A New Countdown Begins

It's the end of the week and Iowa's Private College Week is winding down today.  If you visited Coe this week I hope your visit was FANTASTIC and you come back to visit real soon.  Maybe I can even walk you to a class!  That would be fun.  Anyways, as IPCW is finishing up, I'm beginning a new countdown...a countdown to returning to Coe.  I mean, I love Mt. Horeb and being with my family but I'm excited to go back to my new family, all my friends at Coe.  I know there are a lot of exciting adventures waiting for me in Cedar Rapids and I can't wait to start them.  As of today, I've got three weeks left in Wisconsin.  Wow, summer has just FLOWN by.  

When I move back in I start doing college stuff right away.  I move in on a Friday and then that night there's a sophomore picnic.  Then, bright and early on Saturday morning I will be attending Coe's Sophomore Conference.  It's a way for sophomores like myself to move in a bit early and then attend three seminars to help us be fired up about our second year.  The seminars cover a ton of material from graduate school to study abroad to better studying for better grades.  I think it should be an informative and fun day.  After a day of seminar fun, we will be having dinner with President Phifer.  A fitting way to end the conference, don't you think?  Then Sunday is a free day and Monday the 29th classes begin.  

Well, must get back to making back to school lists and thinking about the various ways I can arrange my dorm room while still enjoying my time in Mt. Horeb.  Keeping busy as always! :)

Persepolis: FYS 2011 Common Reading

Every incoming class at Coe is assigned a common book for the summer.  The goal is to read the book, which will be used in some way in each First Year Seminar (FYS) class and it's a way for students to connect during Orientation Week.  It's one thing every incoming student has in common and I think it's more fun to talk about the book then ask the same standard questions (such as where are you from or what's your major?).  Not only is the book used for conversation starters, most FYS classes write papers relating to the book and finally, about halfway through the semester, a speaker related to the book comes in to speak to the entire incoming class.  For me and my peers, we read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  My first paper for A Tempestuous Season was to compare Outliers to the Neoclassical Solution (which was a little more difficult than it might seem).  Our speaker was Marv Levy.

But back to the current incoming class.  They read the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.  It's a comic book memoir telling about Satrapi's life in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution.  I read it as well since I'm a Writing Fellow.  It was a quick read, not only because it was a comic book but because the story was interesting.  I know very little about the Islamic Revolution since it started before I was born and it wasn't a topic heavily discussed in my previous history classes.  Satrapi did a nice job of showing the innocence she had when she was younger and how slowly that veil was removed so she could really see what was happening in her country.

After reading the book, I checked out the movie Satrapi made to compare the two.  The movie very closely followed the book although the timeline was a bit different in each.  For me, the movie was a way to reinforce the major points of the book and remember sections I might have forgotten since the drawings were the same in both the book and the movie.

I'm excited to talk to other students who read this book and hear their opinions on it.  I'm also not sure who their speaker will be but that too should be interesting.  And I wonder how the Islamic Revolution and Nature of Science will tie together.  This Writing Fellow better be on her toes!

Image from Barnes and Noble's website.

Greece, Smile for the Camera!: Max's Basketball Escapade IV

As I woke up on my last day in Greece I was both sad and terribly excited at the same time. Even though I would never be back to Greece, at least not in the near future, I hadn’t been back to Colorado for more than five days at a time. Actually overall, both semesters combined, I spent a total of 11 days at home. I was ready to see my family and my mountains again.

            

But before I could see my family, I had to see Athens. Our first stop was the Parthenon, ancient and modern Greece’s crown jewel. Here is a fun fact about the Parthenon: it took a total of eight days to build the entire Parthenon. When we were standing there looking up in awe of the sheer size of this massive temple, a man walked up next to us and said that he had visited Greece when he graduated from college 60 years prior and since his first trip, the scaffolding that has been put up for the restoration team to use hasn’t moved an inch. In 60 years. So it took all of eight years to build, and in 60 the restoration team hadn’t made enough progress to move the scaffolding that covered one end of the structure. That speaks, I believe, not only to the level of caution the restoration team uses everyday, but it also speaks to the quality of the construction. Built in eight, survived for thousands of years, and restored literally inch by inch. That is something else.

