Five Really Awesome People Talk Politics and Media

Tonight, I went to the first "convocation" of the semester, which was a discussion moderated by President Krislov between four Oberlin alums who are currently working as journalists covering the 2012 election. There was some pretty big names here - Peter Baker, the current White House correspondent for the New York Times and Michael Duffy, one of the executive editors/writers for TIME - and they spent several hours discussing the impact of social media on the campaign, their views on the changing journalism field, and the implications of recent events abroad on the foreign-policy area of the campaign.

I was a yearbook editor in high school, not a newspaper kid, and I made that choice based on my graphic design affinity (and not having enough time to do both). However, journalism is journalism whether it's in newsprint or glossy hardbacks, and I really wished that some of my friends from school who were also interested in the field could have come. If I, with limited experience or knowledge of the inner workings of the journalism world, enjoyed it so much, I know others would have gotten even more out of the discussion.

I found the talk fascinating, personally. Coming from a consistently Democratic state (to the irritation of much of the Eastern half), I haven't experienced elections in a swing state before. I definitely notice the change - my Hulu ads are becoming more and more politically-oriented, instead of advertising cereal or cars. When I pass by the lounge and people are watching TV, I can hear snippets of the back-and-forth ads. One of the points that was brought up tonight was the fact that no Republican has ever taken the White House without Ohio, and how vital this makes Ohio to the Romney campaign. The other topic that was discussed regarding the presidential campaign here in Ohio was the smaller percentage of currently undecided voters, meaning that more money and time is being focused on less people at the moment.

There have been several times since I've arrived on campus that I've doubted my decision to keep my Washington voter registration as an absentee voter. Honestly, the only reason I'm keeping my Washington registration is Ref. 74, "the same-sex marriage referendum" - if that issue wasn't on the ballot in my beloved home state, I would be signed up to vote out here already. Because Washington is a reliably blue state, I feel like my single vote here in the presidential race would matter more, but I'm held back by my desire to see Ref. 74 passed. Also, canceling registration in Washington involves forms that need to be signed, and that's a lot of kerfuffle to deal with when I have several papers due in the next two weeks.

In a roundabout sort of way, what I'm saying here is that I definitely observe the political interest and activism that Oberlin is famous for. I can see why this school has become such a social-justice hotbed, given its location in a swing state and notoriously liberal student body. The Oberlin Democrats are a large and vocal group on campus, whereas the campus Republican group flies below the radar (I didn't know we had one until I looked at the student organization list online. The Dems put up signs, have tables everywhere to register students to vote, and have interest meetings with food.)

Tonight, though, really encompassed a lot of what I love about this school - a fantastic organ performance by one of the Con students followed by a good deal of intellectual, interesting, and sometimes funny discourse by respected individuals, which ended with them answering questions from the student body. As I walked back to Home Sweet Dascomb, I could hear someone practicing a percussion instrument, perhaps one of the ExCos like Steel Drums or Taiko.

It was a good way to spend a Thursday evening.

My Oberlin Geekiness is Showing

Sunday night, I went to a meeting about hosting prospective students, or "prospies." I find this sort of ironic, as I didn't do an overnight stay at Oberlin. (I did do an overnight stay at another small midwest lib-arts college, but that school and Oberlin were pretty different.) The reason(s) I didn't do an overnight here: When I visited Oberlin prior to being admitted, I was on a ridiculously tight schedule in which I attempted to visit Grinnell, Oberlin, and Beloit in about four days over a school break. After admissions decisions are made, Oberlin hosts an influx of admitted high school students in an event called "All Roads Lead to Oberlin." I elected not to come on All Roads because I didn't want to put the financial pressure on my parents (plane tickets are expensive) and also because I had fallen in love with Oberlin harder than anywhere else, based solely on my whirlwind admissions-office tour, meal in the dining hall, and exploratory poke around the town.

Based on that, I find it funny that I'm so excited about hosting prospies. I don't know what people /do/ on Oberlin overnights, aside from eating in a dining hall and sleeping on the floor of their dorm. Roomie and I decided that I was in a good position to host for the college because we've got a decent amount of floor space, and she'll occasionally have sports-related prospies, so we'd just have to coordinate when we were having an overnight guest. I suppose I'll just have to scan the bulletin boards on campus extra-hard a few days before I host; there's so much going on this campus that I have a hard time keeping track of it sometimes. I can't imagine how intense it'll seem to a prospective student go have a band at the 'Sco, a Oberlin Dems interest meeting, a concert by a couple of Connies, movie screenings, plays, and games of Ultimate Frisbee all going on during a single night... If I'd had to choose just one or two to investigate, I would have been petrified!

