February 13, 2009

Every morning, we are all woken up by numerous alarms, and we make our way over to Who's Hall for morning exercise (aptly nicknamed "AMX") roll call at 7:25. We go for a run three times a week, but other AMX activities consist of field games and Chewie's boot camp, which we had on Wednesday. We started off with a militaristic roll call and two sets of ten push-ups, which we thought was going to be the beginning of a rough morning.  But then we headed outside and played a few rounds of Elf Tag and "Mingle," which was definitely fun and definitely not what we thought "boot camp" would look like. Another morning this week featured a brisk run through “mild” conditions, with beautiful views of the Rocky Mountains, and of frost accumulating on Steve Reiman’s facial hair.

After AMX comes a delicious breakfast of eggs or pancakes or French toast or sausage or English muffins or all of the above, followed by a half hour of chores.  At chore time, everyone reports to his/her assigned chore for the semester. There are tons of different jobs to get done around campus, like shoveling, sweeping, and cleaning the bathrooms, vans, mudroom, and more. Even though they are chores, they aren't so bad, and we make them fun by singing songs to pass the time. When chores are done, it's off to class! 

With a return to campus comes a return to classes, homework, and study hall, since after all, as we are reminded time and again (sometimes it’s easy to forget with all the fun and adventure), HMI is a school. This week saw the beginning of the daily school routine, starting with “AMX”, chores, breakfast and then two, hour-and-a-half periods of class, lunch, and three more ninety minute class periods. Then, after dinner, comes two hours and fifteen minutes of study hall, one of the few times to get your homework done in the super busy life at HMI.

In English we furthered our discussion of Thoreau’s “Walking,” applying analytical constructs and lenses such as the value of wilderness, knowledge and ignorance, natural literature, and more to our lives, especially out in the backcountry.  For our first P&P (Practices and Principles: Ethics of the Natural World) class, all forty-two students congregated in the Neill Classroom to further a discussion from the first expedition on our human need for wilderness. This discussion concentrated on essays by Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and Gary Snyder.  In science we started learning about fossil fuels and energy consumption, and calculated the amount of CO2 that we each contribute at HMI.  We’re studying westward expansion and manifest destiny in US History, speaking French and Spanish, and learning Algebra, Geometry, Pre-calc, and Calculus with beautiful views of snowy Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive to enjoy as we learn. 
Along with the start of classes, RMS XXII experienced our first “Activity” period of the semester. The choices on Tuesday included cross-country skiing, yoga, climbing on the rock wall, and making snow sculptures in the freshly fallen snow outside of the main building. There was a mad rush to the sign-up board as soon as it was posted, and the slots for the different activities quickly filled up. After a long day of classes, we all dispersed into our groups for a well-deserved break before we got back into school mode. Through many laughs and falls, the skiers (many skiing for their first time ever!) made their way slowly but surely along the trail. The rock climbers and snow sculptors however, had a bit more immediate success. Today (Friday), since only a few students have activity period, we made cookies and helped apprentice Amy braid the Challah bread for dinner. From creating new routes on the climbing wall to making a 20 foot snow worm (complete with a sombrero and ski goggles,) we all had a great time with activities this week, and were able to relax and remember that just because HMI is a school, it does not mean that we cannot enjoy ourselves.

By: Nancy Conolly, Marty Schwarz, & Kevin Lewis