A Refreshing 4th of July

I now have extreme sympathy for our Hotel cohorts. My Jordanian roommate, Sami, happens to be a Hotellie, and when his alarm went off at 7 in the morning my first thought was to yell at him for forgetting to turn off his alarm on the 4^th of July. I quickly realized however, that that was no mistake. Unfortunately for these Hotellies, they happened to be the only kids who actually had class today. I went back to sleep feeling bad for every Hotellie I knew, and then was able to sleep for another 4 hours. When I woke up at 11 I felt fully refreshed, and headed over for another nice brunch.

Then a large group of students were bused over to Buttermilk Falls, a short 20 minute drive away from Donlon. At first glance, Buttermilk Falls was nice, but not worth the 3 hour investment. Upon further investigation however, when Genevieve, Isabella (our new friend from Texas) and I headed up a mile-long trail along the falls, I learned just how beautiful Ithaca was. There were countless waterfalls beyond the main one, and I actually ended up feeling bad for those who only got to experience the main fall and the pool of sorts they could swim in. Further up the trail, there was a small but extremely deep pool right next to a waterfall that also happened to be next to a decent sized cliff. At first glance I wouldn’t have even considered diving in, but after seeing person after person dive in without even reaching the bottom, I decided I had to go in. By that time I was already pretty overheated, as we had to walk up a steep and windy trail just to get there, which just added even more incentive to jump in. I jumped in over and over and over, and it was just as refreshing each time. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture with my camera (it’s technically my mom’s so I didn’t want it to get wet) but some of my friends took a few nice ones with their own cameras.

I came back to the dorm, cranked out a pretty impressive rough draft for my Plato essay on his critiques of democracy, and then had a very successful power nap after dinner. Joe and I, along with a couple of friends from Long Island, headed out to a massive hill known as the slope to watch some fireworks. They weren’t much, but it was still nice to be able to celebrate the 4^th in some way, although Buttermilk was definitely the highlight of my day. I need more sleep though (shockingly) to rest for tomorrow’s double lecture by Kramnick on Locke, who I will discuss in detail tomorrow.