No Shave November

Hey Everyone,

First, a house keeping detail.  Spencer no longer blogs for us. Instead he contributes to the Far West Nordic Farm Team blog, which he is a member of after all.  I've put a new link in the side tab.

Ok, back to business.  No stories this week, just a challenge.  As many you may have realized, five days ago the world kicked off 2012's month of November.  As with many ski teams world-wide, the Bowdoin Nordic Alumni are participating in the time honored tradition of No Shave November.  For those of you unfamiliar with No Shave November the rules are simple:

1. On Nov. 1st, shave (if you missed the date you can shave now, you'll just have a little bit of a late start).

2. Do not shave for the remainder of the Month.

3. At the end of the month, whomever has the most facial hair wins.

While No Shave November has traditionally been a male dominated contest, we live in the 21st century now and have opened it up to female participants with leg hair entries.

More excitingly, this year, there will be prizes as soon as I figure out what they are.  So, if you haven't already, shave, start growing, and then send in some pictures to at the end of the month for your chance to win fabulous prizes.

Stay shaggy my friends.

Desert Adventures with Dippo

Hey Everyone,

Below Wilson shares with us his latest adventure, some great photos and a few new work out ideas from a soon to be coach, no spoilers though:

I spent the last week down in Southern Utah.
It was fantastic!

My week started out by paddling Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River. Westwater is quite
possibly the best (non dam-released) whitewater in the country in October. From there I stuck around
Moab for several days, and I hiked, ran, and relaxed for several days.
At the end of the week I headed down toward Canyonlands National Park for some solo
adventuring. My first day down there I climbed Cathedral Butte on the Southern edge of the park (to see
those pictures check out summitsunday.blogspot.com). The next day I headed down into the Salt Creek
Wash (in the Park). The day involved about 16 miles of hiking and running, several ancient Puebloan
ruins, a slot canyon cave, and “The All-American Man.”
Here is a smattering of photos from that day.

Notice the “pac-man ghost” in the upper left

Hoodoos!

The All-American Man (USA USA USA!)

Current Ski-Team members, Spencer, and those of you who still harbor athletic goals should stop
reading now as I am about to talk about two awesome master-blaster workouts.

The first I call the “Sunset Showdown”

Park your vehicle approximately 1.5 miles away from an awesome viewpoint.
Wait until the sunset is 10-15 minutes from peaking (I’m sure that NOAA can help with sunset times)
Sprint as hard as you can to view said sunset
Stop and enjoy view for just a little bit too long
Realize that it is about to get dark (be sure to not bring a headlamp)
Sprint back as hard as you can, knowing that if you don’t find your car immediately you may not find it
until morning.

The benefit of this workout is that it keeps you honest – no one sandbags their way through it. I also find
additional benefit in the adrenaline and stress matching real race conditions, because let’s be honest we
will be arriving to the starting line within 2 minutes of our start for any given race (unless you are Chris
who has already floro’ed his skis and lined up for next years Birkie).

Who do you think won this workout… me or the sky?

Workout two “Natural Bridges, Natural Intervals”

This workout is tricky in that it is only really designed to work at Natural Bridges National Monument
(though suggestions for adaptations are certainly welcome).
Natural Bridges has four main attractions: The bridges Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo as well as an
overlook of the Horsecollar Ruins.

The workout involves running to Sipapu and back, drive to the Horsecollar overlook trailhead –run
out and back, drive to the Kachina trailhead –run out and back, and finally drive to the Owachomo
trailhead –run out and back. This workout has two main components. The downhill sections challenge
your quickness and agility. The climb should be full on lv 4/5 burn. While the total sum is only around 4 miles of on time, those four miles do involve around 1000 ft of vertical (oh yeah and you get to see some pretty spectacular sights… or sites).

Depending on how you are feeling you should probably be considerate of the other tourists as they
may be providing you with encouragement and showering you with praise (I was asked *Insert German Accent* “Are you some kind of professional” as I passed one such tourist… duh).

These photos hardly do the place any justice, it is really spectacular. That said, there is very little
exploring to be done in the immediately surrounding area.

Sipapu (The second largest natural bridge in the world)
You can get all the way down to the bottom, but this is the better photo.

Kachina (The “youngest” of the three bridges)

Owachomo (I couldn’t physically orient myself in such a way that I could get the whole bridge into the
photo without being about a quarter mile away)

Now that I have thrilled you with a story of adventure I have to reveal some terrible news.

This winter I will be working for Bates College as the assistant nordic ski coach.

