beyond the green

I cannot resist expressing just how much I enjoy Halloween. Maybe it’s the sugar-rush talking, but All Hallow’s Eve is one of my most cherished days of the year!

If you have a chance today (if you bother reading this on Halloween) swing by Moundridge and try to find my parents’ house, it’ll be the one with a massive graveyard in front and a skeleton hanging in a cage on the front porch.

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Based on the slide-show announcements in Convocation, I’d say the Bethel sports teams are feeling pretty good about themselves. They deserve the recognition, for sure, but there are a few Bethel competitors that feel left out.

I am one of them.

I’ve competed in debate and forensics for eight years of my life. I was on the Moundridge team during high school, and this is my fourth year being a part of the Bethel forensics squad.

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We’ve been here about three weeks now, we’ve started classes, and have gotten into the swing of things.

There are about 50 exchange students here from all over the world, and there are lots of activities for us. This is nice, because it means that we’ve gotten to know the other people who, like us, just arrived here and want to make new friends. We’ve met enough people so it’s pretty easy to find entertainment in the evenings and during the weekends.

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If you haven’t had the chance, nay, pleasure of listening to Radiohead yet, you’re missing out (and have been for over ten years.) Some say their sound is “too different” or “weird,” but I look at their unique sound as a mark of musical maturity.

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This is a movie recommendation.

Yesterday my best friend and I went to see Into the Wild, a new movie written and directed by Sean Penn, with original music by Eddie Vedder.

It is the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young idealist who, upon graduating from college, decides that participation in society is worthless. So he takes off without a word to anyone, abandons his car, burns his cash, and starts walking around Arizona with his backpack. His next two years are spent exploring the beautiful western United States, meeting and relying on the kindness of strangers, and building up courage and strength for an adventure in Alaska. He is a reader of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, so his mind is filled with ideas of living off the land and “sucking out all the marrow of life” (from Thoreau, look it up).

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