Welcome to 4th week! WHERE did this term go?? I don't have too much to say this week, but here are just a few things on my mind.

• Sectionals: Ultimate season has truly begun! Last weekend, Carleton sent a record number of SIX TEAMS to Sectionals just North of the cities to play against other Minnesota teams and vie for a bid to the Regional tournament that will be held at Carleton during 6th weekend. Three men's teams (CUT, GoP, and Hot Carls) and three women's teams (Syzygy, Eclipse, and the newest team on campus, Nova) competed. CUT, GoP, Syzygy, and Eclipse all earned bids, and Syzygy beat St. Olaf for the women's division title and CUT placed first in the men's. Actually, the men's final, played in the U of Minnesota stadium, was between CUT and GoP. On the women's side, Syzygy outscored their opponents 74-10 throughout the weekend, Eclipse played a few hard, close games but placed very highly and decisively got a good bid, and Nova proved they were not to be messed with, scoring 9 on Gustavus. On the men's side, CUT seemed to have very little competition, but GoP got a huge upset by beating #3 nationally-ranked Minnesota in the semifinals. Hot Carls had a strong showing as well, placing ahead of St. Olaf-B, Macalester-B, and St. Mary's.

             Some pictures from the weekend.

• Housing Next Year: So I think I decided where I'm living next year! Very exciting. I applied to C.A.N.O.E. (Carleton Association of Nature and Outdoor Enthusiasts) house and learned last night that I was accepted. This would mean I don't have to go through the room draw process in May and I get to live with a bunch of exiting, outdoorsy people in a sweet house next year! More to come on this later when I learn more myself.

• Build-a-Bike:  Okay. So Carleton has this organization called the Yellow Bike Club, which really simply does a few things: first, it provides yellow bikes for communal student use around campus. If you see one lying around, just pick it up, ride it to where you need to go, and leave it there. Second, it meets a couple times a week and helps students who are having trouble with their bikes. Finally, it is the proud owner of a whole bicycle graveyard of discarded bikes and bike parts (some of these were left in storage at the end of the school year, some were salvaged when Carleton drudged Lyman Lakes last summer and found a whole bunch of bikes and parts) that anyone can go use to make a bike, if they know how. So it's my friend's birthday tomorrow, and he's always borrowing my bike when he's late to work or class. My roommate put a bike together from the discarded parts at the Yellow Bike Club a couple weeks ago, and so she helped me find a suitable frame and parts and we built one that will be given to our friend tomorrow. We also found some awesome purple spray paint at ACE Hardware downtown and gave it a face lift. The chain's a bit rusty, the gears don't work, and the handlebars are crooked but hey - it's better than nothing, right? And it's purple.

Before:

Cleaning:

Painting:

Aaaand it's purple!

Enjoy the beautiful spring weather this week!

Marlena