Pride

Several things today made my first Columbia Sunday fairly reminiscent of home. I spent the bulk of my day downtown, exploring. My day started off pretty late for a change - in fact, for once I wasn't the first one out of the room - or in a rush. For breakfast I just had a muffin from the local market - pistachio, Claire's suggestion. Not that it's very important but just saying, it was quite possibly the best muffin I have ever had - and if this were a food blog, I would definitely recommend it. 

Claire and I took off downtown at noon with a big group, led by Hannah, an RA on our hall. We took the subway to 8th ave. to start our thrift shopping expedition. The street we eventually made our way to basically shouted Berkeley. All of the stores and just the general merchandise being sold reminded me strongly of the Bay Area. Out first stop on the trip was a thrift store named "Search and Destroy." I didn't really want to stay there too long, I was getting kind of a creepy vibe. 

On the way to the next thrift store, we encountered a bit of a road block. All the way down 5th avenue, the Gay Pride Parade was taking place. For a good while we stopped to watch the parade pass - something else that reminded me of our own city back home. San Francisco is known for being extremely tolerant, and supportive of gay rights. In fact, there was a pride parade there today as well. 

The second thrift store was much nicer in my opinion, and we stayed much longer (once we finally got around the pride parade). I didn't buy anything, but that's okay because I had a good time just walking around the city. 

I also finally got around to doin my homework today (I know, I know, it's not good to save your homework for until Sunday, but hey at least I didn't wait until 11:50 to start on it). The article I read was about Lincoln's assassination. The paper discussed ideas regarding why public opinion of him changed so much after his murder. According to the author, there are two main reasons why Lincoln's assassination had a more profound impact on the public than say, Garfield's or McKinley's; 1) the nation was in a state of disrepair, and his death was immediate and unexpected. Lincoln was actually not that popular with the general public in the weeks leading up to his death. This was an interesting topic to me because it's a cause and effect situation that seems to inherently make sense - that an assassinated president would stir up national fervor - but the psychological reasoning behind it was explored and explained. I'm definitely curious about how the discussion will be tomorrow.