I’ll Be Mother

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In which there is tea.

            Camelia Sinensis: (n.), the white-flowered evergreen shrub that is the origin of all teas.  Family Theaceae, Genus Camelia, from the Latinized name of the Reverend Georg Kamel (1661-1706), a Jesuit missionary to the Philippines who made substantial contributions to seventeenth century botany. Sinensis, Latin for “from China”.

To my dear reader,

I sit in Ubiquitous Journey – a sandwich and tea shop that is my favorite off-campus location in Tacoma – and after having stumbled upon Keith Souter’s The Tea Cyclopedia: A Celebration of the World’s Favorite Drink, I have begun to wonder about the drink.  I have Nickelodeon to thank for the beginning of my love of tea, due to my love of the character Iroh in the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender and his love for the beverage, but tea has since extended beyond my relationship with that TV show.  The complexities of tea fascinate me; the intricacies of its creation are baffling, the delicacy needed to blend it enormous.

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There are six families of true tea – white, yellow, oolong, green, black and pu-erh – of which all are made from the Camelia Sinensis, while floral, herbal and fruit teas are delicious falsities, not containing the tea bush’s leaves and therefore not being true teas.  Each family of tea has its own creation process and therefore its own distinctive flavor, and all have great health benefit, such as the tumor and apoptosis inhibiting ability of tea’s polyphenols or the antioxidant abilities of tea’s catechins.  Tea has been used in all manner of literary adventures, from the Hatter’s tea party in Lewis Carol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to the teashop setting of Baroness Orzy’s Old Man in the Corner, and tea’s beauty has inspired the lineage of tea literature from Lu Yu’s Ch’a Ching (The Classic of Tea), c.770, to Kakuzo Okakura’s 1911 volume The Book of Tea, to Keith Souter’s The Tea Cyclopedia: A Celebration of the World’s Favorite Drink itself.

But what interests me most is the use of tea in social interaction.  The Taiwanese tea tradition uses the Perennial Tea Ceremony as an opportunity for participants to celebrate the seasons, elements and philosophy together, while the Moroccan tea tradition calls polite conversation over three servings of maghrebi mint tea after dinner.  As eighteenth century dining customs changed to suit the increasingly industrial society, and the midday and evening meals grew ever farther apart, afternoon tea was invented to tide the upper classes over and allow for diversionary social interaction in the intervening time.

I, however, used tea in an enjoyable and completely accidental social interaction between me (as I sat in Ubiquitous Journey) and a fellow Puget Sound student that happened to have stumbled upon the shop.  We ordered sandwiches and soup together, and feeling inspired by reading The Tea Cyclopedia, I decided that I would offer her a cup of my Hairy Crab Oolong tea.

“What you tried this one before?” she asked.

“Oh no,” I replied, “But that’s part of the adventure.”

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There is a saying in the United Kingdom, Keith Souter writes, that goes “I’ll be Mother” if one desires to be the one to pour tea for others.  There is speculation that this originates from old fertility practices, wherein a woman hoping to conceive would serve drinks unto others as part of a ritual.  Whatever the origin of the saying, however, I immediately took a liking to it and, when this friend from Puget Sound reached to pour her own cup, I waved her hand away and said “I’ll be Mother!”

Something that no one tells you about college is that not only do you must learn to speed to catch up with all the things you must learn, but also must learn to slow down to a rate of life that is healthy and reasonable.  Drinking tea, to me, is a purposeful act of slowing down, no matter how rapidly the world is shifting.  Drinking tea with another, to me, is an invitation for another to enjoy a moment with just you in just that very moment – a difficult thing to do.

As I later learned, “being mother” also entails pouring milk into the cups of those that want it, offering sugar cubes rather than a bowl of granulated sugar, and using tongs to lift the cubes.  But never mind this, and never mind my inadequate knowledge of tea practices and traditions!  For it is a learning process, and one day, I shall be mother indeed.

With all due respect,

Daniel Wolfert

P.S. I highly recommend the Hairy Crab Oolong.  It was delicious.

Fun fact: “Tacoma” means “mother of waters.”

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Yeah, diving in the Sound without a drysuit is chilly, but as much as I love looking at it from above, it's really cool to see what's actually in there. (Giant plumose anemones, anyone?)

Yeah, diving in the Sound without a drysuit is chilly, but as much as I love looking at it from above, it’s really cool to see what’s actually in there. (Giant plumose anemones, anyone?)

