When I first arrived at Linfield, my biggest fear was having nothing to do. I was so afraid that I would end up stagnating in my room playing World of Warcraft like the nerd I truly am. Fortunately for me, things didn’t turn out that way; I started getting involved, started participating in events on campus, and started to attend some of the shows put on by the college. Life for me picked up very fast and am proud to say that I’m too busy to play Warcraft anymore (also the internet connection here in Potter Hall is unbearably slow, which doesn’t help either). There are two things that I want to talk about in this blog, residence life and my time on the Forensics Team.
The first thing I’m going to talk about is residence life. This probably takes up the least amount of time now, but it’s important because it really influence me to get involved in other things. I live in Potter Hall which is famous for two things; for being inconveniently far away from everything on campus but still close enough to make you feel guilty about driving; and for being one of the smallest dorms on campus. Needless to say I appreciate one of these facts more than the other. Being a small dorm, a real community has developed here and during the first extracurricular event I went to, I went with my hall. This was good because it made me get out of my room and got me to realize that there are a ton of opportunities to get myself involved and busy. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the events my hall has done together and I was able to snap a few pictures of some of my experiences for your viewing pleasure!
Here, our RA’s bought some rocks that we painted and made into pet rocks.
These little dandies are our (my roommate and mine) new pets! They might seem a bit strange but I can assure you, they made sense at the time of their creation (mine is on the right).
Here, a couple guys from Potter got together and made breakfast. Potter has had many more meals since then. In this particular photo we are enjoying some banana pancakes (Pictured from left to right: JinWoo Park, Jeremy Kennet).
We ate with spoons because forks were more expensive, seriously.
The next thing that I want to talk about is the Forensics Team. No it’s not a CSI oriented club, Forensics is a speaking and debate team that competes in tournaments all year round. I joined with no debate experience at all but they still welcomed me and after the first tournament at Lewis and Clark I really feel apart of the team. Of all the extracurricular activities I have participated in at Linfield, Forensics has definitely had the most positive impact on me. Before the first tournament I wasn’t sure what my feelings toward debate and public speaking were; however, afterwords I can safely say that they are now counted as some of my passions. Not only that, but the team has really helped me with speaking and organizing my thoughts, skills that I believe are invaluable for college life (both in and out of class). I have included some pictures of the retreat we went on a couple weeks ago before we had any official tournaments. These were both taken at the beach in Pacific City.
On top of a very large dune at the beach.
Left to right: Kyle Helm, me (Kole Kracaw), Hannah Michelotti.
Well that does it for me today. I hope you find the writing insightful and the pictures inspiring!