Weekend Adventures

Last night, there were two important events. There was a party at 9:00 Wellesley to which Olin students were invited. However, also at 9:00 was the premiere of the new season of Doctor Who. Olin's TARDIS club was watching the Doctor Who premiere. Bunches of freshmen were going to Wellesley.

What to do, what to do...

Carine, the other freshmen Doctor Who fans, and I (I'm by far the least fan-ish of this group, by the way) ended up going to the Wellesley party for an hour and a half, and then we came back and watched the episode when we got back.

The Wellesley party was James Bond themed, which meant that most of the guys wore suits, and the girls dressed up. A group of about twenty of us were waiting for the nine o'clock shuttle, joking about wearing sunglasses and taking nerf guns, and then we somehow ended up singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You." That was a nice break from the past week's constant singing of songs from Dr. Horrible. However, after we finished one song from Mulan, it was more Dr. Horrible. Waiting for the van, and then the van ride that followed, was probably more fun than the party itself.

I'll admit, all the Dr. Horrible singing isn't just geekiness. It started that way -- early on during orientation people discovered that not everyone had seen it, so a huge group of us watched it in the third floor lounge. This week, though, it was announced that the fall play being put on by FWOP (Franklin W. Olin Players) is -- guess what! -- Dr. Horrible. Multiple people in the van had auditioned, so the songs were in the context of discussing the audition.

Wellesley was the first party at which I'd danced in more than three years. The last one was the Mathcamp 2009 dance. The dancing was more fun than I expected, though I don't think it was that great of a dance. I met some Wellesley girls, though, which was cool. I also ran into a friend from Duke Young Writer's Camp 2006, who is now a Wellesley freshman. For the last forty-ish minutes, I was outside, either talking to Oliners or a group of both Wellesley and Olin students.

The Doctor Who premiere was excellent. We had four freshmen who are huge fans, one member of TARDIS who decided to watch again, me, and then two freshmen who were seeing their first episode. The facial expressions of the two first-timers at the end of the show were priceless. I think the comment, "My mind is blown," basically sums up their responses. I'm so glad I watched instead of doing something sensible like going to bed.

This morning, I got up at about the same time I do on weekdays, which was early enough that I only saw one other person at breakfast, and I was there for a while. At 8:30, I started walking to Christ Church UMC in Wellesley. It's about a two mile walk, and there's sidewalk along most of the path. I thought I got a little bit lost on the Babson campus, but it turns out that without knowing it, I had actually turned at the correct place.

Christ Church isn't actually the UMC listed in the Olin Student Handbook. That's Carter Memorial in Needham, and college students can call for rides. Christ Church is closer, though, and the first time I visited Olin, I remember passing Christ Church on Wellesley Avenue and thinking, "Oh, good, it's a UMC," so I decided to go there today.

Church was wonderful. It's a really small place -- I think membership is between 30 and 50 people, and I met the every member of the three person staff today -- and because it was Labor Day weekend, there were only fifteen people at service today. We sang Tell Me the Stories of Jesus, Lily of the Valley (2062 in The Faith We Sing), and Lord I Want to be a Christian. It was a first Sunday, so there was communion, and with so few of us, we all stood around the altar and passed the bread and the cup. Everyone was so friendly, and I'm definitely going back. So many people talked to me, they gave me a plate full of cookies to take back to the dorms (I put it out in the lounge), and the preacher even drove me back to Olin.

The rest of the weekend is going to be mostly homework and grading, I think, including froghopper sketching tomorrow. I'm temporarily roommate-less, as Carine is on a hike with the Olin Outing Club. That means that in between stretches of homework, I'm probably going to dance around the room. I haven't gotten to dance much in the past week and a half, so I'm looking forward to that.