The twinkling lights adorning the massive (probably 10ft) christmas tree, wreathes and bows across the chapel and warmth of the company exuded the holiday spirit within Kilworth Chapel while the rest of the campus labored over their last week of classes assignments and finals preparations. By the time I walked into the chapel, nearly all the pews were full, many with elderly folks in our local community eager to enjoy the holiday music. A sentiment I fully agree with after hearing the Adelphians and Voci d’Amici annual Holiday Concert, “The Darkest Midnight in December”. Adelphians is our mixed audition based vocal group, renown for many years and Voci d’Amici are the top sixteen singers on our campus, auditioned to perform acapella music. The concert also engaged Rev. Wright in readings across the many religious disciplines about the holiday season. Their concert drew the hoards of the community, as I exited one family was seen taking their annual holiday picture on the steps of the Chapel after each concert.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Adelphians and Voci d’Amici is anything but great, their musicality, performance, song choices and emotion rang true on Sunday afternoon taking me out of the fog of finals, lab reports and papers I was drudgering through to think about the holiday spirit. To tradition, to spending time with family, friends and be grateful for. My parents are sending me to college because I wanted to further my education, I am excited about biology and what I could do with in this career field of medicine and help people. Enough to send my a couple thousand miles away from home for 8 months of the year for thousands of dollars, because they believe in me and my desire to know more and be able to do more. *pause* ALL of that makes the studying, fun, and times with the friends I’ve made up here at Puget Sound all the more special and meaningful, just as being about to see all my family and friends at home who I love and will finally be able to spend time with during my break special too. I’m lucky to be able to study a ton and moan and groan about my lab reports, exams and learning all about science. Adelphians and Voci d’Amici shared amazing music with us that day, a part of their passions for singing and to remind us of the holiday spirit as much as I’m sure the elderly folks and other families there were able to enjoy.

Before coming to UPS, I read about this little self-project that you could do throughout your college years. Basically, youmake a playlist or folder with all the songs you downloaded in a certain semester or year. For example, I’ve added every song I’ve downloaded since orientation week to “Freshman Year: Fall Semester”.

The idea is that you’re able to see how your tastes in music change over your college career. I really loved this concept and have downloaded 57 songs since starting. I’ll probably add a few more before finals wrap up. Here are some of my top picks:

• I’m Just a Kid by Simple Plan – Starting off strong with some good old fashioned teenage angst. Everyone can relate to this song. We’ve all felt lonely or felt like the world was completely against us or like we don’t fit in. It’s just a good song anyone and everyone can relate to.

• You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift – What’s a playlist without some T-Swizzle? This song is a simple and catchy tune from earlier in Swift career, when she was in between Country and Pop. It’s everyone’s guilty pleasure song. Admit it, you’ve rocked out to this in your room when no one was looking. I have.

• All Star by Smash Mouth – It’s a classic. I mean, that’s really all there is. It’s the epitome of the late 90’s and early 00’s.

• Hey Ya! by OutKast – Like All Star, this is a classic. If you don’t like thissong , I’m not sure if we can be friends.

• Never Forget You by Zara Larsson & MNEK – When you first listen to this song, you’ll think that’s it’s Rihanna singing. Zara is actually this teenage Swedish girl, possibly the furthest from Rihanna you can get. I promise you, this song is worth a listen

• Roses (ZAXX Remix) by The Chainsmokers and ROZES – This remix is a fresh look at Roses, which the Chainsmokers dropped earlier this year. It kicks up the beat and makes the song great to work out or dance to.

• Coming Over (Filous Remix) by James Heresy – Kygo may have brought the world’s attention to the Tropical House genre, but producers like Filous are keeping people listening, it’s definitely kept me in the genre.

• I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! at the Disco – What kind of person would I be if I didn’t finish off this list without some more angst?

So that’s my list. It looks like I’m an angsty little raver that’s stuck in 2005. I’m really looking forward to what the next few years will do to my tastes in music. Maybe you should try it out. It’s never too late, the next semester is just around the corner.

