Carpentry, Squash, and Philosophy, Oh My

 Greetings from everyone's favorite homegrown cow! 

You'd think that after spending the last 20 summers of my life in Williamstown I'd have spent this summer grazing in less familiar pastures (especially considering my extremely cool teammates are scattered across the known world right now), but you'd think wrong! Instead, I've been living Williamstown life to the fullest at the always-bustling Miller household, honing my carpentry skills, mountain biking, tearing it up on the squash court, pretending to be a movie star, and failing miserably to grow a mustache. Photo evidence as follows. 

                                 

My main project for the first half of the summer was helping to install this enormous window wall. Logged many a strength day lifting those 650-pound glass chonkers. 

Average sized person for scale. Whole lotta glass. 

I also learned that if you are installing a steel roof, you don't want any space between your sub roofing and the metal, but if you are using copper or zinc roofing, you need an air gap. Bet they don't teach you that in your newfangled Williams classes, eh?

My brother took a proper stack of a crash up at the Kingdom Trails. Not to worry though. He escaped with nothing but a bloody nose, and he's no more goofy in the head than he always has been. 

Earlier this summer Lilly Bates hatched a devious but brilliant plot to convert me to an iPhone by stealing my famously cantankerous android during a rollerski. She claims I just lost it, but I know the truth. Not to be defeated, however, I bought another android just to rub it in her face. Unfortunately, my loyalty to androids has since blown up in my face yet again as my brother is unable to send any pictures from his iPhone to my phone. All that to say, I have no pictures of myself riding so you'll just have to believe me that I rode too.

Considering squash as a secondary option if skiing doesn't bring in the big bucks. 

If neither skiing nor squash works out as a path to fame and fortune, perhaps modeling with my grandpa's car in front of someone else's house will?

*Mustache pictures were censored and deemed too pathetic to show to the general public*

Over the 4th of July the whole Miller clan loaded up in the giant green van and headed to the beach for a week, then I took the train up to DC for a philosophy conference (yes I know I'm a nerd. I go to Williams so it's a given)

We stopped at George Washington's crib on the way South

Perhaps the one singular second I actually stood up on a surfboard

Nerd levels were high at this particular moment

Budding philosophers in the wild

Tim from Ireland wondering why there is a Roman-style statue of George Washington in the National American History Museum. 

One of my best friends from my gap year, a hilarious German fellow named Jakob, came to visit me this past week, and we scooted up to the White Mountains yesterday.

The campsite was full so I slept under the truck and Jakob slept in the truckbed. This was more comfortable than it looks. 

 

Jakob determined that Franconia Ridge was nearly as cool as the German Alps but not quite. 

He was more impressed with the positively scrumptious pizza that big man Keelan tossed up for us afterward. If you haven't visited the Durham family's pizza restaurant, Crossmolina Farm Pizza is a must-stop the next time you happen to be in the middle of Nowhereville, VT on a summer Saturday evening. But make sure you pre-download your directions because there's no service within 20 miles of this joint. 

As for the last few weeks of summer, I have jury duty on Wednesday, then on Friday I'll be heading back up to Keelan's with some of the other nordic ephs for a farming/training camp. And then when I get back the legendary Jason Lemieux will be staying at my house with his family! 

Can't wait to be back at Williams with all you world-traveling cows!

- Jakin

Wait... you saw what under your microscope? Tiny skiing cows!?!?

 So I had one of the best workouts of the summer yesterday (August 2nd). Let me set the scene: five, 8 minute skate rollerski L3 intervals. I set out after grabbing a **QUICK*** dinner from our lovely Driscoll dining hall and roll down from the Sage dorms all the way past the Towne field house, into linear park and eventually make my way up to Luce/ Pattinson road. 

I rip out three fast ones heading up to the entrance of the Greylock auto road feeling good, feeling hot, and feeling FAST. As I turn around for number four, one of the new friends I made this summer texts in our group chat asking if anyone wants to make a Lickety run. 

Now, I’ve tried most of the flavors at Lickety (many times over this summer) and I can confidently say that Purple Cow is the best. If you disagree, I'll be in Boston for the rest of the summer and you can come fight me. 

