blog.shimer

Cool things we do at Shimer

So we're finally beginning a new semester.

One thing I enjoy enormously is cooking. Having the apartment-style dorms that we do, I have an entire kitchen at my disposal to indulge this passion. I've also learned over the past semester is just how well food brings people together. So, I decided that a potluck would be just the thing to welcome new people to Shimer and welcome old people back. You very rarely find people who dislike food, and with a potluck everyone brings something so there's enough for everyone and not just one person sweating the entire thing.  It's also a very Shimerian atmosphere--get everyone around a table and we start talking. Class is one thing, but outside of class the discussions are looser, more casual, not quite as focused at getting to the heart of things, but even that lack of direction sometimes leads to unexpected revelations. Some of the best discussions I've had at Shimer have been outside of class.

In any case, food is a good way to spark them! So we got everyone in my room and suddenly there was an enormous quantity of food everywhere.

I am vegan, so everything I make is vegan. Among the food that I made, this little dessert, with the help of a good friend, turned out very well:

They're called petit fours, and are really miniature cakes. The recipe is challenging, but worth it.

Everyone had a great deal of fun--there were probably twenty people at its peak points, which for my small room is enormous-- but possibly the moment that took the cake--literally--was the entrance of the boar's head:

My good friend Phthalo, shown in the picture, decided to celebrate the post-pagan-Christmas way, and composed a boar's head made entirely of gingerbread cake, icing and fruit--all vegan. You'll have to ask him for the songs that go along with it, but the boar's head was a symbol of the sun, that would die and be resurrected each day, as the sun sets and rises daily.

Together we defied the post-holiday/break blues and rang in the new semester in a thoroughly unconventional and fun way. It doesn't get much better than that.

Mom kicked my shins...

...And other tales from the school term. The new semester has started and it's been more than enough time to have gotten back into the swing of things. The air is nice at Shimer right now; the community seems refreshed and rejuvenated. Classes quickly jumped into full swing and the reading on my plate is more than substantial for one person's portion. The more immersed I find myself in my education the more of a need I feel to consciously and rigidly budget my time. This is when I think of a little quip my high school chemistry teacher told me: "Bad habits are easy to make and hard to keep, good habits are hard to establish but very simple to maintain." It's something I find myself thinking about often, specifically when I catch myself in the act of a bad habit; more specifically procrastinating. The most effective way I've found so far in combating procrastination is filling my schedule to the brim. The less "free time" I allow myself, the less time I'm likely to spend procrastinating. And it sounds like I'm taking leisure time out of my life but in actuality the activities I replace procrastinating with are the things I'd otherwise be saying I'd rather be or should be doing. So it all works out. In fact, when it comes down to it, I might be able to argue that one of the causes in my periods of inactivity is a fear of having nothing to do; once I put my best foot forward I quickly find that the work I thought would take up too much time takes up hardly any at all--which isn't to mean I didn't do much "work", it just means that the reading and work I complain about is actually enjoyable.

Having attended a few colleges prior to Shimer I came here with a certain expectation of what college is like, what any college or university is essentially like, and the idea that the majority of what one does in school is some kind of busy-work that isn't realistically applicable to or relevant to the future said student is attempting to pursue. That's why it's so odd looking forward to class and being happy with what's considered homework. Once the childhood notion that homework is icky and the enjoyment in rebelling against academic authority through inactivity as if something more useful would be gained in leisure time is set aside, or rather set to rest, it's easy to find more enjoyment than thought possible in reading about the origin of symbols of mathematical operation (I hate math). I'm the only person pulling my leg to be here.

 

The other piece of advice I'll leave you with today is this: If you attend a school and live on campus, when you leave for winter break make sure your room is spotless. I can't stress this enough. A clean room is a happy room. A clean room also avoids monetary roadblocks. Since everybody likes a list in a blog so I'll jump on. 

How to not get charged for the state of your room: 

1, Do not write on the walls. Under any circumstance, for any reason. This goes for doing anything to the walls. No paint. No markers. No drawings. No mustard. No chalk. Nothing. It's tempting but it isn't worth it. It's funny but it isn't worth it. It's worth it...but, really, it isn't worth it. It makes you look bad and you become someone that needs to have an eye kept on them. Get a dry erase board. Hell, get dry erase wall paper. Just don't give them a reason to re-paint and tile your entire room. 

2. Do not let the condition of your room become such an issue as to require faculty intervention. This is another point I cannot stress enough. If you don't want to basically get charged the going rate for a cleaning service don't let your room become a place that the schools faculty feels it necessary and appropriate to take the responsibility of cleaning from your hands. If you've been deemed unfit to clean your room, if it's been decided that you are not of the capacity to handle the upkeep of a personal domicile then you can also expect to be charged for your shortcomings. 

