A 'typical' weekend

There was so much going on last weekend: Mixed Company's "Snow Job" jam, the YSAC Winter Arts Festival, the YSAC Winter Show with comedian Lewis Black (Drama alum '77), and of course, Superbowl parties in every college Sunday night. I think I took the road less traveled (but still lots of fun), as you'll see below =)

Friday: Comix 101
As some of you might have seen from Nedelman's post, Art Spigelman came to give the Hersey lecture (sponsored by the Yale Writing Center)...despite the cold and the rain (and the Lewis Black show starting a scant half hour later), the University Theater was packed. I remember reading Maus in junior year of high school for US History, and it still boggles my mind that now I've met the author in person. Then again, I didn't think I'd ever meet people like Arthur Levine (American Harry Potter editor) or science writer Carl Zimmer either, but that's just one of the awesome things about Yale!

Saturday 8 PM: Purple Crayon "Ted" show
Axel, Ned, and the rest of the Purple Crayons put on an awesome show with this guy named Ted, who auditioned for them, but then they found out he was already a college graduate with four years of improv experience! The show began with Ted getting a random word (alphabet), which he expanded into a rambling story about third grade, learning to write in cursive, a weird teacher, etc. The Crayons then took this story and turned it into an hour-long series of hilarious scenes, one of which you can watch here (photos are also online here:


Saturday 9 PM: YBDT "Fire and Ice"
Since the Purple Crayon show was in the Davenport-Pierson Theater, it was convenient to hop to the Pierson Dining Hall for the Yale Ballroom Dance Team's "Fire and Ice" party. Members of the team circled around giving one-on-one lessons depending on what song was playing at the moment...I learned a bit of cha-cha, a little rumba, and a bit of swing...I'm used to dancing from Phoenix and all, but only now do I appreciate how difficult it is to coordinate with a partner!


Sunday: Birthday party and Superbowl!
My friend Elisabeth's birthday is today, so last night her suite organized a dinner in Pierson plus a massive ice cream cake from Ashley's (half banana, half cookie dough ice cream with crumbled Oreo bits and icing, mmmm). We thoroughly embarassed her by singing "Happy Birthday" in the middle of the crowded dining hall, but it was all in good fun. Later that night, even though we don't have our own dining hall, Sillimanders gathered around a big-screen TV in the common room with subs, pizza, chips and salsa, and lots of other yummies to watch the ridiculously rainy game. My friend Neil was really happy this morning (he's from Indiana) =P

Happy 21st birthday, Elisabeth (in the red shirt)!

On a semi-random note, Silliman has been doing awesome in winter IMs so far: A-hoops, C-hoops, inner-tube water polo, and ice hockey are all undefeated so far, and everyone's participation help us keep racking up the points! A few photos from women's volleyball and C-hoops against JE last week:

Go Sarah! (FYI: The ball's going up...)

JE Spiders can't stop Howie!

Funmi's killer underhand serve (really.)

So much stuff is going on this week too! There's the huge ECAASU conference (over 1000 students from all over the East Coast descending for three days of workshops, panels, a gala banquet and a MTV-sponsored dance party at Alchemy!), the Harvard-Yale blood drive challenge (I'm going to be donating for the first time on Weds!), the Proof of the Pudding "Jam Noir" concert, the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus' spring jam, a Purple Crayon "Wild 'n Out" rap-off with 108 Tongues, the OTYC's production of Hansel and Gretel...the list goes on and on! I seriously need a Time-Turner to go to all the stuff I want to see!

But first, time to go study for Cell Biology quiz tomorrow morning...

Back in the swing of things

Ok, so the post title is a rather corny reference to New Residence Hall (aka Swing Space or Sillispace). Anyway, now that the craziness of shopping period is over, I finally get a chance to sit down and write about all the cool stuff that's been going on even though we've only been back for two weeks!

First stop: Classes!
The above photo is PSYC 171b: Sex, Evolution and Human Nature with Prof. Santos...she's an awesome prof and the class is offered only once every three years, so you can imagine why so many people want to take it. We were moved twice, from Davies Auditorium (about 250 seats) to SSS 114 (where the photo was taken) and now we're in the Law School auditorium, where we finally seem to fit. It's not just the topic matter either - she specifically said the first day that the class was not all about sex, all about evolution, or all about human nature. Instead, it's more about how human nature is a product of evolution, more specifically how certain behaviors are the production of sexual reproduction strategies. It's been lots of fun so far - one of the few classes I've heard of where the professor gets applause at the end of every lecture, not just at the end of the semester.

Other classes I'm taking: Cell Biology, Physics 181 (electricity and magnetism), Directed Research with Prof. Santos, and this cool college seminar called Medicine, Molecules, and the Millennium with Dr. Irvin Modlin from the Yale Medical School. We've only had one meeting so far but it already looks like it'll be an awesome class, so keep an eye out for more updates in the future =)

The weather has also been kind of funky - over winter break it was around 70 degrees every day, but now it's just bitterly cold outside. We've gotten bits of snow here and there (as seen below) but so far it hasn't stuck around for more than 24 hours. This is both a good and a bad thing - today I almost slipped several times on icy patches but at least I'm not hiking around campus through six inches.

First weekend back was a lot of fun...Friday night I was a participant in the first ever Asian Idol competition, something I will probably never live down ^^; It was a lot of fun though, and a nice way to showcase that you don't have to be Asian to appreciate the various cultures. I don't have any photos, unfortunately (since I was on stage!), but apparently there's a video somewhere that I will have to see and perhaps post later...

Saturday night was just as cool - I went to my friend Axel's improv comedy show in the Davenport Theater. Axel is a member of the Purple Crayon (along with fellow PoS-er Ned) so for they came up with the idea of an "iPod shuffle" show where each scene would be inspired by songs from a random audience member's iPod. In the second half, they mixed this up even more by choosing 10 iPods and taking one song from each. The result: absolute hilarity! A few clips are below - you can see more on my Youtube account.




In the week to come: Grand re-opening of the Sillispace Buttery, a few panels about women in medicine and life after Yale, perhaps a few IMs, and of course the second full week of classes. Time to go read for MM&M!