Anyone who knows me a little bit, or has listened to me reel off my list of major / minors / study abroad experience / career interests*, has figured out that I love water.  I was born in Southern California and lived about eight miles away from the beach until I was 11 years old, at which point my family moved away to Northern Virginia (not to be confused with Virginia).  I’ve been rowing for seven years, working on my eighth, and got SCUBA certified two years ago.  One of my requirements when I was looking for colleges was that it had to be on one coast or the other, nowhere in between.  Flying into Sea/Tac the day before freshman move-in day in 2011, I saw the dark blue of the Sound running through the dark green of the forests – I have a bit of a soft spot for evergreens – and I knew that I was in the right place.

Shameless advertisement for the crew team? We're a nice group of people with a solid appreciation for water and the mountain.

Shameless advertisement for the crew team? We’re a nice group of people with a solid appreciation for water and the mountain.

“Mother of waters,” which was pulled from the Puyallup language, technically refers to Mt. Rainier, whose glaciers are the headwaters of several different watersheds in the area.  (Side note: if you’re outdoorsy and want to go on class camping trips, I recommend the environmental policy and decision making [EPDM] program.  I spent the first three weekends of this semester hiking on Mt. Rainier, rafting the Nisqually River, wandering around mud flats, and so on.)  Water is kind of important in this area, and I like this connection between the mountains and the Sound.  The physical landscape, as well as the regional economy, is kind of shaped and defined by water – even before the Sound existed, glaciers covered this region and carved out the Sound’s basin as well as all the hills that keep things from being flat and boring (not like I’m biased or anything).

And once I'm in the Gulf of Mexico, I'm just a hob, puddle-jump, and a boat ride away from my study abroad country. Ah, the good old days of being able to dive in just a Puget Sound uni for the photo ops....

And once I’m in the Gulf of Mexico, I’m just a hop, puddle-jump, and a boat ride away from my study abroad country. Ah, the good old days of being able to dive in just a Puget Sound uni for the photo ops….

I’m going to graduate in May, which is weird, and means that I have to have an answer to people asking me if I’m going to stay out here or go somewhere closer to my family.  And actually, as it turns out, the answer that I happened to come across is: neither, at the moment.  Don’t worry, though, I’ll still be involved with water – I’ll be rowing the length of the Mississippi River, doing environmental education and water quality research with the UPS alum-created nonprofit group OAR Northwest.  Studying freshwater will be a bit of a change, but as Finding Nemo taught us, everything ends up in the ocean, and after a few months I’ll be in the Gulf of Mexico.  (And after that, yes, I do want to return to the Pacific Northwest.  Sorry, Mom.)

 

* “Hi, my name’s Leah Shamlian and I am a senior at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing and double minoring in environmental policy and religion; I did a marine field research study abroad program in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, and I want to go into science communication or environmental writing.”  Have to say it quickly, otherwise people lose interest.

A Little Bit of Light

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It’s fall break at the University of Puget Sound, and that means a little bit of time to do a little bit of nothing. This year, my friends and I, having access to a car, took a trip to Auburn for an afternoon full of shopping. Tired and hungry, we exited the shopping center, piled into the car, and drove to a nearby Panda Express.

But the day wasn’t over. Despite having spent more time at the mall than we had anticipated, we didn’t want to head back to campus yet. Though our original plan (to drive to Sunset Park to watch the sunset) had to be scratched (we had already missed the sunset), we decided to go to a nearby park to eat our take-out.

Everything was dark as we pulled in to the parking lot. While there were many streetlamps around, few of them were on. We were alone, a feeling that made me feel that we weren’t. Sitting atop the bleachers, we ate.

There was no trace of light in the sky when we had finished eating, and it seemed—if such a thing is possible—that the park was quieter than before. Yet, in spite of ourselves and what reservations we may have had about staying, we opened the trunk of the car, pulled out a basketball and a Frisbee we had bought at the mall, and wandered back into the darkness.

This Frisbee was lined by tiny multicolored lights, which turned on with the flick of a switch. Naturally, we turned it on, and were amazed by the luminescent reds, greens, and yellows that greeted us. We began to fling the Frisbee around, all over the place. It gave us a little bit of light, which dissolved the darkness as though it were as insubstantial as air.

We watched as the coruscating lights traced their way through the darkness and knew that this was a good way to be spending fall break.

