Vassar Sports

The last few days at Vassar have reached the mid 90's, and I think everyone's main concern is keeping cool. I changed rooms over the weekend due to the sweltering conditions of my previous room and now I'm living somewhere cooler. But by cooler, I mean "less ridiculously hot," so, as you can imagine, it's still pretty bad on really hot days. Rowan, the rat I'm taking care of, has been acting a little less rambunctious lately, which is probably due to the heat. Last night I gave him a pep talk, telling him to "hang in there, little dude" so that he doesn't die of heat stroke before my friend comes back to take him off of my hands. Hopefully he'll wait to die until at least soon after the exchange. She gave me three things to take care of over the summer-a rat and two plants-and I already managed to kill her African Violet due to poor treatment. Ooops.

One of my favorite things to do at Vassar during the summer is go to the gym. While the hours aren't exactly regular (during the year the gym closes at 11 and during the summer it closes at 8), it's one of the few things that is still open when I leave work as well as one of the better air-conditioned. This makes it a good place to hide on 90+ days. In my view, while there are many different types of people on the Vassar campus, most people fall into one of three categories: regular gym-goers, reluctant gym-goers, and the exercise apathetic. I would consider myself to be a regular gym-goer, and sure, some of my friends think I'm crazy, but I grew up reading health magazines and I know what's best for my body and mind-primarily, air conditioning, and, coming in a close second, exercise.

When I'm at the gym, I feel like I'm at peace. I can chill out in the air, read a magazine and listen to my iPod while completely zoning out on the bike or the treadmill. It's probably the only part of the semester when I don't think about anything. And the weather conditions of the gym never let me down. During the winter, it's a great place to get some extra light and heat up, but during the summer it's a nice place to hide from direct sunlight and cool down.

It's also a pretty social environment. I like to watch the guys show off as they pump iron (what can I say... it's pretty funny) and roll my eyes in the direction of the free weights. There is one guy I call "arms guy" who I've seen curling 75 pounds on each arm, which is approximately 2/3 of my total body weight. Now come on, that's over kill. Any guy who could easily curl my body weight is a threat to my very existence.

I picked out a senior apartment that was one of the closest to the gym completely conscious of the fact that I have to write a senior thesis this year. That way if I don't feel like writing my thesis, I can easily go work out instead because that's also productive. And although I haven't started my thesis yet, I know that eventually it will get done, as most things around here do. Just very slowly and very painfully, which will most definitely require plenty of gym breaks.

I was a varsity swimmer all throughout high school and when I came to college I was certain that I would be joining the swim team. How could I not? And then I experienced the first practice. It wasn't necessarily hard, but it was time-consuming and I didn't think that my focus on academics would allow me time for two hour practices every day as well as dry-land training. Many Vassar students are able to balance both academics and team sports, but it wasn't for me. In order to have time for both I would have had to make other sacrifices, such as time for friends or campus events. But it's not like I can't swim on my own. I don't really like competitive sports as much as just good old exercise anyways. Although I did find that I was waaaay too competitive for intramural softball.

Intramurals are a good way to get involved with sports without worrying about setting aside time for them. My intramural softball team rarely practiced. We were also terrible (which caused me to have fits on the field, not gonna lie....) but it could have potentially been fun if I had been less competitive. The problem came when I found out I was the only player with any real experience because I had played softball in high school and was disappointed (or, perhaps, disgusted) with the abilities of some of my other teammates. I won't mention any names, they know who they are.

I've also taken ballroom dance lessons here. You don't need a partner, although it's a good idea to have one. And you can't beat the price at $30 for 10 lessons. Rumor has it that the ballroom instructor is forming a ballroom dance club for next year, but I'll get back to you on that one.

But even if you are not into sports, the gym makes a good place to have fun. My friends and I sometimes go and play "HORSE" on the basketball court, while watching everyone else make fantastic lay-ups and give us stares for being so lame. But that doesn't necessarily mean we pay attention. Tennis rackets and cross-country skis are also rentable from the gym, which make a nice change of pace from the treadmill.

