Yesterday I went on a big twelve mile hike in the Columbia River Gorge. It was quite stunning, with booming waterfalls, silent forests clothed in translucent moss, rock falls already collecting lichen, and ravines formed by lava flows and glaciers. There were even some salmon spawning! Those large red fish really make you wonder about one’s own answer to the question, “What’s worth dying for?” considering how definite their response seems to be.

But maybe what’s worth dying for isn’t so important. After all, so many people are dying for no reason at all. Although I was hiking in the beautiful Northwest wilderness yesterday, 61 people were dying in Delhi. I was there only two and half months ago. How does one face life when tens of thousands die in an earthquake, die in a tsunami, die in a hurricane, die in a war? Maybe dying isn’t so important. Maybe living is.

So I won’t get bogged down in grief that is hardly even mine. Today is Halloween, for example, and I get to go trick-or-treating with my dormies. Over the weekend I had one of the best roleplaying sessions in my life, playing Exalted with Peaches (GM), his sister Amy (playing a noble woman with a daiclave), her boyfriend Tom (playing a liar and a theif — basically Silk), Garret (playing an old wrinkly barbarian), and Jacob (playing a samurai child with zero street smarts). I myself was Kiercy, a troubled medic and sorceress. So much fun! You see? Life is worth living, even if just for all its little joys. Unlike Antigone (who gives up her life to serve the dead), people should not wholly sacrifice themselves for those who have already left.

So it goes.

Monday night we watched Batman Begins. In the extras, they talk about using a new martial art called Keysi to create a unique fighting style for Batman. And man, is it awesome: the two fighters are nearly touching the whole time, moving around each other’s bodies like an intricate dance. The movements are quick and precise, and quite graceful to boot. For some reason, all this beautiful fighting (and having sooo much sugar over break) inspired me to get in shape. So, I’ve started running every morning. And stopped eating all deserts and sugary snacks (except yogurt, Naked juice, and cereal bars, which have lots of vitamins and calcium that I need). Bwa! What is this health madness?

Tuesday, my Hiking Around Portland class started. I wore a t-shirt. It started raining. Fun, fun. But seriously? It was fun! I got to meet a few new interesting people, enjoy a beautiful Portland park, and be cleansed by the rain. And tell zombie jokes: What does the zombie weather man predict for today? “Raaaaiiiinnnns…” What does someone do when they’ve heard too many zombie jokes? “Complaaaaaiiiiinnns…” You get the idea.

Speaking of the brain-dead half-alive creatures, some scientists are trying to create life from scratch. They’re using droplets of fatty acids combined with a multifunctional molecule, PNA (Peptide Nucleic Acid), to meet all the “requirements” for life: containment, heredity, and metabolism. Interestingly, these have already been met by some artificial life forms, namely Avida. Still, getting some completely new forms of organic life on Earth would be exciting! Then again, isn’t naming it “The Los Alamos Bug” just asking for future irony?

So. Fall Break is finally over. It was long and short at the same time, but mostly it was quiet. I didn’t get much done, predictably enough. Just fiddled around until around 5 or 6, when Cindy and I would make dinner and watch Star Trek. So much relaxing… it’s good for the soul, but I’m very glad to have people around again as they trickle back!

Last Saturday we had a bit of excitement in the dorm, actually. Tina started getting dizzy and disoriented, and we ended up taking her to the hospital. It was pretty scary when she started just repeating the same phrases over and over, trying to concentrate but failing. The doctors ran a bunch of tests, but they didn’t really know what was wrong. She just got better after a couple hours and we all went home (Tina, Cindy, and I, that is). However, it scared her mom enough that she came up from California to check on Tina…. for several days. She was really nice, though - she kept trying to make us food.

Today we went on a dorm trip to the Bins. The Bins is a big thing at Reed, and in Portland as well - it’s a Goodwill “outlet,” where all the rejects of the rejects go. Actually, the stuff isn’t half bad, if you know what you’re looking for. Which in this case was Halloween costumes. I’m going to be a vampire, and I’m going to try doing the impossible - I’m going to be a sexy vampire. I got this black tube top which turned out to be a dress. A very small dress. Don’t worry, I’m going to be wearing pantyhose as well. And black boots. And fangs. I can’t wait for Harvest Ball!

More vampire goodness awaited us back in the dorm. We watched the awful Queen of the Damned, a movie based on Anne Rice’s novels. Much less gratuitous sex and violence than I expected, plus it has a vampire turned rock star. It actually only increased my need for vampire stuff, so next weekend we’ll watch Interview with a Vampire. I hope it’s more fulfilling!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, it really has. First off, I finished my second Humanities paper and my Humanities midterm exam. The best thing about the Honor Principle is that you can take some of your exams in your room - if I had wanted to, I could have taken it in bed! Meanwhile, I’ve been wasting a lot of time playing Super Smash Brothers (which involves a lot of Kirby being thrown around) and watching movies with my dormies. We had a great time watching the Emperor’s New Groove last week, and tonight we’re watching the Incredibles! Last night we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas, and then stayed up late running into doors, standing on couches, and trying to do various stretches. We’re weird, I know. :)

The other big thing is that I’ve stopped going reactor training. The problem with working at the reactor is that the idea itself is just so awesome! But in reality, it’s mainly just memorizing technical specifications and learning safety procedures. The nuclear physics I was excited about is limited to about three lectures over the entire year. I felt really bad quitting, but I also don’t want to waste my time doing some I don’t love.

On the other hand, I’ve gotten myself into Mock Trial, playing Bailey Reynolds, a kidnapping victim. Peaches and Jacob are most excited about seeing me in pigtails…

Well, with all my work behind me, it’s off to enjoy Fall Break! A whole week of sleep and relaxation… and trying to make some progress on my secret project (the Illiad Game). Oh, and checking out the beautiful new toys from Apple.

Oh, glorious weekends. Why do they pass so quickly? Last weekend I watched a bunch of episodes of Firefly with my dormies as preparation for our trip to see Serenity. It was wonderful! The movie was heart-pounding, gut-punching, funny, powerful, and thouroughly entertaining. It was also quite violent, but never unnecessarily so (still, don’t bring children). Although a few of my friends liked the movie enough to start watching Firefly, I would recommend watching several episodes (at the very least) to get introduced to the characters and themes. I think much of Serenity’s power comes from how different it is from the show, and many important moments just won’t hit you very hard if you don’t know the background. But yes–it is very, very good.

On a different note, I have discovered an interesting fact about our modern culture: we have a bias against burgers. I keep going up the grill in Commons, and thinking “I want a cheeseburger - but wait! That’s not very healthy!” Then I started to wonder exactly why it wasn’t healthy. The burger is the epitome of junk food, but does it really have to be junk? After asking around and putting a lot of thought into it (a lot of thought - perhaps ten whole minutes), I realized that a burger is perfectly healthy as long as its components are. Trusting Reed’s uber-health-concious food service to provide wholesome ingredients (they at least use organic beef), I can enjoy a cheeseburger guilt-free. And it was also very, very good.