Hello Again!

A fabulous thing happened tonight.

I got de-tripled!


Imagine, if you will, our dorm room- a small room with one loft bed, one bunk bed, three desks, three dressers, two closets, clothes, junk, shoes, books, lamps, a fan, and general chaos.

Then subtract the loft bed, one of the desks, one of the dressers, and a lot of the chaos. Take apart the bunk bed.

This is the reality of the last couple hours for Alice and I. Sara has moved to another room in our suite so that we don't get a ninth girl to share one shower with.
It is glorious. The whole room feels less sardine-like, more homey. Alice has been 50/50 with climbing into her bed and leaping on it, just to leap.
The whole atmosphere of our room has changed. There is just more space. A thousand things are easier now. There is less filth because we cleaned as we went. It is actually feasable to sit on our beds and read because it is actually feasable to sit upright on them. It just feels like there's room! It is the difference between a towncar and a stretch limousine. Air to breathe. It allows for people to hang out in our room. It leaves wall space for posters. It leaves less crap in the upper half of our rooms so the whole thing just looks brighter.

Oh, it is wonderful! I wish every freshman got to live like this.
Alice says "We could do aerobics!" And she is a fabulous roommate.

In other news, I went to my first protest today!! It was organizerd by a group called NORML, which is pretty much known as the druggie club because their main goal is legalizing marijuana. But they've teamed up with the public interest group on campus for a student whose rights were violated in what they consider an unlawful search and seizure. So we assembled! With clever signs like "Stop weeding out your students" [har, har] and "Hottest small state school throwing out its biggest class". A New Paltz alum gave a speech that really got me. I have never been motivated to get involved in the push to legalize marijuana, I don't smoke it and never will, but this young man stood in front of us and told us that if we are ever confronted on our beliefs, all that needs to be said is [indicaing towards his head/body] "This is mine." That's all. And it became that simple. Most of the kids there were all about the fact that marijuana was involved, but it's beyond that. It's an issue about human rights. We are losing our liberties little by little. My friend Marc was saying that if a man is wearing a diabetic ID bracelet and you see him with crumbs around his mouth, you don't push him around and search him for cookies. It's his right, whether it's responsible or not, to do what he chooses with his body. So when they see people wearing a dancing bear tie-dye t-shirt and immediately suspect they're smoking pot and bully them into signing warrants for no real reason, it's really not their call.

Like I said, I've never been a big player in the legalization scene, but today got me fired up. I want to stand up for my rights. I feel like it's my duty as a citizen, and maybe that's extreme, but it's like that saying about how first they take this minority, then they take this group, and no one says a word, then they take the gays, then the jews, and no one stands up for them, and there's no one left to notice when they come for us. I think that's from the bible? What I mean is, I am making a karmic investment by standing up for underrepresented people, so there will be someone shouting and holding signs when it's my turn to be prosecuted.



Exhausting day. Also rode my bike up the hill without stopping for the first time since I got here- I had a doctor's appointment for a vaccination. Ouch :(

That's all for tonight. I'll update again soon! TTYL!