A Letter To My Family

Hey Guys,

How are you doing? I'm doing really wonderful! Tomorrow is my registration day as well as my first soccer scrimmage. I'm going to be the starting goalie! I'm a little bit nervous, but I practiced with a couple of the girls from my dorm for about an hour today and I feel better about it.

Yesterday the soccer team drove over to the Catskills and took a five and a half mile hike in the mountains. It was gorgeous. We stopped for about twenty minutes at a water fall with a 200 foot drop off. The trees were absolutely amazing; bright, vibrant and everywhere. A couple girls took pictures and I'll see if they can e-mail them to me so I can forward them on to you. It was a really great experience and we had a great time just hanging out. The girls seem really nice and I usually eat dinner with them after practice everyday.

The practice field is gorgeous! Not only is the grass the right length and lacking in football yard markings, but it's surrounded by huge trees and at one point, you can look out over the Hudson to the Catskills. There are always huge falcons (or some other large, majestic bird) flying over the field. Mom, you would love watching them; they're so elegant in the air, coasting on the drafts.

KT decided that she wasn't going to play this year and that's been a little bit awkward. It's not a big deal, but it is weird coming back in my soccer gear or talking about the up coming games. Besides that, she and I have been getting along amazingly well. We don't hang out together outside of the dorm much, but when we are together, we're having fun listening to music or doing a drum jam in front of the dorm. I'm really glad she's my room mate.

I've been mainly hanging out with these girls named Sarah, Janine and Genya. Sarah and Janine are on the third floor and they're my dorm buddies. Sarah is from Portland and Janine is from San Francisco (the only Filipino in our class as she would proudly tell you lol). Genya is from right around Albany, so she's only an hour from home. She's also a couple dorms down in Wolff, of which I'm an honorary member just for fun. Genya and I went to the first Queer Alliance meeting together on Monday and we're both really excited to get involved. I might also join the TLS which is basically a service organization that sponsors aid and general help all over the world. The students come up with the ideas, plan everything, present their plan to a board for funding and then go out and serve. Genya is already involved, she got a scholarship from them or something, and it sounds really cool.

I'm excited about registration tomorrow. I actually get to sign up for classes early because of the scrimmage, which is a blessing because at Bard you have to run from office to office to sign up for classes, so hopefully I'll get into all of my first choices. I attached a spreadsheet with all of the classes that I'm using as a back up as well as my original four, which are at the bottom. Also attached is my final essay for L&T that my professor Bryan really enjoyed. *Blushes* I'm going to type what he wrote on it because I can't actually show you it in person-

Dear Rebecca,

What a thoughtful, forceful, well-conceived statement of values you have written! I applaud your willingness to share these details from your life experience, placing them in conversation with some of our readings. Your use of the semi-colon seems a bit forced at times. Needless to say, your essay reflects your inquisitive, enthusiastic nature. It has been a great pleasure to have you in my class.

I'm really happy about it. If the only negative thing he could get from my paper was that I need to work on semi-colon use then I feel great! I learned a lot in the last three weeks, though not to say that I'm not glad that it's over. There was actually a newspaper article from one of the neighboring towns that called L&T an "intellectual boot camp". It was like a really intensive high school because we had classes all day. We actually had more class time in the last three weeks than I will in my normal classes this entire semester. It was worth it though.

My First Year Seminar Class starts on Wednesday and I have to read all of Plato's Symposium for the first day. I've got the book, I haven't started reading it though. I'm going to start tomorrow while I'm waiting in line for classes. As soon as I find out the books that I'm going to be needing for classes, I'll e-mail you Dad. I just have to wait until after registration to be sure.

Y.O.U. is going well. My first planning meeting is going to be during fall break (8th-12th October), so I won't miss any classes at all. I'm also starting a new page for the website ( http://www.unity.org/iyou/index.html ) about service. It'll list service organizations from around the world and in the different regions. Oh, and the International Team's pictures are up on there! You should check it out. In the next week there will be statements from the entire team as well as two or three new pages.

Well, thats about everything thats going on right now. I'll call you all soon to talk, tell you which classes I got into and about the game. I love you all and I miss you!

Becca