Jake

Hey everybody,

I’m doing good! I’m currently at home, packing, taking care of final errands I’ve gotta do, and buying fancy clothes to make me look like a respectable adult. I took the GRE’s on Saturday after studying my ass off for a month or so, so it was nice to get those over with (although now I’m faced with grad. school apps, uh). Sunday night I went to a Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal concert with my parents. Yeah, you better believe it. Turns out old people dance at concerts, so that was awkward. But it was a really good show, somehow we had great seats which was sorta cool. For the rest of the week I’ve got a plethora (yeah, gre taught me how to use big words) of doctors appointments and errands to do, but hopefully I’ll sneak in some time for a quick trip to see Lily in NYC and maybe a day climbing with Davenport at the hometown crag before I leave predawn on Sunday morning.

The past few weeks have generally been good. After I last posted, I snuck up to Cannon for a day with Davenport, Shapiro, McCauley, and Rebecca Strickfaden for a run on MG, which was quite pleasant. McCauley seemed to be doing well, but he probably isn’t posting cause he has no communication with the outside world. Apparently internet time is rare at the lodge, and the only place he has cell service is the top of Mousilauke (goddamn chubbers). The end of school was busy but we still had time for some fun stuff. We studied simple machines like pulleys, so I set-up a 3 to 1 pulley system and had the kids haul me up into a tree. Then I told them to go back to class while I cleaned the gear, and I ended up getting stuck in the tree for a half hour. Luckily our classroom, and all the classes in the science building, looked right out at the tree, so they got to watch me flailing around for an eternity trying to get myself unstuck from rappel. That was cool.

I had a weekend off from school, which was just enough time to go home and get my wisdom teeth out. It was alright though, pretty quick surgery and pretty easy recovery. It was also parents weekend at Dartmouth, so I went up there with my parents to see Ben and some other folks. Peter was in town too, so got to hang out with him before he flew off to the Central Pacific.

After school ended, Deirdre came up to visit. We spent a day in Boston (boston science museum is the shit) and then hung out in Southern VT for a few days, enjoying the nice weather, hitting up swimming holes, and hiking a little bit. It was really great, really nice to see her and to have an actual vacation after being owned by prep school life for 6 weeks.

That’s about all that’s new and good for me. After Sunday, I won’t be using my cell phone, although my number will still exist so feel free to leave funny messages for me to hear in 10 months or 2 years. But I do have gmail (Jacob dot Feintzeig at gmail dot com) and I might try to figure out how to use skype, so lets email or videochat! Or, I’ve got a snail mail address too:

Jacob Feintzeig
C/O Colegio Americano
Box 17-01-157
Quito, Ecuador
South America

And I’ll try to keep y’all updated! Hope you guys are doing good!

Jake