The Bowdoin Orient

The women's track and field team envisions a top-three finish in the Division III New England Regional Championship this Saturday, a goal they set their sights on after last year's championship, when they took seventh overall. The Bears took fourth place at the NESCAC Championship this past weekend to Williams, Middlebury, and Tufts, putting a third-place finish at the New England Championships within striking range. With a number of breakthrough performances at NESCACs, however, the women remain optimistic about their chances of achieving the goal.

A senior's parting words of wisdom are usually some intonation of the adage, "Take advantage of everything Bowdoin has to offer while you can." As with most adages, they are true and sincere words. Trying my best to abide by this rule, I've approached the vast majority of Bowdoin life with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Generally, that excitement has come naturally.

The women's track team remains confident in its chances of finishing in the top three teams at this weekend's NESCAC Championship, given its defeat of two of the conference teams, Colby and Bates, at the Aloha Relays last weekend. This was the 21st Aloha Relays, which draws schools from across the state as well as Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges. The Polar Bears won the meet handily, eclipsing Bates' 150 points and Colby's 123 points with a total score of 244.

Earlier today, I was wallowing in despair over my upcoming week. It's Ivies Weekend, with all its celebratory buffoonery; the one week of the school year where students can feel rightfully justified in throwing their homework up in the air, their feet up on the table, and their beer up on the Quad.

Facing cold, drizzly skies last Saturday, the women's track team garnered three victories against the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H. Though UNH's Wildcat Invitational was not scored, the strong performances in tough conditions bode well for the annual Aloha Relays this weekend, when schools from across Maine will come to Bowdoin to compete at the Magee-Samuelson track.

This past Saturday, at Princeton University, the women's outdoor track team proved that the high level of performance it set in the indoor season won't be dropped in the outdoor season, whatever elements they might face. And they certainly did have elements to take on at Princeton's annual Sam Howell Invitational: the Bears not only raced in brisk, blustery winds, but against a field of the best Division III and Division I competitors.

In our first and second years at Bowdoin, my peers in the Class of 2009 had lofty visions of where we could go with our Bowdoin diplomas. At the time, it seemed as if those certificates of higher education would be magic carpets, launching us to professional heights we could only imagine. Over the rabble and into the offices of major investment banks, consulting firms, ad agencies, and distinguished Ph.D. programs we would fly, miraculously landing, at the age of 21, halfway down the path of a successful professional life.

Monday morning, I awoke to find the universal sign for a Bowdoin Blackout: a garbage can holding the door of the bathroom open to let a small flicker of light enter the stall from our common room window. I groaned, knowing, that after walking down 15 flights of stairs to a dining hall buzzing with the artificial energy of a generator, I would have to fight for an outlet to "do homework" in the campus refugee camp.

The women's indoor track team looks to gather personal bests, school records, and NCAA qualification standards this weekend at the Open New England's Championship at Boston University. This past weekend, the Bears finished fourth of 24 teams in what proved a competitive Division III New England Regional Championship meet at Farley Field House, and the 25 NCAA qualifying performances they saw on their home turf will inspire them to reach for those standards this Friday and Saturday.

This weekend, the women's track team will welcome 25 of the most competitive Division III teams in New England to Farley Field House for the 2008 Division III New England Regional Championship. Having had a chance to compete at Boston University's Valentine's Day Invitational last Friday and Saturday, the women have every reason to be optimistic about their performance this weekend. The Valentine's Day Invitational always presents a new challenge to Bowdoin each year, hosting many Division I and professional athletes, who come to race at Boston University's Track and Tennis Center, widely regarded as one of the country's fastest indoor tracks.

Continuing a spotless season, the women's track team upheld its undefeated streak by decisively winning the Maine State Championship last Friday evening at Bates College. The Bears, who won the meet with 220 points to Bates' 146, Colby's 119, and USM's 87, have had their sights set on reclaiming the state title since their third-place finish at the 2008 championship.

Since the first few months of my sophomore year, when upperclassmen friends began their search for jobs, I've harbored certain anxieties about my own senior year process, wherein I begin to shape my future self. I came down to breakfast one morning to find track friends, whom I never saw dressed in anything other than Nike Frees and Levis, buttoned up and polished in Hugo Boss blazers or Ann Taylor skirt suits, always looking uncomfortable, nervous, and self-conscious.

When officials announced that the Bowdoin Women's Track Team had scored a three-point victory over Brandeis at the Brandeis Invitational last Saturday, the Bears' cheer of relief and celebration broke the tension and exhaustion of the afternoon. The meet ran almost an hour and a half later than scheduled, testifying to the focus and energy the Bears put on the track in Bowdoin's 157-154 defeat of the Brandeis Judges.

