Wow! Yesterday afternoon was so fun! I really missed my family, but my friends here made sure that I didn't get too sad! They are so awesome, and sweet! My bed collected two presents, and some cards throughout the day, but I was saving them all until later, because not everyone would be together until later. After psychology, I prepared my research presentation for writing today, and then I started reading the psychology chapter for tomorrow, which is very interesting because it's all about attraction between people! If anyone called for Camille, I was supposed to say "The goose flies at 9," and we thought it would be really funny if her mom or someone called, because they would be really confused! :) That was while Camille was out of the room, of course. Camille and I got into a discussion about people being attractive to each other, and then Talya came down for dinner. We met Sarra at Malott, and she was surprised, because usually no one eats early with us on Mondays, because we eat at five so that we can go to dance. But Camille and Talya had decided that they were going to eat with me because it was my birthday, and Mandy joined us there as well. Meagan came over and gave me a hug during dinner, to tell me Happy Birthday, and Matt, who was eating at a table behind us turned around, and said, "It's your birthday?!" So, he came over to our table to eat, because he had been sitting by himself, and we had a fun dinner. Sarra and I were about to run out of Malott, because we were going to be late for dance, because we had stayed to talk at dinner, but Matt called to me, and told us that basically, dance was going to be cancelled, because Wes was a zombie after getting in at one in the morning from nationals. The Latin Team won again! :) Claremont is the Champion for the second year in a row! It's so exciting! So, Sarra decided it wasn't worth going down there if we really weren't going to do anything, and I wasn't going to walk down there alone in the dark, so we ended up talking to Matt for a while outside in the wind! Yes, it was very windy yesterday, and today there's a whole bunch of dirt and stuff in the air, and it's kind of gross, but there's no more wind. I think it was windy and sunny in honor of me. :) I am a child of the wind and sun. :) Anyway, we stood out there and talked, and the wind was blowing small branches off the trees, and things were falling, but we didn't care, because we were having fun talking. What Sarra and I found out was that apparently, the official purity test is different for Mudd, and so when we said goodbye to Matt, we went inside, and spent the time that we would have at dance, taking the "official" purity test. :) I am officially 97.8% pure. I am also 61.7% mathematician. :) The tests are funny. So, then I went to orchestra, and it was a good rehearsal. I still need to work on this one fast part. It's driving me insane! It's fast, and in four sharps! It's evil! But, I'll get it eventually! :) We got out of orchestra at 9 because we don't play on the last piece, because only strings get to do that one with the choir. It's sad, I wanted to play it, but they don't need us. Oh well, there will be other times, I'm sure. :) So, I went back to the room, and Camille told me I couldn't go anywhere now. I don't know where she thought I intended to go, but I wasn't supposed to go anywhere. Then, Talya and Mandy, and Emily, and Becca and Alana, and Sarra came, and they blindfolded me, and led me out to a car! I've been kidnapped! :) They drove around, and told me that since I was 19 now, they were taking me to a strip club, because I was legal. But, we ended up at 21Choices! It was great! I have such nice friends! So, we ate our yogurt, and found a nice person to take our picture. On the way back, Becca turned up some hip hop music really loud, and she and I were the homies in the front, and the six of them in the back, well, they were squished. :) It was so funny, because no one saw us! We had a good time. When we got back, I opened my presents. And Meagan came over and stayed with us for a bit, because she couldn't go to 21 Choices, but she wanted to share a part of the evening with me. She's so sweet! Everyone was so sweet, and they know me so well already! I got lots of sunflower things, and some smell good bath stuff, and some eye glitter, and earrings, and Mandy found a fun party book! They are so sweet! Yesterday was awesome! It was definitely a birthday I won't forget. Which was nice, because if I had been left to myself, I would have been very sad! But, it was a very fun day! Yay! :)

Today is my birthday, and I am officially 19 now. While it has been very nice, I miss my family! This is the first time I've had a birthday away from you, and I miss you a lot. But I will see you very soon, which makes it easier to deal with. I got up early this morning, (which means about 8:10, it's so nice! :) ) so that I could do cool things with my hair, and then I did Mandy's hair in the twists for her, and someone had left roses and little birthday things on the board outside, and reasons why "we love Katie" I felt loved. They were very sweet. (I found out later that Talya did that) We went to breakfast, and they had warm chocolate chip muffins, and it reminded me of Mommy's chocolate chip scones, and that's probably what I would have had for breakfast at home. :) I've had Latin so far, and I have Psychology after lunch, but other than that, it's fun things, like dance and orchestra! Yay! Camille bought me sunflowers for my present! They are so pretty! But we couldn't figure out how to make them stand up, so they're in the trash can! :) I'll have to take a picture! The day is sunny, but a bit breezy, it started off cloudy though, and I was a little worried that it wasn't going to be nice, but it is! Yay! I'm glad! Hopefully the rest of the day will go as wonderfully as it has been so far!

