Extreme Disappointment Radiates: A Rant.

At my school we have something called Plenary, which is essentially the entire student body's foray into direct democracy-- students can propose resolutions that have to do with any aspect of life at the school, and the student body gets together one night a semester to vote on these resolutions and either reject them, amend them, or pass them into school law. The only catch is that a certain percentage of the student body-- called quorum-- has to be present to keep Plenary running.

This was only my second Plenary, but even I could tell that things were going wrong. We lost quorum about every ten or fifteen minutes and ended up having to stop Plenary altogether because we were majorly below quorum with little hope of reaching it again.

The biggest reason I came to this school was its community; among other things, I loved that students not only held themselves accountable for their actions, but got to set the standards against which they held themselves accountable. There was no administration imposing rules on the student body because the student body determined their own rules-- a long time ago someone wrote an Honor Code that we as a population have pledged to keep alive and uphold.

This process failed last night. The same people who pledged to take an active role in their own government did not show up for Plenary to discuss the resolutions that could possibly govern them. They didn't care enough to bring some work and a pillow and just be present for five hours. It's not even that they had to take an active part-- yes, we need a certain number of votes to pass anything, but really the most important thing is maintaining quorum. As long as you're in the building you can play frisbee, do homework, sleep, or whatever the hell you want. You just need to be there.

A bunch of people have been complaining because they had a lot of work and couldn't go, or they had sports and were tired, or any number of ridiculous reasons, but in any case it's unacceptable. Plenary is important enough that you should either have your most important work out of the way or be prepared to do it afterwards, and if you're tired, bring a pillow and a blanket and catch some Zs in a quiet corner. It's not that hard.

I've also heard a lot of harsh words being thrown about the freshmen class ruining Plenary for everyone else. However, I know that many more of my freshmen friends were there than my upperclassmen friends. A few of my upperclassmen friends were too apathetic to walk up campus from their apartment, but a bunch of my fencing friends and I had been up since 5.45 yesterday morning, fenced for eight hours, and still were there for as long as we could be. Because I care about my school and our ability to self-govern. But apparently the majority of our student body didn't care enough to be there.

Dear Blog-Following World,

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE READING THIS?





Not that it really matters in the long run. This is a test for me to improve my writing and consistency, and I'll keep writing whether or not people are actually reading it...


(But it would still be nice to know.)


Love,
Chicca

Sauna Sauna Sauna Sauna Sauna

For the past three or so weeks my school has been right in the middle of a series of small blizzards. Cumulatively we've probably gotten about four feet of snow in about that much time, and it's been kind of windy so the snow is whipping around in the air and blowing into people's faces and making people generally cold to the bone. So you'd expect nothing more from me than a recount of how I've spent these past few weeks curled up in bed with a cup of hot chocolate, being warm and cozy in my duvet and watching the snow fall outside my window?

Well, you would be wrong. Because while I have been watching the snow fall outside my window, instead of curling up cozy under my duvet I have been opening my window and hoping that some of the disgustingly hot air trapped in my room will go away. I mean, yes. That's terrible for the environment and as someone who cares greatly about saving the environment I am terribly ashamed of myself and my actions, but actually there is no other way for me to survive. When I lay down to take a nap yesterday the air coming out of the heater was so hot that the tree outside looked like it was rippling-- I was seeing those crazy air ripples that you find in the summertime when you look at the pavement. Seriously? It's the middle of a snowy winter in the mid-Atlantic. This should not be happening! It's winter, for chrissake! I want to be able to cuddle up under my comforter! But instead I sleep basically naked under a sheet and still wake up sweaty and disgusting-- what's up with that??

On another note, the tree outside my window also has had something crazy stuck to one of its branches for about two weeks now. It looks kind of like a gigantic black squirrel attached itself to a branch and died, except there's no body and instead is just a lot of long black fur waving in the wind. It's pretty creepy and terribly mysterious and makes me feel a bit like Edgar Allen Poe.

Don't be fooled by molasses, guys.

My parents sent me the most delicious cookie sampler for my birthday from Dancing Deer Baking Co., and as I sit here eating a molasses-clove cookie I am realizing I shouldn't have chickened out on molasses cake over winter break. I found this recipe for dark molasses gingerbread cake and immediately wanted to make it-- I mean, look at it! It just looks so gooey and rich and inviting that my taste buds simply quivered and ordered me to start baking. However, because I found it pretty late at night I figured it wouldn't be such a good idea, so instead I went to bed with my midnight snackies unsatisfied and put the cake on the back burner (ha).

My plan was to make it the next day, but as I was gathering ingredients I'd realized that I had no idea what a molasses cake tasted like. Both my dad, who was my sous chef for the day, and my mom, who was taking a break from playing with me in the kitchen, warned me that molasses was certainly not for everyone-- I already knew that my mom wasn't going to eat this cake (she really doesn't care for molasses), and so to see if I would like it my dad had me lick some off a spoon. Sounds like a good idea, right? To give me an idea of what the cake might taste like?

WRONG. MOLASSES BAKED GOODS TASTE NOTHING LIKE STRAIGHT MOLASSES FROM A SPOON. DON'T BE FOOLED, GUYS.

The molasses-from-a-spoon experience unfortunately pushed me away from baking that delicious-looking cake and I opted for a chocolate gingerbread instead. Chocolate gingerbread is a masterpiece in its own right and is actually one of my all-time favorites, but I now realize the error of my baking ways. Because when I bit into this Dancing Deer molasses-clove cookie it was moist and reminded me faintly of gingerbread, but tasted nothing like the gross, viscous, dark substance I ate from a spoon.

The moral of the story is, don't be fooled by its sticky texture, weird color, and strong smell. Molasses cookies are spectacular. So when I find ingredients and a willing oven, guess what my next project's going to be?