Most Reed students have heard tales from Canyon Day’s past, when the celebrated century-old tradition meant something entirely different than it does today. From unsolicited lake crossings to burning native vegetation, the Canyon suffered innumerable blows at the hands of Reed students and staff members alike. All this effort was, of course, an attempt to “tame” the natural space and convert it into a park more reminiscent of Victorian-era Hyde Park than 1920’s Portland. As David Mason’s ’58 Biology thesis cites, even early on the College had a fascination with altering the natural area. According to him, the Reed College Record in 1912 stated: “through the center of the campus, east and west, is a wooded ravine, which, in the course of development of the grounds, will be made a picturesque lake.” I know the lake is picturesque now but the early Reedies had a drastically different take on what the word picturesque meant. Canyon Day aside, none of the misdirected machinations of students during the early 1900’s compare to what is arguably the most destructive construction project to be completed in the Canyon: the community pool.

Probably the closest I’ve come to feeling resolved about this issue of aging was in the ecstatic yet devastated state I found myself in walking out of the movie theatres after watching Richard Linklater’s latest and most ambitious film to date, Boyhood.

This is the closest cinema has come to reconciling narratives with the unpredictable and often anti-climactic nature of real life.

As a little freshman at Reed College, ripe with all the social skills of…a banana, my main method of getting to know potential new friends/enemies came in the form of the hypothetical question. This tactic worked out great and everyone has a positive opinion of me, so now I bring you, reader, a provocative way to get to know your potential frenemies. I hope this game fills you with the same immense joy/minor anxiety it did me!

If I don’t return from Sevilla it’ll have been because of the streets. The streets here are smaller than the sidewalks in Portland and the drivers crazier than 16 year olds who have had their license for only 14 hours. Getting to class is practically a matter of life and death, 15 minutes of dodging cars, switching sides of the street when the sidewalk disappears—because that’s usually something sidewalks do—watching for people coming out of the various hidden entrances to the various churches and trying not to step on small dogs or step in what they leave behind. That being said, I like it. And not so much for the Indiana Jones obstacle course aspect but because it’s nice to walk through a city and not fully understand what’s being said around me. It’s like a game—can I pick up on that person’s Spanish fast enough to eavesdrop on their conversation? Nope? Oh well, onto the children.