I want to dance tonight!!!!! There's no dancing for the first time in I think about four weeks or more! It's amazing! I might end up wandering around looking for people I know to see what they're doing! We've decided that we need to make more guy friends and eat with them, because we never have guys eat with us, except for John, but he doesn't count, because he's Camille's boyfriend! Hmm, I'll have to work on that one. Right now, I'm going to figure out what's going on, and if nothing else, I'll dance by myself! :) Fortunately, we have Lindy tomorrow, or I think I'd go insane! :) Have a good Friday everyone!

Hi! I have a bit of time tonight, or I've decided I do, because I just finished a seven page rough draft of a paper for writing 50! I think it might have to be a 3-5 page paper too, which is bad, because I don't know what I'm going to cut out! I guess I'll have to figure it out! Anyway, I have character now! And for those of you who don't understand that comment, let me explain. :) So, two Saturdays ago, when it rained, and we had Lindy down at Pomona, Matt and Emily and I got into a conversation about how some guys don't ask anyone to dance, and why girls should ask. Matt's comment was that girls should ask because it "builds character." So Emily and I were joking about how we must not have any character then, because we never ask anyone. So, Sat. night, Emily asked Matt and Andrew to dance with her, and so the conversation started again because she had character then, and we were trying to decide whether she had twice the character, or two separate characters because she asked two guys. Matt just laughed. :) Anyway, so, Mon. I found out that there is going to be an actual dance competition on Dec. the 8! I was so excited! I knew I would have to find a partner quick, because the deadline to register is today, so I asked Ian if he would dance with me, and he said he would, so we will East Coast, Foxtrot and Waltz together. :) Yesterday night at Lindy, I went over to see what Matt was doing, and he told Suzanna and I that he had a lot of work to do, so he was going to leave, but I asked if he'd stay for one more song, and he did (he actually ended up staying until I left, even though I wasn't dancing with him the entire time I'm not sure why he stayed, but he did). He also agreed to Lindy with me at the competition! :) So, now I have lots of character! Yay! :) Although, I thought I had plenty already, but, you know. :) I actually asked two guys to dance, and they both said yes! Yay! I am very excited, it should be lots of fun! What else, let's see, Lindy was great last night, because the jokes were flying, and everyone laughed and got laughed at! It's a great group, because we are all getting to know each other better now, and there's only a select few of us who are there every time, so, we are becoming friends, and it's lots of fun! I saw Matt again at tea today, and he and Becca and I got into a conversation about what people look better wearing, and apparently girls look better dressed up, and guys look better in jeans and a t-shirt. I can see it, but that's kind of annoying because that means that we have to dress up to look sexy. It doesn't matter, it was just interesting, because from there, we went to accents, and how girls notice them and guys don't and why that difference is there. We couldn't figure that one out. So that one is up for grabs if you have any ideas. We're going to see Hair this weekend! And I just learned that every single space of grass on our campus now has caution tape around it. This is going to be interesting to see how long it stays there! They did it because the grass was getting trampled in places, but it dies because they over-water it! We understand what's going on, why can't they? Anyway, it'l be interesting to see what people do with the caution tape! Caution! Grass Growing! :)

