This. Is. Fight Week!!! Day 1

The morning started off with an eager girl waking up and screaming "HAPPY FIGHT WEEK!!!!!!!!!" No matter where you were on campus, I can guarantee that you heard someone yelling it somewhere. I know this because that girl was me. All our hard work is finally being displayed. The Compliment and Conflict Booth was set up and a number of people seemed to be submitting a lot of cards. The booth ran from 11am to 3pm. Then at 5pm Capture the Flag was supposed to take place.

Despite the rainy Monday afternoon, 13 students engaged in many games of Capture the Flag on Case Green. It started with two students setting up. It slowly grew to three, four, and five. Before we knew it, there was enough people for a five on five game. "That was our goal!!" exclaimed Chris, one of the day leaders. Extremely excited to get the game going again, everyone split into random teams, not caring who was on what team since everyone seemed to only know about a third of the group. Shortly after they began to play three more students joined in, not entirely sure why we were playing. "Who cares, it's fun." With an odd number of people and me nearly dying from running too much, I chose to sit out for the remainder of the games to come. I instead stepped into my natural habitat of picture taking. I documented every slip, slide, steal, and prisoner throughout the rest of the evening. The teams switched sides after every win and no one kept track of how many times each team won. Since there were not real boundaries, we weren't entirely sure who won most of the time.

But that's the beauty of mediation. In the end, the goal is to meet the needs of both parties. No compromises. Just collaboration. We started this game with a goal to win Capture the Flag. We left realizing our underlying need of just having fun on a rainy afternoon. The success of this event certainly raised the bar for the rest of Fight Week to come. But with Fight Club strongly working together, the week will be nothing but successful in the eyes of their beloved members.

Up next:
Tuesday-- Drinking Dialogue on the second floor of dhall at 7pm and then Fight Club screening at 9pm in Gannett.
Wednesday--Stomach Knots/Bitter Rage in the ICC at 7:30pm
Thursday--Top O' the Tang SCREAMFest at 8pm on top of the Tang
Friday--Collaborative Concert for Conflict Resolution at 4pm on Case Green.

Be sure to keep an eye out for each event's write up. Until then... Laters!

Breathing Deep

So we're finally in the last month of school and it's finally starting to hit me.... I'm never coming back to Skidmore for classes after this. How weird is that to think about?? I never really thought about it at Mid Pac because I knew I'd at least come back for a visit. Plus I spent a good 7 years of my life there.... I've been here half the amount of time and for the most part, don't have as strong of a relationship with my professors here. It's like, what was I doing here for four years??

Sigh. I've been slowly accepting that my life is changing and that I'm not the same girl who came here in the Fall of 2007. Stressful things are no longer stressful and things that weren't stressful are now stressing me out. Friends that I met freshman year are no more than acquaintances now and friends that I met this year or even this semester are the ones I fear losing more than anything. The biggest thing that I can't imagine losing in my life are my new found loves: Fight Club, Breakbeats, and Equestrian. I have been so involved in the life of all these teams that going throughout my day without having to go to practice or attend a meeting for them, well it just seems incomplete. I'm not really sure how to cope with all this just yet. So far all I've been doing is breathing deep.

Yes, I'm thrilled that my life is headed in a direction that I want it to be heading in but at the same time I can't help but focus on the negative. What am I losing?? What am I leaving?? What can I do to maintain the life that I have here?? I know that I have so much more to look forward to... Meeting new people, living in a new place, exploring new possibilities... It's all great to think about. It's scary but a good scary. Nothing like the scary I feel when I think about all the things I could be living without in a month and a half. Was I this scared when I left Hawaii??

I'm sure everyone else has these feelings and no one wants to leave undergrads because (let's face it) these are the best years of our lives. I don't deny that and I don't doubt that it'll hold true thirty years from now when I'm going through my mid-life crisis and get some stupid tattoo to make me feel young again. All I'm saying is that it'd be nice if someone held the same excitement for moving on as I do. Everyone I talk to is scared to move on, or they don't want to because they don't know what they want to do. It's all just too much for me to deal with.

I'll try to update more when I figure my emotions out a little better. Until then... Laters.