Novices, Furman Trip, the Apple of My Eye, and the Big Apple.

Wow. Long time no post. I've got three weekends' worth of exciting activities!

September 23rd I drove down to Columbia to stay with Amit and judge the USC novice tournament for forensics. If you are in high school, I HIGHLY recommend you do forensics. It's such a neat program, and will help you so much later in life. I only wish I had done it earlier than I did. I'm very thankful of Amit for letting me stay with him (and thankful to his awesome roomie as well), and glad I got to see Caroline and Faucette and all of my Southside buddies! It was so great to see everyone. There was also a girl there who saw my Davidson shirt and said she wanted to go there so badly. I recognized her as the girl who had the Skippy Jon Jones: Lost in Spice piece last year. Among my friends, the piece is infamous.

During that week, I went canvassing with the Davidson Dems for Aaron Pomis, a very qualified candidate for the upcoming School Board election. I enjoyed it a lot, even though most people didn't answer the door for me.

On September 30th, I drove to Greenville, and had a grand old time hanging out with Caroline. I woke up in the new month, and realized I was late to my engagement--a Furman tour with the Eco-Reps. I hopped out of bed, threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, and dashed out the door. Unfortunately, there was so much road work going on, so my drive was a bit delayed. I finally made it to Furman, and we started the tour. We saw the Eco House on campus, featured in Southern Living and accompanied by an awesome garden. After a tour of some of the other facilities, we grabbed some lunch and went to talk with some Furman Eco-Reps (they weren't literally "Eco-Reps", but they did the same job as us). Furman has a really neat Environmental Science major, and a couple of the kids there said they were majoring--or double-majoring--in it.

After our Furman visit, we hopped in the car (and van) and drove to downtown Greenville. After illegally parking in a church parking lot (not very Christian to make your parking lot exclusive for church use only during all of the week, huh?), we scaled a small mountain and met our tour guide at the top of Falls Park. Quick aside: the city had dyed the water in the fountains at Falls Park pink. It looked so crazy. Alright, back to my story: the tour guide introduced himself, and was none other than my beautiful father, Russell Stall. He told us a little bit about his nonprofit, Greenville Forward, and started the tour. We saw the Liberty Bridge, Falls Park, South Carolina's Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Fluor Field (home of the Greenville Drive), the Kroc Center, A J Wittenburg, and the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Finally, we ended with something tasty at OCHA, a locally-owned tea shop.

Needless to say, I went home that night worn out.

But wait! I did more that night?! No way!

I had dinner with my parents and grandmother, and then had my really good friend, Neil, over for the night. The last time I saw this dork was before I left for college, so we were long overdue. It was very nice to see him.

The next day, October 2nd, I woke up early so I could go apple picking with that cutie, Caroline. She drove over to the house about 9-ish, and we hopped in the car to go to SkyTop. Neither of us really thought about packing warm, so when we got there, we were freezing. We scrambled down into the orchards, looking for Jonathons, Winesaps, Golden Deliciouses, and Fiji apples. Only Fiji and Winesap were in the orchards, so we quickly went to pick them. Unfortunately for us, most of the apples had already been picked. I saw apples at the tops of the trees, and took to the skies to find them! (Or just climbed a couple of trees). We ended up only able to find a basketful of good apples on the trees, and our definition of good was quite loose. We went to this weird little bamboo forest they have in the middle of the orchard, and then went to see a couple goats. Caroline freaked out at the goats (she looked like a kindergartener), and then we went up to buy the apples. We grabbed massive bags of all the apples we didn't have and loaded them in the car.

Next, the good part: eating the delicious apple-centered snacks that SkyTop has to offer. First off, a pumpkin-flavored homemade donut and a apple-cider flavored homemade donut--SO GOOD. Next, slices of apple with warm caramel poured over them--ALSO SO GOOD. I got some cider and Caroline got some hot chocolate. The girl who served us saw my Davidson sweatshirt, and said that she was planning on going to Davidson, too! That's like, two people in two weekends! Anyway, we finished our apples and grabbed a dozen more apple donuts and left.