In the past couple of weeks, students have hidden the comment card bulletin board in Thorne with colorful, scrawled cards. These cards do not lament, for the hundredth time, Thorne's lack of Nutella, nor do they sing the praises of the sweet, summery flavor of the most recent mango vinaigrette. The problem this time? Pepper. Specifically, its shakers.

As captain Kelsey Borner '09 won the first event of the day, the weight throw, at the women's indoor track meet against Brandeis University last` Saturday, the Polar Bears knew they were in for a day of outstanding performances. The women weren't disappointed, as Borner's win preceded a series of victories by Bowdoin, who defeated Brandeis 76-64.

The sweeping snowstorm that clogged airport schedules and kept college students across the nation waiting for release until the wee hours of the morning made a fitting inauguration for the terrifying pre-finals weeks at Bowdoin.

Just a few minutes after the men's race had ended, and just 15 minutes before the start of the women's, a rain shower fell on Mt. Greylock High School?the site of Williams home course. The shower was brief, but it was just enough to soak an already wet course, giving the runners in the 2008 NCAA Division III New England Regional Championships this past Saturday an arduous run, full of soggy, rolling terrain, and a painfully steep hill with 1,000 meters to go in the 6K race.

As the Polar Bears started on the 2008 NESCAC Cross-Country Championship trail last Saturday morning, they passed the third mile marker grinning confidently. The Bears had come to Bates' home course, Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, the previous weekend in preparation for the race. Pineland Farms had also been the site of the 2007 Maine State Championship 5K course.

I still remember the first time I ever told someone I was thinking about writing a column for the Opinions section of the Orient. I proposed the idea over brunch in January of my sophomore year, and my friend said in a distinguished tone, "Ah, yes?perhaps an exposé on the state of the war in Iraq?" The first column was about coming back to campus early for preseason. The following about comment cards in the dining hall.

With cross country alumni cheering, a course they had run on countless times before, and the state title they earned last year, the women's cross country squad felt right at home at the Maine State Championships this past Homecoming weekend.

By the time this article is published, I could be a goner. I write this on the threshold of a battle that could go on for months. I have 11 hours and 45 minutes until Bowdoin becomes a polar-bear-eat-polar-bear campus. Until we are no longer a cozy liberal arts college on the coast of Maine, but a war zone recognizable only by the crumbling, blood-stained polar bear statue standing solemnly at its center. Some may attest that I'm exaggerating, but I say to you, my comrades-in-arms, that the protest is only made in denial of the apocalyptic undertaking set to begin at 8 a.m. on Thursday, October 16, 2008. Campus-Wide Assassin II is upon us.

The temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees, the course is known for its flat terrain, and the women's cross country team knew they were in for a fast race. And as the first five Polar Bears went through the first mile mark of the 5K course under, or close to, a six-minute-mile, it was clear that the race would end up being just that.

Last Monday morning, as I brushed my teeth, my roommate came into the bathroom pressing a wad of tissue to her nose. "Whush wong?" I asked through a foam of Crest. "I think I'm getting sick," she said, turning on the faucet with the hands that had just held the repository tissue.

In the seconds after the gun went off at the Jumbo Invitational last Saturday, spectators may not have been optimistic for the Polar Bears' finish. As runners climbed the first hill of the 5K race that sultry afternoon, Bowdoin's varsity runners loitered between the 30th and 40th place runners.

A couple weeks ago, I pressed my nose up against the small square of Plexiglas next to my seat as JetBlue Flight 606 hovered over Portland. I've made the same descent countless times during my time at Bowdoin, but I still can't help feeling a little awe-inspired by the scattered lakes and bewildering forests of Maine's landscape. Born and raised in the Midwest, New England still has an exotic draw for me; the curious charm of lobster boats, in fact, eliminated any need I ever felt to study overseas. Land's End would suffice.

Every time I log on the our student gateway page, it strikes me as comical that the rotating slideshow of Bowdoin "snapshots," meant to remind students of the warm atmosphere and academic stateliness of our alma mater, are all taken of Ivies Weekend two years ago.

At Bowdoin, we've managed to develop a list of activities and/or events that you absolutely must do if you really want to graduate in the security of knowing you've milked your education for all its worth. Going to L.L. Bean at 2 a.m., taking an Outing Club trip, making Super Snack nachos, etc.

After a trying first two weeks back at school, full of gray skies, falling slush, and the discovery that I actually was assigned homework over vacation, my Spring Break memories are now distant, soft flickers.