I hope I’ll still be invited to alumni functions.

Bates Blows,

Wilson

Nation Nordic Foundation

Hey Everyone,

This week I want to hold off on a story from one of our Alumni and instead address you directly about something exciting happening in the ski community.  Some of you may have heard of the National Nordic Foundation.  For those of you that haven't, its a foundation that helps support our athletes so they can race at the international level.  Not only does it provide funding for stars like Kikkan Randell and Andy Newell, but it also sponsors events like the J1 Scando trip, which brings United States high schoolers overseas to compete against their European counterparts.

 Every year the NNF runs a "Drive for 25" fundraiser to make this sort of sponsorship happen.  However, this year is special.  This year, a generous community member has pledged to match every dollar donated with five, up to $50,000.  So, for every $1 you donate, the NNF receives another $5.  The math here can overwhelm you pretty quickly once you add up much a $25 or $50 donation can mean to our skiers.

Now, before I go on, I want to make clear that I totally understand how these alumni outreach things can be abused.  Any recent Bowdoin grads are probably pretty familiar with this kind of misuse.  I promise not to let this blog go that direction and to keep my posts requesting donations few and far between.

However, this is a really cool and really unique opportunity.  Its like having a 5x bonus multiplier on life.  Just a little bit of money can make a huge difference.  You can donate to the NNF directly here: https://www.grouprev.com/nnfdrivexc  or, even cooler, you can find your favorite ski athlete and donate directly to their site.  For example I donated $25 to Kyle Hanson's site.  All I had to do was google "nnf kyle hanson" and the first link that came up was his site: https://www.grouprev.com/kylehanson.  I had the pleasure of working with Kyle this summer in Alaska.  He's a stellar athlete and a great kid.  Find your favorite athlete, and make a donation.

My Thanks,
-Chris

Wilson Visits Spencer

Wilson Dippo of 2012 sent in this post about the recent reunion of two of the ski team's closest friends.  He gives some insight into the life of a pro-skier from the outside:

I just spent a week in the Truckee area with pro-skiers Spencer Eusden (Bowdoin ’12) and Beth Taylor (Bates (blows) ’12). Spencer thought that I was coming to visit so that we could reminisce about the good times at Bowdoin, maybe drink a beer or two, and have a generally jolly time. He was, however, gravely mistaken. My actual plan was to experience their lives for a couple days, and write this exposé about the life of a pro-skier.

Don’t worry – post college I hate reading too, so here is a photo that should clarify any questions that you have about pro-skiing.

The quick version:

A Slightly More Texty Version.

Plain and simple Spencer is a pro and I am still way better than him (just ask the shirt). Some things that, despite calling himself a professional, Spencer still doesn’t understand:

1)      Sure you can do 4 X 12 minutes at threshold – well if I do 12-8-12 at lv 4 I am getting a better workout. (36 minutes lv 3 verse 32 minutes at lv 4 – doesn’t take a math minor to figure that one out).

2)      Sleep is an essential part of any good training plan. Spencer seems to think that waking up at 7 to get in a 2.5 hr rollerski is a better use of his time than sleeping in until 10:30.

3)      Rollerskiing is hard and stupid.

Sure he beat me by something like 40% in an uphill time-trial. But come on, it’s only a time trial… on foot… uphill. No one can prove that means anything.

Spending even just a few days in Truckee was fantastic. Any skier – past, present, or future – should be envious of what Spencer is doing right now. He is getting after it, and doing it in style. When I first walked into his house Beth yelled down from her upstairs loft, “Spencer………… will you make us pancakes?”  A typical day for me this past week involved waking up early as Spencer headed out for his first workout, and promptly falling back asleep. Somewhere between 2 and 3 hours later I would wake for a second time when he returned. Our mornings and early afternoons were filled with vigorous activities such as lounging on the docks at Donner Lake, napping, reading, watching Southpark, and eating at Tacos Jaliscos[i]. As the afternoon approached we would dress in brightly colored tanks, short shorts, and running shoes and head off into the mountains. In the week that I spent in Truckee I put in eight hours and fifteen minutes of training which effectively doubled my volume for the training year (also… I skipped both strength sessions, and 2.5 hour rollerski, and a bikeride).

Spencer and Wilson head out to an afternoon workout. Spencer may or may not run with a helmet these days.

Spencer demonstrating how to properly crush chocolate milk as a recovery drink

PS Spencer is going to crush face this winter – I’m calling it now.

