White squirrel
Aug. 30th, 2004 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jere7myI saw an albino squirrel today, in the huge open park that serves as the center of the Oberlin campus. It was playing with a normal squirrel, chasing it across the grass and then around and around a big maple tree. When they saw me they froze on opposite sides of the trunk, mirroring each other like a squirrel and its anti-shadow.
The students are arriving, lugging duffels bigger than they are, stopping to sit on any available surface to consult maps and handbooks, poring over books on benches already. Parents are looking frantic and asking a lot of questions of passersby. It feels a lot like Swarthmore. I sat in the sun in the Memorial Arch, which commemorates "the Oberlin missionaries killed in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion," listening to my iPod and people-watching.
The campus is larger than it looks, because so many of the college buildings are indistinguishable from residences. The security building is a little Victorian home with three bicyles propped on the sagging porch. If it weren't for the little sign on the lawn I'd never have known it was connected to Oberlin.
(Another squirrel just appeared on the porch outside my window, not four feet from me. It crept carefully up to the inverted trash can my neighbors have set out, then lapped delicately at the water that had collected in the base. Normally I would not put "delicate" and "squirrel" together, but it really was quite catlike and dainty. Then, a frantic ungainly launch into the tree, which set the branches a-flailing and rather spoiled the effect.)
It's starting to sink in that I have nothing to do here. I am as idle as Eric; I'm kicking my heels and whistling a lot. Hm. I need to seek.
The students are arriving, lugging duffels bigger than they are, stopping to sit on any available surface to consult maps and handbooks, poring over books on benches already. Parents are looking frantic and asking a lot of questions of passersby. It feels a lot like Swarthmore. I sat in the sun in the Memorial Arch, which commemorates "the Oberlin missionaries killed in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion," listening to my iPod and people-watching.
The campus is larger than it looks, because so many of the college buildings are indistinguishable from residences. The security building is a little Victorian home with three bicyles propped on the sagging porch. If it weren't for the little sign on the lawn I'd never have known it was connected to Oberlin.
(Another squirrel just appeared on the porch outside my window, not four feet from me. It crept carefully up to the inverted trash can my neighbors have set out, then lapped delicately at the water that had collected in the base. Normally I would not put "delicate" and "squirrel" together, but it really was quite catlike and dainty. Then, a frantic ungainly launch into the tree, which set the branches a-flailing and rather spoiled the effect.)
It's starting to sink in that I have nothing to do here. I am as idle as Eric; I'm kicking my heels and whistling a lot. Hm. I need to seek.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 06:44 pm (UTC)It's Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1.
I got the icon from a Stargate SG-1 community, from
no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 07:43 pm (UTC)As far as I know, it's from a photo shoot that's been floating around in the past month or so. It's been causing everyone to go "EEEEEEE" and make icons when they've finally caught their breaths.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-01 10:24 pm (UTC)I laughed all the way down the street.