But hosting will give me a chance to "shape the incoming class" - in other words, I get to show off how ridiculously psyched I am about Oberlin and the opportunities here. I'll get to shock and amuse high-school seniors with our all-gender bathroom and my SexCo exploits, and I can't wait. I'm signed up to host one student in October and one in November right now, but that'll change once I go down and sign up for more hosting. The $10 that the college pays us for hosting isn't why anyone does the overnights; it's a group of students who love the school and want to show off how excited we are about it. According to the group that organizes the overnights, being a host can also lead to a job with the admissions office as a tour guide. I shamelessly admit that I'm going for that; I think it would be a ton of fun to show people around the campus and help make that impression.

I can't wait.

The Consumer's Dilemma: Campus Dining and Groceries in Small-Town Ohio

I elaborated briefly on the whole "food" thing in my last post, but I feel like I should discuss it more in-depth as I explore the campus and town options.

Oberlin has two main dining halls, Stevenson and Dascomb. Stevenson is all-you-can-eat (although I haven't seen very many people doing the several-helpings thing), whereas Dascomb is set up for each person to get an entree, a few sides, and a drink. If you're curious about what sorts of food is served day-to-day, Campus Dining Services posts their menus online here.

 Dascomb has these fantastic booths a little outside the main dining area, which are great for spreading out to do homework on. I've seen many students doing just this: working on group projects over lunch, or doing problem sets, or writing papers. One of the things that I noticed the first time I was in Dascomb for a lunchtime break from studying is the amount of students who get their food in a take-out container: a reusable take-out container is given to a student, they get food to eat later, and the container is returned to Dascomb to be washed. The program seems really convenient - especially if you have a class or two that make it difficult to snag dinner at a reasonable time. I haven't tried it out yet, but I inevitably will. My schedule involves an evening intro economics class, and by the time I get out of the class, my brain is so fried all I want to do is go home and watch The Colbert Report. It'd be nice to have more than snack foods in my dorm at those times.

Stevie is larger, and, in my experience, louder. There's a few enclosed rooms where various special-interest groups have group meals at set times during the week. Off the top of my head, I know there's a French table, a Japanese table, a Spanish table... I believe there's also a time when Sci-Fi Hall has a group meal? The language tables function as a way for students to converse in the language in a less academic environment. The only experience I have  with this type of thing is at Japanese table, but I would assume it's pretty typical - a dozen students or so (sometimes more) bring their food in, hang out, and talk to everyone else. There's usually two or three teachers at the Japanese table to facilitate the conversation flow, which I really appreciate; it gives you a chance to get to know your professors outside of "that lady who gives me tests" as well as giving you a chance to ask about vocabulary.

Both halls offer some sort of vegetarian or vegan options, although this seems to translate into a whole lot of pasta and marinara sauce with salads for the vegans. The vegetarian options are a little more expansive - last night, I had eggplant parmagiana, and there's vegetarian pizza/pasta/other foods. They also both offer a salad bar, which is fairly extensive but doesn't seem to change that much (lettuce, spinach, bell peppers, onions, cheese, cucumbers, black beans, chickpeas, etc., with a few different dressings).

As I've mentioned before, I've had both awful and delicious food here. The other day for lunch, I had pierogies with spinach, onion, and sundried tomato, which were fantastic, and I've eaten some pretty darn good mac'n'cheese. However, I've also had "French onion" soup that tasted like vegetable stock with boiled onions, so the food isn't on one end of the spectrum all the time.

I do have to eat breakfast, though, and so today I walked out to the IGA supermarket a few minutes away from campus. The IGA is about ten minutes away by bicycle, but I walked with a non-bicycle-owning friend for the company today. Groceries in Oberlin can be obtained in a few places...