Vassar in the Summer, Part 3

As a long time resident of Cushing House, I was crushed when I learned I would have to move to Main Building for the summer. Not that Main is that bad, but I’m lazy and had no desire to switch rooms. While this was my main concern at the time, my concern changed when for some reason my room door locked automatically (which I wasn’t used to as a Cushing resident) and I got locked out of my room wearing nothing but a towel. Quite embarrassed of the situation, I decided my best idea was to walk over to a group of cleaners and explain what had happened. Immediately upon hearing what happened, they started laughing. Feeling sorry for me, one of the cleaners called the ROC (see Vassar in the Summer, Part 1) for the spare key to my room and allowed me to use their lounge for a bit of privacy while I was waiting. While sitting in the cleaner's lounge, it was at that point when I realized just exactly how hot my room was in comparison to the rest of the building. The cleaner's lounge on the fourth floor was comfortable. My room on the fifth floor? Not so much.

As you may have guessed, I don't have many friends. Actually, that was a lie, but seeing as it is summer time, a lot of them have gone home and most of the time I'm on my own, which makes me feel like I don't have many friends. I'm watching a rat over the summer for a friend, and, needless to say, I became pretty good friends with him a while ago. We generally sit around and complain about the temperature of my room together. While the temperature for the day is generally somewhere between 75 and 90, my room temperature seems to hover around 100. You know there's a problem when you start sweating immediately upon entering your room, which happens to me all the time. The other day I even had a dream about buying two more fans to cool my blistering hot room, and I have come to believe the dream was actually a prophecy. How else am I going to survive? I witnessed my current best friend, the rat, try to commit suicide the other day because of the heat. But luckily the short size of his cage decreased the height of what could have been a nasty fall, sparing the life of my friend.

I've been trying to make some more friends (especially friends who have air conditioning), but no luck as of yet. The other day I went on a pilgrimage to find air conditioning, choosing the slightly off-campus cafe known as "Babycakes" as my refuge. Only a short walk from campus, Babycakes serves the most amazing brunch as well as fancy pastries. (I totally recommend it.) But when I arrived at my destination, I found that the usual group of college kids inside had been exchanged for a much... how do I say this... "older" crowd. Upon walking inside, I knew I'd be leaving quickly. Everyone there felt it necessary to stare at me as I approached the "to go" counter and ordered a small cup of coffee. I was probably the first Vassar student they'd seen in days, which apparently put me on the same plane as a space creature. Shunning the idea I'd had of quietly sipping my coffee while reading the Harry Potter book nestled within my bag, I decided it was time for Plan B so that I could avoid their gaze. Feeling eyes upon me while I left, I ditched this older crowd and decided to check out the nearby Poughkeepsie Public Library instead.

Luckily, while I don't really have many friends and possess only a memory of my beautiful, cool room in Cushing (Cushing room 100, to be exact), summer at Vassar isn't actually that bad. In fact, for a nerd like myself, it's actually kind of fun. I'd much rather be here, sitting in the beautiful campus library surrounded by thousands of opportunities for fun reading than going home and suffering through a fast food service job.

As a lot of you may know, the seventh, and last, book of the Harry Potter series is coming out in July. 44 days from today, to be exact. Naturally, I decided that it would only be appropriate to start reading the books for the first time during the Spring, so that by July I'd be all caught up. But while the Vassar library possesses everything from the Bible to Where The Wild Things Are, I was quite surprised to find that all of the Harry Potter books once owned by the library had been stolen! To think that fellow Vassar students were criminals was slightly nerve-wrecking and the idea, "maybe I shouldn't leave my computer unattended in the library..." came to mind (gee, perhaps I should have thought of that sooner?). But fortunately, for those times when a book you'd expect to be in the library isn't there, a wonderful tool know as "NY Connect" searches the libraries of several schools partnered with Vassar and delivers the book you request for free. It's saved my life several times-especially when I was left to wonder what happens to Harry in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

And of course, don't let me forget about my free summer access to Vassar's state of the art gym. While not as large as a gym at your average University, it has all the bells and whistles. In fact, I have been known to spend as much as three hours in Vassar's gym before. Instead of partying with all of my friends last Saturday (which is actually my secret phrase for "not having anything better to do"), I spent a majority of my time weight lifting and swimming. According to Time magazine, which I read while peddling the stationary bike, excercise does make you smarter. Lord knows I could use the extra brain power considering the courseload I'm taking next semester. Don't worry, you'll be ready for it by the time you're a senior (but I'm not sure if I am....).

If the rest of the summer is anything like the past week, I know at least a few things will be true by the end of the summer: I'll be a lot smarter, and in much better shape. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.