Hi! It's been a while, but I have been incredibly busy! And I'm sorry if I haven't answered your e-mail yet, I will get to it, in the order that they came to me, because that is only fair. :) Anyway, this is now the blog of the official East Coast Swing Champion of the Claremont Colleges. Yay! We had a mock competition yesterday, and my partner Ian and I won the swing competition! It was so fun! James and I got called back for polka as well! So that was fun! But it was a bit crazy because I had to keep running back to get my number for the next event, because each dance the girl was supposed to have a different number, and I was dancing almost the whole time, and I couldn't change my number until I was finished with call-backs, so I was always rushing to get my new number! But it was really fun! John, who teaches Lindy on Sat.s was there, and I went over to get my water, and he came up to me and said that he was sure I was going to win the swing competition (this was before they gave out the awards, of course) because I was the best one out there! I never expected to hear anything like that from him, becuase he is such an incredible swing dancer, and I am such a beginner! But that was really nice! And, it turns out he was right. :) I got a gold candy bar, and a gift certificate to 21 Choices, which I am very excited about! :) Yay for frozen yogurt! I went to the swing dance that John put on last night, and it was really fun because he didn't advertise it to the 5-C's, so only those of us from Lindy, and a few random people, knew about it! That meant the guys were good, and there wasn't a huge amount of girls to choose from, which was really fun because I got to dance a lot! :) Yay! I love dancing! I saw Camille in The Crucible Thursday night, and she said I'm with the devil! It's great, because she has this line that's really long, and she's saying that she's seen a whole bunch of the town with the devil, and Becca and I were watching, and so we were with the devil, she did that for all of us who went, and last night, she saw W with the devil! That was her closing night prank! It was hilarious! Well, I'm having lots of fun, if you can't tell, but I'm very busy, we have Core essays due tomorrow, and a first draft of another essay due Thursday, and we're still working on the research paper, so, there's lots to do! I'm very busy! I better go get some sleep! Oh, I went to the Pomona Band's concert this afternoon, they were good, not excellent, but good. They didn't have a whole lot of dynamic range, but that's always hard. They had some good music though, and a really interesting Tuba Concerto. I didn't know there were such things, but apparently, there are! :)

I HATE ants! I despise them! I'm reviled by them! I'm disgusted by them! What are more words I can use? It doesn't matter, I think you get the idea. :) This morning, I woke up, and rolled over and was kind of looking at the ground as I woke up fully, and I noticed what looked like wet drips on the carpet, and thought, "what in the world dripped on the carpet? Why is it headed toward my bed? I didn't drip anything! Ew! It's moving! It's ants!" I literally jumped out of bed and went for the vacuum cleaner without even telling Camille! But the vacuum wasn't in the closet! So I went for the upstairs one, and it's not there either! So I come back, and Camille hasn't even noticed! It only took me a couple of minutes to run upstairs, but still! So, we break out the windex, and kill them all, go through the entire room for food that they would like, we can't find where they're coming from, but no more seem to be coming, so we leave a note for Sarra that when she gets back to bring down her little vacuum, which she did. So we vacuumed up the ant bodies, and then went to brunch, and we've also found out that Mandy's room, next to us, has ants as well, and the two rooms across from us! It's the ant invasion of New Hall! When we got back from Brunch, Camille and I went on a rampage against ants because they had formed another trail! This one went seemingly nowhere! Into Camille's books? We couldn't figure it out, but this time we did find where they were coming from! Inside the wall! Ugh! It's so nasty! So, Camille went and bought ant traps while I sprayed and kleenexed the ants to death, and then we watched them enjoy their poisen and gloated. Our white board now says RM 125- Home of the Ant Warriors! And Camille made a sign for our door that says Beware! Entering Ant Zone! But, as of right now, there are no ants in our room! Knock on wood! It was so horrible though! All those little crawling creatures! Ew! Anyway, we think they came in because of the rain, it rained a ton! It rained all