Mountain Day

Older traditions are odd blips in a life of constant re-creation.

I woke up at 6:30 and banged pots in my house to officially announce Mountain Day to my housemates, then went off to ring the bells (for 15 minutes, sorry, sleepers) and to sit at tunnel city for a while.

The day was GORGEOUS. And by that I mean perfect in wind, weather, and temperature.

After Facebook chats with a few alums, I traveled to Chapin Steps and collected some 50+ people to hike up Mt. Greylock and then over to Stony Ledge. The hike was great, if occasionally taxing to my cardio-vascular system and/or my calves.

Then we hit the ledge, and I saw people I know and like for a while (spilling apple juice on myself), listened to songs, sang songs, and then sent hike leaders down the trail until heading down myself, helping others with difficult sections of trail (unless guys were in all-male groups that shunned help)

I got down, yelled a little bit to get people on buses, had a great dinner cooked by a friend, visited more friends in Woodbridge and the CTD, and am now home.

Good day. But what was the role of tradition?

Happy Mountain Day!!!!!!

I am, right now, ringing the bells in the chapel to notify the rest of campus. EXCITING!!!!!!

Such a good day

Williams can be wonderful.

Today, I woke up and had an hour-long meeting with a faculty member in which I was seriously asked about my thoughts on college policy. I then went to a tutorial meeting where I realized (again) how I managed to shoot myself in the foot in my paper, learned more about the authors, and then argued about the nature of Obama's presidency. Then I had a 3 hour class about Nazi propaganda where I read unpublished memos on Hitler, followed by a small session with the speaker I helped bring to campus today.

After dinner with that same speaker, we went to a packed Griffin 3 (easily over 100 people there) for the lecture, after which several people came up to me to complement the event. And event that happened because I thought of someone to bring, got ok's from two people, and then planned it out.

Williams lets you do these things (and then realize that pre-planning is VERY important when you forget a detail).

And then I hung out with a friend for an hour or so for some good one-on-one time.

This is the senior year I wanted, and the few bittersweet pieces are a negligible price to pay.

Skip to 3:35.....I'm absolutely honored.