A Year in the Life of Lora Wu

no more classes...

Last weekend we had Moving Up Day, where each class symbolically moves up to the next spot. Each class is robed in a different color, and carries that color flag. This is when ODK inducts new members and we had a big ceremony for that which included some parents coming up to surprise their kids. Here are a couple of pictures from ODK: Elouise and Erin outside of Herring Cole, the new members coming into HC, and then being run around the Richardson Triangle afterwards.

This week we had our last week of classes and now are entering into exam week. This weekend was a good time, there was a lot going on since everyone was done with classes. Springfest was held on the quad on Saturday… it is a full day of music outside and we had a beautiful day. This year we had Dub Crunk 2025 and Hollywood Farm, two campus bands, and then Quintus, John Brown’s Body, and the Brazilian Girls. Here is one picture from the top of the quad when JBB was on stage.

Tonight we had our final Community Mentor meeting of the year at Sergi’s, a restaurant in town, where we welcomed the new CMs. I don’t feel done with school yet because we have exams this week… then senior week…

science and sport.

I think that this was a tough week for universities all around. We held a well-attended candlelight vigil last night for VT at the chapel and are sending off some condolence notes that people have been working on all week. Here is one pic from last night; the Laurentian Singers are up front. Too much light in the chapel I guess.

There was a lot going on this week. We had the annual Festival of Science where we hear from all the science kids that have been working in labs on and off campus all year. The abstracts are available from that link. It is always good to have friends’ projects explained and clarified in presentations that most can understand. Here is a picture of my friend Kelly who has been working on a pilot project assessing the impact of porcupines on the Kip Tract, a trail system we have around the outskirts of campus.

This week was Habitat’s Act! Speak! Build! week, an international, student-initiated week of activism regarding poverty and substandard housing. We had a lot of facts floating around campus and events going on through the week, and finished off the week with a BBQ at the house. It was finally a beautiful week, everywhere you went there were people laying out in the sun and enjoying the weather.

Other noteworthy events included a dodgeball tournament between ODK, a leadership honorary on campus, and Canton High School’s National Honor Society. Here is at least one picture of a great comeback from one of the games.

More updates later on from the rest of the weekend and this upcoming week.

Step It Up.

This Saturday the St. Lawrence Coalition on Climate Change held a Step It Up rally, as a part of a larger movement spurred by Bill McKibben. 1424 places held events, SLU included.

The day started with some events in the student center, the explanation of the Coalition’s plan, President Sullivan’s endorsement of the plan, and then some community environmental groups had browsing booths to check out. A kayak was raffled off… I didn’t win. There was some live music in the Winston Room, and nature walks until the grand tree-planting event.

There was a big crew that walked down to plant trees, and all in all we got 50 White Pines into the ground. It was great to see so many clubs, organizations, houses,  individuals, and community members helping out at once.

Here are some photos from the tree planting: Louise explaining the proced ure, the blessing of the trees, one of Habitat’s trees, a Greenhouse tree, and then the original Step It Up tree.

Easter?

It’s snowing out. I guess this is not just a Canton, NY phenomenon, but more of a whole North East (and more, my friend in NC informs me) deal. I just took this picture to prove it… usually the ADK chairs aren’t after until after the snow is gone (and it was, last week). We don’t get time off at Easter, but the weekend is usually pretty quiet. Dana had an Easter brunch this morning featuring bunny cake, and we had some good shows at Java (live music every weekend), so I was content.

Allow me to reconstruct some of the more exciting parts of the last week or so.

First, last weekend, I went to a conference at Hampshire College with a group organized by one of our theme houses on campus, the Women’s Resource Center. We chartered two big vans down and spent a couple nights in Hadley while enjoying the conference. Here is one of the pics from our car ride, James is being James.

This week the pub got a new granita machine... the important part of this announcement is that they had a ‘Tropical Delights’ sampling afternoon with free fruit smoothies and an impressive fruit display. I had my friend Jesse capture this one of some of the staff welcoming us to try out the new stuff. I liked both flavors.

The annual Milk Blister took place this week at the Outing Club, another theme cottage on campus. This is an entertaining afternoon where competitors try to drink (and maintain) a gallon of whole milk in an hour. It was rainy and cold, but the OC held the event anyway and drew a pretty large crowd. There were two winners this year, which I believe to be a rare occurrence. I tried to select some tasteful photos to include, you can imagine that there is a good amount of regurgitated milk around. Here is one of Denny conquering the gallon, and then one of the winners.

On Saturday the African Student Union put on Africa Night, which also drew a large crowd; it was nice to see that the audience was a mix of students, faculty, staff, and community members. There were a series of performances including skits and dances, and then a lot of great food from the different countries. This isn’t the best picture, but I liked the flags.

More to come as the weeks progress. I have some decisions to make about next year, and will post a little more once I figure that out. Just four more weeks of classes to go.