night Thursday, all Friday and Friday night, all Saturday (yesterday), and finally late yesterday afternoon, the winds came and last night they blew all the clouds away, so today was nice and sunny again! But it was crazy because walking down to Pomona on Sat. we just got drenched, even though I had my trusty little umbrella! And walking back, Matt pointed out that it looked like College Way was flash flooding, there were rapids, and the water was at least four inches deep because it was washing over the curb, and into the bushes! It was crazy! Everywhere was a river! Fri. night, Talya and I braved the rain to go to Red Room, which was a swing party up at Mudd. It was fun! There was a live band, and though it was a little crowded, the dancing was fun because the guys from Lindy came, and so there were good partners. :) Everything was great until about the last hour when most of the guys got drunk, and then we just watched them try to dance, because they really couldn't, and wondered how you could do that to yourself. It was really sad. But, that's their decision. I'm still kind of incredulous. How could an intelligent, funny, excellent dancer, go and get so drunk that he can no longer dance? I don't think I'll ever understand. Well, I've got three essays to work on, so I better get to work! :)

Yay! Well, I can now say that I have been to the Motley in my pajamas! :) It was funny, because Camille and I went in our plaid pajama pants and Scripps sweatshirts, and we were wearing just about the same thing and didn't notice until we got back to the room! We keep doing that, I have a picture now of the two of us when we wore the same thing one day, without even meaning to! It must be a roommate thing! I also went to a Jazz class, and it was awesome! It was ironic because I had been complaining to Sarra earlier about how much I wanted to dance today, and how there was no dancing going on, and I would just have to wander around and ask random people to dance with me (which I would never do, that was just me being funny). And then on the way to dinner, Becca tells me that there's a jazz class tonight, and for the next two Thurdays! So of course, I went! I was so excited! And it was good! We did an awesome warm-up, and stretch, so much like Chatelaines! And then we did across the floor, and learned a little routine piece! It was great! I know I am going to feel it tomorrow, but it felt so good too! I really need to do that more often. I would have liked the actual dancing part to be a little more intense, but there were people there who had obviously never done anything like what we were doing, so it couldn't be too hard. But, the stretching etc. was so nice! If I can get myself so that I will make time on Thursdays after this class is over, to stretch and warm up like that, I will keep at least a bit better in shape, and flexible! That would be good! I really should do it more often than once a week, but if once a week is all I can do, well, I'll start there! :) It was so fun though! But it really made me realize what I have been missing! Well, you can't have everything! But, if we have time, Becca and I are going to see if there's a jazz class down at Pomona that we could take next semester. That would be fun! But, the key word there is IF there is time. I don't completely know what I'm taking yet, but, with a science which has lab, I will be busier. But, it will all work out! And there's a core section on women in Greek myth next semester! That's exciting, because it would be really fun to take! I have to look at the other ones, but hopefully there are more good ones! I love dance! :) Camille has a prospie tonight, who went off with two of her friends, and one Scripps student to a party at Pitzer, we think, and they still aren't back yet! I know I was out late when I came to spend the night, but I was with my host, and she was showing me the dorms! I would never have thought to go off to a college party alone, even with my high school friends! I still don't go to parties alone, and I'm in college! But, she's a different person. Oh well, what can you do? I've had really good luck with having really nice prospies, I'm so glad. I think Camille's a bit sad that her prospie isn't that fun. Hopefully she'll have a better one next time!

