beyond the green

As you can see in Claire’s post from last week, we recently had the first snow day for Bethel in a very, very long time. Believe it or not, that snow is completely gone and has been for a few days.

A week after the crazy -20 degree weather we had a high of 75. Not even kidding. It’s like the groundhog was right for once. I don’t completely believe that winter is gone now, but rumor has it tornado season is supposed to start soon, which would be very early. Don’t worry too much about tornadoes here though. I have lived in North Newton for 16 years and the closest I have ever been to a tornado was on Christmas Day at my cousins’ house. In Florida.

Read more »

For the first time in about 20 years, Bethel College has officially cancelled all of its Wednesday classes. There was much rejoicing when the e-mail first came out – plenty of shouting and dancing in the mod’s courtyard.

These first 2 weeks at Bethel have been more or less defined by weather cancellations. One of my weekly classes has cancelled 2 classes (read: we haven’t met yet), a Biochemistry lab was postponed, and I’ve been called off work several times.

Read more »

Spring semester will be under way tomorrow as classes will begin tomorrow. Spring semester is a busy semester, and it is usually harder than the fall semester. More people take a full course load in the spring semester than do in the fall. Sometimes the spring semester can be hard because there are not as many sports played in the spring semester and people tend to slack off as they have more free time.

So as the spring semester begins buckle down and stay focused on the goals ahead. For many, that may be graduation in May, for some, it might just be getting the semester out of the way. Whatever the reason may be, keep your head up and stay focused, for there will be many more breaks to come. Remember February is a short month, March is Spring Break, April is Easter, and May there are Finals!!!!!

Today is the last day of interterm classes.  I took Linear Algebra, which I was supposed to take before my math class last semester but since I wasn’t in college last interterm that would have been a little difficult. I really enjoyed having only one class for this month. In some ways it was relaxing while still being an intensely focused course. I work two afternoons a week so I wasn’t really bored ever. Now we have a four-day weekend before second semester starts on Tuesday, and I only have one class on Tuesday so it’s almost a five-day weekend!

Read more »

Mediation was the first KIPCOR class that I took. The second, Negotiation theory, was the second of this interterm, and it went just as well. This time around the class met for three hours a day over the course of two weeks, leaving the last week of interterm free for getting tasks accomplished and whatever else I need to finish before the semester starts.

During the two-week run of negotiation classes, we were able to play an epic Humans vs. Zombies game. Because there is a lot more time during interterm, we were able to make the game a lot more enjoyable this time around and work out a number of the kinks that occurred in prior games. The game ended nearly perfectly, with the last humans succombing to the zombie horde minutes before their helicopter was to pick them up from a fourth-floor landing. The game was entertaining and all enjoyed it.

Read more »