---

[i] In all seriousness, if you care about Spencer you have two options. A) buy him credit toward Tacos Jaliscos so he doesn’t go broke. Or B) hold an intervention as approximately 82% of his diet consists of tortillas, cheese, beans, rice, and beef tongue all from Tacos Jaliscos. I am afraid that he may actually become a taco.

My BP stands for Blogpost

Spencer sent this post into me the other day.  While not a workout accidentally turned hunting story, its still pretty epic:
 

Hi all you Polar Bears!

This is Spencer of the class of 2012. As briefly mentioned in previous posts, after 4 of skiing at Bowdoin I still wasn't ready go give up racing. Right now I live in Truckee, California and am training with Far West Nordic http://farwestnordic.org whose senior (or as I like to call it "pro") racing team is small but growing. I've been very lucky in the coaches I've been working with, Martin Benes, Ben Grassechi, Jeff Schloss, and Glen Jobe are great coaches and a lot of fun to be around. 

I plan race at West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving, senior nationals in Utah, most of the western supertour races if you ever find yourself at one of these events be sure to say hi. Also my ski club has the illustrious honor of hosting spring series the first week of April this year, but more to come on that later. The real reason I wrote this is to share an awesome bike ride I did last week.

In coping with the pretty significant increased volume of training I have been doing this summer, I've been using road biking as a way to get easy distance hours in and give my body an occasional break from running and rollerskiing. Unfortunately since I spend most of my time and money on skis, my road bike is "a little" dated. A little in this case means a 1985 steel frame trek I inherited from my grandfather. Since my bike isn't the fastest I have developed a preference for climbing over cruising flat mile after flat mile. I decided to make a loop out of some two of the best climbs in the area Martis Peak and Blackwood Canyon. I started from where I lived just north of Truckee and climbed out of the valley the town is in to Martis Peak, at 2,600 ft vertical climb.  Here is the view from the top of the north shore of Lake Tahoe. The peak on horizon far right is just above the top of the second climb. 

Then I cruised down along the north shore. At this point I got passed by a couple other pretty good road bikers who I resisted the urge to chase after. One thing that has been reinforced for me this summer is the importance of keeping workouts that are supposed to be level one in the right zone. It reluctantly let the bikers go reminding myself that I had passed a road biker during some roller ski intervals the day before. The second climb up Blackwood Canyon is really scenic and a little more gentle then Martis at 1,500 ft of vertical. 

On the way home I jumped in lake Tahoe to 1) soothe my legs and 2) to clean myself up for work. I found a great job working in the produce section of a local health food store and have since received all the slightly mushy organic produce I could eat. Here is a map and elevation profile of the bike I made on mapmyride.com, a pretty cool tool for tracking epic bike rides. All in all it was a 70 mile bike that took about 5 hours and had some awesome but hard earned views.

Guest Blog: Jake Scheckman

Hey Everyone,

The other day I received an email from Jake Scheckman.  He skied for Bowdoin and graduated with the Class of 2006.  From Northern Vermont originally, he lives in Minnesota now and this past weekend he helped pace Adam St. Pierre (a former Colby skier and Bowdoin's 2005-2006 Assistant Coach) in a grueling 100 mile ultra-marathon.  He writes about it here:

http://talesofadventure.posterous.com/running-through-the-woods-at-night-pacing-the

I've put a permanent link to his blog over on the right, with Nat's blog and the Bowdoin Ski team's blog.

Enjoy!
-Chris

Buy a Bowdoin Uniform!

Hey Everyone,

You may have already received an email from Nathan about this, but here's a sick opportunity to pick up some Bowdoin Nordic swag.  The ski team is buying new uniforms this year.  They look like this (click on the link):

https://docs.google.com/open?id=1RPy887rOGjIVz8_Dn2eqcy-XYq1vXArNlYqyIYP6HVPDK2KSK7lJyJa_SmAu

The cool part, aside from how they look, is that the team is making them available to alumni to purchase.  For a smooth $175 one of these bad boys can be all yours.  You may not skiing as fast as you did in College (or maybe you are), but you can definitely look as good.

Sizing and other information is here:  http://mtborah.com/product/pro-xc-suit/

Email Nathan Alsobrook at nalsobro@bowdoin.edu by Sept. 18th, with your sizes, if you want a suit.  Make the check out to "Bowdoin College" and send it to:

Nathan Alsobrook

114 Buck Center

Brunswick, ME

04011

Price includes Shipping, to ANYWHERE in the US!