All right, so, after Halloween, I had a Latin quiz at 10 in the morning! So, I dropped my prospies off, wished them a good day, and went off to take my Latin quiz! I second guessed myself because I was tired, so I didn't do as well as normal. Oh well. I will do better on this week's! So, Fri. night, Camille did my make up, all sparkly again! It was pretty! Sarra and I went to a math talk up at Mudd. There was a prof. from Stanford who was speaking about card shuffling, which was cool, except that I didn't know what a modulus was, and neither did Sarra, so we were both lost as far as the math part of it went, but it was still mostly interesting. Later, there was another M.O.B., and it was fantastic! This one was costume, which is why Camille did my makeup. :) I didn't sit for more than five songs, and it started out with Phillip and Michael both asking me to dance! It was so fun! I really feel like I improve every time I dance! It was funny because we walked in 45 minutes late, expecting the lessons to be about over, because the ball was supposed to start fifteen minutes from then. But, we got there, and Matt L. (not Matt from Lindy, I met this Matt because he was my partner for the Ballroom team auditions) was doing something, and he invited us all into his West Coast Swing lesson, which was just starting! It was crazy that they were running so late! Although, Matt told me later that that is quite typical. It wasn't for the first one, I don't know. :) Anyway, so West Coast is just like sugar pushes and walk throughs from Lindy, so after the lesson, I asked Matt L. what the difference was, and he explained to me that Lindy is a combination of West and East coast moves, and that's why it was so similar. Interesting! I learned yesterday from Meagan that the kind of Lindy that we do is Hollywood Lindy, it's made to look good in a camera screen! Let's see, more fun dances. We did Samba, which is quite fun, because you do it in a line with everyone following eachother! And it's fun, fast, and hips! :) Matt took me out for a Merengue, and he did some crazy moves! He was having fun, because the basic step for that dance is just walking, so basically he could do whatever he wanted, and he did! It was fun, because it was a challenge to follow what he was going to do, and it was fun to let him have fun as well! He did some swing moves, and some where I was turning like crazy, and one where he did almost like limbo under our arms! It was fun! Matt L. took me out for a swing song, which was really fun, except that at one point my hair smacked me in the eye really hard! And it hurt really bad! So, when I got off the floor, it was tearing up, and I couldn't rub it because of the make-up! It was a bit funny! I danced with Ian quite a bit too, and he taught me the moves that I had missed from Social Dance on Wed. because we went to the Halloween dinner. The MOB got over at midnight, but it didn't feel like midnight! I thought it was around 10:30! Which is unusual because I am not a night person! But, I went to bed anyway, because I knew I would be dancing again later that afternoon, which I did! :) Lindy that Sat. was fun, because John was teaching us Balboa, another kind of swing, for faster songs. It's fun! But, not only did I dance, I talked too, and got to know people a little better. Matt told me about choir things, and we talked about Latin because he sings in Latin. It might be fun to join one of the choirs here so that I can sing in Latin and practice! :) I also found out that he used to play the euphonium! He's a band geek too! :) I went with him and Emily and Laura and Suzanna to get smoothies afterward. There's a place on the Pomona campus that makes really good milk-shakes and smoothies, and that's where we went. Sat. night, we watched Poltergeist! That is a scary movie! I didn't watch parts of it because itwas so scary! And we all shrieked afterward, because Camille's computer had the volume up from the movie, and when it was shutting down, it came up with the Monty Python sound "Run away, run away!" and scared us all! It was funny! Hmm, what else? Things have been pretty normal. I met with the Prof. at Mudd, and he says things should work out fine with my joining the classes up there next semester, which is awesome! I am so excited to get back into math again! Yay! I talked to Tatsu before Lindy on Tues., he had been at a Lindy convention all weekend! He lives in Seattle! Which is awesome, because if I can keep in contact with him, when I come back, I have someone who knows what he's doing with dance to get together with! :) And John danced with Meagan and I at the same time! Becca and I had seen this done, but I never expected to be asked to do it! It's a very strange experience, because there's another girl on his other hand, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with my feet, but it worked! :) It was fun, and interesting, but now that I've done it, I want to experiment with it again, and have someone actually explain to me what I'm supposed to do! I'm learning so much! It's so fun! But, I'm tired today, so, I'm going to bed soon. :) Good night.

"If pro is the opposite of con, and progress means to go forward, what does congress mean?" - Todd Tee hee, I thought that was rather funny! Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote, and there isn't a lot of time this morning to write, so I will be brief. Halloween was fun, I had two prospies instead of just one! That was a bit crazy, but it worked out. They were both really nice. One of my prospies spent most of the night in Mandy's room, because her twin sister was there. It was nice that they were right nextdoor! We watched Rocky Horror Picture Show, and then everyone went to Trick-or-Drink except for me and my prospie, and Mandy and her prospies, because that's just not a place you take them, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go anyway. So, that was fine. At midnight, we joined up with everyone else over at Mudd and saw them launch pumpkins frozen in liquid nitrogen really high into the air! That was exciting! And funny, in a way, because I bet Mudd is the only place that would ever do such a thing! :) Well, got to go to class, I'll write more later!