, to Grinnell’s water park. Did you know Grinnell has a water park? Because I didn’t. Now, when I say the tiny town of Grinnell has a water park you—with your possibly skewed view of Iowa—might imagine a slip-in-slide and a kiddy pool. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the reality I found. It was no Universal or Disney water park, but it was quite decent. Two water slides, a relaxation pool (w/ a mild propellant so you could laze around on an inner tube), and a fairly large pool. One slide, which I was somehow tricked into going on, was almost completely vertical. Gwen went on it first, saying that it wasn’t as scary as it looked. I love Gwen, but LIES! It was terrifying. The other slide was more twisty, required an inner tube, and was much fun! Two people could go on it at once, so Gwen, Annie and I did every possible combination of sharing an inner tube or going solo. Apparently, I was the best partner. I guess Gigantor’s size propels trajectories in the best way possible. The day was full of sun, fun, stories, good friends and good times.

As long time readers know, I lamented the loss of my senior friends last year. Well, fortunately, not all of them are that far away. Friends Janna and Zach, in fact, live in Iowa City. Zach is in the process of getting his teaching certificate, and as part of that he must come to Grinnell almost every Wednesday. So, Janna suggested she could come along and spend time with me. Unfortunately, I work on Wednesday nights, but one night I played hooky so I could spend a couple hours with Janna! I must have been excited because, apparently, I sprinted down to greet her and let her into my dorm. We did our catching up and went out for Chinese food. Much better than working!

The other time I saw Janna and Zach was Oktoberfest 2010 in the Amana Colonies. Perri and I met up w/ Jach (Zanna?) in the afternoon, got ourselves some delicious potato pancakes (or as I like to call them, hash browns shaped like a pancake), and slowly made our way down to the Amana barn. At the barn, we listened to polka music, I somehow made my way through a 35oz mug of beer, and we ate German-type food. To top it off we observed the log sawing competition—though this time none of us sawed wood—and then got as much food to take home as possible with our budgets. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but satisfied.

As you must have noticed, this year 10-10-10 happened (October 10, 2010), however if you don’t go to Grinnell then you don’t comprehend how significant this was for our school. Every year there is the campus wide, highly coveted, traveling party: 10-10. For many this party means drinking till you have to go to the hospital, or until you get arrested. However, this year 10-10-10 meant having loads of fun and in moderation (the drinking, not the fun—oh you know what I mean)! The best part was 10-10-10 temporarily took my mind off the week of hell that would shortly follow it. To start the evening, Perri and I went out with a group of her friends for dinner at Lonnski’s Pub: a local bar with really good burgers. Second, Perri and I watched anime with Brett like we do almost every Saturday. Then, we headed out to the major event of the evening, the traditional campus wide shot. The only other time I made it to the shot was my first year with Emily, so needless to say it had heavy significance this year. Not that I’m mentioning the G word that must not be spoken. An unexpected treat was meeting up with our friend Ginny and coming back to her place after. We chatted and ate way too many animal crackers (not that there is such a thing), before I returned to my dorm and mentally prepared for...

Midsems were terrible this year (those who do not want to listen to complaining—well, you shouldn’t read this blog, but you certainly shouldn’t read this next part). The main source of stress was a very large presentation for Sociology of Health and Illness about HIV/AIDS. Everyone in the class has to present at some point during the semester, instead of a final term paper, however my presentation happened to fall on the same week as my mid-semester examinations. My talking partner, Hiba, is funnily enough one of the only other students at Grinnell who originated from Arlington, VA. So that was nice. I was also pretty happy about the topic, it just was not a good time for an hour-long class teaching session. Anyway, after weeks of diligent work and stress/anxiety it was over and it could have gone worse. There was little time for celebration though as I had two 5 page papers due Thursday (for the same class), two sit down tests for Friday on Religious Terms and Russian story characters (respectively), and a 5-10 page term paper for Abnormal psychology (that easily might be the worst piece of crap I have ever written). Not a week, or marathon of sleep deprivation, I want to relive.

Fortunately, Saturday marked freedom! Fall Break! No School! Grinnell, however, decided to give me one last gift before my plane ride…

My travels went fine timing-wise, however I was seated next to the most unfortunate travel partner for the 5am shuttle ride to the airport. My first mental title for him was Sir-has-no-concept-of-personal-space, until he did something even more pleasant. I noticed him bending over every so often and I assumed he was getting something from his backpack. Then, as I tried to drift off into sleep I smelled the exact smell you don’t want to have coming from someone sitting right next to you. ‘No’, I thought to myself, ‘he couldn’t have’. Sure enough, when we arrived at Des Moines International and the shuttle lights came on, I saw in the aisle…a puddle of vomit.

And with that pleasant note—goodbye for now…