All Best,

-Chris

Class of 2012 Playlist (According to Erin)

My former teammate and fellow recent grad Erin Hatton was kind enough to send in this post.  Here she recalls some of the social aspects that go along with being on the ski team:

Hi everyone,

Erin here, class of 2012.  I’ve just moved to Troy, NY where I have a cool teaching fellowship at the Emma Willard School; it’s a private, all-girls high school with about 200 boarding students and 150 day students.  As part of my fellowship, I teach one biology class, one chemistry class, work in the dorms 2 nights a week, take graduate school classes 2 nights a week (toward an MAT), and have weekend duty once every 3 weeks.  It’s going to be busy!  I’m also the assistant cross country running coach, which I am loving (and is the real reason I got into teaching, so I can coach)!  The people here are amazing, everyone has been extremely helpful and supportive in my transition into the real, working world.  I’ve received lots of lesson plans and notes for what I need to teach.  The students here are great too, they are so enthusiastic and hard working.  And crazy.  I forgot how dramatic high schoolers are, everything is reaaaallllly hard, or reallllllly exciting, or reallllllly boring, or realllllllly cool. 

I live in a gigantic apartment in a beautifully restored old building with two other fellows.  They are really fun; we have a contingent of about 8 woman under the age of 27 that all hang out together.  The only problem is the lack of male presence around here, I miss my dawgs! Luckily, we are already making friends with the RPI grad students…

So, my life has mostly consisted of running 2-a-days for xc preseason and attending meetings and lesson planning during the rest of my free time.  Classes start on September 4^th.  Once I have some real coaching or teaching stories I will write an update, but right now I’m going to reminisce. 

Last Thursday I went for a run by myself after taking my xc girls on a short recovery jog.  I grabbed my iPod and just turned it onto an old playlist titled something like, “Oh yaaa.”  The air was crisp (surprisingly) and it felt like fall, and I immediately got this chilling, deep inner feeling that I was back at Bowdoin in fall training.  It felt so real.  And then all our favorite ski songs started playing, I think my pace went from a 9-minute mile to a sub 8-minute mile from the great memories I was having.  So here it is, the 2012 Bowdoin Nordic alum’s collegiate ski career in song hi-lights.

Freshman Season 2008-2009:  Ollie Burrus had us listening to Girl Talk and Wale every van ride.  We hung out before Quinby’s 80s party while listening to TI’s “Whatever you Like” and “Live Your Life” featuring Rihanna.  And then came this song: “I Love College” by Asher Roth.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYx7YG0RsFY  Freshmen! Freshman!  And thus the class of 2012 began its epic rise into Bowdoin social life.  By the end of the season, after the Colby carnival at Sugarloaf, Olivia had us dancing to TI’s “Swing Ya Rag” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=790q8JRFDo8 -- our original chest-baring song.

Sophomore Season 2009-2010:  While Olivia left us, the revealing of our 6-packs didn’t.  Enter Timothy (Tim, Timmy, TimTim, Timbits, AsMan, Twhit) Whiton.  Thank you Tim for the introduction to this song, I think “Shirt Off” by Young Ivy and Blank will now forever be the Bowdoin Nordic’s theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E-EdfPOMM8

Another season favorite was “Sexy Bitch” by Akon.  Or, “Sexy Bobcat”  as we sang it to the Bates boys at the Darmouth Carni Crush.  Which was stellar, but really had nothing on Matt Bower’s Burt Renold’s picture…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JG_yeP8JA4

And let’s not forget “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas, although this song was incredibly overplayed, you can’t deny its rally ability.  This one led us through a great ski season, and spring season.  And no one can forget when we rolled up to Farley field house after the Middlebury EISA championships playing this song before sprinting (literally) to the tower.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA

Junior Season 2010-2011.  Maybe the second best email I received at Bowdoin included this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mC2ixOAivA and the instructions to pay special attention when the video is 34 seconds in.  “Hey, it’s Wilson Dippo!”  And then we all had to say, “Hey, it’s Wilson Dippo!” every time we hard the song again (and I still always think it in my mind when I hear the song…).

Senior Season 2011-2012.  This season started off well with the popular “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO hailing us into the school year.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ6zr6kCPj8 And the season only got better as we threw LMFAO’s “Sexy and I know it” into the mix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyx6JDQCslE Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yaaa. 

Our theme song for the season was probably Macklemore’s “And we Danced,” which was played on just about every van ride and social gathering, with many dramatic accompanying hand gestures/dance moves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlrdvfBjSEg Of course, “Shirt Off” was just a ever present as it was before, and a little Carly Rae Jepsen “Call me Maybe” helped finish off the season.