Holidays can be a great reminder of what you have. A couple of New Years ago my family and I all drank Martinelli’s and sang Auld Old Lang Syne. Then when I kept singing after midnight my sister threatened to hit me. I was genuinely moved by this. But the holidays can also be stressful. Just watch one of the gazillions of movies about estranged Dads trying to connect with their kids on Christmas. Or ask whoever does the cooking on Thanksgiving.

For the past few years my family has kept Thanksgiving simple. My freshman year we had tacos. Sophomore year it was pizza. Last year we went to a friend’s house, so someone else was cooking. And this year we went back to tacos. This was a good thing because by the time my family was ready to make dinner I was ready to eat the table. And when I’m that hungry I start to mutter under my breath a lot and the situation deteriorates from there.

But the tacos were delicious and easy to make. I think it took about half an hour. We ate on the couch in front of the movie Hot Fuzz. It was about a cop having a shootout with the village benefit society which, as it turns out, is actually kind of a cult. Nothing says Thanksgiving like hearing a bunch of people in medieval-ish robes murmur “the greater good” in perfect unison.

That Thanksgiving we watched a total of three movies. We saw the second part of Mockingjay, Hot Fuzz, and Coherence. Mockingjay was depressing, lots of explosions and dead kids. Hot Fuzz was hilarious. And Coherence blew my mind. It was about people meeting versions of themselves from different realities. I ended up really confused but I did get to learn my family’s strategies for what to do if this happened. My mom would hop in her car and not stop driving till it was over. My sister would just stay in whatever reality she ended up in. As for me, I’m not sure what I would do but it would probably involve swearing. And possibly tacos.

One of my interests that I listed in my biography is hair dye. In the interest of ignoring all of the work and research I have to do in the next few weeks*, I’m going to tell you about it.

A picture from when I redyed my hair a few weeks ago. Notice the paper towel underneath it so I don’t get pink everywhere.

I’ve been dying my own hair for a few years now, and I’ve recently started dying some of my friends’ hair when they asked — they think that I’m magical or something because it always turns out stunning but really, in the interest of full disclosure, hair dye is just guesswork. The actual dying part is easy, because all you have to do is paint it on the hair with either a brush or your fingers**. So is mixing the dye. You choose either a color or colors, and maybe some white conditioner if you want to make it lighter, and mix them all together before dumping it on someone’s head. The proportions are what’s difficult though. It’s choosing the proportions of colors to put in the mix that involves the most guesswork.

Do I want one drop or two of the reddish-purple? Do I want to put a little or a lot of purple into the blue? It all depends on what color you want, and, potentially, whether you mess up and put more color than you were expecting to into the mix (sorry Rachel. I did not mean to make your hair reddish purple instead of orchid).

It’s a pretty simple thing, actually. I might make a post about bleach later, because that is much more difficult and can be legitimately dangerous if you do it wrong. But dying hair? Is just painting. And, if you do it enough and speak confidently enough about different colors and stuff, people might just think you’re a wizard when their hair magically turns purple.

* I am definitely going to do it, and I am pretty well prepared for it. Sometimes it’s good to take a break though!

** I would definitely recommend using disposable gloves if you’re going to do this at home though and especially if you’re going to use your fingers instead of a brush to paint your or your friends’ hair — no one wants bright blue hands for a week. No one.***

*** I may or may not be speaking from experience about that.

Sunset in the marina

The good ol’ maple leaf

Alright, you got me.

As it turns out, I do occasionally make expeditions into cities; and I usually do so voluntarily. I’d actually say that I quite like cities. In the same way that you can come to understand the environment and geography of a place by getting out into its natural areas, you can come to understand the culture and the people of a place by going into its urban centers. That was what brought me to Victoria.

