Burt's Bees founder wants to donate national park | ajc.com

Burt's Bees founder wants to donate national park  | ajc.com

MIssing you all!

Hey everyone!
Life without all of you can be quite dull. Basketball season has finally ended, school planning for the Guatemala trip is in full swing and I managed to break a finger, but I keep thinking about every one of you and chewonki! Hope you all are doing well <3

Here's a cool link I found to a interactive music video by arcade fire:
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
You type in the the address of the house you grew up on and then when the music video starts it incorporates your house and street into it. It's pretty spiffy :)

xoxo Alana

This is.. wow.

Hey errbody. I hope your lives are wonderful and beginning to defrost from the winter behind us. I'm going to post a bigger update on my life later (i know, you just CAN'T WAIT!!!!!) but for now, you should all watch this. It is fantastic. And then we should discuss it over tea sometime soon!


http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html


ben

Chewonki, looking in

Hello, MCS'ers.

Ever since I got back, I've been realizing that people, especially people where I live, don't have a very good conception of what Chewonki is like. I'm not going to complain about that (I did that enough when I was in Maine, methinks). But it is interesting to see how everybody's minds seem to move in very similar patterns here. Maybe you have seen the same thing (even the same questions). Anyways, certain questions seem to crop up more frequently than others...

As far as I can tell, this is basically how north carolinians see Chewonki.

10. What did you do?

9. Was there (insert technology here)?

8. You're back?

7. Where were you again?

6. What was it like?

5. Do you wish you were still there?

4. Was everyone there a hippie?

3. Was everyone there a stoner?

2. So... did you enjoy it?

1. Was it cold?

Dodgeball tournament results

Well we lost the dodgeball tournament unfortunately =[ (if you dont know what I'm talking about see my earlier post on the subject) but we put up a pretty good fight with style and exuberance and there were some rather spectacularly dramatic moments in our games! Our best game was against the Crew Team (so stacked) where it came down to one person left on each side! Well that's really all I have to say on the matter, hope everybody is doing well!

also i made cheese today

After dropping Lee off at Penn Station last Sunday, I stepped outside of the 32th street entrance into blinding sunlight. I was surprised- had I expected rain clouds to spread after Noah and Lee left the city? Not entirely, but it was February, and a balmy fifty degrees. I walked the five miles home. And on my Sunday morning Adventure, I encountered many a magical thing.

W. 34th street. There's a small park with a cafe on my left, and I look up to see the knobbly, budded branches of the trees reflecting sunlight with a slippery morning gleam. The sun is still coming up slowly, the light still has that precious golden hue. The delis are opening and warm smells of coffee and bagels spill out into the street. I am walking through clouds of smells and light and under my feet are plaques with quotations by Thoreau, by Kundera, by Twain. I am passing the New York Public Library's literary walk. My feet and eyes wander from one bronze square to the next, tracing a line through some of the most beautiful sentences ever written, straight to 42nd street. And then I look up the hill to the East and all that I can see is the ground reaching up to touch the sky and the clouds and the brilliant sun.

Shit. It's

Beautiful

i want to drown

in this sunlight

quiet, persistent,

all unfurled again.

I walk along the East River. There is a sagging, dilapidated smallpox hospital on the island between Manhattan and Queens. There are actually a lot of ruins on Roosevelt Island, and I wish that I had explored them when I walked there with Rachel a few weeks ago. I walk underneath the tramway station to a group of young, bare maple trees. They are solid, as trees tend to be, and elegantly so. I press my forehead to the nearest and breathe deeply. So solid. The river rushes onward, in all directions. It's actually a tidal strait, which is why it smells so deliciously salty, like the ocean.

Wow. I love water passionately. I love water. The wind coming off the river is full and bracing. The sun is behind me now, lighting up the holly bushes and concrete chess tables. Two corgis and a scottish terrier bark exuberantly at each other in the dog park on 51st street. I cross the pedestrian bridge and say goodbye to the water.

Passing a small cafe near 72nd street, I see a young woman sitting alone at a table, drinking tea and reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. To set things straight, I normally don't approach strangers. But, what can I say, it was the Kingsolver Connection. She was from North Carolina, from true Appalachia, and spending a few months in New York. She once worked on a farm for a week. Her eyes caught the light fantastic. We never exchanged names.

I followed the light up 1st avenue for the final half-mile. A cold breeze shook water from my eyes, and I wiped the drops away with the sleeve of my flannel. When I entered my bright apartment, I had my first proper bowl of oatmeal with granola since December 17th. I curled up inside of an armchair and, watching a sunbeam crawl across the floorboards, fell asleep.

DODGEBALL!

