Today is the 11th of September

...and it is my birthday.

Nine years ago, I was a 7th grader taking English with Mrs. Ratliff when the assistant principal stopped by to tell her that some sort of plane had crashed in New York City. The rest of the day was fairly dull for me - I think the teachers made a conscious effort to push us through the day, and in any event, my next memory is from the last bell of school, when all of the classroom's TVs were switched to CNN or its equivalent. That was when I first saw the towers fall.

And I still didn't get it. Yes, it was bad, and no, I didn't fail to understand that there would be suffering and anger, but I grew up in the 1990s, when the world was relatively peaceful and there was little fear. 9/11 did not bring about any fear for me. That's a privilege of age, I suppose, but with it came an ignorance of what these attacks would mean, until my friend Chris looked me in the eye and spoke the only words I still clearly recall from that day.

"Will, this is more important that you think it is. This day is going to define our lives." And he, I think, was right.

I went home and watched the news, then called my friend Ben, who was born a few hours ahead of me. Our short conversation acknowledge that no one would associate our birthday with the 911 emergency line, and then we went back to our families to celebrate being 13.

I met the first person to lose a friend or family member (that I knew about) last year at Williams, but for me the day has never been about our vulnerabilities, but instead about the power of events - that I and my country, and indeed my world could still be moved by events about others far away. There's hope there, even when the clouds are billowing towards us, but I doubt my birthday will ever cease being something of a reflective event.

from Tumblr - words that should exist in english

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”
Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.
Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.
Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.
Gheegle: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.
Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.
Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.
Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.
Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

Just wrote this to a pre-frosh

Some portions edited out - thoughts?

I'm a Political Economy major, which is a hybrid between Poli Sci and Econ. It's sort of equivalent to a Public Policy Major. You can explore the POEC class descriptions (and everything else) at: http://catalog.williams.edu/ and http://www.williams.edu/politicaleconomy/

A bit about Williams:

Williams is great in that it's taught me a huge deal in critical thinking, such that I can solidly say that my school is going to share many aspects of other top-notch schools. The students here are great, super busy, and the campuses still have issues, but at this tier of higher ed, every department and program is notable and strong. You can major in anything here and be FINE.

Here are the things that make Williams different, which should clue you in as to if you want to be here:

Small. 550 per class is smaller than you think. You can't hide in class, and you can't hide from your ex's, but on the bright side, you will see your professors at the grocery store and some of your friends as you walk around. I love the little impromptu conversations that only happen because we're small. BUT, that might mean we can't offer all of the courses and subjects as regularly as other schools. We do our best to do that, but we can't hit maximum breadth and depth in the course offerings at the same time because of size. You'll see this in the "not offered" courses in the catalog.

Accessible. Lots of dorms have elevators, but I don't mean in the physical sense. The Dean is a personal friend of mine. The President knows my name, as does his predecessor. My professors are fine with me stopping by and many keep their doors open all of the time. I can see profs whose classes I'm not taking (because they aren't great at lecture), but who I love talking to in office hours. If I (admittedly, a now-senior involved in college governance) need the Dean to call ME, RIGHT NOW, I can get that call, and got it today.

Middle of Nowhere. We have lots of trails, but one street where the one indian restaurant, the one thai restaurant, the one coffee shop, and the one deli are located. (and the one others). We live in a "Purple Bubble" where almost everyone is fit, almost everyone is smart, and where the problems of the outside world don't really reach us. We are isolated. But we also have Mountain Day, a Friday in October when classes are canceled (without warning) and huge numbers of students stream up mountain trails to sing songs and have donuts/cider on Stony Ledge. It's AWESOME, and there's a shorter hike also with donuts at the top of Stone Hill if you want to spend your afternoon doing something else.

Day 1

This is my life at Williams. Not recommended, but I'm glad to claim it.

8:30 am: Wake up
9:00 am: Breakfast @ Currier, initial thoughts on possible event to plan
10:00 am: Get books at Water Street, take home
11:00 am: Go to see Rick Spalding, discuss work, clubs, and my summer. Also talk to Nancy, find out she used to be at the Dean's Office
12:00 pm: OCC Workshop
1:00 pm: catch-up/planning lunch
2:00 pm: speak with boss, get planning details, discuss meal plans
3:00 pm: meet with adviser, find out I can graduate, meet new prof
4:00 pm: get bike tire filled
4:30 pm: discuss room reconfiguration with someone of taste
5:15 pm: read and write e-mails
6:15 pm: cook/eat dinner
7:00 pm: class meeting #1
7:30 pm: class meeting #2
8:00 pm: briefing on new dining facilities and policies
8:30 pm: bike ride, talk with friend
9:00 pm: plan movie for class, start to look at someone's Rhodes app
10:00 pm: see friend in first time in year
10:30 pm: home, one more meeting

This year is going to be GREAT.