So there’s the summary.  There are many more songs that bring me right back to the “best years of our life” but these are the most prominent in my mind right now.

Thank you Chris, and all the other contributors to this blog.  Reading over the posts, I couldn’t help but smile and laugh out loud at the humor and whit you all wrote with.  Bowdoin treated us well, I’m so glad to see everyone moving on to new and exciting adventures, and that we all still embody all the great characteristics that Bowdoin skiing taught us!

**Note: The best email I received at Bowdoin was from Walter Shepard in 2008 explaining his predicament with the missing keys to the ski room.  Email from Walt:

  Subject line:  Whittier Resolution (Note: our ski room was located in the football teams locker rooms at Whittier Field in 2008-2009)

“Funny story - Nat's an idiot.  Here's why...

So, let me give you the day's events surrounding the Whittier incident in bullet-form/chronological order:

9:00 - Walt tries to leave condo, finds his car stuck under 9 inches of snow - for the third time in like, 14 hours.  Crap.
9:25 - Walt is finally able to get out of his driveway. Walt is  really annoyed.
9:30 - Walt arrives at Whittier.  Locked box has no key.  Walt is really pissed.
9:31 - Walt calls 725-3000 because he doesn't know the number for security.  "Is it an emergency?" the operator asks.  "No." Walt replies.
9:39 - Operator discovers that if it's not an emergency, she doesn't know the number for security.  "You don't know the number for security?  Are you even at Bowdoin?" Walt asks.  "No." operator replies.  "Well that's helpful." Walt says.  "I think I'll be hanging up now."
9:40 - Walt calls Nat Herz to get the number for security.  "725-3144" Nat says.  "What do you need that for?" he adds.  Walt explains the key predicament.  "Haha!  That sucks for you man!" Nat exclaims.
9:50 - Security can't make it over for a while.  Walt has successfully wasted twenty minutes.  Damn-it!
2:45 - After some class and a heat seeking email to the Bowdoin Ski Team regarding missing keys, Walt walks to Whittier hoping to find Ollie with keys.
3:00 - Ollie finally shows, after Walt has been standing in the cold for 15 minutes creeping out the neighbors. Ollie forgot his keys.
3:02 - Walt, Ollie, and Matt drive back to Ollie's place to find his keys in the snow outside his apartment.  Bad day for keys.
3:10 - Finally inside Whittier, no keys.  Walt is so F-ING pissed he can't control himself.
3:20 - Walt sends heat-seeking email #2 to entire team saying what an idiot Chris Sanville must be.
4:20 - Walt recants on Sanville lynching after a pretty accurate and hilarious reply.
4:55 - Walt heads over to Nat and Nick's place to try and get to the bottom of these shenanigans.
5:00 - In recounting the events of the day to Nick and Morgan, Nat (who overhears this conversation next door) realizes that he, in fact, is the one who has the missing Whittier keys (approximately 7 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES from original notification!!!)
5:01 - Nat spontaneously combusts from extremely high levels of idiocy.

Nat is an idiot.

Best,
Walt”

Scott in the Middle East

After a little "virtual arm-twisting" I managed to squeeze this great post from my good friend Scott Longwell.  Below he updates us on some changes in his life since graduation:

Hi All,

I’m another recent Bowdoin grad, originally from outside of Rochester, New York. I actually started my athletic career as a center with the local pee-wee football team, but upon termination of my six-year contract I opted to make the logical jump to endurance sports. Fortunately, I fared better than most Phlail competitors do in transitioning from lineman to aerobic athlete (an outcome I generally attribute to the fertile Nordic skiing culture of upstate NY), and found that my 125 pound frame was, in fact, better suited for the latter pursuit. Strangely enough, while on the XC and Nordic teams in high school and at Bowdoin I managed to put on a modest amount of weight—thus, I’m forced to conclude that intense aerobic exercise eventually leads to obesity. In other news:

As many of the other new Nordic alums know, my immediate post-graduation plans were to continue researching in a biochem lab at Bowdoin before I eventually applied to med school. However, while working on campus this past summer I began to have second thoughts. Shortly after turning in my honors thesis, the project I’d been working on seemed less interesting (oddly enough), and I had a difficult time envisioning myself toiling away on it for much longer. Meanwhile, most of my former teammates were once again off to admittedly more exciting endeavors: Dan moved to just outside of Boston; Chis moved to just outside of Russia; Maren decided the skiing competition was too amateur in the Northern Hemisphere; Spencer went to hunt deer in Tahoe; Erin left to teach abroad in some former Greek city-state (or, at least, one of several cities in upstate New York that bears an identical name); and Wilson was very likely doing something more awesome and outdoorsy than me, in any case.  I hadn’t even gone abroad during my time at Bowdoin, so before I became lost in the looming abyss of med school for the next decade, I decided to get away from Bowdoin and the States. The off-campus study office helped me find a program where I could research computational chemistry at an American-affiliated university in Jordan, and two weeks ago I found myself boarding a plane (or rather, several) to the Middle East.

