Ski Team Final and Swimming

It's been a busy week as midterms are just finishing up.  I had had my economics exam on Wednesday, and it was hard, but I'm just glad it's over. I had an even more important test on Tuesday.... the Ski Team Final. This was an eight page exam that Ruff gives at the end of every season to make sure we paid attention during his Camp lectures. Unfortunately, I had struggled to stay awake in just about every night's lecture since I was exhausted from all the skiing we were doing. Also as a freshman I already knew I was fucked for the exam. No one does well on their first try. I didn't even have a clue on the first question. What the hell is "ragging" supposed to mean? I ended up guessing on most of the questions, and left quite a few blank. The one section I thought I might have done well on was the quotations, but I realized afterwards I got them almost all wrong. Turns out just hearing Ruff say "I want medals!" doesn't mean he was actually the one that said it. Anyway, we get our scores back next Tuesday and I'm hoping I can still be on the team next year even if I failed the final.

On Wednesday the warm weather finally arrived and that meant the first swim of the season. The grass is getting green, the flowers are coming up, and the buds are coming out, so campus is looking pretty. The temperature reached the mid 70's and it was sunny for most of the afternoon, so I went for a bike ride with Izzy. We did a loop through Norwich then over to Thetford and then came back along the river. It was nice, but also hot and humid, so we decided to stop and put our feet at the river. The water was colder than I was expecting and I could only keep my feet in for about thirty seconds before it became too painful. I guess melted snow makes cold water. Despite the cold water, we decided to go for a swim. We waded in then quickly dove in.  I got out as fast as humanly possible, but the warm air quickly warmed me back up and I felt completely refreshed. Then on the way back we passed some girl out for a bike ride. She then proceeded proceeded to sprint back by us on the way up Chieftan. I was tempted to chase her back down and pass her again, but I resisted the urge. However, if that girl is reading this I want to let her know that I totally could have caught her, and I would love to settle this with a race anytime. I am way better than her.
Davey

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everybody! I am currently enjoying Easter at Caldwell's house. It's really nice here today, and all the snow from yesterday melted. Anya and Natalie are here too now. This morning I went to play tennis at the park with Austin and Izzy. I wasn't very good, so my team lost all three games. Then Izzy and Austin had a playoff and I got to be the ball-boy. They split the first two games, so it went to a tie-breaker. In the end, Izzy came out on top and gets bragging rights because Austin had been talking trash all morning. Now hopefully we are going to have an egg hunt.

Davey

Sustainability and Social Justice Dinner

Tonight I attended the Sustainability and Social Justice Dinner. The dinner was delicious and the speakers all had diverse perspectives on combining sustainability and social justice. Stephanie Crocker was one of the guest speakers and she described her work with Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering. She has been working in Tanzania to spread the use of cookstoves rather than the traditional three stone stoves. The benefits of these cookstoves the DHE has developed are twofold. Not only do they replace the inefficient wood-burning traditional stoves which emit large quantities of black soot but they also help reduce indoor air pollution and the related respiratory ailments common in Tanzania. However, she warns against some problems with the spread of cookstoves. Many of the current designs are complicated and could easily break, but would be difficult to fix. This means after a few years the broken stoves would be abandoned and people would revert to traditional methods. She stressed the need to use local resources such as clay to build the stoves, and mentioned one town that had 700 unusable cookstoves because they were all missing a required metal plate. Stephanie did a great job with the talk and I was very impressed with her work and public speaking skills. Other speakers mentioned the problems faced by Alaskan Natives who are losing their homes due to melting permafrost and the need to combine sustainability with religious faith.

After the speakers finished we started discussions at our tables about what we could do about sustainability on campus. Much of our discussion focused on the lack of knowledge common on campus. It's not that people don't care about the environment they don't know what they can do, and we make it too easy to make the wrong choices. Everyday heaps of recyclable or compostable items are thrown in the trash or students buy bottled water rather than filling up a reusable water bottle at the fountain. One student mentioned the impact we could have simply by replacing Keystone cans with kegs at the frats, or at the very least remembering to recycle the bottles instead of throwing them in the trash. While these changes aren't enough to fix all our problems, they could be a start. It would be cool if everybody at Dartmouth whether an economics or environmental studies left with a concern for the environment. We could be doing a lot more without making much of a sacrifice.  Well that's all for tonight.

Davey

First Post!

Hi Everbody,
This is my first post on my first ever blog! Probably no one is reading this cause no one knows I even have a blog except for like three people in the room with me now and I don't think they even care. So today I went to play Squash at the gym with Izzy and Nat. They had never played and I'm still a beginner, so we weren't very good. I taught them the rules and within a half hour they were both challenging every game, and Izzy even beat me twice. Then just as we were leaving Sam and Nolan Kasper arrived and persuaded me to keep playing with them. Nolan gets 2nd in World Cup's and is naturally talented, so I was too afraid to play him, but I must say I toasted Sammy beating him in four straight games. Squash is really fun and simple to play even if you are just a beginner, so if you've never tried it go out and play a game. They have balls and racquets you can borrow for free, so there are no excuses not to play.

On another note, despite hearing that Organic Chemistry is quite a bitch of a class, the models they have look quite fun to play with. Bobo even made me a molecule of caffeine today. Also there is laser tag going on later tonight, so that could be really fun, but I have a Biology Quiz tomorrow morning and I should probably do some studying for it, so I don't know if I can go. I hope you enjoyed my first blog post. Make sure to subscribe and keep checking for updates, as I hope post pretty regularly. I'm excited to use this blog to keep all my fans out there up to date with my latest crazy adventures. Until next time!
Keep it real,
Davey