Also wanted to wish everyone a...

HAPPY TINKER DAY!

President Gray procaliming Tinker Day 2007

Today is one of my favorite holidays. Tinker Day has been observed at Hollins since the 1880s and usually occurs in October. It became an official holiday in 1895. Tinker Day is the ultimate celebration of the new school year, the fall, and Hollins traditions. The surprise element, which was introduced in 1899, adds to the excitement of the day. Early on the morning of Tinker Day (which is a closely guarded secret) the entire senior class is woken up via telephone calls. (I remember sleeping with my phone in my bed for a full week my senior year) Their role in the tradition is to serve as the official wake up call, and they don their decorated graduation robes, grab their pots and pans, and head for the underclass dorms to wake the rest of the student body. It's an incredibly fun, hectic dash around campus. A traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs and Krispy Kreme doughnuts is served in Moody (the cafeteria), and everyone returns to their dorms to don their Tinker Day outfits. Once you're dressed in the craziest get-up you can find, everyone heads to front quad and waits for the president of the school. After the president's official declaration that it is indeed Tinker Day, classes are canceled and students, faculty, and staff hike Tinker Mountain in their zany costumes for songs, skits, and a traditional picnic of fried chicken and Tinker Cake. Even now the news that it's Tinker Day spreads like wildfire. It makes me miss my friends and remember what good times we had together - Happy Tinker Day guys! xxx

Swimming, anyone? No?

Just a 'little' something that washed up on the Gold Coast last week a few miles south of Surfer's Paradise (all the high-rise buildings in the background)...




There were actually two Great White sharks that washed ashore last week...both were victims of the baited drum lines that the Queensland government uses to control shark attacks at the popular Gold Coast beaches. Kinda sad, if you ask me.