Tiring of provincial Kansas City, I pushed Eastward. I suppose certain elements of my Midwestern-ness have stuck, such as the compulsory niceness and the language especially, but by and large, I enjoy it out here. To test your midwestern-ness, go here.

Swarthmore has proved a terrific match for me. I majored in art history and music, but had the opportunity to take lots of classes. Sure the work was hellishy dumped on me, but the experience was a blast. Some of the highlighted classes:

-ARTH1- What started the whole art history love affair. Michael Cothren's terrificly led class discussions as we grappled with the meanings of paintings, ideas, and how to express all of it.
• ARTH 98- Stefan, me, and Michael Cothren (his first all-male art history class). We sat around and discussed readings, theories of art, painting interpretation, and generally had a blast arguing and laughing. Similar to ARTH 1, except now I knew what I was talking about. Plus Michael's terrific anecdotes and statements like "Museums aren't hospitals or cathedrals! They're zoos! We take these paintings out of their natural context, put them somewhere, and people stand and gawk at them."
• Modern Art Seminar- 7 of us (Jonah, Zoe, Emily, Nicole, Brendan, me, and Connie Hungerford), similarly arguing. A little more power structure with the alternating papers we wrote, but also lots of heated debates over meaning, sexual imagery, author points, and Fried vs. Clark. Who knew art history could be such a vocal, volatile topic? The picture on the home page is from there, me with my Mark Rothko cake.
• Film Studies Intro- Led by Sunka SImon, we watched tons of cool movies (Metropolis, Festen, Blow Up), learned the lingo to actually discuss the films, and Jonah, Daniel Sproul, Aaron Cantor, and I got to do a cool project on TV/Film crossover, with Jonah's pretentious title, and really cool examples (Lars von Trier's The Kingdom, an awesome, creepy, and funny TV miniseries/movie about a haunted hospital).
• Chem 10- With the amazing Professor Jain (who didn't get tenure...grrr). All sorts of cool in class questions and activities. Sure the tests were impossible, but in an interestive and creative way that involved thinking and understanding what was going on in chemical interactions. Still the best instructor I've had, amazingly dedicated to knowing his students (and his advisees, of which I was among the lucky...very supportive). Plus we got to have a mole day celebration.
• Ethics and Public Policy- Really, I was just excited to take poli sci, even though it meant not taking Ling 1, so I still can't understand my friends' linglingo, but I can understand politicians? But, even though I wasn't among the experienced and favorites of the class, I enjoyed the debates on topics, arguing, and thinking about issues in new ways. Kind of like Model UN, but for a grade.
• Mus 15- Last harmony and counterpoint, enjoying it with the same group of people that I'd had in the last 4 years. Lots of discussion about how we hear music, an interesting side. Not unlike the similarly cool class Philosophy of Modern Music, which also dealt with interpreting music and emotional response thereto. But 15 also allowed us to pick music to look at, compose, and talk about it. Very fun.
• Composition- It was a little intimidating in the beginning, with Jerry, but after the first half of the first semester, I got more freedom in choices, and came out with music I'm pleased with. I had a terrific composition concert, helped in a large part by various music friends of mine, who played the music, commented on it to me, and inspired me to do well. Thanks, everyone!

Well, I often managed to procrastinate, as we Swatties and we IBers like to do, with lots of activities. But why ramble on and on here, when you could see lots of cool pictures, right? So go there and look. By and large, these are all organized activities, and my life (if my room is any judge) at Swat was not. And living in ML certainly didn't help one bit. Here's a collection of great moments of ML dorm life and fun. You may want to also look at these pictures to find out who all the crazy people I lived with for four years are.

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