College Life 5: Out of the Arctic!!!

For your insight into the college life this week, I decided to rant about how happy I am to not be reading about the Arctic every night for my Intro. to Maritime Studies class!!! (sorry Dr. Pearl)...

For the roughly the last two weeks, we have been delving deep into the issues surrounding the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and the environment. I started out intrigued, because I had never really given much thought to Arctic peoples before, other than reading Julie of the Wolves, but that soon changed.

After reading different articles and books, everything started to meld together and sound like the Inuit were whining, and the "outsiders" were trying to ignore them. The whole thing started to make me angry at both sides of the issue, and Mark Nuttall (author of Protecting the Arctic) and his wordy chapters weren't helping matters.

Thankfully we have gotten off the topic, after reading an easier worded article, and my hopes are resurfacing quickly for this course. Hopefully we can stay off the topic of Arctic indigenous peoples for a long while!

I'm excited to learn about maritime peoples from ALL over the globe, instead of focusing on one society. Every group has so many differences, yet so many similarities when you look closely, and that idea fascinates me. Hopefully I don't change my mind in the near future!

As always...
Peace out...
Rock on...
Do whatever it is you do!

Cassie :)

College Life 4: Weekday Food v. Weekend Food

Since I wrote the post saying there wasn't anything I really disliked about college (see first post), I have found something! The food on the weekends makes me kind of angry.

During the week, there are multiple different entrees, even changing between lunch and dinner. The food is fresh and hot, no matter what time you come in to eat. The salad and fruit bar looks (and tastes) amazing. The cookies are warm, and there are even speciality sections that change for different days of the week, ranging from pasta to burritos.

However, the weekend food is a different story. The salad bar get brown and wilted, the food is many times overcooked, and some of it really doesn't look appealing at all. There's never really a choice to make as to what you want, because only limited food is offered. There are the ever present chicken tenders, and usually something that looks remarkably like old food remade into something new.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad if the price was different for the weekend, but it's not. These sub-par meals cost the same as the great ones during the week, which seems just wrong.

Wow, I sound ornery this week, but life isn't all sunshine and rainbows, now is it?

As always...
Peace out...
Rock on...
Do whatever it is you do!

Cassie :)

College Life 3: Days vs. Nights

So, another week has passed in my new adventure called college. The part of culture that has particularly caught my attention is how the days and nights of college students seem to get mixed up with each other.

Throughout my first month of college, I have steadily started to go to sleep later and later. The strange thing is that many other people are still roaming around, even at 2:00 am. When I was in high school, we had to be up by 6 in the morning, so late nights were very few and far between.

So I've established that the days don't end until the wee hours of the morning, but how does that really constitute a switch between day and night? I'll give away a secret to success in college...NAPS! College students revert back to their childhood ways when it comes to getting a reasonable amount of sleep. It isn't uncommon to hear people discussing who took the longest naps in the afternoon, or hearing some one's complaints about not be able to text someone because they're asleep and its 4 in the afternoon.

I find this whole thing incredibly entertaining, and admit that I too have become accustomed to a nice afternoon nap. As long as I can stay on top of my homework and studying, I don't see why it matters when I get my sleep, and many of my peers agree, I'm sure.

As always...
Peace out...
Rock on...
Do whatever it is you do!

Cassie :)