• The IGA. This is where I go for 90% of my groceries. It's a small-ish supermarket - at least, it seems small to this girl raised on suburban grocery stores - but it's also a locally-owned franchise. That alone is a good reason to put up with slightly higher prices than the Wal-Mart outside town, because the IGA puts more money back into the local Oberlin economy. They sell everything you would expect in a standard grocery store; although the produce section is much more limited than I'm used to, I'm pretty sure that's a function of being in small-town Ohio. This Seattle girl is used to trotting off to Uwajimaya for all my exotic fruit cravings. 
• The Wilder Decafe. This little room in the basement of Wilder (the student union that also hosts the campus Sexual Information Center, the mailroom, and other useful places) sells sandwiches and smoothies as part of Dining Services, but they also sell "groceries." This means a lot of prepared foods like Easy Mac, snack foods, and so on - although you can get milk and other groceries here, Decafe tends to be more expensive than biking out to the IGA. Milk (half a gallon) is $1.99 at IGA and $3.00 at Decafe; cereals are $4 or so - less on sale - at IGA and can get up to about $6.50 at Decafe. However, I can't deny the convenience of having a place to get stuff so close to my dorm. During the winter, I foresee fewer long hauls out to IGA and more popping into Decafe for instant oatmeal and soup.
• Wal-Mart. There's a superstore about fifteen minutes away from campus on bike that sells groceries, has a deli, and so on, so if you're feeling like a single trip to pick up popcorn along with your new movie and the TV to watch it on, I suppose this would be the place to go (although... I don't know why you would need a TV, really. I don't know anyone who owns a TV, given that we have access to one in the lounge with standard cable, and things like Dr. Who that require a special channel like BBC America have a big enough following that there's watching parties for the new episodes, so you don't have to pay for fancy TV. I digress). A large portion of the student body is pretty reluctant to go to Wally's for various moral/ethical reasons. I'm part of this faction. Although the prices are lower, I would prefer to give my money to the IGA. (Also, the ride/walk to IGA through tree-lined residential streets is nicer than the commercial district-then-three-lane-highway one out to Wal-Mart). 
• There's an Asian grocery called Kim's Market in town that also functions as a Korean restaurant, which I have yet to explore. According to rumor, the prepared food is pretty good, but the grocery store seems to be an "I'll take the best that I can get" situation to those of us who are used to Uwajimaya, H-Mart, Ranch 99, or all three within twenty minutes' drive.
• CVS. Apparently you can get groceries at the drugstore? There's a CVS a little outside the main two or three streets of "downtown" Oberlin. Assuming it's like other drugstores that I've been in, there's about two aisles of cereal and instant pasta - no fruit, and a paltry dairy selection. This is, however, not a 100% guarantee; I haven't been to CVS yet.

Today, on my IGA run, I found almost-ripe Comice pears in the produce, which means that in two days I will eat nothing but sugary, juicy, delicious pears. To give you an idea of prices in the IGA, my purchases totaled about $34. I purchased: three Comice pears, a pound of strawberries, five bananas, a half-gallon of milk, a tub of hummus, a box of Wheat Thins, three boxes of cereal, a half-gallon tub of generic chocolate ice cream, knockoff Nutella ("hazelnut chocolate spread"), and a package of cookies. I consider this to be a pretty good haul. It was certainly a pain to bring back; the price I paid for walking with a friend and talking the entire way was losing access to my bike baskets.

So what does that mean for my eating situation? I usually eat two meals in CDS - Dacomb and Stevie - and have breakfasts in my room with cold cereal, some strawberries or a banana, and coffee. Due to my busy schedule on certain days - between 9 AM and 10 PM on Wednesdays, I am out of class for a grand total of  five hours, spaced out into strange 90 minute/two hour breaks in which I frantically try to do readings, homework, studying, and eating at the same time - I occasionally wind up eating baby carrots, hummus, crackers, and cheese for dinner. It's been consistently about 75 to 80 degrees lately, but when it's colder I'm sure I'll begin craving soups and rice and pasta. I've asked my parents to go to H-Mart and buy microwaveable rice, prepackaged curry, and things like that for these times in a few months.

As for others' eating routines, there's a few ways to go. Almost all first-years are on either 19 or 14 meals a week. Many of them eat breakfast in CDS - pancakes, eggs, a rotation of pastries, etc. - but I know a few people who do the same thing I do. Older students can choose to reduce the number of meals they receive for a week in steps down to five meals a week, which seems to be what people do if they're living "off-campus" with a group of friends.

OSCA is the other big name in Oberlin food. It stands for Oberlin Student Cooperative Association; the individual sections of OSCA are called "co-ops." You can live in a co-op, as well, but a lot more students (650 or so, I believe) eat in a co-op. By pitching in to help cook, students can save money on meal plans (as far as I know, students in a co-op get one meal a week to be used in Stevie or Dascomb). People who live or eat in co-ops swear by them, although they are definitely not for everyone. Some of Oberlin's official student bloggers have written extensively about OSCA, both living and eating therein: The Mechanics of OSCA, On Being OSCA, Living in the Harkland, and many more under the "Dorms, Co-ops & Other Housing" section of the Oberlin blogs. OSCA reserves spots for first-years, so if you're big into knowing where your food is from, social responsibility and food, or making tofu, OSCA is a viable option. I don't feel qualified to elaborate on this further, not being a co-op resident/diner, but there's plenty of resources to find out about this. 

