it rained alot today. i went running in the crum around 4:30, from one end to the other. the part where the big tree has been sawed down the middle and separated to make a corridor for the path--a trickle of water was going through when i crossed on the outgoing direction. coming back, the trickle was a stream, starting at the top of the hill and running into the creek, which i could barely cross by holding onto the log and akwardly pulling myself to a dry patch. i was researching swarthmore history in connection to my paper for pallabi, currently, and extensively entitled (i think it's sticking) "Learning a Lifestyle, Embodying an Institution: An Exploration of the Social Structuring and Kinesthetic Experiences of Time in the Daily Lives of Students at Swarthmore College at the Turn of the 21st Century." how's that for a title? i wonder how many people that title would annoy to all getout, and how many would be interested. anyways, in the 20s students used to canoe on the crum--boys and girls together! when was 'great gatsby' written anyways? for some reason that image reminds me of f. scott fitzgerald and d.h. lawrence.
i like running in the rain. tika said she liked her walk in it too. made her feel better. i skipped out on the sharples faculty/staff/seniors carnival and went and got some stuff at guenardi's at exactly the wrong time--6 o'clock rush hour traffic. got starbuck's coffee for the second day in a row. i've been thinking about an educational 'institution' where students don't pay, but instead come to live with the 'teacher/professors' and families at a place that had some way/s of earning enough money for everyone to live, that everyone living there--the educators/educatees together--contributed to, leaving time for reading/writing/art making/activism etc. a community of life learners not brought together by exchanges of huge amounts of money. so, have to figure out how to work towards/live this, while also getting clear of my student loans. i wouldn't want for it to be an escapist or exclusive-seeming community, though, but that may just be an anticipatory fear preventing the actual doing. perhaps every institution, and every person, are both inward and outward turning in consciousness, and the both deepen in proportion to the other. hmmm...
posted by Liza 21.5.03