Then, Fall Break!

YES.

For Fall Break, I drove to Charlotte to my grandparent's house. My parents and brother were going to meet me there. While I waited, I played my grandfather's PlayStation2, but we couldn't get the color to work. I played Enter the Matrix in black and white. It was awesome. We spent the night there (Harrison and I stayed up way too late) and woke up at 5 am (see why I said "way too late"?) for a flight at 7-ish out of the Charlotte airport to LaGuardia Airport in New York. We carried all of our luggage on, which is something I've never done and that excited me greatly. (It's really not that thrilling, I assure you.) We landed in NYC (with a massive bang, I might add) and took a cab to Penn Station. Gosh, I love New York. It's like the greatest city in the world. We made it to Penn Station, and waited on a train to Dover. I was still in awe of how wonderful it was to be back in the city. We hopped on our train, and rode it for a couple of hours to Madison, New Jersey. There, Ned was waiting on us with a car to pick us up. We went to lunch at a bar where we got our first taste of New Jersey.... I guess literally, too.

We got some cupcakes and left Madison to go to Ned's house on Lake Hopatcong. His house is awesome, and he lives right on the lake. Harrison, Ned and I all hung out for the two nights we spent in New Jersey and had much fun. We went out on the boat twice, and watched Signs with a projector and a white sheet by the campfire. I decided that I want some boots because of the visit. Early Monday morning, we woke to catch a train to New York. We got on the wrong side of the platform, but the conductor was nice enough to wait for us to walk under the tracks to get over to the correct side.

Back in New York, we dropped our bags off at the hotel and grabbed brunch at this really hipster eating place. I had porridge, and it was SO good. We were all marveling at the fact that a person could stop anywhere in NYC and know that the food would be fantastic.

We walked to 30 Rock and saw all of Rockefeller Plaza before heading to MoMa, which I swear gets better and better every time I go. Unfortunately, the contemporary art exhibit at MoMA was being redone, so I didn't get to see my favorite exhibit. After MoMA, we headed to Trump Tower. It was cool, but everything was gold looking. Next, we met up with a mentor of Harrison's, Steve Moss. He is a man from (a long time ago) the UK who works for a French bank and lives in New York. He is an interesting guy, and Harrison had a nice little meeting with him.

After the meeting, we were too tired for more, so we went to the hotel for the night.

The next morning, we headed to Wall Street to see the Occupy Wall Street movement. We saw all kinds of awesome signs and a big papier mache megaphone. It looked pretty cool. We then moved on to the 9/11 memorial and looked in their museum--"museum". Harrison and I bought a shirt and Dad bought a pen.

We ate one final lunch, and prepared to leave the big city. Waiting for us outside the hotel was a limousine to take us to the airport. We all felt so awesome riding in it, and it was a great way to end the New York trip. We all flew back to CLT, then parted ways.

I've had a very great past few weeks.

Have a wonderful week.

Mocked.

I had a Mock Trial second round tryout last night. I ended up not making it on the team, but the experience of trying out was fun enough. The competition was really fierce.

I had my first meeting for the Freshman Eco-Reps, and I enjoyed it. Ellie and I are going to be writing an article to go in the Davidsonian sometime, so be on the lookout for that.

I'm considering using the time I would have used for Mock Trial to start making/editing YouTube videos again. Those of you who have seen my old ones, please don't express your feelings on the first round of Hamptonesque vlogs! These new ones will be better, more exciting, and smarter! (Also, Caroline and I [briefly] discussed doing a joint YouTube channel; think vlogbrothers style. I'm very excited about that channel, too.)

I think I may have found a topic for my first Ethics paper, and Dworkin (and co.) will be the topic. Dear readers/editors of my paper, be prepared for some smart-sounding trolling with some sound arguments. I'm pretty excited about the paper, especially since I know it will be a challenge, and one I can accomplish with a good grade.