Although I haven’t been here long, my experience has been extremely novel in some ways, yet oddly familiar in others. As was Chris’ experience in Egypt, the drivers and traffic are horrible, or what Nathan would eloquently refer to as “an enormous pile of suck.” There are clearly many people who should not be behind the wheel, and navigating the mess of cars, convoluted traffic patterns, and pedestrians downtown can often be deceptively frustrating for a city so small. While I’m walking places, people frequently shout from passing cars (in a tongue I have no realistic way of understanding), leaving me to respond only with a startled, confused gaze. Though relatively peaceful, there are still wisps of underlying turmoil. The wail of military jets overhead has become a familiar sound in the past week, and the local school, closed down for months, just recently reopened its doors only to be drowned in a mass of humanity, carrying with them all of their belongings and seeking a place to stay. I can only imagine that these disheveled people are refugees.

Culturally, there is significant tension between old and new. On one hand, the values here are very traditional—people typically go to bed at around 9 o’clock (think Walt Shepard), are religious, and seem to be content with a low-key lifestyle. On the other hand, despite the strong presence of local authorities, drug use is widespread amongst the younger, more “progressive” populace, many of whom are originally from other regions. In order to escape the scornful eye of their elders, the youth often pack themselves into decrepit, run-down buildings and rage to a mixture of stale 80’s hits and club music well into the morning:

  

The astute grade-level reader has ascertained by now a while ago that I’m still at Bowdoin, and yes, the above passages betray my poor working knowledge of Jordan, which is why I am indeed still studying an ulcer-causing bacteria and not Middle Eastern culture (or worse, computational chemistry). I actually love the research I’ve been doing at Bowdoin, and I’m looking forward to being on campus for another year. Things have been very quiet until this week, which brought an influx of freshman embarking on their now-mandatory Pre-O trips, as well as the Great State of Maine Air Show Sponsored by Bill Dodge, featuring the Air Force Thunderbirds (apparently, no Blue Angels this year). It’s been strange seeing kids just starting their college career—they seem so young, and it makes me wonder where I’ll fit in with a new role on a familiar campus. Although I’m negligibly older and still know plenty of current students, there’s something about graduating that makes me feel as though I’ve passed into a parallel universe.

So what have I actually been up to this summer? After being coddled for years by Bowdoin Dining, I’ve slowly started to expand my underdeveloped repertoire of recipes (Hershey’s chocolate cake; chili). Returning to my football roots, I’ve taken a temporary hiatus from the roads and begun lifting almost exclusively. Still, a few weeks ago I hiked Katahdin with a few friends, including fellow nordie Erin Hatton—I’ll save that story for her telling in the likely case that she’s asked to write a post in the near future. More recently, I moved into my first off-campus apartment, and while it can’t compare to the now-infamous Blue Vic, I’m open to any suggestions for names that incorporate its lovely, lead-based yellow color. My new neighbors include a prominent couple from the influential Mephitidae family (genus: Mephitis), while the ones across the street really like snakes—so much so, that they proudly display a huge yellow flag bearing their beloved reptile. Apparently, I’ll have to be careful where I tread on the way to work. Lolz.

In any case, I’ll be here at Bowdoin, holding down fort for the rest of the alums. Come ski season, I’ll be joining the team for the occasional (skate) training ski, helping Nathan with some waxing on circuit, and possibly hopping in some Eastern Cup (skate) races.  Please let me know if you’re visiting campus and want a place to crash—I have an air mattress that rivals even the shoddiest of motel cots, so I can offer you quite the nostalgic experience. Dinner will be chili in paper bowls, served in the parking lot next to my apartment. I’ll work on Larry letting me borrow a van.

-Slongwell, ‘12

PS: To the first alum who guesses my number, I offer half a pan of my favorite desert. Sorry, no deliveries, let alone empty guarantees that I won’t finish both halves.