It’s November. There’s lots of work to be done. We’ll slowly decrease the number of activities we schedule and increase the number of study breaks we schedule. I’ll host some early morning study breaks in the FARR room again along with the late night ones in the house. We’ll have some Friday morning writing sessions (with coffee and tea) in the FARR room. Get exercise. Get sleep. Take breaks with friends. Get going on those papers you haven’t started setting goals of a page or two or three at a time.
Trumpkin Winners
Thanks to our grad affiliates for their help with our Trumpkin Carving event: Katie Oltman and Danielle Williams. Thanks to Katie for her toasted pumpkin seeds which were extremely popular. Thanks to our own Trumbullian, Shah Khan, for all his work on this event as well.
Congratulations to our winners: 1st prize: Catherine Yang and Rose Bender 2nd prize: Zak Kayal (who, I might note, came in first in 2013 and 2014 and is the only three time winner) 3rd prize: Jaclyn Freshman
The carvings were wonderful: Some were intricate, one was especially innovative (using the stem as a nose), one included a terrific representation by two Trumbull students of a third Trumbull student, and Trumbull themes were well represented. I participated in the admiration and photography but stayed clear of judging (as I typically will as I don’t want knowing one person or group somewhat better than another to be biasing). I do know the judges had a tough time making their decisions given the plethora of great entries. What did the winners win? Trum gear and a second generation Trumpkin and a certificate worthy of framing.) (The second generation Trumpkins were the three little pumpkins that sprung up on their own this summer in our courtyard as a result of the seeds of last year’s contest falling there. If you were a winner and have one of these, eventually put its seeds in the little envelope Debbie Rueb provided along with the baby Trumpkin. Return the seeds to the office. We’re going for third generation Trumpkins for next year.)
The Tyng Cup:
It is in sight! Mila Rostain reports that we are in a neck-in-neck race for the most Tyng Cup points with our neighbor Berkeley. This is great. We can do this. Let’s end the semester on top. We need football players this week and, quite possibly, players for make-up games later in the week. (IMs make great study breaks. Exercise is good for you.)
Congratulations to our players of the week Lili Wu ’19 and Joseph Galland ’19 for their table tennis and soccer skills. (What a great group of freshman players we’ve had and continue to have!) And, I didn’t properly thank our Trumbull Table Tennis champions by name last week. Here they are: Qianyi Qin, Sherry Li, Juliette Grantham, Tara Shea, Aaron Berger, Chris Kim, Anton Xue, Kuan Jiang, Sarah Siegel, Eric Anderson, Catherine Yang, Arjun Prakash, Saran Morgan, Keni Sabath, and of course, Daniel Hwang.
Here’s an incentive: If we end this semester with the highest number of Tyng points, I’ll host a party in the house for all those who have participated and/or shown up at the fields, pool or wherever to cheer our IM competitors on. You can pick the type of food.
Fireside Chats Freshmen:
Do not forget our fireside chats this week occurring on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. There will be Claire’s cupcakes. There will be milk. Come with your FroCo at the appointed time. This is an event held in all colleges suggested by the YCDO. We’ll have questions about life here to anonymously answer (using clickers) and discussion.
Master’s Teas This Week
Tues. Nov. 3 with Tim Phillips 4:00 Master’s House
Tim Phillips is the Co-founder and Chair of Beyond Conflict, a remarkable NGO working on dispute resolution in a number of ways. Among other things, Beyond Conflict played a significant role in the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba and has been involved in important research on the neuroscience of social conflict.
Any Trumbull student who would like to go to dinner with Tim Phillips after the tea can e-mail: deborah.bellmore@yale.edu
Thurs. Nov. 5 with Arun Storrs TC’08 4:00 Master’s House
Arun Storrs received her BA in Theater Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration from Yale College. She started The Kumari Project to educate and empower orphans, especially girls, in Nepal through education, arts education, nutrition, medical care, and life skills. The Kumari Project emphasizes the importance of visual and performance arts to develop critical and creative thinking skills. Arun also served as a consultant to Minority Rights Group International creating a program to combat racism in Kenya, Rwanda, Botswana, and the Dominican Republic.
Parties, complaints, sleep and trips to entryways
It was Halloween weekend. We had a record number of complaints about noise and parties from our students about our students. Partying Trumbullians: Know (as many of you already do) that your fellow Trumbullians didn’t miss the noise, very sticky and crowded entryways, very messy and crowded bathrooms, noise, garbage and cups all over and the shouting in the courtyards as people entered and left parties this weekend. Especially troubling to me were their concerns about drunk people entering non-party suites by mistake as others were studying, sleeping or attempting to sleep. There were at least four such parties (Entryways E, C and J with one entryway having more than one such party on more than one night). I received far more than three phone calls, emails and door-bell rings than ever from distressed neighbors.
Register parties (and answer the questions on the forms honestly), keep them confined to your own spaces, clean up messes afterward. Why register? First, it’s required. Second, if the party is registered I can stay up and just listen for noise and watch for spillover problems. If they occur I’ll call you. You can attend to the issue before the problem grows. If that doesn’t work (and I know that these things can take on a life of their own) I’ll come over. I’d rather not. There’s nothing like me showing up to your party to put a damper on things (which is O.K. with me but, honestly, not especially the thing for which I’d like to be known or my favorite activity.) Thanks to the one party team who did clean up their mess afterwards. I have cleaning supplies. (But I do need my mop back now! You may drop it off in the main office.)