Today has been good, and my tiredness-time completely flipped today. This morning, I was VERY conscious, and was trying to figure out what the heck my previous week's econ notes even meant. This afternoon, however, I've been SUPER tired, which will probably explain the scatterbrainedness of this post.

Have a wunnerful day, guys and gals!

Sickkkk

Went to Greenville for the weekend, and had a great time. It was lovely to see Caroline, Harrison, and my grandparents.

I got back last night somewhere around 7:30-ish, and was finally finished getting unloaded around 8:45-ish, or something.

This morning, it was really tough to wake up. Not only because I was waking at 7 for class, but also because my head felt like it was trying to secede from itself. Apparently, my cold had moved one step more, and was now causing my head to be all congested, with no way to free me from it. I dragged myself to the showers, and eventually coaxed myself to get back out once I was in it.

I almost fell asleep in my economics class and my humanities lecture, which is really embarrassing. It's so annoying how, even though I got 8-9 hours of sleep last night, I'm falling asleep in class. I wish I could pause class for a while until I get better, but I gotta go.

Econ was cool today, though, and is getting more complex now, which is good.

Humanities was interesting, and was about the Hebrew Scriptures and the reasons for them and what they were causes of and for. It was neat, but I'm bias, as I really like Dr. Epes.

I went to lunch with Andy and Nathan, and met Spencer, Kseniya, Thomas, and Jacob down there. They're all really neat, and I talked to Jacob about my metaphysics class, which I haven't finished the reading for. (Don't worry, Mom, I know the topics that these chapters are on, I promise!)




Well, I'm going to go and skim the chapters really quickly, but I will catch you later.

Have a phenomenal afternoon!

Ps- I finished LOST yesterday, and am now open to discussion about the show.

First Day of Second Day of Class

Wow, my sleep schedule is going to be so messed up.

Today, I woke up at 10:30A to a phone call and my roommate coming back from class and breakfast. The day was already really bright, and everyone else in the world was awake.

I stumbled out of bed, showered, and found some people to go to lunch with.

Not much of note in the afternoon until my Applied Ethics class. I got in right before the class started (the class starts at 3:05, and I probably slid in at 3:04-ish), so, of course, I was seated in the back. The teacher, Professor Goldstein proceeded to tell about the requirements of the course, and what would happen in it, and all of that good stuff. I noticed all kinds of awesome philosophers--ones I had read, at that!--and started to get really excited.

Right after going through the syllabus, though, the class got interesting really fast. He turned to us and asked us to debate the ethics of abortion--whether or not an abortion was immoral or moral. Nobody spoke for half a minute, so I explained what I felt the debate truly was and how the argument should be approached. Unfortunately enough, I had to take a stance on the issue at that point in time. It would appear that I picked the unpopular stance, too, as four or five students instantly raised their hands when the professor asked for more people to speak. Almost everyone in the class contributed, and a few contributed more than once. I'm so glad that participation at Davidson is such a big deal, and something that comes so easily for so many people. It means that our discussions will actually get somewhere, instead of the discussions just being between three people who agree on the same side of the argument, but don't realize that they do.

After class, I talked to the professor, and told him about Wittgenstein and Sartre and Russell and Mill and all of the other philosophers I read, and he seemed to be really excited, too. It was great to see a teacher who truly loves his subject and loves it when students are interested, too.

I had dinner with Graham, who had a pet furry caterpillar perched on his shoulder for most of the dinner, and had a nice chat with him about his experiences at Davidson, my experiences at Davidson, and his upcoming documentary. He and a friend are borrowing my Flip to record their documentary, and it seems like it would definitely be something interesting to watch/film.

I made a quick run through the Organizations Fair, signed up for the mailing list of the Eco-Reps, Mock Trial, and the Young Dems. Unfortunately, I had to make it to the library for a Davidson101 class, so I didn't have any time to shop around. I'm really excited for the Eco-Reps, and I think I will probably spend time in the Young Dems as opposed to Mock Trial for this year. Again, none of these plans are set in stone, and when it comes to picking extra-curriculars, I'm usually pretty fickle until a week before the commitment comes.

