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First Semester

September 4, 2000
Subject: Colbieeee! Hello Staff 2000!

I miss you all, but am really loving Colby. I thought you would like to know 10 of the things that I've learned this weeek that I've been here. Classes have yet to start but I have learned many many things...so exciting.

1. The "e" on my keyboard sticks a little, so when I hit the e key once, I get at least two or three e's on my screen. It's very annoying. So, in revolt, I'm not deleeting the extra e's that appear on the screen. Apologies, but you will just have to deal.
2. Let the Colby Tech team set up your computer. As much as I love to do things myself, this would have been a good idea. I ended up breaking my keyboard, mostly because I am stupid. I had to pay for a new one, the sticky e one. Very annoying.
3. Beer smells. BAD. Anyone who says that they like that smell is probably drunk, or at least badly disillusioned.
4. Barf, or boot, as it is called here, does not smell good either. It is the product of believing that beer smells and tastes good. It is not fun.
5. ChemFree is a greeat place because it doesn't smell like either of these things, boot or beer. It's wonderful. And my roomates don't smell like boot or beer, they are fairly normal people.
6. This really stinks--there is a fifty dollar fine on campus for climbing trees!! How awful is that? I can't play on the trees here, and theree's this sweet tree by the library, and it's really fun to climb. My HR (RA, whatever) told me I couldn't do it anymore. Grrr. I think this is the drunk people's fault.
7. Lectures smell, but in a different way than beer does. Boring... boring...boring. They all pretty much go the same way. "This is the first day of the rest of your life. Don't screw it up. Colby has a reputation for drinking, but I want you to know that not everyone is like that. There are many people that don't. So...blah, blah, blah ::insert appropriate filler here:: blah, blah. In conclusion, ::insert office, department, professor, or administrator here:: we would like to welcome the class of 2004 for Colby and wish them a great four years at our prestegious insitution." Just so you know, I have been to six of these.
8. People don't understand camp. I talked about it on my orientation trip down the Kennebec River, and eventually they just told me to shut up. They've never been to camp...poor them.
9. Mules are sterile. As in no baby mules. Speaking of which, our mascot is a white mule. Not a gray one, a white one. Yes. I'm not kidding.
10. I actually miss my mother...(I'm not under oath or anything...).

September 5, 2000
Subject: Keep the babies out! Hey guys...
I thought you might like to hear a funny story of someething that happened to me the other night at the Wellness lecture/skit night we had to go to yesterday. Skits ranged from many topics: drinking, rape, drug use, depression, and my personal favorite: birth control.
I was sitting with some really cool people, trying to make this thing at least somewhat tolerable by being funny and goofing off. It was all going fine until they asked for voluteers for the next skit. So, being the willing Colby student I am, I raised my hand. They called on me (because I was one of about 5 people in this room with 450 kids in it to actually raise my hand), and I went up to the front. We (me, another girl, and this other guy, Greg) sat off to the side of the stage until our assistance was needed. Then, at the end of the skit, which happened to be on condoms, they brought us up front. They asked us to hold up our right hand, and stick up two fingers. You can probably figure out what happened next. Before I reeally knew what wasd happening, I had a condom on my first two fingers on my right hand. I won't go into details on it, but it was a brand new condom, I watched the kid who put it on unwrap it. This was all well and good, I was glad to be of assistance, and I sat back down. Then they told us all the places you can get condoms around campus, and then they proceeded to throw condoms at us in the audience. So, not only did I get a condom put on my finger, I also got hit in the face with one.
I introduced myself to this girl this morning, and she said, "Oh, you're the girl that had a condom put on her finger..." As you can imagine, I thanked her for her compliment of my stunning performance. I have an appointment with my advisor in about 10 mins, so I gotta jet.
Much love to you all...
Love,
Prager :>