Leaving Port Angeles, Washington on the ferry

A statue outside of the legislative building

I had just found out that I was going to the Olympic Peninsula to spend Thanksgiving break with my grandfather when an idea crossed my mind: “Hey… that’s right by Canada.” And I was right. In fact, to get to Victoria, British Columbia––the capital of B.C.––you simply need to get to Port Angeles, Washington, which is only 30 minutes from my grandfather’s house. Then, you jump onto the Coho passenger ferry for a 90 minute trip complete with gorgeous scenery. Finally, passport in hand, you’re off on a whirlwind of new adventures that can only be found within the borders of our northern neighbor.

Another parting shot of the Olympic Mountains

Sunset on the British Columbia coast

Let me start out by saying that the city is beautiful. On a clear day, you can see the Olympic Mountains across the Straight of Juan de Fuca, as well as some of the interior topography of British Columbia. Within 10 minutes of downtown, you can see the province’s legislative building, walk the coastline, explore the marina, shop in Chinatown, and visit countless coffee shops. And, if you have a little more time for your visit, you could easily take public transportation two hours out of town and get into some serious, world-class outdoors in the Provincial National Parks.

The legislative building at night

The Empress Hotel at sunset

For me, this trip was kind of an eye opener. Even though I’ve lived in the northern end of the U.S. all of my life, I had never visited Canada. And even though I knew that Tacoma was merely a few hours away from Canada, I had never really considered Canada as a place that I could explore while in school. Man was I wrong.

Sunset, the Olympics, and the marina

I would highly recommend making it a point to explore Victoria and the surrounding area at least once while attending Puget Sound. It’ll be a trip you won’t forget, and you’ll finally get to dust off your old passport.

The Victoria marina

Happy trails,

Colton

I stopped to think about the world, about life abstractly the other day and I noticed I’m doing so more and more. There has been a lot of chaos and more media coverage of those chaos for us sheltered in the US to realize what is actually happening around the world. Americans seem stereotyped to only care about our country, our problems and our successes and that’s true but that mentality can’t continue in the world we live in today. This is a time of turmoil, and change for positive great change and equality and basic respect for all humans to be achieved, hopefully in my lifetime and I can look back and say I thought critically and participated in making change for the good, for seeing all the bad in the world and wanting to hear people’s narratives to be informed and support action to better the world.

The professor looked down at my personal statements, each changed just a little depending on the school. She asked: “How do you keep track of it all?”

“I forget people’s names.” I replied. Then she laughed because she did it to.

This semester is my last at Puget Sound so I have been trying to figure out what comes next. The question what comes next is a scary one for any senior. The fear it brings on is almost cliché by now. It feels a little like being the guy in the Matrix when he is getting ready to take the blue pill. Only in this case the blue pill is mandatory. You can’t stay in college forever. One day you’re going to have close your dorm room door behind you, give your keys to the RA, and then ask them back because you realize you forgot your shower caddy. But after that you’re still going to have to leave. You are going to have to answer the question of what’s next.

Me, I’m applying for a lot of things, both jobs and graduate schools, and hoping I get one of them. So far, this has been like crawling up a mountain of paper work. I have documents on my computer titled “List of Schools and Deadlines,” “Schools and Codes for the GRE,” “Transcript Policies,” and “Record of Submission.” After I finish writing this post I’m going to have to go to the registrar and ask them to email me a copy of my unofficial transcript because the one I tried getting off the UPS website wouldn’t upload to the graduate school website. Good times.

My strategy for dealing with this is three fold.

One) I forget people’s names. I called my suitemate Aidan instead of Adrian multiple times even after I’d been living with him for half a semester. Anything in my brain that is non-essential gets jettisoned.

Two) Writing myself little notes on scraps of paper and leaving them on my desk to find later. Some notes I have now are “GPA—3.82 + Transcripts” and “letters.” The first is a reminder for me to make sure that I entered my GPA as 3.82 on all of my applications. The second is a reminder to make sure that each of my professors who I asked to write me a letter of recommendation has the correct link.

Three) I take deep breaths. I had a stressful day yesterday and I woke up in the middle of last night with a huge knot in my chest. So I concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. To be honest, I could benefit from doing this more often. It gets lost in the scuffle sometimes. Over Thanksgiving break, that’s what I’m going to do next. I’m going to breathe.