Electra- fying

Each year Coe's theater department puts on three major productions. Right now they are performing their second show of the year, Electra. The play follows the life of Electra, the main character, as she agonizes over the death of her father, who was a great warrior. Adding a twist to the plot is that Electra's father's murder is her own mother. This pain of losing her father at the hands of her mother drives Electra nearly mad.
I had heard of this play written by Sophocles and was pretty excited to see it put on by my peers. The main character, Electra, was played by my friend Addie. Seeing Addie transform from herself, a happy friendly person to the deranged Electra was amazing. The amount of emotion pouring off the stage from all the actors was unrivaled by any show I have seen at Coe. Adding to the skill of the actors was a first class set that included rain, blood and knives.
For one of my classes my first year at Coe I had to go to a play. I was reluctant to go at first but after seeing the ability of Coe's performers and the professionalism of the production I haven't missed a show yet, and it seems like they just keep getting better.

Fall Break

So every year Coe has a Fall Break midway through the first semester. As this semester is already drawing to a close, our Fall Break was obviously quite a while ago, but my camera has been broken so I have to rely on friends to get me pictures to put on this site. Well, that and the semester coming to an end generally overwhelms me with everything I have procrastinated on all semester!
Anyway, this year for fall break I went with two friends to Chicago for a weekend. My friend Mike is from Skokie, which is a suburb right next to Chicago, so we decided to use his house as a base. We left Cedar Rapids Friday afternoon and after a stop at my house in DeWitt it was off to Skokie!






We got into Skokie and ate a delicious meal of lasagna with Mike's family and watched some baseball before heading out to visit some of Mike's friends. We were pretty tired from the trip and went to bed early, as we had a big day planned.



Saturday morning we woke up and immediately called resturaunts in town to see which would have the Iowa football game on TV. Naturally, Buffalo Wild Wings, one of our favorite places, was where we ended up. After the game (they lost, of course) we got on a train and headed downtown to Chicago. We stopped and picked up my friend from home, Landon, who is now a student at Columbia and living in Chicago (that's Landon on the right). We just got off at a stop with no real plan or destination and wandered the streets for a while until we wound up at Millennium Park (with the giant metallic "bean"). While we were there Mike was enticed by a game of bags at the restaurant in the park, so just like we do every other weekend in Cedar Rapids, we ended up playing bags for a few hours, except it was under the Chicago skyline, which was pretty cool.
After our hours of bag playing we didn't feel like paying to eat at the trendy restaurant where we were playing bags so we stopped by Jimmy John's for a sandwich (while Amy escaped to do some quick Michigan Ave. shopping). We were then back on a train to meet some other friends for a drink in a different part of town. We then jumped from place to place until we realized it was 3:00 a.m. and we should probably be heading back soon! The night ended with another train ride to Mike's house and a very welcoming night of sleep!


We got up the next day and made the trip back to Iowa feeling good about our little adventure from the ordinary!

A real chill Saturday

Today has been what Saturdays are supposed to be like. I woke up to go give tours for the admissions office for our campus visit day (I was late of course because I slept in!) The tours went well, except the weather has started turning cold and there were a few snow flurries. I decided that after doing my tour I didn’t really need to be outside much more.
After a quick lunch I met my friend Amy at the racquet center to play a game of squash followed by some tennis (in our indoor tennis facility). My favorite part of the day, however, was sitting in the sauna after working out. I love sitting in the hot sauna and sweating on a cold day and try to do it quite often in the winter.
Following my time at the racquet center I came back to my room and took a quick nap, my other favorite Saturday past time. Now I’m just sitting in my room, drinking some tea and watching the Iowa game. I think I’ll order pizza and watch football all day! Life is full of simple pleasures and this chilly Saturday is full of them.