September 24, 2000
Subject: So that's why they call it grinding... Hello everyone.
I thought you might like another top ten list. I am sleepy but I still have some mildly humerous ideas rattling around in my gray matter.
So, this is from our semi-formal tonight, screw your roommate, it's called.
Things I learned Tonight
10. "I'm Slim Shady yes I'm the real Shady, all the other Slim Shady's are just immatating, so won't the real slim Shady please stand up, please stand up." Aren't you proud?
9. Know your date. I didn't know mine very well. This was a minor problem becuase I couldn't find him after I got back from thee bathroom. I saw some guy that I thought was him, and went over and started talking to him, and it wasn't. Fortunatly, he was drunk so he didn't really notice.
8. Wear your glasses.
7. That I know all the words to "Baby Got Back", although I believe this may be grounds for losing my job at camp...hmmm....
6. Drunk people like to touch one another, and you, a lot. My goodness. I have never felt so entirely violated in my whole life.
5. Human feet are not meant to bend like barbie feet. I wore pointy shoes and i hurt. ouch.
4. The "lawn mower", "the postman" and "kick-open-side-to-side" are not hip in the college dance scene. Therefore, I wasn't hip tonight. Oh well.
3. "Like a Prayer" still reminds me of Betany, Molly and company singing that for the first night talent show in '99.
2. I knew that grinding was gross, but I never imagined anything quite like this. GET A ROOM! It was insane. I suppose that's what happens when people drink, but still. Can you stop touching eachother? I'll bring out my hymnal!!!
1. I would take a camp social over that any day of my life. I hope I never have to experieence that ever again.
take care you guys, have a great Sunday.
Love,
Prager :>

October 12, 2000
Subject: Custodial Calling Hello everyone...
My stressful week is over...finally. It didn't end when I though it was going to. Nieve little Prager thought after she took her exams everything would be fine. Wrong. No, then I had to stress about getting them back, and what kind of grades I thought I got. I did fine though. I'm passing all my classes, hurray!
Anyway, many of you, maybe all of you, heard that I got a job here to pay for Russia. I thought I'd tell you about it...at least I think it's funny.
Ok. So, I started out looking for a job. The first thing I tried was working for the theatre department on shows, which I'm still probably going to do, but there's only three this semester, and there's a serious need right now. I talked to God about it, and He directed me to the Colby job postings on the internet. So I looked, and due to bad planning, I wasn't qualified to do most of them. I know nothing about caring for plants, running the newspaper printing system, web design (I know a little, but not enough for them to pay me for it), or dark room operation. That cut my job options down to three. I could work as a runner for the mailroom, a clerk for the langugage department, or a custodian for PPD (physical plant division). So, naturally, I headed down for the mailroom. Job with the least ammount of work. Sounds good, right? Well, they told me they'd already filled the job...so I was about to look into the clerk thing, when I heard a very loud voice telling me that i needed to visit the PPD building. I said, no. I'm not going to work as a janitor. Never. But I went anyway. That's what we're supposed to do. So now, three days a week from 6-8Am, I mop the stairwells in the office building next to the student center and I clean the bugs out of the light fixtures. It's pretty cool actually. I spend a lot of time by myself and get do do some quality thinking.
Anyway, in lieu of my new job, I decided it was time for another top ten list: things I've learned about being a custodian:
10. Roommates do not like it when your alarm goes off at 5:40AM. Enough said.
9. One of my friends asked why my pocket was so big and I produced a pear and an apple. She was very confused. The dining rooms aren't open at 5:40AM. Breakfast comes after work. So to combat this issue, I've been stealing fruit from thee dining room on Sunday, Tues, and thurs nights.
8. The sun doesn't come up until 6:30. So it's a sad, dark, lonely walk across campus before work.
7. When you clean out light fixtures, make sure to turn off the electricity. Nothing happened to me, but I've heard stories...and I was reminded by my fellow custodians that I needed to hit the switch. It could have been an interesting morning for Prager, let me tell you.
6. You are not required to wear a harness on a step ladder. I'm thinking of discussing this problem with PPD due to the fact that it's five feet off the ground and you should really have at least a spotter. (for anyone who's not sure, I'm really not serious about this one...)
5. Stairwells take a long time to mop. First you have to sweep, then you get to mop. And you run up and down them without even thinking. Just think about it sometime.
4. People throw some very interesting things away...
3. Those "Wet Floor" Signs are such a pain. First, I mop. Then I put them up. I have to wait till the floors dry so I can take them down. The thing is, there's no one in these buildings at 6:30. I know the floor is wet. I'm the only one there...so why bother?
2. Respect the clean. We like to be called custodians instead of janitors.
1. Most importantly, never mop around yourself. I mopped myself into a wall..and there was a little tiny dry spot where my feet where. You've got to be careful about this sort of thing.
Anyway, I hope that was mildly entertaining. I'm coming home this weekend and I'm going to try to hit the momma church on Sunday...certainly will at night, we'll try to get there in the morning. It's sort of an annoying drive that early in the morning. I really want to see anyone who's living around there though, so hopefully I'll run into you. If you can, stick around and see if we find eachother.
Take care everyone. Much love to you...have a great weekend.
Love,
Prager :>

