Oberlin Blogs

In this post: countercyclical economics, Main Street v. the Big Box, student migratory patterns, the Evangelical Vatican, yoga, and a poor ending.

I've been running this entire last year on pure adrenaline. I know why, though, and it's because the life of an artist is a long and penniless road.

I know that my leaving home and traveling to that wonderful country changed me in important ways too numerous to even count. At the very least, the assumptions I left with about my country and its relationship to the rest of the world changed in profound ways.

My first few thoughts on returning to Oberlin after a year studying abroad.

I am here to take Intensive German in an effort to shove enough grammar and vocabulary into my head to take German 102 in the coming semester.

I don't know what it is about giving a speech that makes it so affecting, its ability to connect with and instill hope and pride in the hearts of listeners. All I knew at the time was that it was something I had to experience doing.

I know your parents don't want to hear this, but Oberlin students use a bunch of dirty language. One of our favorites is work .

When I was at college, back in the Pleistocene era, I always wondered what happened to my small college town outside of Boston when I wasn't there.

Once people get over the novelty of Dorothy jokes and tornado questions - inevitable, I've learned, when I'm outside of my home state and meeting new people - it's actually pretty cool to be from somewhere unusual. Especially when I get the opportunity to share my hometown and state with other Obies, many of whom have never even been so far west.

It seems only a few weeks ago that I was trying to get myself psychologically prepared for the start of the academic year, and now suddenly I'm in the last throes of paper-grading. (And no, I don't actually teach chemistry. Bear with me on this.)

The hard part of Finals is ... finishing them.

Aahhhhhh! (that's 'Ahhhhhh' like the sound you make after taking a satisfying drink of Coke Zero™, not like 'Ahhhhhh please don't lock me in that iron mask for years because I look like my brother the king')