Well, at this, the completion of my first FULL week of class etc. here at Luther College, I figured it was time to let people know what was up in my life! Note that chances are I won't be nearly as regular and good about updates as Beth is, but I'll try my best to get something out every so often! Overall stuff has been good, classes are going well, and I've made friends. I guess I'll just go over some highlights of my time here, since you probably don't care too much about the nitty gritty details of each day!
This is slightly backward, but it's freshest in my mind, so I'm going to write about it first. Tonight on campus was the first night of their main stage series thing, featuring major acts and performances from around the world. The kickoff program was a musical political comedy group called Capitol Steps! They make fun of everyone, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, person or occurrence. They take well-known songs and change the lyrics around, mostly. One of the funniest things that they did was take the first syllables/sounds of two words and switch them! The only example I can remember right now is that Sarah Palin becoming Parah Salin (say it out loud...which sport does it sound like?).
Last night was the first of (apparently) monthly salsa dances!! There were brief lessons held in Ylvisaker (one of the first year dorms) beforehand, and then from 9-12 was salsa dancing in our cafe/coffee shop/dance floor, Marty's! It was really fun, despite the lack of guys. We were all expecting that, because at ballroom dance club and swing dance clubs on Tuesday and Thursday respectively, there was a definite lack of guys as well. But we all managed just fine!
For those of you who don't know, which is probably most everyone, I made the top orchestra here. We rehearse three times a week for an hour and a half each time, so it's quite a bit of work, but it's really fun! At the moment we're working on Dvořák's 9th Symphony aka the New World Symphony, along with a piece by Falla, who I had never heard of before. The Dvořák is amazing; he's one of my favorite composers. We had the annual "orchestra play day" today, where we practice for three hours in the morning (9-12), and then get pizza afterward. I'm used to DAPA rehearsals where we had a 15 minute break in the middle of three hours; here we got a half an hour, so it was really easy. There are five of us first year violists, and we all made the top orchestra, which is awesome! We ate lunch together today, and had lots of fun. It just makes me miss all my viola friends back home!
Overall, classes have been going well also. At Luther there's a required class for all freshmen called Paideia. According to wikipedia, in ancient Greek the word paideia means 'education' or 'instruction.' Here, it's mainly a literature class, but we discuss a lot too. My prof is amazing; his name is Storm Bailey and he's a philosophy prof. We've been having some AWESOME discussions in class. My Spanish class is really fun; our prof is nice, and there's a kid from Sioux Falls who I know in there, plus other really fun people. My theory class is the most disappointing. Everything is going to be a review of what we did last year in AP Music Theory. So far we've reviewed major and minor scales and intervals. We're FINALLY (after a week and a half of class, and 25 pages out of the workbook - including one with practicing writing 60 intervals...) moving onto figured bass, so hopefully it'll get more interesting soon. Everyone that I've talked to in the class is equally bored, so that makes it somewhat easier.
So that's a general summary of what's been going on! Obviously, if anyone's in the area (or not...), you're welcome to stop by! A little advance warning would be nice, so I can figure out what's going on, and we can clean our room, but other than that, I'd love to see anyone! Emails work too, though of course face-to-face visits are always better! I love you all!!
Emily