October 29,2000
Subject: college party Hey everyone.
I thought you might like to know that I went to my very first college party last night. I want to make it very clear to all of you that I wasn't drinking, becuase I'll probably imply that I wasn't but I may not say it again. Anyway, it was actually a lot of fun...and I thought you would be amused by some of the events of the evening.
10 Amusing events of my first college party.
10. People can drink a lot. Wow. Where do they put it all? I saw people drink beer after beer, not to mention all the other alcohol that they had. And there was still at least 3 cases of beer that no one even touched. It was craziness.
9. The party was mostly people I knew from the show i was working on. It wasn't uncomfortable at all, except when they stopped using my name and called me a ChemFree (That's pronounced Ch-em, not chem as in chemistry...it's a dorgitory term around here). But my friend Mike and I (the guy I went to the party with...we're both sub free livers) took it into stride and realized that they were drunk, and probably didn't mean to insult us.
8. We played bizz buzz bang...with alcohol (or water, depending on your preference). Have you ever played bizz buzz? It's a lot like A So Ko, except not as loud...anyway, same idea. Everytime you screw up, you drink, and the idea is that you get so drunk that the game suddenly becomes very funny. We would have gotten to that point, except that drunk people are very easily distracted...so that lasted for about 5 minutes.
7. Another fine drinking game...beer die. Ok, talk about anti-social. this is the point of the game: You sit at a long table and you have a partner. There's another set of partners on the other end. You toss the die (as in one in a set of dice: a cube with dots on it) up as high as the table is wide. If they catch it, nothing happens and the game goes on. If they don't catch it, they both have to drink. If you miss the table on your throw, both you and your partner have to drink. If you hit their cup with the die, they have to drink half of the contents. If you actually sink the die in one of their cups, they both have to drink the whole thing. For anyone who's not sure, the more you drink the harder it is to catch the die because you loose your motor skills. But they really think that they can see it. They're convinced that the die is coming right towards them, when really, they're at least a foot off. Very funny for the sober girl to watch.
6. I'll also have you know that the host of the party was awesome, she bought us a 2 liter bottle of coke, a bottle of sparkling grape juice, and we could have all the water we wanted. The only problem was that the only cups she had were regulation beer die cups (b/c you can fit an entire bottle of beer into the cup) and so we had to drink out of those. That's when people stopped calling us ChemFrees. I was laughing at how stupid they were all being, my cheeks are always red...I imagine they thought I was drunk. That's all fine and good. I don't really care.
5. My stage manager from the show came into the party very inebreated, to say the least. She looked at me, tilted her head, looked at my cup, giggled foolishly, and said, "Kid, are you getting plastered while I'm not watching?" I shook my head and tilted the cup so she could see that it was water, and she said, "Oh, I'm going to be needing some of that in the morning." I think she's waiting for the day when I get drunk, so she can laugh at me. She's going to be very dissapointed.
4. I actually had a long conversation with this stage manager friend of mine (Meghan), who is incredibly cool, even when she's been drinking, b/c she actually doesn't change that much. We had a long and deep conversation about religion and communion...due to bad planning she won't remember it. Sigh. Oh well.
3. I noticed that drunk people are very nice. They're very complimentary, and they tell you over and over again how cool you are. It's sort of a bummer that they're all trashed because I would have really high self esteem right now...but they won't remember in the morning.
2. I walked Meghan back to her dorm, AMS (surprisingly the same acronym you would use if you were to abbriviate "agressive mental suggestion") since it's on my way home anyway, and she was a little nuts. It was very cold out (there's snow on the ground this morning), and the snow was just starting to come down. Mike, my sober friend, was with me and so we walked her up to her room. There was a HUGE party going on, a toga party no less, with another beer die table and some really sketchy television show to boot. We stuck our heads in to say hello to everyone, and one of them recognized Mike from the play (he had a lead role), but to me they yelled, "Identify yourself!" I told them my name, and they invited me to grab a beer, to which I replied, "No thanks, I don't drink." The room went dead. It was probably the weirdest, most sureal second of my life...it felt like forever but it only lasted a second or so. Meghan, my friend, was the first one to speak. And I don't even think what she said made any sense at all. But it broke the silence. Anyway, Mike and I left shortly thereafter, due to the smell and loudness of the room. Weird, weird feeling.
1. I came back to my dorm, visited some friends, listened to Cindy Lauper, and came back to my room where I solved my roommate's guy problems. The best part? I remember everything...(insert evil laugh here.)
Anyway, take care guys. I'll talk to you soon.
Love,
Prager :>