Davidson 101 - Library was alright. I learned how to find books in the library and where to search for scholarly sources within the library database. Davidson's got a pretty good library, though I didn't take that away from my first visits to the campus. I'm glad that Dav101 is able to change my mind like that. My next Davidson101 class is "Realizing Your Risk", and is on Thursday night.





Afterwards, I was able to talk on the phone with Caroline, and enjoyed the conversation thoroughly. Here's a shout-out.

Early night tonight after reading some more Epic of Gilgamesh, Economics, and Metaphysics.

Have a phenomenal preevening.

Hello Worl--err, Davidson!

First blog posts are always awkward, so I think I'll just skip the whole "THISISMYFIRSTBLOGPOSTOMG" mindset (as this is in no way my first blog), and move forward to the "I'm comfortable leaving out many exclamation marks from my posts" phase.

But first, here's the premise of the blog, and a quick introduction, too:

My name is Hampton, and I am a new freshman at Davidson College in North Carolina, USA. At this point, my intended majors include philosophy, political science, economics, psychology, sociology, or fifty other possibilities. No matter what I study, I will probably be making my own major to suit myself for law or government or something interesting like that.

I will be graduating in 2015 from Davidson, and currently plan on attending law school or some sort of graduate school. I hope to be on the mock congress, mock trial, improv, theatre, student government, and eco rep groups while at Davidson, but I know I can't do all of those each year. (I will probably end up doing a couple of them, with congress and eco rep groups definitely thrown in there.)

I'm not particularly athletic, but I am signed up for a weight-lifting course and will participate in the freshman sport of flickerball for an additional PE credit. Currently, I am enrolled in the 2-year Humanities program, Metaphysics, Introductory Economics, and Applied Ethics classes, with some pretty cool teachers that I'm really excited to learn from.

My roommate is named Andy, and he seems really cool. I hope we get along for this year, as I hope to be in Davidson's sustainable living house, the EcoHouse for the final three years of Davidson, if I don't get an apartment or something by the time I graduate.

Alright. First post incoming--


Today was really busy, and I'm definitely ready to finish with Orientation. Today, we did a service walk, which is essentially a tour of the town of Davidson. It was really neat, and I met a lot of cool people, but I was dying of heat and sweated so badly. After that, we had a delicious lunch (sponsored by the always awesome Harris Teeter) of beans and rice with a piece of cornbread.

I went to the Sprinkle Room and bought all of my books after that. I ended up with fifteen books and one class manual, at a grand total of $608. All of my books but 2 were used, too, which makes the price even more ridiculous. I will probably be writing all over the books, so I don't really know how many I will be selling back at the end of the year and how many I will be adding to my extremely small collection of books.

After lugging my books back, I got back to the room, showered, and met with Aric, Ellie, and Hannah for a Harris Teeter run. We enjoyed it thoroughly, and I got some hummus and pita chips. I rode on the kiddie ride at the outside, as did Aric. We made a stop at this natural foods place, and I got some almond milk and Ezekiel bread (which is the best thing ever).

Next, we went back to the Union (Hannah left to see the soccer game) and I bought a lanyard to hold my CatCard, room key, and postbox key. Returned to the dorm, and talked to Caroline on the phone for an hour fifteen.

After the rest, I went down to Vail Commons with Ian, Hannah, Ellie, Nathan, Alex and others to eat some Caribbean marinara-sauced pasta (it was called "rasta pasta" by the food crew) and french fries. (Yes, I decided it was time to french fry it up--don't judge me!) We all finished and Dave, Ben, and I all walked back to the dorm together, stopping to watch another kid named Ben show us some sweet dance moves.

I returned to the dorm, looked up the Chidsey Leadership Fellows application, and attempted to download Microsoft Office Suite from my Davidson thumbdrive. Unfortunately, that has failed to work, and I'll have to get IT to get that done for me sometime this week.

Now, I'm about to read the first part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, as I have to read the first 44 pages for Humanities by Monday at 8:30.

Happy trails!