The Way Things Work

To give you a sense of Hampshire life, or at least the sense that I have of it, I am going to list the things I have done the past few days in general order, without excess commentary. Assume that there is much meeting of awesome people and making of friends going on during all of this. (Not listing all of the awesome people, much as I love you all, 'cause I'll leave someone out and feel bad. Also I keep forgetting names.)

Friday
-sat in some assembly about hampshire academics that I honestly do not remember
-broke off into tutorials, met my awesome two profs of said tutorial (which is just one of my four classes that has a different name because the prof is my advisor so QUIT ASKING ME) and discussed that book that we were all supposed to read and most people at least skimmed parts of and determined that none of us, including the profs, understands it but had a really cool discussion anyway that was really a discussion and not those high school things where the teacher tries to drag any sort of comment out of anyone while looking at the answers in front of her.
-stood in a long line to get lunch
-went to take a "student survey" for which I will be paid $50 and which consisted of me evaluating social dilemmas or something but it was multiple choice and I knew I was at Hampshire when the faculty dude giving us the survey was reading the required instructions and said "remain inside the ovals. I know this is Hampshire and that goes against our 'it's okay to go outside the lines' policy, but this is the last time you have to stay inside the lines. After this, you can go wherever you want."
-went to a program about sexual assualt that actually had really powerful amazing speakers and included actual discussion within an auditorium of over 400 students. got fodder for many future jokes about the word "consent"
-stood in a very long line for dinner then sat with some random folks to meet new people
-thought about going to the 80s dance being offered, until Jack from across the hall came by with a cold and I made him tea, and then Dulcey from next door said something about watching Harold and Maude, and the next thing I knew I was in some dude's room (still not sure who it was) watching Harold and Maude with a bunch of people, of whom I knew about half their names, and laughing and laughing. We were in the dude's room cause he had a double and we all had singles, so he had space for all of us.
-slept until my alarm went off and then it was
SATURDAY
-avoided the breakfast line by being late and sat with some random folks to meet new people
-met up with the orientation group to go watch PSAs made by the house interns to tell us about the rules and issues that might come up living in the dorms and whatnot. People who know what the DYC Rules Video at Blackstone was will have an idea of what was going on. Dakin House had the best video, I must say, but perhaps I'm biased.
-listened to "high on hampshire" presentation, which was about the use of substances at Hampshire
-sat in a circle on some sort of platform in the middle of a field with a random group of first years and older students to discuss something that happened last night that upset us in an angry fashion, not a scared or sad fashion, although there was a bit of sadness. Noticed how amazingly the older students discussed these things, had one of those "wow I am at Hampshire things are so different here" moments
-stood in the longest line yet for lunch
-decided not to go to the talk by the author of the book we had to read that we all at least skimmed but none of us liked, instead went to Jackson's mod with Jack and Sarah to watch queer movies and hang out and laugh a lot
-went to dinner early, circumventing most of the line and discovering the dual joys of having a wide selection of tables and discovering that there are sometimes pies for dessert. mourned lack of pudding, which was at lunch yesterday and we have failed to find again, although Jack and I make relgious pudding runs. laughed and laughed at truly offensive jokes.
-met some of orientation group to walk across cornfield and buy half-off pastries. not sure which part of that activity was better. plan to eat pastries for breakfast and thus avoid the long line and waking up before 9 associated with SAGA (the dining hall)
-went to hear Elaine Brown lecture. fell in love with Elaine Brown, figuratively. knew I was at Hampshire when things that would be considered incredibly liberal at home were the conservative things here, felt inspired for activism but totally overwhelmed. love my school more than you can imagine.
-returned to room, checked facebook, realized that a girl I had not yet met said she had a present for me. wandered over to merrill, discovered merrill is really twisted and confusing and impossible to navigate, found her room anyway, she gave me tea and we talked about kettles for a bit. love this school so very much.
-am now sitting in my own room, glad that the bass-blaring folks down the hall are quiet, cause I'm exhausted and might sleep when I finish typing this. ADORE my school.
-update 1:14 am: the bass-blarers didn't exactly stay quiet, but they were at least intermittent. Jack showed up for tea, and we talked for what I guess was 3 hours. Tea and talking is good, even when it's late at night and you're braindead.