November 6, 2000
Subject: (none) Hello LITs and Staff 2000
(Yes, I included you both. This story is worth it.)
I thought I would share another amusing story--a dialogue that transpired this morning between me and my Sunday School teacher, an older man who's name is Stan.

I think perhaps, before I begin, you need some background. The Waterville Society is rather small. Stan is sort of the everything man. He solos, he teaches S.S, he plays the piano. We have a regular soloist, but she hasn't been around for about the last month or so, so Stan has been substituting. He's quite talented. Anyway, here is the discussion that went on this morning.

Stan. So next week, I need to play the organ upstairs. The regular organist is going to be away for the next two weeks.

Me. The organ? You do that too?? Wow.

Stan. It's not that big a deal. I should be fine.

**Stan's humble too...**

Me. We're still going to have Sunday School, right?

Stan. Yes, but it'll be short again, like it's been while I've been soloing.

Me. Ok. But we'll still have it.

Stan. Yep. Don't worry. You're not twenty yet.

Me. So, is the regular soloist coming back next week?

Stan. Not exactly.

**I would like to stop this presentation briefly to explain to you that I still hadn't caught on to what was going on here. I imagine that you all have, and if you haven't, give me two more lines, and you'll still catch on quicker than I did this morning.**

Me. So are you going to sing and play the organ at the same time?

Stan. (Laughs) No, no, of course not.

Me. Well, I hope you find someone to sing. Otherwise you won't be able to have a solo.

**Ok. So by now, you'd think I'd have SOME clue as to what was happening. Nope. I hope you have all caught on at this point. If you haven't, don't worry. I didn't either.**

Stan. We sort of have someone in mind.

Me. Well that's good. It's good not to have to worry about that sort of thing. Good for you and advanced planning.

**Ok. So, we're feeling the climax here. And if you're still confused...well, so was I.**

Stan. Actually, we wanted to know if you would do it.

Me. ME??? SOLO???

Stan. Yes, nothing too hard.....blah blah blah.

**I was sort of wigging out, so I kinda missed whatever he said here. Oh well.**

So yeah, I'm soloing for the next two weeks. Just hymns and stuff, nothin incredible. But still me, solo? Weird.

So if you can think of a pertinant hymn for this week's lesson, please tell mee what you think i should sing.

Ok. So I hope I amused you all. Have a great week.

