Boston

Back from New York City

Being over 3,000 miles away from home I stayed on the east coast for Thanksgiving break. My best friend Charlie came up north to Colby on the 19th and chilled for a couple of days. In Maine we explored northwest of Colby and ended up at a lake near Bigelow, ME. On the 23rd we boarded a bus and began our nine hour trek to the big apple. It was excited to get out of the routine college life and explore new territory. At 9pm on Tuesday Charlie and I arrived somewhere in Chinatown. We spent the next three days walking miles around Manhattan and Brooklyn. We ate pizza at Pizza Suprema, pastrami sandwiches at Artie's Delicatessen, and ate everything but college cafeteria food. Although NYC made me miss home I loved seeing all of my friends from Portland. It was a memorable trip and the most enjoyable time I've had on the east coast. I came back to Maine to find snow and ice covering the ground. In three weeks I leave Maine to go home for one and a half months and I can not wait.

Love Life Maine

My day to day experiences at Colby are very different from my experiences in Maine. I've tried my best to leave Mayflower Hill and explore Maine. From my backpacking trip with my dad in the 100 mile wilderness to eating lobster on the coast, I think I've seen a good share of what Maine has to offer. Two of my best friends are with me in Maine so it's been great to see them. Charlie and I have visited each other multiple times both at Bates and Colby. Erica and I had a wild time exploring Boston during fall break and I surprised her last Friday with a random visit to Bowdoin. It's weird to be so far from home but still have my friends near by. While I am excited and eager to spend time in Portland and Seattle from mid December to the end of January, I want to continue to see Maine. From hunting moose to walking on snowy beaches I want to experience it all.

Summer 2010

It's hard to believe it is already November. Here in Waterville, ME a majority of the leaves have fallen and I now wake up to frost covering the grass. It's been my first fall in New England and in college. I've had an interesting time so far but it's always great to look back on pictures. Here are some pictures of my great summer in the Pacific Northwest. I can't wait to return home in less than two months. I feel like I've been in college a year. I came to Colby College when it was 100 degrees and very humid and now it is freezing.

For Spring break I went rock climbing in Alabama Hills, CA.
















Charlie and I singing "Going to Maine" by the Mountain Goats.
















One of the vans I rode in everyday to go climbing.
















The Shark's Fin.












Lots of movies have been filmed here.
















The Sierras.
















The Willamette.
















For Memorial Day weekend I went to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
















Molly looking through her binoculars.









































Molly.

















Enjoying the view.









































Distracting Molly as she reads.

Wilco Concert Tonight

Tonight at 8PM I am seeing Wilco which is one of my top bands. Here is one of my favorite Wilco songs titled Poor Places:

Digging

Seamus Heaney (1939-)















Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

- from Death of a Naturalist (1966)