Swat Pictures!

Instead of integrating pictures into the entries, as I will in the future, I’m posting an onslaught of them now. However, some of the pictures are cut-off, but I will try to fix that in the future.

The amphitheater back in first semester (nature pictures courtesy of Isabel)

A view of the bell tower (Izzy’s again)

The courtyard of my dorm in the fall

My friends Xioxia and Tiffany in Philadelphia! (sorry it’s a bit blurry. You can tell I took it)

The white board on our door always has so much activity! Next to it is a flyer for Ourstory, the multicultural literary magazine that three girls on my hall and I are a part of.

Bathtub Debate: A Serious Academic Dialogue

Thursday night, the Kohlberg’s Scheur Room was flooded with students for Bathtub Debate event. (I came 10 minutes early and I still had to sit on the floor!) The debate was a dramatic dialogue between three professors who represented each of the three academic divisions at Swarthmore: Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences. This was the sci-fish scenario presented to them: all knowledge in the world has collapsed and there are only representatives from these three divisions left. They are stranded in the middle of the ocean and there’s a bathtub available for only one professor to make to Antarctica. Well, some place that apparently has penguins. Anyways, this was the debate for the academics to duke it out for THEIR LIFE!

Organized by Peaslee Debate Club, it was an amusing take on the value of each academic field. The natural sciences professor emphasized the value of indoor plumbing, the microphone and other useful technology in our modern world. Professor Kuperburg, the Economics professor representing Social Sciences, in his speech, decided to speak without the use of the microphone as a snub to natural sciences, haha.

My other favorite moment was Kuperburg’s point to Professor Tim Burke, the history professor representing humanities, about history. The same historian who is famous for the quote “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” also said, “History is a pack of lies about events that didn’t happen told by people who weren’t there.” Chew on those wise words from George Santyana.

Freshman 15

I remember reading something in a friend’s blog at college and realizing the truth about the Freshman 15. The problem is that there’s just so much free food! Never again will people try and lure you with food. Every time a club or an organization has a public meeting or even at lectures they offer pizza or ethnic food. We had study breaks on Wednesdays (that was today) and there was hardened chocolate fondue, chips, salsa.

The Women’s Resource Center is offering free food on Wednesdays late at night. The point of it is that Swat students can study somewhere on campus after McCabe Library closes, at 1 am, I think. At 10 McCabe offers free coffee.

Freshman year seminars have breaks in between where one student brings in food for the whole class. Sometimes the food is “health”-concious, like diet iced tea and whole-grain wheat thins. (On a side note, Pennsylvania banned trans-fat in all foods so Sharples became a little bit healthier. They have been trying. All the cereals are now organic and sugar free! I now to go Tarble for my honey-nut cheerios)

In my physics seminar last semester the class was divided into two sections of 7 people each. With such few people, we could order in Chinese from Cheng Hings restaurant and pizza from Alfredos. MMMMMmmmMMM

Lastly, people bake! My wonderful news editor always bakes cookies before our section meeting for The Phoenix. There are thirty cookies and a handful of us. Plus, my hall mate just baked a tray full of delicious, warm, gooey cookies and offered a few to me. How could I possibly resist?

Swarthmore isn’t necessarily a gourmet heaven, but it has definitely been blessed by the God of the Plentiful Food.

(Note: It is possible to resist free food. I simply don’t. Cheers)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Aww, I can’t believe that I am already a month into the second semester.

Valentines Day would have been more fun if I had gone to Sharples today, our main dining hall. My friend told me there was a woman playing love songs on the piano by the roaring fire side and offered a wonderful array of colorful themed desserts. It sounded like Sharples dressed in its best for the day. Unfortunately, my aerobics class ends at 6:30 and I take a shower so I can only make it to Essie Maes which opens at 7. Sharples closes at 7:15, I think, but I didn’t realise that it would be so wonderfully festive. However, we did go to Paces Cafe, a student run cafe, at 11 where they had valentine’s special desserts.

There were just too many things to do that night. At the same time there was a wonderful study break happening in our dorm. One of my hall mates told me that they had made chocolate fondue. Curses! I missed all the chocolate.

Lastly, Small Craft Warnings, one literary magazine on campus, held a valentine’s day poetry reading in Kohlberg Hall. I am part of the Ourstory multicultural literary magazine and we had our poetry reading studying break yesterday so I figured one poetry reading sufficed. I think there were three in total: one on Monday by the Queer-Straight Alliance, Ourstory on Tuesday and SCW on Wednesday, lol.

In other news, Delaware County’s weather is far too capricious for my liking. It was all green and warm and then a foot of snow and hail. Dan had to walk to our morning philosophy coffee study session in Kohlberg through from Mary Lyon and he sure made us know how painful it was. It’s a shame that the shuttles don’t run on the days they are most needed! Not to bash ML or anything because I went there for Saturday breakfast and it definitely has its merits.

Speaking of snow, the schools in Chester, a near by city, closed I think. I tutor there as a part of my religion class. I’m going tomorrow and I think Chester deserves its own entry so that will be next.

Cheers and love,

Ramya