Watson Fitness Center has an unsettling effect on me. My perspective on the gym is, granted, a little different; I usually conduct my exercise mat naps and two-pound weight bicep curls at Farley Field House, so taking these rituals to foreign territory makes me a little uncertain of myself.

It's February 15. That means that most of you are probably reading this in the midst of a spirit-draining post-Valentine's Day sugar crash. I personally have vowed not to eat another carbohydrate until Easter.

A few weeks ago, Stanley Fish wrote a blog entry that I spotted on The New York Times website: "Will The Humanities Save Us?" "It is not the business of the humanities to save us," he writes.

In all of our young lives, there will come time when our guts tell us that it's time to take control over our own lives, to squash the foes that stand in our way. It's a time that will take stoic discipline, a daring display of initiative, and an invaluable dash of smug confidence.

"Let me borrow that top. It's a cute top. I wanna borrow it." "Shoes. Let's get some shoes." Sound familiar? If not, don't worry. It's an inside joke. And you're on the outside.

When I was in eighth grade, the seeds were sown for a phenomenon that, for better or worse, will define our generation. It will be what World War II was to the 1940s, what drugs and protests were to the 60s, and what big hair and Blondie were to the 80s.

On the way home from a cross-country meet on Saturday, my ID card fell out of my pocket and onto the seat of the bus; I discovered this later as I attempted to get into Coles Tower. The bus, the driver, and the card are now who-knows-where, and I'm considering it as good as evaporated.

For the past couple of weeks, there's been a small influx in my inbox. Not the bulk e-mails selling low mortgage rates, or ads for Viagra with the subject heading, "See What Tiffany Really Wants." These are friendly e-mails from familiar faces.

With the commencement of Ladd House's annual Epicuria this past Saturday night, a year of festively themed social house parties began. Those of us who managed to get out without melting into the floor are probably looking forward to similar social house gatherings soon. Before we know it, the run-of-the-mill Eighties, Halloween, Beach, CEOs and Corporate Businesswomen, and Valentine's Day bashes will be upon us.

A journal entry from July 24, 2007: "My goals for the school year: first, up each day at seven! Sleep is for the weak.

"I finally finished off my Polar Points!" exclaimed a friend as he walked out of the Pub with a plate of fries. I winced; I felt as though someone had swiped an ID card through my soul. Polar Points, for me, are a mere distant memory?a Golden Age, when the C-Store was as accessible as my back pocket.

This past week's weather has served as a reminder to many students just how much a roof over your head can do to enhance your Bowdoin experience. Those of you who wish to continue to have this comfort for next year's "April showers" have probably noticed that the 2007-2008 housing lottery is happening.

This Sunday, while Bowdoin students slumber in their beds, eagerly awaiting morning, the Maine state Easter Bunny will prepare to leave its burrow, bearing Cadbury eggs, pink saran wrap, and enough Peeps to rot the enamel right off a casserole dish.

I had the good fortune this past Saturday to miss the Concord Trailways bus from Logan Airport by five minutes.

I'm writing this column in perhaps what is the single most dingy, and yet most revered and mythical place on our campus. It is surrounded by sexual urban legend, and frequented by Bowdoin students in their most academically diligent states.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about college students' dependence on laptop computers?the obstacles they represent, the activities we need them for, the solace we find in them, etc. Without debate, we need our laptops to function as students and as social beings; Bowdoin has developed many services that are conveniently accessible on our computers.

I've noticed at points along my two-year Bowdoin career that we seem to have a controversial reality in our midst. Hushed though it may be, it's proclaimed by some with a distinguished sense that "everybody thinks they know this, but I really know the truth."

Man has a new best friend. Spot may be able to catch and return a tennis ball, but I'm willing to bet that you can't throw him a word and have him bring back 3,482,976 pages of information on it. Rover may nuzzle your leg when you're blue, but he probably doesn't sing you your entire collection of Sarah McLachlan albums in one sitting.

As a freshman in high school, years before I came upon Bowdoin's campus of Sufjan and Wilco lovers, I sat in a straight-backed wooden chair before the school jazz band conductor. This was a man who, over the course of his career, had led generations of extraordinarily talented musicians to 30 Downbeat magazine Student Musician Awards.

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the first round of returning Bowdoin students skipped into Thorne for their first brunch of the spring semester. Tanned and tired from trips to Mexico, Peru, Mars, and Florida, clad in their holiday loot, the Polar Bears appeared ready to take on the new semester, fresh from five weeks of fun, restful traveling, and couch-potatoing.