Much love,
Prager :>

November 10, 2000
Subject: (none) CO CO!
I have missed you my friend. I have also been incredibally busy. Craziness here in college.
So, anyway, I'm writing you a special top ten list. This one is JUST for you. If you think it's really funny, I'll send it out...
Things to look out for in the Colby dining Rooms:
10. Pizza. You want extra cheese? How bout a whole block? Hell, we won't even give you crust and sauce, we'll just give you a block of cheese!
9. Mac and Cheese. See pizza, above.
8. They think it's pretty funny that they can have Colby cheese and we're at Colby college. They call it college cheese...aren't they funny? Anyway, I don't know if you've ever HAD colby cheese, but it's not very good. And as far as their use of it is concerned, see pizza.
7. Tuna fish. Want to revisit it in about an hour and a half? If you don't see it, you will certainly feel it. ::groan::
6. Veggie burgers. They aren't your average veggiee burgers. Nope. I only wish for such normal food. These are little fried hockey pucks with little green and red bits in them to make you THINK there are vegetables.
5. Anything labeled "International Special." Hello. We're in the United States. We live in thee middle of nowhere in a "culture free zone". DOn't even try. That's not chinese food, that's not Thai. And I can tell you very certainly that whatever I had the other day was definatly not Russian food.
4. Anything labeled "casserole." they can put anything they want in a cassoerole and call it dinner. I'm not so sure how I feel about that. I've found stuff from lunch or yesterday's dinner in my casserole. No good can come of that.
3. Too many mornings of coffee, bananas and cranberry juice make you poop funny.
2. Colby has a bakery on campus. They think that's really great, adn to a certain point it is. Our cakes and cookies are awesome and fresh...good stuff. However, they tend to get a little creative with their muffins. Yep. Have you ever had a pistacio muffin? I will never eat someething that is the same color when it's fresh than it is when it's molding (green). How about an orange pinapple? Or a bran chocolate chip? Cinnimon-cranberry? These people probably just do it at random. I'm not sure how we get such foul muffins.
1. Eat corn. Poop. Still corn. Hmm...
Anyway so that's that. I've got to go and do some homework. Have a great weekend.
Love,
Prager :>

December 2, 2000
Subject: Dispatch Hi Guys.

I have a story for you. This is probably one of the best yet. It's a real winner on the Prager-intellegence scale. :)
Ok, so I went to a concert last night here at Colby. I went to see Dispatch, one of the coolest bands on the planet. They rock. So I was really excited to see them, aand so I bought a ticket and dragged all my friends with me, including my very conservative roommate. Jared Eggers actually went with us too, if any of you know him. He is a very important part of this story.
So we're at the concert, SOBER (this is very important), having fun, listening to the band play, it was very cool. Jared turns to me and says, "I want to go crowd surfing." I laughed at his joke and replied, "Ok, I'll pick you up, just let me know when." About a half-an-hour or so later, he taps my sholder and says, "Ok, you ready?" I had really thought he was kidding. But I guess not. He gave me his wallet, and I put my hands down so he could step up. My other two friends helped lift him up. I would like you to note that I did this in the proper "ropes course" form:
1. I lifed with my legs and not my back.
2. He took all the sharp objects out of his pocket.
3. We had two spotters (technically we should have had three)
4. I used a proper Interquest lifting method.
5. I turned my head so that he wouldn't kick me in the face.
So, Jared got passed around part of the room, and landed ON HIS FEET (again, proper ropes course form) and walked back to see us.
Well, I watched him, and it looked like fun. I mean, that's where all the clean air is, and I really wasn't doing to well down there, and so I figure, "why not? I've done Magic Carpet and the trust fall, what's the difference?" I give Jared my wallet and my sharp objects. I would now like to make a list of all the flawed logic that I had during that period. There are several things but not quite ten.
1. The instructor is NEVER supposed to go up in the air.
2. You're supposed to have at least three spotters for each person in the air. Besides Jared who was lifting, I had ONE.
3. Jared lifted with his back...minor detail.
4. Once you get up in the air, you're supposed to stay stiff I really wanted to see what was going on below me. I didn't stay tight enough.
5. You're also supposed to keep your hands locked over your chest. I did not do this. I had my hands flailing in the air. It's a wonder that I didn't smack someone.
6. No matter how scared you are, you're NEVER supposed to bend in half. I had a kid do that on the trust fall, and I ended up breaking her fall with my heead. Anyway, as soon as I realized that there was no one holding most of my upper body, I bent in half. No good.
7. If you do bend in half, your spotters are supposed to just deal with it. They absolutly cannot drop you. This is where we examine point #8...most important.
8. Spotters (people other than Jared and my roommate)are great, we love them. Howeever, it is important to note that usually, they are SOBER! Sober spotters catch you about 99% of the time. Drunken spotters catch you about 3% of the time. Jared was simply lucky.
The upshot of this whole story is that I got dropped on my head. I'm fine, dont worry. It was very very funny.
I suggest you try this, that is, if you can find a sober group of people at a loud concert. It was quite the experience, however, I don't think we'll be adding this to the ropes course ground activity section.
Take care everyone, have a great week. Quote sheets will be appearing closer to Christmas time, probably about 2 weeks.
Love,
Prager :>

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