            

Our final day in Greece was capped first by visiting the National Museum and second by playing our final game. The National Museum was pretty awesome. Not as spectacular as the museum in Delphi, but pretty spectacular nonetheless. I did see the other two famous bronze sculptures at this museum though: the sculpture of Zeus or Poseidon (they’re not sure who it is because the lighting bolt or trident is missing from the sculpture) and the famous Jockey Artémision.

The Jockey is the first sculpture traveling or foreign artists see when they’re in Greece. They choose to visit it first because it is the only sculpture from the ancient world where a horse is actually in motion. In all the other sculptures, worldwide, the horses are always standing. But in the Jockey, the horse is in a sprinting motion, with a young boy riding bareback. What makes this so attractive to artists is that, without the help of cameras, the Greek sculptures perfectly captured the image of a sprinting horse. From the flexing of the leg muscles, to the straining of the facial tendons, to the bulging veins around the eyes. The Greeks got it perfect. In fact, they got it so perfect that when a photograph was compared to that of the sculpture, the images were exactly the same. Now those were true artists!

Our final scheduled event was our final game. We played an American college in Greece. The team we played was a scrappy one, and the officiating was questionable, but we still played hard. Even though we lost, we could care less. We were ticked at the result but after five minutes we remembered where we were and who we were with and the anger and emotion went out the window. We spent our final night exploring downtown Athens and celebrating two of our teammates’ birthdays. Then it was all over.

Looking back now, almost two months after my return flight to Denver, I can’t help but think how lucky I was to have been a member of the 42 person party that traveled to Greece to explore and play basketball. I was truly blessed to have an experience like this during my entire college career, let alone my Freshman year. Thank you for reading my thoughts and following my stories. I know they can get random, but that’s just the way I am. I’m a random guy. Also a special thanks to Hailley for letting me write this piece for her blog. It means a lot!!!

Peace, love, and happiness,

Max Stanford

Coe College 2014

Want to see Max's whole video?  Check it out, without interruptions, here. 

Two New Campus Jobs This Fall

Good news! Not only will I be taking new and exciting classes, enjoying all the privileges of being a sophomore, and having an all around good time, I'll be working two new jobs this semester.

1. I'll be working in the Admissions Department!  I was hired at the end of my Freshman year and starting this fall I'll be giving tours, escorting prospective students, answering questions, and helping Admissions wherever they need it.  Needless to say but I'm pumped for this new job.  When I was on my college search process I always thought being a tour guide would be fun; it was something I really hoped to do once I chose a college.  And now that is happening.  Once school starts I will be trained and then I'll be all set to go.  Make sure to check back later this year to hear all about my new job!
2. I will still be in the Writing Center although my responsibilities will have changed a bit.  At Coe, every First Year Seminar class is paired with a Writing Fellow.  This Writing Center consultant is responsible for helping their FYS students navigate the college paper.  All incoming freshman know at least one Writing Center consultant so when they are having difficulties or just want to check in when working on a paper, there is a consultant ready for them.  I will be a Writing Fellow for the FYS entitled Nature of Science.  This summer I've been reading the Nature of Science textbooks so I'll be ready to help my FYSers.  Again, be on the lookout for Writing Fellow updates!    

Well I'm sure these two new jobs will keep me busy but that's fine by me!  I move back to Coe in less than a month!   WOW.

Greece, Smile for the Camera!: Max's Basketball Escapade III

When we awoke the next morning we were back in Athens. Our tour bus was waiting to take us four hours north of Athens to the ruins of Delphi. Delphi is home to one of the largest collections of ancient Greek artifacts and sculptures. This is because Delphi used to be the religious capital of the ancient Greek empire. The archeological site sits nestled against a mountain looking out over a sprawling landscape of mountain peaks and steep valleys.

            

Again, as we did in Santorini, we hiked up and down and all around the ruins of Delphi. We saw ancient temples, treasuries, theaters, tracks, and most importantly, the navel, or belly button, of Zeus. It was said that thousands of monks and religious figures made the pilgrimage to worship and touch the navel of Zeus, the most powerful God of all.  And so flash forward thousands of years and here I am, touching the most important, religiously speaking, piece of stone in ancient Greece. It was a pretty spectacular experience.