A Poorly Written Ode to Fall Break Among Other Things

Gallery

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

GeekGirlCon last weekend with the WACM(Womens’s Association for Computing Machinery) was FANTASTIC! One of my favorite panels was examining why villainesses and vixens have disappeared from comics overtime and the role they played during the golden age of comics. One … Continue reading →

Fun fact: The EPA has no desire to regulate your use of the puddles in your lawn.

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One of the biggest perks of interning at a government agency is walking into a big, important-looking building like you own the place.

One of the biggest perks of interning at a government agency is walking into a big, important-looking building like you own the place.

This may be old news to some of you, but because the student blogs are just starting up again, I figured it’s acceptable to draw on my experience as a summer intern for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (yes, I know most of you would know the acronym, but it’s fun for me to throw the whole title around).  I worked with the speech writing department in the Office of the Administrator, and my first day of work was the day on which EPA made the biggest announcement of the past twenty-odd years – so my first impression of my supervisor was him running out of the office, shouting expletives, on his way to the press conference.  Basically, this internship put me at only two degrees of separation from the Grand Poobah, the Chief of the Pecking Order, the Muckiest of the Mucky-Mucks, Administrator Gina McCarthy herself.  When she came to Tacoma in early August, I sent some restaurant recommendations over to her schedulers (which made me quite jealous, because I have a distinct preference for one Washington over the other).  I have no idea whether or not anyone made use of my suggestions, but don’t burst my bubble.

One of the biggest downsides at interning in one of said important-looking buildings is stairs.

One of the biggest downsides at interning in one of said important-looking buildings is the stairs.

This internship was a fantastic experience, and I learned a lot about U.S. environmental policy – and also about public perception of U.S. environmental policy.  I have a certain fondness for water and water-related issues, so one of my favorite speeches to work on was given at an agricultural conference on the subject of the Clean Water Proposal.  Not only was this a policy area in which I was particularly interested, but it was also an intriguing situation because the agriculture industry is not all that fond of EPA.  I don’t imagine that giving a speech to a hostile audience is very fun – but writing one is, especially when some (note: not all) of the arguments you’re rebutting sound like the one dismissed in the title of this blog post.

So, how does this relate to student life at Puget Sound?  Well, Puget Sound was represented in EPA’s Office of the Administrator, alongside places like Boston University, Cornell, and George Washington University, and I think that’s pretty cool.  (We’ve been represented on Capitol Hill occasionally as well.)  Also, speaking as someone who has loved UPS since I saw it for the first time the day before freshman move-in day but was somewhat concerned because no one in the DC area had heard of it, I am delighted to somewhat alleviate some of your fears: no, we does not have the name recognition factor that big public and private universities have.  But – and this is an important “but” – that’s okay; it won’t limit your options.  Because wherever you are, you’ll have to make your own opportunities, so might as well be somewhere you love.

Gotta love clichés.

Introduction

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Hello! My name is Casey O’Brien. I’m a freshman here at Puget Sound. I am a part of the Humanities program. I love theater, creative writing, and the outdoors, among lots of other interests! At this point, I am thinking that I will be a Sociology and Anthropology (SOAN) 1796685_10152717894357521_5398993623880789982_nmajor with a double minor in Theater and Latin American Studies.  I come from the Bay Area in California, so the lovely fog and rain in Tacoma is home to me. I grew up within ten minutes of the SF bay, so I also love being on the coast.

I am learning so much here on campus! There’s always something happening here, so there is never an opportunity to feel bored. This weekend was a special one for me, because I was a director for the Town Crier Speaks Festival, our student theater festival, which went up this weekend. Town Crier is a one act festival written, produced and directed by students—it is such a unique and wonderful venue for Puget Sound creativity. My own show, Game of Life, was a truly incredible process. My cast helped me to grow as a person and an artist, and I feel so lucky to have met them. What is so very interesting and dynamic about our campus is that people from so many different areas—ages, majors, etc—can interact and learn from one another. One of my actors is graduating this semester as a Biology major; with my interests, we might never have even met, let alone gotten to know one another, at a different school.   At a larger university, or a university that didn’t encourage students to try new things the way UPS does, a first semester freshman would never have directed a one act at all.

Town Crier opened on Thursday night and closed on Saturday, which meant that today was definitely bittersweet for me.  My parents, here visiting for Family Weekend, went home to California today, but my sadness at watching them go was matched by the contentedness of knowing that I have two homes now, one in Washington and one in NorCal. Our president, Ronald Thomas, aka RonThom, famously opens his speech at orientation by saying “Welcome Home”—and truly, we are. Puget has stolen my heart—from the moment I stepped on campus, doors have been opened for me.

