Wanderous

Today was my second consecutive day waking up for a run around Beebee, and I strongly regret not doing this since day one. Starting my day earlier, and then going to breakfast actually makes me feel a lot better throughout the day. I was the last one again at breakfast, and I had considered just hanging out at RPCC until I really had to go, but someone set off the fire alarm so we all had to leave the building. I took it as a sign to go get ready for class, so I did.

I met with Sam at 10:30 AM to go over my affirmative constructive grade. We conversed for a while, and he asked me what I thought of the class so far and what I wanted to do when I was older. He said there were two types of people: the ones who just float around and take any opportunity that arises and eventually end up somewhere really good and the the ones that have a set plan and won't diverge from it. I concluded that I wanted a happy-medium between that, I'd like to have an idea of a plan but I didn't want to constrain myself to it, because good opportunities do come up in life. After some chatting, he read over my 1AC and gave me some feedback on it, and I got a grade I was very happy with.

Touchdown!

I was free by 11 AM, and didn't feel like getting lunch just yet or walking back to my dorm. I took this as an opportunity to wander, and I even considered going to the dairy bar. I walked to Teagle Hall to check it out because everyone seems to swim our workout at Helen Newman, but you can do these things at Teagle too. I walked behind the building and I could already smell the chlorine from the pool inside. I didn't want to bother the clerk, so I attempted to find the pool itself and failed. I left the building and ended up finding the monument of Touchdown the bear. 3 weeks ago, the cohort and I were actually looking for Touchdown to take a picture with, and hadn't been able to find it. Three weeks later, I finally found him, but the cohort already has an awesome group picture. 

I had lunch with my friends then went to class. Since we're almost all done with our negative constructive, and the final isn't something really menacing, we went almost straight into another debate. For the first time ever, Amelia and I were closing opposition. At first, I want to be member of the opposition, which is the 6th person to speak, but I chose to be the last person to speak because I wanted to try something new. The resolution was "This house believes that a national government should never  have an official language." We were given 15 minutes to prep so Amelia and I were off. We had to oppose that, so we came up with ideas as to why a country having an official language is beneficial. We thought it promoted unity and community, along with making life easier for everyone in the country itself. Also, language is a big part of culture, and we thought that countries with official languages had a very strong and defined culture. I think this was one of our best debates so far, everyone  stayed on topic and the main issue being discussed was prominent. 

After class, I met with Janna Bugliosi, who essentially made it possible for Ivy League Connection to send us to Cornell. Shuxin and I got to talk about our experience here at Cornell, and how it differed from or was like what we had expected it to be. We didn't take a long time with her, but she was very easy to talk to. Especially when this experience has been so amazing it doesn't take a lot to talk about it. It was funny, because when I talked about how my class was going, she knew exactly how Sam was during his lectures.

Shuxin and I decided to go to Starbucks after, I'd been craving a proper iced caramel macchiato since the airport in Chicago. I got my drink, then I remembered that the Starbucks probably had the glass bottles from the "You Are Here" collection Diana introduced us to. Sure enough, I went to their cups section and there it was. This is a perfect example of capitalism winning, because Shuxin and I did not hesitate to purchase the glass bottles. By the time I got back in line and paid for the bottle, I was over halfway done with my venti drink.

Paula was at Uris Library so I met up with her, only to find that she was outside the Cornell bookstore playing Pokemon Go with Socrates. I think we must've spent an hour playing Pokemon Go, but it really is an incentive to walk around. We found our friend Connie and we wandered around buildings some more. There's this beautiful building that is now surrounded and covered by another glass structure. It's so incredible to be inside there surrounded by glass, and there are sculptures too. Then, we wanted to go to the Commons for dinner, but we ended up not going and just having dinner at RPCC really late. Eva joined us, and we went up to Donlon with her until it was time for our closing floor meeting at 9:30 PM.

During the floor meeting, I couldn't believe it was just 3 weeks ago we were doing icebreakers to get to know each other's names. At that time, I was sitting across the room from Paula, who is now a good friend of mine. We went around saying one of our favorite memories from Summer College. Haley's been a really sweet RCA, so much that she's having us write a letter to ourselves and she'll mail them at the end of her Fall semester. This whole week has been very bittersweet. She gave us procedures for checking out, and then we took a unit pictures on the steps. 

Unite 4-4 girls and Wei's knee