Meal Plan Calculus

Blatantly stealing ideas and wording from Dave Moore here.

Typically, a student is on campus for a maximum of 32 weeks in the year: 14 in each semester & 4 in Winter Study, though the 14 can drop to 12.5 or so if you leave for reading periods and don't have many exams. This ignores the 10 guest meals for the 21/week plan and the 6 guest meals for those on the 14.

If you eat EVERY meal, each week, you are paying X per meal:

• 21-meal plan: $5364/(21*32) = $7.98 / meal
• 14-meal plan: $5010/(14*32) = $11.18 / meal
• 10-meal plan: $4094/(10*32) = $12.79 / meal
• 5-meal plan: $2164/(5*32) = $13.53 / meal

• 50-meal block: $658/(50) = $13.16 / meal

And that's why I'm going off the meal plan.....

Back at Williams..... 36 hours

What's happened in these two days, since our 2:45 arrival on Wednesday?

• Started moving into room.
• Retreived stuff from storage
• Dinner with folks.
• Voices/Katie Kent
• A movie
• Discovery that my floor isn't good at blocking soundwaves from below.
• 3 hour, deep conversation
• Sleep
• Waking up to call from Dean's office
• Logistics, visiting library and hopkins multiple times for Honor stuff
• Regaled the frosh
• Shop gov't talk
• Stalked the 2014 class meeting with DD.
• RASAN stuff for 6 hours.
• Hung out with cool folks
• Watched TV with more cools folks

Clearly there's no easing into senior year.

I think time has validated this speech, to some degree

Bob Schieffer's America

I just finished Bob Schieffer's America, a great book of his CBS commentaries that's wrapping up the tail end of my summer of reading. Among many interesting anecdotes, such as early video bootlegging, where reporters got a movie into a cassette form while in the middle of nowhere then watched it on their editing equipment, or the time he formed an "exploratory committee" for the hell of it and was sent $200, including a dollar with strings literally attached, was something I had never thought of before.

Before the equality of the sexes was any sort of value in this country, when women lacked legal protections against harassment and unfair hiring practices, there were two viable career paths that allowed for independence: nursing and teaching. Thus all of the women most interested in working were competition for a limited set of jobs, which meant that nurses and teachers came from the elite of half the country's population. And, because of wage inequities, the hospitals and schools didn't cost too much either.

It doesn't justify what happened, but perhaps the hale we find ourselves in in regards to education and healthcare is based more on expectations than reality. (which is not to say that we can and should *really* improve on these fronts.)

Beep Beep, work being done

Fresh from asking someone else about their blog (which uses Wordpress to manage content, a system I like), I took a quick look at my own layout and I think it could use some work.

But Blogger gets major tips for allowing me to list pages on the top. In any case, this will be a work in progress for a few days, so please pardon the mess as I experiment.

Problem on Facebook - possible hack

DO NOT CLICK ON A LINK IN YOUR NEWSFEED UNTIL YOU READ THIS.

Facebook News Feeds are getting taken over by a site that publishes, without warning, a story on your wall whenever you click the link in News Feed as "Will Slack likes (whatever you clicked)."

So, for example, I saw a friend from church camp on my news feed with a very non-church camp link "liked," which I clicked on, thinking that I had to be misunderstanding.

Nope, it then went up on my profile and he saw it on HIS newsfeed from me, as me liking it. Facebook needs to stop this ASAP.

Whereever you are for the next three months....

...just remember you aren't stuck in a Chilean mine with 32 dudes.

Travel (expanded from elsewhere)

My advice:

You should travel. You should get lost on rainy French roads, in waterlogged French fields, and amidst dark French forests, seeking a small towns while soaked through. You should see rooms made entirely of porcelain in Spain, coming from an apartment where the market is across the street, with fresh bread every morning. You should gasp at the sunlit splendor of Sainte-Chapelle, then enjoy a baguette and crepe in Place des Voghes. You should take the buses of Copenhagen, which children ride alone starting at age eight. You should see the ancient boulders at Stonehenge and the ancient chamber at Newgrange, and the cathedral that was never finished in Aalst. You should feel your heart pound as you see the fortresses that are police stations in Belfast, and feel your heart sour within the labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral. You should celebrate New Years with a little fire in Saint Peter's Square and get lost with a middle aged woman in the middle of a red-light district you didn't see on the maps.

Or maybe not. The above is what I've had the privilege to do, thanks to funding, fund-raising, family, and friends, but travel is about making your own experiences.

You should go somewhere else, and still find a home there because you have carried a home with you, because you are a self-contained person. There is nothing like sitting outside a window on a French hilltop, waiting for the bullet-train to speed by, alone with the world, and yet connected to a brand new part of it. Go forth!