This been a weekend of beginnings, endings and special moments. When my cast handed me the big bouquet of red roses they had bought for me, a handwritten card on top, I felt like crying for joy and sadness all at once—which is a good sign. Puget is a place where students will make connections, will feel deeply. Loggers are genuine, and they throw themselves in. In the spirit of the Northwest, we’ll always go on an adventure. We show up—as Town Crier’s full house and standing ovation testifies. This has been a weekend to remember…. Just as so many here are.

UPS Pancake House

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I folded the pancake taco style and sunk my teeth into the soft gooey dough. It was beyond delicious. The sugar in the syrup and the slightly salty taste of the pancake complemented each other perfectly. The texture was amazing, warm and fluffy with just the right amount of moisture. My eyes rolled upward and I quickly scarfed the rest.

I had been walking down Theme Row when I heard it: “Would you like a free pancake? It’s waiting for you.” My ears pricked and I veered to towards the call. Who can say no to a free pancake? We’re college students; we practically live for free food, let alone free sugar.

There’s a house on Theme Row, the UPS Pancake House, that caters to just that need. It’s open from ten o’clock to twelve o’clock on Saturdays. They make the pancakes inside and there’s a table out front where they give them out. On occasion they add toppings, when they feel like “generous gods.” They mostly sit there yelling things like: “Free pancakes! We even have napkins if you’re feeling fancy.”

When I asked them how the process works they said: “We do a lot of shouting.” I can tell they’re glad to be there and enthusiastic about what they do. They are even making “Pancake propaganda posters.” If nothing else it’s a good alliteration. They told me that the the best part about it was: “People being happy that they’re getting free pancakes.”

So if you’re getting tired of the SUB or running low on meal points come on down there for some complementary sugar. It’s one of the tastier parts of the campus community, like they said: “We are a school of rhetoric and part of that rhetoric is that you get free pancakes.”

Landing at the Puge

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I just had my first test of the school year—in Middle Eastern Foreign Policy. The Middle East is a region that can be perfectly described as “a hot mess.” Much of this hot-mess-ness is related to a long, long, long history full of people killing other people, the tons and tons and tons of oil the region is precariously perched on, a lot of tribal and religious and national sentiment, and the less-than-successful attempts of various superpowers from around the globe to “help” (at this point, I expect I have mortally offended at least 12 people, and my professor is saying “Really? Really?” in that charmingly disgusted way of his).

There is a guiding rule of thumb for policy making in the Middle East—much like every other rule of thumb, it is generally disregarded until after the fact. The rule is simple: land, or go around. If you are flying the airplane of policy-making, and you see a giant ominous cloud of something bad that just happened in front of you, there are two options. You can either land the plane, and commit to hanging in the storm for a while, or you can go far, far, far, far, far around.

But what you can’t do is sort of fly down at a diagonal angle so that only half your wingtip is getting wet from the storm, and sure your tires might be about skid a little bit but you are mostly in the clear—in other words, you have to pick something. Hemming and hawing and waffling between the choices can only result in a bad things happening.

This is a metaphor for life.

I might as well make that really obvious.

I spent a long time weighing up the pros and cons of virtually everything I did, but eventually I realized: I have to make decisions. Like: okay, I am going to be a politics major. And: okay, I am going to go play rugby, despite my complete lack of experience with sports involving throwing and catching and running. And: okay, I am going to drop that one club because of its new libertarian bent. And: okay, I will watch Parks and Rec tonight.

I was thinking about being an Official Puget Sound Blogger—daydreaming about it, because I think I am hilarious and interesting and clearly people would be hankering to read my words of wisdom—but not taking any steps towards this little idea until I sat up in bed one morning and was like, “You know what? I’m gonna do the thing.” It’s that decision: if I am going to do a thing, I am going to do an awesome job. And apparently my application was awesome enough, because now I am here and writing and who would have thought?

(Besides my mother, of course. Hi, Mom.)

Sup. I am Rachel (class of 2017), and I decided to land. I don’t know if you have noticed, but the groundskeeping is pretty great around here and it would be a shame to miss it.

Also, I would tell you all about how I knocked that test out of the water, but I am pretty sure that would jinx it.

