It’s the Monday after Spring Break, but campus is warm and beautiful and it’s good to be back. I’m in my room in Anderson right now, and outside next year’s Sustainability Stewards are getting the garden ready for planting. But even though I’m happy to be back on a green campus and there’s a stack of reading with my name on it, I want to take one last look back at Spring Break. Here’s what I occupied my week with: 

For my final spring break of my undergraduate career, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park with The College of Idaho Outdoor Program.

I love spending time in the outdoors and being able to get away from college and the constant stress of senior year. Zion was a great escape to say the least. It was amazingly beautiful, with all kinds of rock formations, arches and testing hikes.

This is my second Winter Term on The College of Idaho campus, so I naively figured going into this January that I'd learned all the most important lessons about this accelerated 4-week period. Then I got back the first day and reminded myself of one very important thing: at C of I, if you're not learning something new or experencing new things every day, then you're doing something very wrong. Just because Winter Term is short doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained from it.

Since arriving back in Idaho I have been very cold. And I think that I have been more cold than usual given the amount of snow that we have received. But I have been using this snow to my advantage.

What an adventure I have been on. I have gone not only from one side of the world to another, but from one temperature extreme to another. It is almost surreal to find myself back at C of I for my last few semesters. I am originally from Melbourne, Australia which is quite different to anywhere in Idaho. I take the opportunity to go back home whenever I can afford it, but I always love to go home for Christmas. Christmas in Australia is the opposite of the Christmas experience in America for the main reason that it is summer time in the southern hemisphere.

What can I say. The time since I have last posted has been hectic. Academics, farming, art and work collectively have given me almost no leisure time. Except, art and most of work is leisure time for me. I am lucky in that respect.

I have been shooting interviews of professors so that the marketing department can make a video on what it means to be involved with PEAK in terms of academics. That stuff is currently in the editing room, being edited. (I don't get editors most of the time. They are strange people).

The photo included is one that I found on Lady Danville's blog, posted September 17, 2011 with a caption reading "Sushi, Compliments of College of Idaho."

This morning as I went to jump in the shower I turned on Pandora and a song by Lady Danville lit up my speakers.  It was then that it occurred to me, this is what I miss today about C of I.

I’ve dropped off my carload of people, and having washed the Deschutes water out of my hair and the Central Oregon dust off of my feet, I’m officially home from my rafting trip. There were 9 of us, plus one of my favorite teachers from my freshman year and his dad as our guides on a two day trip: one day of rafting, one day of swimming and cliff jumping.

June has been my month of firsts. Although I have already spent 3 years at C of I and am about to enter into my senior year, there are a lot of things that I had not discovered until the end of last month. The first new experience for me is that I am still in America. This may seem strange, but I have never spent a summer in the U.S., preferring normally to fly home to Australia. However, the cold winter months of June and July in Australia did not seem appealing this year (the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere) as I was sick of living in an eternal winter.

Dear Yoties -- Boise may not have the art scene of LA, New York, or Paris. But that’s not to say we’re an artistic desert.  If you want evidence that Boise’s sense of culture is alive and well, all you need to do is head downtown on the first Thursday of each month.