That's it for now, 

and as always this is Justin Lockwood signing out. Oh, and you stay classy, readers. 

Starting Out on the Right Foot

So, last semester wasn't the best of semesters for me. I didn't do as well as I could have, but I passed all my classes and learned a thing or two. And with the memory of my struggles last semester fresh in my mind, I came back for my second semester of college.

Already, I can tell it will be great. I'm not sure what changed, but I'm finding myself contributing to the discussion more and more in not just one, but all of my classes. I absolutely love Humanities 2, as we've started out with poetry, which is both fun to read and talk about. I think I may have surprised my class with my passion for "The Red Wheelbarrow," which stems from my background on a small family farm. 

Integrated Studies 2 is a ton of fun, for me at least. We've been working with simple logic problems so far, which are easy enough for me as I do logic problems for fun and on a fairly regular basis. But what really makes the class great is when we sit around that table and puzzle out exactly WHY something works the way it does, or discussing the independence of certain postulates and coming to unexpected conclusions. 

Then there is Natural Sciences 1. This class, for me at least, is exactly what I had expected when I came to Shimer. Twice now I've had my brain melted by hypothetical situations based upon Presocratic schools of thought. It sounds terrible, but having your brain melted is actually a wonderful, almost magical experience. It happens when you start thinking on a higher level than you ever have, and you wear your brain cells out trying to find an answer to a question that seems unanswerable. I know I'm thinking when I come out of class unable to think anymore. The first time it happened, I was grateful for my Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, as it gave my brain a chance to rest and recover between classes. Once I was capable of serious thought again, I found myself piecing things together in my mind with more ease. I'm actually noticing the difference, and it's terribly exciting. 

So I know I'm going to have a great semester this time around. I'm confident that I'll do well, contribute more to the discussion in every class, and will learn a little bit more about how to think. Things are looking up for me!

Now all I have to do is find something to do around campus so I can keep busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The hunt is on, and I hear there are free dancing lessons somewhere every week.

Newberry Library

Last Saturday, a few friends and I hopped a train to the Newberry Library for a special exhibit on children's books. It was officially called "Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children's Books."  There was everything from a first edition of Alice in Wonderland to a box-book that made 9 kinds of animal sounds to frightening posters that implied parents would hand lazy brats over to the Navy. One book raved about the blissful German "children's gardens" where young'uns would frolic and learn. (I was fond of kindergarten, but I wouldn't call it Paradise....) Another was an early comic book. One that made me laugh was a hunting/fishing guide that fell into the hands of a toddler––it was scribbled on!

But the two I most wanted to take from the cases and read were The Young Visiters (sic) by Daisy Ashford, a child's parody of English high society, and David Goes to Baffinland by David Binney Putnam, about the voyages he took with his father (explorer George Palmer Putnam). Interestingly, David's mom was from the family that started Crayola, and his stepmother was Amelia Earheart. How cool is that?

By the way, The Young Visiters can be read here.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings

I'm having a terrible couple of days. I'm a part-time student this semester, which means I can work more, but it also means I can't get a U-Pass. My job is a train and a bus away from here. So, about 1/4 of my pay is going to be used on transportation. That sucks. So I'm kind of pulling a Peter Pan at the moment.

But... *cue music * when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad!

These are a few of my favorite things:

5. We'll Keep You in Stitches: A gem of a yarn shop in the Gold Coast. I was making a hat for a friend's sister and needed purple yarn, and I heard they had a bargain bin. Do they ever! I got some delicious Torino Bulky yarn for $4 a 50-gram skein. Not only is that affordable, it's like half the cost of yarn in Iowa. Nice.

4. Art Institute of Chicago: I really love the collection of Frank Lloyd Wright windows. And have you seen the miniature period rooms in the basement? They're lovely. My favorite one has a silver tea set that's a little off-center on a small table, as if someone set it down for a moment and walked out. Maybe someday I'll admit that Red Plank by John McCracken is a daring piece that stretches the boundaries of art. For now I'll settle for a harumph instead of my usual diatribe.

3. Chicago Public Library: It takes up a full city block. It's ten stories tall. It's a library. What more need I say?

2. Einstein's Bagels: Because growing brains need nourishment. I personally like the potato bagel with onion & chive cream cheese. Their hot chicken sandwiches aren't bad either. Plus it's on campus, so most people can use their meal plan's bonus points instead of paying cash.

1. Myopic Books! Filled to the brim with cheap, used books AND A CAT: Heaven. A full post on this coming soon.

Of course, I'm also quite fond of bright copper kettles and brown paper packages tied up in string. Not so much the wild geese, though. Even if they do fly with the moon on their wings.

(For a non musically-obsessed person, I sure do reference songs often. At some point I'll stop. Really.)