ANYWAY, with the sun setting, just two intervals left on a fast descent, and ice cream at the end, I am pumped. I absolutely fly past the reservoir where *someone* may have gone for a dip this summer when it was 97°, past farmstand, and onto route two. A quick rest as cars zipped by me brought me back to Brookline where weaving between cars on roller skis was how one learned agility.

Then, BAM! interval number 5! As I always say: Last one, Fast one! I crest up onto campus, past Currier Quad and WCMA, bang a left down onto Spring Street, making outdoor diners and other NARPS rubberneck to catch a glimpse of me as I careened toward Lickety. I nearly spin out as I take the 90 degree turn onto the road parallel to the parking lot which I whip into to finish this great workout with a lunge that probably looked something like this:. 

Then to cooldown, I had a huge Purple Cow ice cream cone. DE-licious!

-

Between cinematic interval sessions and sleeping like a rock, I’ve spent the past two ish months in good ol’ Williamstown, USA. I got to stay in the Purple valley because I was working in a Chem lab at the school… well biochem lab… with a sprinkling of computer science… you'll understand soon enough.

The Thuronyi lab (headed by Chemistry Professor Ben Thuronyi) consisted of myself and five other Williams students who ranged from a thesis student to first time research assistants like me! I could give you the whole spiel about what we did in the Thuronyi lab, but I think our End of Summer ‘Zine would give you a better idea of what went on in the Hopper Science building. 

End of Summer 'Zine

When I wasn’t working in the lab or training there was plenty to keep me busy this summer including outbidding Jakin for a banjo being sold by another student on campus this summer (I also played it too). You could often find/hear me and my friends on Chapin steps in the late afternoon, our empty dinner boxes off to the side, them crocheting something new, and me plucking away on banjo.

 

Our lab was good friends with the people in the Gering lab and so when they had their annual spirit week, we HAD to join in. Evelyn, me, and Addie are posing in our business casual attire right before we headed out for our daily 90 minute lunch. Gotta feed those brains somehow!

Mornings for me usually meant waking up at 6:30 am, getting my workout in for the day, showering, getting dressed, doing a little bit of clerical work, and my OATMEAL breakfast in my common room. I had oatmeal with honey and peanut butter EVERY SINGLE MORNING THIS SUMMER. I went into the summer as not the biggest fan of oatmeal, but I came out of it as a full despiser of the meal of oats. No more, never, I can’t do it anymore. I have it in this ceramic, gifted, novelty margarita glass because the little collapsible bowl I used alway got too hot to handle.

  

I think my favorite workout might be anything on the RRR trail that gets this view. I did a lot of runs along the Taconic Crest and every single time I stopped for a few minutes to take in the view. I mean, LOOK at this! Maybe I should move out west…

Pictured here, my neighbor from the Sage dorms, Angela, serving at one of the weekly volleyball games. Her and I always went and got so competitive. We dove, nearly pulled muscles, scuffed our knees and elbows, and let out some ungodly grunts as we shot the ball over the net. If there’s no snow this year and the Carnivals don’t happen, you can find me on the volleyball court. 

What was just one girl’s dream, turned into 30+ Williams students storming Six Flags New England and spending the entire day there. Me and Olivia, crochet extraordinaire, were the only ones who noticed I was taking a photo on our first ride of the day and our closing ride, the Carosel. 

Olivia here seen demonstrating the correct amount of sunscreen to put on when spending the entire day outside. 

Lilly Bates was also on campus this summer working as a reunion ranger! She’s got a whole blog post about it, so I’ll let her tell you what she was up to this summer. Here though, we just got finished with some track intervals where we got dumped on. That didn’t stop the temperature from soaring back up to 89 as soon as it was over though. 

I broke my pole tip on route 43 an hour and half into my rollerski and so I had to no pole all the way back to campus. At least I got to hear about Boston’s great Molasses flood of 1919 as I hobbled back.

 

One of the great things about summer in Williamstown is that you can spend so much time outside! I threw a movie night with a bunch of people in frosh quad on one particularly hot Friday. We watched Mamma Mia and so the PA system’s microphone was passed around all night as we watched the movie and then transitioned to karaoke. 

The Green River was the perfect spot to jump into after a hot workout and that's what I did most days.  