Hey you guys,

So every year my school hosts a charity dodgeball tournament. Each team represents a different charity, theres an entry fee of 10 dollars, and all of the money goes to the winning team's charity. As soon as the anouncement for this years tournament was made the gears started turning. I thought to myself "What is a classic Chewonki experience? Dodgeball. What is an awesome organization to donate money to? Chewonki. It couldn't be more perfect." I quickly enlisted the aid of 43ers Emma and Kieran and with their help I got, Noah, Ben, Corey (43) and Lindsey (44) in on the plan. With that, Team Chewonki was born. The tournament is next friday (we're busilly trying to procure the gym to practice a bit so that we might actually stand a chance) and theres currently four teams signed up (woot woot 40 dollars to the wonk) but we're expecting more. It'll be a tough fight, but I think we can pull through. I'll let you all know how things go.

Cheers and much love,
Yours Eric

weekend in NYC

Shit was epic.

Friday 1 Pm:
I arrived at the good ol’ Portland “International” (flights to Canada) airport to check in for my 2:20 flight to NYC. Meanwhile the sky was shitting snow. After learning my flight was delayed until 4, I headed to the one store in the airport and bought the book Three Cups of Tea, one that’s been on my reading list for a while. For those of you who haven’t read it I recommend—a truly inspiring story, plus you’ll get mad props from crunchy folks. They love it.

I boarded at 4, and then sat on the tarmac till 5, until the plane got “deiced”. Basically, a yellow truck with a turret mounted gun that shot pink liquid sprayed down the plane. Not sure how green the pink goo was, but it got me on my way to sustainable pastures. By 6, we were in the air.

Prior to the trip, I had bought a roundtrip bus ticket to Manhattan from JFK (the airport). 27 bucks, a good deal. When I got to the baggage claim, I went to the information booth to ask where I might find the bus, and mysteriously told to dial “18” on the courtesy phone. I told the woman on my phone my name, and 30 minutes later a guy showed up, put me in a van that didn’t seem to be affiliated with the bus service whatsoever, along with some French people, and before I knew it, I was at grand central station, then on the subway, then walking, then at Tyler’s house. After a nice family pesto dinner with Tyler’s rents a tour of the Dean-Krantz household, and a coconut Popsicle, a few of Tyler’s urban companions came over. We chilled, played some ping* pong, listened to some tunes, and watched the Knicks lose.

Sleep.

As good as Lisa’s may be, Kathy Deane’s breakfast sandwich is paramount. You simply can't beat crunchy bacon and a cheddar cheese coated egg delicately placed between two crispy English muffins. After this midmorning feast Tyler took my around the citaayyyyy a bit. We cruised through some BO$$Y stores, had coffee, people watched, and participated in many other urbanite activities. We wait 20 minutes at some corner to meet Andreas for lunch. Tyler and I were pretty sure he had been abducted, for his one text in the 20 minutes was "coming". Shortly after we realized Andy was still alive, uber-artsy Anna showed up and asked us to follow, assuring us that we were headed to get “the best falafel in the city”.

At 2.50 a pop, I’d say it was some fucking good falafel, probably the best I’ve ever had. From there we headed to what Anna claimed to be “the best bubble tea in the city”, which was also pretty tasty. Then she took us to some artsy thrift store, complete with a managerie of leather boots and loafers, cozy flannels, and of course an eclectic collection of t-shirts. A pretty sweet place. All in all, it was great to see Andreas and Anna.

Back at Tyler’s house, we had an amazing idea.

Tyler and I hopped in his car and headed out to New Jersey to pick up Lee. After a long and arduous journey of honking, traffic, and near accidents (filled of course with beautiful backdrops of New Jersey), we finally arrived. We took a spontaneous dinner stop at Jersey’s finest dinning stop, Five Guys (good fuckin burgers), and headed back to the city. from there Tyler went to a school basketball game and Lee and I sauntered off to a choral concert at which Eloise, Corey, Rachel, Lily and Lydia where. Lee and I walked in just as it was ending. Afterwards we all headed to buy supplies for G.O.R.P. and then out to meet Andy for sushi. The meal was one of weird tasting coke, laughs, and lots of tea. After this Japanese reunion we went to Eloise’s apartment, were we (well almost we, lee was asleep the whole time) talked, called various wonkers, and reminisced into the wee hours of the morn. Eventually, Tyler (he rejoined us after his game), Andreas, and Rachel left and we drifted off into sweet slumber. In the morning, after a somber breakfast of pop tarts, we all parted ways, and Eloise took Lee and I to grand central station where I caught my bus.

When I returned to Maine, it was snowing again.