            

After we had hiked around for what seemed like forever in the hot and humid climate, we went inside to the site’s museum. The museum at Delphi was the greatest museum I have ever visited. And I have been to all the museums in Washington, I’ve walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, I’ve been to the Atomic Bomb memorial in Hiroshima, Japan and this museum blew those guys out of the water. The collection of marble statues, carvings, ceramic pots, bronze shields and helmets, jewelry, and weapons was unreal.

            

My favorite piece from the museum at Delphi also happens to be one of the three most important bronze sculptures in the world: The Charioteer. The Charioteer is world famous because of the condition it is in. I know I have included one, if not two or three, photos of this sculpture in my slideshow because it was so stunning to me. This sculpture survived thousands of years of baking sun, rain, snow, and wind and yet it stands as if it was sculpted yesterday. Although one hand as well as the chariot and horse are missing, the body of the Charioteer remained completely intact. From its flowing robe, to its eyelashes. That’s right, the sculpture had visible eyelashes. How cool is that? Eyelashes that had been carved and sculpted thousands of years ago still visible and intact today? I will never see anything like it the rest of my life.

            

The archeological site and museum at Delphi were spectacular. But we couldn’t stay there forever. The next day we had to travel almost seven hours on the bus. We were headed to the town of Kalamata. To get there we had to go back through Athens and head another couple of hours south through the mountains and olive fields. On our way, we stopped at Epidaurus, the most famous, yet unknown, amphitheater in the world.

            

The acoustics are so exact at Epidaurus that no matter which seat you choose out of the nearly 15,000 available, you will be able to hear the actors voices perfectly. Our tour guide actually demonstrated the acoustics for us on our visit. We all climbed to the highest seats possible all the way in the back row and listened as we heard her tear a piece of paper, drop coins, and whisper. It was absolutely incredible knowing that our modern movie theaters don’t even compare to the theater at Epidaurus.

           

Here is a fun activity for you to do now. It also gives you a chance to stretch your legs and your eyes. Get up and go find your bottle of olive oil. Chances are it says the olives are a product of Kalamata, Greece. If your bottle doesn’t say that, I’m sorry. You’re not tasting the world’s finest olives.

            

After a long day of traveling, we were ready to sleep. Our 7 AM wake up call was only a few hours away and we wanted to be awake and ready for our visit to Olympia, home of the original Olympic games and the oldest Olympic track in the world.

            

The Olympic track at Olympia is a giant stretch of dirt in the middle of an ancient city. It wouldn’t be different from any other track except for the fact that our modern Olympics blossomed and bloomed from its foundations. Track and Field, actually sports as we know them today can be traced back to the track at Olympia. As a college athlete, it was quite a spectacular and humbling experience. “Just think,” I thought to myself, “all those wind sprints you run at practice laid their roots here. Awesome!”

            

After pondering the very essence of sports at Olympia, it was time to bus ourselves back to Kalamata. We had a game to play. Our first of three. I won’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the games we played in Greece because it’s not very appealing to those of you who aren’t basketball players, but I’ll give you the highlights. Game one: Location: Kalamata, Greece. Opponent: Kalamata All Stars. Outcome: We beat ‘em. Last thoughts: It was so cool to play overseas!

            

The next day we woke up and were bussed back to Athens. Overall it was an uneventful bus ride. One stop for lunch and that was it. Not a whole lot to talk about. I listened to my entire 80 song playlist and that’s about it.

            

However, the entire day wasn’t completely boring. We played our second of three games in Greece. This time the opponent was a Greek professional team. That’s right, we played a bunch of paid professionals. Even though we lost, it was only by 15. And we played against professional athletes! It was pretty awesome to know that we could hang with a professional team.

After playing the professional team we were all pretty exhausted. We bussed back to the hotel and got some well-deserved shut-eye. I slept extremely well despite the fact that the next day would be our last in Greece. But we were going to tour the city of Athens on our last day so needless to say I was eager to get going the next morning.

Catch the final part of Max's adventure tomorrow!