Angela dog sat for a professor’s dog and I had to bring her some stuff one day and got to say hi to Dusty. He didn’t seem fond of me at first, but after a *few* handfuls of treats, he loved me.

Jakin, Lilly, and I got huge this summer lifting in lower Lassel.

But we also got out on bike rides together. I thought at the beginning of the summer we might do the Greylock Century ride, but then after thinking how much it hurt last time, we decided our 50 mile loops were just fine. Maybe next year though?  

We did go on an epic hike/run on the AT from Bennington back to Williamstown. Jakin split off right at the end though to get to his house, but Lilly and I ran to the dining hall for lunch only to get there at 1:34 and be turned away. My cramping legs almost didn’t recover but luckily I had snagged a piece of tres leches cake from the dining hall the day before. It satiated me enough that I was able to make it until dinner.

And that’s it folks! Lots of training, friends, labwork, and ice cream! I’m back in Brookline right now so I might forget how to run uphill, but I’m still glad to be back. A few beach days, a few urban runs, and just one or two Shake Shack shakes and I’ll be ready to head back to the Purple Valley. Once we get the team back together, the Skeephs are going to hit it hard and have fun! I’m so excited to see everyone then!

Moooo, or "meuuuhh" if you speak french

-Linden

A Beautiful Summer in Norway

Hei hei,


Oslo, Norway is my wonderful new home for three months this summer. I am living right on the edge of the Nordmarka nature preserve, containing a labyrinth of confusingly marked and criss-crossing trails, and invisible bogs(yikes). This is also my first time ever living in a town larger than Williamstown, so learning to navigate subways, trains, trams, and buses has been one of the most difficult tasks this summer. Maybe needless to say, but I’ve spent upwards of half time here feeling slightly confused and very lost - both in the woods, in the city, and at work. Thankfully the long hours of daylight and almost-but-not-quite midnight sun have helped me regularly find my way home. And, in the process of finding my way home, I’ve discovered some of my favorite spots around the city – a cool neighborhood when I took the T in the wrong direction, a secret berry patch when I lost the trail, and free grills in a park when I couldn’t find the bus stop.

The view from Vettakollen Mountain out over Oslofjord

My favorite blueberry picking spot!

I’m very grateful for the Williams Fellowship that is allowing me to live in Norway this summer, and complete my internship at the University of Oslo. I am analyzing lake sediment cores and searching for microscopic volcanic glass shards called cryptotephra layers to determine what the climate may have been like during the Viking age.

A cryptotephra shard!

I loved living in Lillehammer during my gap-year, which is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to come back this summer. On the weekends, I have been excitedly reliving the Lillehammer glory days of Sjusjøen mountain adventures, knitting sweaters with my host mom, pretty valley sunset views from our patio, and afternoon skolebrød expeditions in town. Lillehammer’s picturesque main street overlooking the dramatic valley means that you have an incredible view from almost anywhere in town. On top of that, I have appreciated the time to reconnect with friends I left so suddenly at the onset of the pandemic and with my wonderful host family.

The view from my favorite Lillehammer bakery

The view over Lillehammer valley and Lake Mjøsa

A sunset view from my host family’s house

Included in my 3 month internship are two weeks of vacation time. My first week, I traveled to Venice, Italy to visit a friend from my gap year. I was humbled by how little Italian I could speak or understand after studying it for a full year at Williams (oh well…). During my week-long visit, Silvia and I traveled to many northern-Italian cities, spent a very long day hiking in the Dolomites, and ate a bit too much gelato for my lactose intolerance to handle.

Venice!

Hiking with Silvia in the Dolomites

My second week of vacation was used this past week to go hiking in Switzerland, a place I’ve always dreamed of visiting. We stayed most of the week in Grindelwald, but the highlight of the trip was a 3 day hut to hut hike from Kandersteg back to Grindelwald. I’m writing this blog in bed after a 24hr journey via train and plane home, and I’m already missing the giant mountains, the cow bells ringing over the valleys, and the chocolate fondue.

A section of trail between Greisalp and Murren

Finally got to see a real-life glacier!

I’ve been starting to miss Williams a little too, and am getting excited to be back this fall with my favorite cow herd.

Sending lots of love to my fellow ephs,

Kennedy