In Which I, like 75% of Blogwriters Everywhere, Apologize.

My blog is still in that awkward novelty stage, meaning that I think about it often but forget to write in it. I've now officially been on campus for twelve days, met my roommate, done orientation, and begun classes.

The last time I posted, I was antsy over the lack of roommate information; it's been solved by me getting placed into one of the first-year dorms, Dascomb Hall. It's not the newly-built, fancy dorms - we have cinderblock walls and carpet that looks like my high school history classroom's - but we do have a dining hall downstairs. Dascomb is also conveniently close to all of my classes, so I'll overlook the patched doors and dingy kitchens.

I asked to be placed into a first-year dorm because many people I had met over the course of the college-hunting process had extolled their virtues - meet people who are in the same situation as you! Easy friendships! Hall pride! I also asked to be placed into the "World Cultures" area of the dorm. I managed to get in, so I'm sharing dorm space with several international students from China, Taiwan, and other countries, as well as internationally-minded Americans. This has resulted in some theoretical hall activities - next week, we have our first hall thingy, a dumpling-making party - but for the most part, the hall is pretty quiet and people haven't been super-actively making friends. I suppose this is also a function of us being on the very end of the hall, beyond the stairs, so you can't just wander by on your way to the restroom/the floor kitchen/the laundry room.

My roommate, another girl from the Pacific Northwest, and I have sort of come to the mutual conclusion that we're decent roommates - i.e., we don't blast loud music when the other is trying to study; if one of our friends/family members Skypes, the other will either put in headphones or leave the room; we share milk for our morning bowls of sugar cereal - but aren't exactly "friends". We're pretty different people, because she's a sports player and is pretty gregarious, but we're respectful of the other and I don't see any major problems coming up over the course of the year.

As dorm rooms go, I consider us to be fairly lucky: we're on the second floor of the dorm, right next to the staircase. Our room is one of the corner rooms, so we have two windows (fantastic for the first few days when it was 90+) and a view of the main commons in front of the library. We also have an entire wall of storage, so there was actually enough room for me to store my sewing machine and sewing box under my bed and have room to spare for my stockpile of winter sweaters.  I would make curtains to replace the ineffective, impossible-to-lower blinds, but we're not allowed to have window coverings other than what the college gives us. I'm sure there's a good reason for this... but I can't see it. I would dearly love to be able to get dressed without having to sit in the blind spot on the head of my bed.

On the way of friends, though, placement into the World Cultures wing led me to meet a fantastic fellow ex-IBer and lover of all things nerdy. We've been eating together quite a bit (cafeterias are cafeterias no matter what grade you're in, and they're intimidating to sit alone in)... I've also made friends with the other first-year in my Japanese class, who is living in Asia House... I really want to live in Asia House next year, so I'm hoping she can put in a good word for me during the application process!

Orientation week turned out to be a little bit different from what I expected. The first few days, involving Moving Day, several presentations and plays about Oberlin life, and concerts were jam-packed and super busy. After those first few days, there wasn't as much scheduled, and so it felt pretty empty on campus while the older students moved in.

We attended both group advising sessions and individual sessions, meeting our academic advisers in the process. I asked for an adviser in the East Asian studies department, and wound up with a fantastic professor who is also my first-year seminar teacher. She's from Seattle, teaches Japanese history and languages, and is the campus coordinator-type person for the Associated Kyoto Program, which I'm planning on applying for junior year. The first time I went and talked to her, we spent more time discussing my hobbies (kimono!) and my big-picture plan for college than actually planning out classes - mostly because I knew what classes I wanted to get into and didn't really need assistance getting my first-semester schedule together. I'm planning on asking her if she'd be willing to be my adviser for the rest of my time here. I don't know how others' advisers are, but the advising department did an amazing job matching me with someone.

I got my schedule ironed out - a Japanese history course, my first-year seminar on the Tale of Genji, a Japanese language course, and an introductory economics class. I didn't plan on having such a humanities/Japan-focused first semester, but I managed to get into all of my first-choice classes. This, apparently, is pretty rare for a first-year, but I'm definitely not complaining. There's a lot of reading to do, but the readings are manageable.

One of the main reasons I applied to Oberlin was the well-known ExCo, or Experimental College, division. These classes are taught by students, and run the gamut from Korean and various academic courses to Fencing and Calvin & Hobbes. I applied for exactly one ExCo, called SexCo, that's run by the Sexual Information Center. The course is required for anyone who wants to work at the SIC (and I do) - but it's also notoriously difficult to get into because it's a course about sex, how our society views sex, and gender. This year, they received 200 applications or so, and I managed to get in, which made me so, so, so happy. I have my first session this Wednesday.