ASUPS Cares

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Last night I attended my first ASUPS (Associated Students of the University of Puget Sound) Senate Meeting, and tonight I attended my second. Let me make immediately clear, our Senate is a hardworking group of dedicated individuals willing to ask the difficult questions, and challenge each other to improve the actions and hold accountable the responsibilities of ASUPS as a whole for us, the students.

I can’t speak to how the Senate has functioned in the past; at my first meeting this Senate tackled the difficult task of taking action on the compromised state of the current Fall 2014 Elections. They looked at all aspects of the topic and decided to halt the Election so the Election Process and Committee could be revised to uphold the higher standards and responsibilities we aspire our future Senators to have. They took immediate action to fix the problem willing to call an Emergency Senate to finalize the changes, by sacrificing part of their Parents & Homecoming Weekend.

Since the new elections are going to be conducted soon, I encourage all students to get involved. There are all kinds of ways to represent and participate in Senate, by running in the election, coming to the Open Forum to share ideas, issues, or information. I truly believe everyone could benefit from coming to a Senate meeting, as an active participant or passive one to personally see the good ASUPS is trying to share with us. Even check out their website (asups.ups.edu) for tons of links, updated information and ways to get involved! All the clubs and even sports fall under the jurisdiction of ASUPS and can be supported through funding, participation and insight into the development and implementation of new clubs, events and other opportunities! I wish more people could hear and know about the multitude of options that are available to make Puget Sound their own within this community.

I’m so excited to be working with ASUPS this year; it truly is an organization guided, decided and acted with the students. Yes there is a staff, faculty and Dean Representatives but tackling the issue and being a part of the solution is all with our student’s initiative and that is so powerful. Being a part of this group will truly help me manage myself better after college, working with others following the interests of the community. Even beyond the Senate, the Media Board, Programmers and Directors all have responsibilities and ways to make UPS even more so Home for everybody and find their niche, to combine intellectual interests with hobbies and participate in our democratic society.

ASUPS is awesome, come and check it out, I’m sure you’ll see how much they truly are for us students and make any idea become a reality, don’t be afraid to speak up, every individual is a part of ASUPS. I just got in on this amazingness as a sophomore, the opportunities are endless truly, and this experience makes me so proud to be a logger. #oncealogger #alwaysalogger

 

Happy Parents & Homecoming Weekend Everybody!

 

An Introduction (of sorts)

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Hello Internet people!

My name is Kelly and…I am not that good at introductions. But, I thought that it might be a good idea to tell you something about myself for my first post. I am a double major in Sociology and Anthropology (SOAN) and Computer Science. A very specific major that will hopefully allow me to reach my dream of becoming Intel’s Director of Research and Experience. (My other dream is to attend the American Library Association’s Conference.) I am a sophomore. I love pie, the ocean, and fog. I think that’s good for now.

Oh, fog. How can I count the ways I love thee?

Oh, fog. How can I count the ways I love thee?

It is mid-terms week. (Or mid-terms time?) So, like my peers I have been really busy. Most of this ‘busy-ness’ is because I decided to change the topic of my research paper for my one of my SOAN classes. Originally I was going to research how globalization in the technology industry creates economic inequality. But, then I decided to focus on the manufacturing practices of companies in the Silicon Valley and how businesses incorporate corporate social responsibility into their off shore manufacturing. And, now….I might change my topic again. I am an indecisive person.

On the bright side this week has been a lot of fun. I am part of the Nerdfighters club on campus (What is a nerdfighter?). We recently had a scavenger hunt that involved activities like creating a psychological landscape, yodeling, and creating sentences of out of library books. I got to dress up as a beekeeper at one point.

I am also part of the WACM. Which is Women Association for Computer Machinery (the Computer Science club in other words). The WACM is a new addition to the general ACM this year. We have scheduled for women in technology to come and speak on campus! So excite! Much anticipation! And a few of us are going to GeekGirlCon in Seattle tomorrow. I plan on dressing up as a Gryffindor student. Or Clara from Doctor Who. Again. The indecisiveness.

For my SOAN 101 class we watched the film Slumdog Millionaire and then dissected the film through a sociological lens. Slumdog, despite its’ sadness, is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was weird to watch a movie in a room full of people. Weird in a good way. It’s just that I haven’t been in a theater for awhile and Netflix is my pal. Do you ever feel that way? As in “Wow, it’s so nice to do stuff with people”?

Maybe that just speaks to a certain part of the twenty-first century lifestyle.