Sunday, July 11, 2010

Can I Take Cayuga To California?

I have found a new hobby: canoeing. Today’s excursion onto Lake Cayuga was one of the best outdoor experiences I have ever had. I plan on going home and indoctrinating my parents or friends into a canoeing frame of mind. The closest “body of water” we have near our home to canoe in (besides the bay) is the reservoir on Dam Road on the way out to Orinda, and I don’t even know if you are allowed to canoe there. I’m hoping my friend can recommend a good location because her family is very outdoorsy.

We left Cornell at 12:30 PM and drove five minutes to “Paddledocks” (the canoe rental company). The first question Ms. Kaplan asked when we got into the car was, “How many of you don’t know how to swim.” I immediately began to think pessimistically. I started to think that I was going to make the canoe capsize and that we would be stuck in the middle of the lake. I was a little reassured when they gave us lifejackets, but that did not take away my fear of capsizing. Thankfully Andrew Woo had canoed before and he was able to instruct me on basic paddling technique. Once we got started, I easily slipped into the groove of things. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and we were soon the dominant boat out of the three groups (the other two being Team Kaplan-Habash-Naizghi and Team Gonzales-Lares-So).

We spent about two hours canoeing. I’m fairly certain our arms and shoulders will hurt tomorrow, but it will have been well worth it. Of all of the things that we have done on the weekends here, this has been by far the most exciting and enjoyable. My only regret is that I couldn’t take pictures while on Lake Cayuga. Oh well…

We returned to Cornell and all of the F&J-ers gave a huge sigh because we all knew we still had to read Burke and make corrections to our Plato essays. This is what the remainder of today has been spent doing. Some read and some worked on their essay. I am one of the latter, unfortunately, and I still have to read. Luckily Burke is only six pages or so, so I have plenty of time to read it.

I feel badly about my blogs continuing to get shorter because of my workload. I wish I could keep writing because there are aspects of my day that I really wanted to share with whoever ends up reading this. I guess this is a good time for a tip for next year’s Cornellians: make sure you pick key events in your day that will make your blog interesting. Also, describe your passion for whatever you are talking about to the reader because it will probably make them feel more involved.

I have to go now so my work may continue. Our final week is beginning and the workload is only going to increase from here. I hope I will be able to find enough spare time to write longer blogs. I’ll just take each case as it comes, but for now I’m signing off.

P.S. - Now that the CAU (Cornell Adult University) has begun, Appel has stepped up its game to serving edible food. Today they served a full turkey dinner (i.e. turkey, stuffing, potatoes etc.) and it was MUCH better than what we have been getting. THANK YOU CAU!

No comments:

Post a Comment