There's been several culinary adventures in the last two weeks, like the mock chicken a la king in the dining hall that congealed to the plate during one lunchtime and the perpetually-underdone legumes. I didn't come into college expecting food like I get at home (I'm spoiled by foodie parents and access to the International District), so aside from the gluey soy-and-mushroom thing and slightly crunchy chickpeas, I've been reasonably satisfied with food here. To clarify: I'm not a vegetarian. I enjoy chicken, bacon, and steak. However, I've been eating very little meat out here, which is partially out of a sense of trepidation due to bad experiences with cafeteria hamburgers elsewhere and partially because much of the vegetarian food is actually pretty decent. The dining hall where I eat lunch a good portion of the time, Dascomb, does this not-at-all-accurate-but-still-delicious "stir fry" station with veggies and rice and tofu. One of my "New College Resolutions" was to eat more healthy food, ironically enough,* and I do feel that I've been succeeding. There's access to quite a bit of vegetable-type stuff and reasonably healthy things along with unlimited ice cream and cake. Fruit is a little bit sketchier, so my roommate and I have taken to purchasing apples, bananas, and so on to keep in the room.

Meal plans are expensive, though, so I opted to go on 14-meals-per-week and eat breakfasts in my room. This is working out to roughly a half-gallon of milk a week and a constant rotation of cold cereals, which isn't too bad. I'm sure I'll get sick of it in about two weeks and start using my coffee pot to make instant oatmeal, but for now the cornflakes-and-yogurt option is going okay. From what I can tell, the dining hall breakfasts are pretty much the same every morning... fruit, cereal, sausage or vegan sausage, eggs. Sometimes they apparently have pancakes or waffles, and they've got bagels and stuff. I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not eating CDS breakfasts.

There's a lot more to talk about, in more detail here, so I'm going to start marking "Blog-writing" into my schedule the same way I do homework; in theory, this will make updates more regular.

*My other New College Resolution was to make good use of the fancy gym facilities, the pretty campus, and the flat land to get in shape. So far, my running shoes haven't seen the outside of my closet.

In Which I Discover My New Room

I admit that I'm pretty terrible about checking my e-mail - there's a reason that I set up my 'professional'/boring e-mail address to forward directly into my normal inbox. However, point is, the class of 2016 finally received their housing assignments!

I've been watching my friends figure out housing for months, and several of my friends have patiently listened to me rant about how much I just wanted to know already. I requested a room in a first-year dorm wing specifically for people from (or interested in) the world outside the US - I figured it would be more exciting and give my future roommate and I something to talk about, at least.

I have yet to talk with Future Roommate, so I don't know anything about her besides her name. What I do know is that I wound up in a corner room on the second floor, separated from the next room by the staircase... which will make moving in a bit easier because I won't have to move things around the hallway so much. According to Google Earth, I'll have a lovely view of a street and parking lot out one window.

My impending departure from my beloved lilac bedroom seems so much more real now.

What Am I Walking Into?

There's hundreds of books out there that promise to de-bunk the college admissions process - I would know, as I think half of them sat on my bookshelves at one point. I don't promise to do that. Instead, what I'm hoping is to offer up a view of what happens after you're admitted, you've sent in your deposit, and arrived on campus.

For some background knowledge: I'm Shannon, a curly-haired geek from Seattle. My parents have lived in the same house since before I was born; I moved about twelve feet partway through junior high into a different bedroom. I went to a reasonably-sized public school in the area, where I was an IB diploma student (about which I will speak at length if the subject is brought up), co-editor of the yearbook, and leader of a club or two. For my high school, I wasn't an overachiever, and my grades were nothing special. I willingly admit that I struggled with the stress that IB classes as well as my general schedule placed on me. However, I wound up getting accepted at a fantastic school that fell squarely into that "reach" category all those books talk about: Oberlin. 

Of course, the process of choosing a school to go to is complex, and there's a ton of resources out there to describe how to do that. As for myself, I received my acceptance letter to Oberlin and screamed out loud, frightening several of the parents waiting at the bus stop for their children. There wasn't a whole lot of questioning about where I wanted to go.

 I have to say I'm looking forward to living away from home, but that comes with the biggest footnote ever.  I've lived in a place where I got spectacular views of mountains just from driving down the freeway, and some of my biggest memories from childhood feature the Puget Sound. I love the Pacific Northwest with all my coffee-swilling, Dungeness-crab-catching, rain-soaked heart, and what I intend to do in this blog is discuss the adjustment that newly-minted college kids will have to go through when moving to a different part of the US for The College Experience.