Category Archives: College

The Greatest Weekend…Ever

Where to begin…last weekend was one of the best weekends of my life. There were three main reasons why this was the case. The first of which is the football team’s huge win over Trinity. The Bantams of Trinity came up to Middlebury undefeated, with something like a 20 game winning streak. We prepared accordingly and when it came time to compete, we played at the highest level we’ve played at all year. The game was a nail-biter…back and forth through four quarters. In the final two minutes, Middlebury was down 20-24, but we were on offense and efficiently driving down the field. With 1:13 remaining on the game clock, we scored the go ahead touch down, making the score 27-24. Trinity, now with the ball, took their turn driving down the field. By the time the clock reached the 0:06 mark, Trinity had reached the Middlebury 30 yard line and it looked like a Hail Mary was their only option. As expected, the Trinity QB threw the ball up only to be intercepted by the Middlebury secondary, sealing the win for the Panthers. It was an unbelievable feeling to be a part of that game. I would venture to say that that game was the best win I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Another factor of my fantastic weekend was the visit I was payed by my girlfriend. She goes to Trinity so she made the trek up from Connecticut to watch the game and then spend the rest of the weekend with me. After not seeing her for two months, it was really great to catch up. It was even greater to rub the win in her face (she had been talking trash all week, thinking that Trinity was going to crush us).

Finally, it was homecoming weekend. Campus was packed with recent alums reuniting with old friends. Lets just say that the opening of the alumni owned frat houses on campus was far from boring on Saturday night. Fun was had by all, it will be tough to top this weekend in the future.

Fall Break

Unfortunately, I cannot give praise to my first fall break experience similar to my classmates. Although not required, I stayed on campus because of the limited free time I had due to football. I would have gone home, but the football team had practice on Sunday and Tuesday, leaving only a day and a half to be off campus. I didn’t think it was worth it to make the 3 1/2 hour drive home and back. So I spent my days of fall break wasting away in Battell.

In all seriousness, I didn’t do anything interesting. The highlights of my break include going to a gas station/Dunkin Donuts and scratching lottery tickets (and losing) and going to pick up a friend from the Rutland airport. I ate almost all of my meals at Proctor and didn’t get any work done. On Monday I think I spent about six hours playing FIFA (you can refer to Nick’s post about FIFA if you don’t know what it is).

All in all, it was nice to take a break from classes, but in the future I think I will plan a little bit better so I have things to occupy my time if I stay on campus.

 

That thing called a memory…

After returning from my first full college a cappella rehearsal, I was struck with a connection between singing and the Plato reading we’ve discussed in class. According to Plato, there is no need to write anything down, writing things down weakens the mind. I would definitely agree with him, but the fact of the matter is that there is no way I can retain all of the information I here everyday without writing stuff down.

Unfortunately, my a cappella group is on Plato’s side. No notes, no sheet music, nothing. When learning a piece, you listen to everyone else until you get the tune in your head. Eventually you memorize it. And that’s how it is. A major difference from what I am used to.

In high school we had binders full of sheet music for every song we sang. We attempted to memorize all of our pieces but because we were so used to reading music, it was actually much harder to memorize and sometimes we performed with binders. Now, thats not the end of the world, but it doesn’t look to good on stage.

I’ve found that learning without sheet music accelerates the learning process immensely. After only a rehearsal and a half with my new group, I have a few songs memorized and ready to perform on Friday. It makes me think, if I just sit in class and take everything in without writing anything down will I retain it better? I don’t think that’s a theory I’m willing to test.