R-Word

Pledge! There's a talk tonight on campus with a local Special Olympics coordinator and a few people who work for the school who have disabilities.

Spring break!

My dad told me the other day that my mom is kicking my butt at blogging. Very true. I told him that I never do anything besides homework and class--whenever I do something, it's usually at home, which means my mom blogs about it! Sigh.



Well, yesterday was an exciting day, and I KNOW she hasn't written about it yet, so here goes.

I got my blood test results back in the morning (the Peace Corps sent me a letter telling me I had low white blood cells and to either submit a normal report or see a hematologist)...They weren't typical, so I'm probably just a weiwdie. But if anyone knows a hematologist close to Northfield, please let me know!

Then, later, I got my graduation pictures taken! In my graduation dress (which many of you have seen on facebook, but here it is again):

I think I need the hat.

Anyway, the girl taking my pictures had only worked there for 2 weeks, but she did a good job. I wish there had been less formal pictures and more fun ones.

She said I should be a model. RIIIGHT. I bet she tells that to all the girls :P

Also, there's a little boy with leukemia at Mayo who isn't from MN...His family is looking for a place somewhat nearby to keep his chocolate lab, so that the boy can see his doggy. If anyone has a backyard and is interested, contact me!

Looking forward to finishing up the year at school....But not as excited for my midterm on Wednesday! Haven't gotten the horrific study guide test back yet......I'm crossing my fingers, since I had the flu that week!


On that note......bye.

LEGENDARY!!

Last night was an epic soiree at chez Larson. Guests included (for various amounts of time) myself, Dan, Erin, Hannah Reitz and her boyfriend Ben, Matt and Peter (Dan's brothers), Jon and Pouyan (Matt's friends), Katie and Melanie (my residents), Eric, Luke Varland, Michael, Garrett, and of course Dan's parents. Photos courtesy of Dan.



Despite pictoral evidence to the contrary, I must specifically state that we did NOT hijack a harp from school. Absolutely not. That would be terrible. But eveyone brought their instruments, and we had a great night of games and music.

Hannah: "My mouth isn't big enough!"
Luke: ".....That's what she said! Come on, everyone was thinking it!"

Ben (while reading Balderdash entries): "While in Englandj....England-J...I swear that's what it says!"
Dan: "Um, that's a COMMA."

Ben (still reading entries): "A nickname for Satan's..."
Dan: "Satan....Spelled S-A-N-T-A."

Me: Do you watch The Office?
Jon: No, can't say I do.
Me: Good. Knock knock!
Jon: Who's there?
Me: KGB!
Jon: KGB who---
Me: *slap* VEE VILL ASK ZEE QVESTIONS!!

Mike Rowe: How long have you been working here?
Suki: Eighteen year.
Mike: Wow, you must be exhausted!
Suki: Yes I do.

SUKI-HAI, SUKI-HAI!!



Great night!!

Oh dear....

Direct quote from the teacher of my hardest class:
"The form of the exam will be as follows. You will be given a number of unidentified quotations from the readings. You will be asked to identify the author/source and write a mini-essay relating the content of the quotation to the overall themes of the author's perspective and to larger issues where appropriate. You will be asked to write essays on two or three quotations. There might be some choice of which quotations to write on OR THERE MIGHT NOT BE. Thus it is absolutely essential that you prepare all the material the exam is intended to cover. You might be given more quotations to identify than you are to write on. You might not be given more quotations to identify than you are to write on. It might rain on Wednesday or might not rain. Don't spend time trying to resolve such uncertainties.
Have a good weekend."

FML.

Babies?

My friend Sarah loaned me this book called Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small, and I've only gotten to the third chapter, but have come to the conclusion that everyone should read this book.

The author is an anthropologist, and the book is about "ethnopediatrics," or the study of how children are raised in different cultures. It really provides some fascinating insights on how Western birth and childrearing practices are different than those of other cultures and time periods. She goes through the evolution of the pelvis (from four-legged to two-legged motion), which is actually why childbirth is so painful. She also talks about co-sleeping, how the baby synchronizes its heartbeat and breathing with its parents while asleep, which is why the SIDS rate is higher for babies in their own rooms. She's very good at explaining the biological reasons behind everything, which is really neat because it shows the correlations between our culture and, say, that of chimpanzees as they apply to babies.

I've wanted to be a mom since I was about 2 years old, so this book is so cool to me. The thing that has really struck me about it so far is her section on parent-child bonding. Apparently, babies have the same reactions to fathers as to mothers (when the fathers are involved in the child's life), like being able to identify them by smell. She suggests that her (and my parents') generation is an example in what happens when the parent-child bond is interrupted, since the practice back then was to put all the babies in nurseries to prevent infection, and only return them to their mothers for feeding. There isn't a critical period for the bond (like in geese or something), which is why adoptions work, but the sooner the parents interact with the child, the better.

You should go get this book.