Oberlin Blogs

This ain't your momma's study abroad.

At 2.15pm, the lights went down and the excitement went up. All the writers were introduced, taking bows to waves of applause. The Story Pirates theme song was performed, and the show was on!

So visualize this: I'm in my basement this morning, working on my bamboo bicycle, joining the steel remnants of a child-sized bike frame to my bamboo tubes.

Last Sunday I moved into my house for this semester. Now I officially live off campus.

Right now, I'm in Seattle, studying at SANCA, the School for Acrobatics and New Circus Arts. To put it succinctly, this school is going to kick my ass.

Leslie's not lying, we have been inundated with mail (and I've got the photo evidence to prove it)

On spending too much time in my practice room, reading lists, and "Twilight."

January is supposed to be a quiet month, but as usual I've got too many things going at the same time.

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.

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.

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.)

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.