Everyone at Whitman has a story to tell. How they got here and what happened once they did. And every story is different. This is Our Whitman, My Story.
My name is Alistair Ganholm. I'm from Seattle, Washington and I'm a psychology major. I ended up at Whitman because I heard it was a small liberal arts college and I really liked the sound of that. I liked the more personal aspect to a school, and it was recommended to me by my college counselor. I toured once where I actually spent the night in one of the dorms, which was pretty cool, and then I toured again after I decided to come.
Some classes I've taken outside my major that I really enjoyed have been ... I took a beginning drawing class for comics. When I first took the class I didn't know it was for comics and it wasn't on the class description, as it was kind of a last minute change, and I ended up really enjoying it. I think that if I had more time outside of school to work on hobbies and stuff, I would totally get more into drawing, but I definitely really enjoyed that. I also really enjoyed a diction class I took freshman year. It was a diction in singing, so just pronunciation and how to read the International Phonetic Alphabet, and it was very interesting to see how language is constructed in song and how the pronunciation differs from when you're talking.
I am the co-president of the Renaissance Fair Club, or the Renaissance Fair Planning Committee here at Whitman, with my partner. The Whitman Renaissance Fair Planning Committee has been around for more than 50 years, and this year will be our 54th Renaissance Fair. I joined last year and immediately fell in love. I love playing Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy things in general, and so it was kind of just the perfect fit. And now that I'm the president, it's really cool to be able to organize these events, such as tournaments, and dances, and we're having a murder mystery dinner, and do the actual fair itself at the end of the year.
We take up the street all the way from the Reed Campus Center to about where the dining hall is, the Cleveland Commons and the entire street is full of vendors and entertainers and merchants and all sorts of cool stuff. And there's people in all sorts of different eras of outfits. There's fantasy cosplayers, there's people wearing just clown outfits, I guess, gestures, that sort of thing. And it's just a really fun way to just relax at the end of the year and let off some steam, as finals are in the few weeks after that.
You can honestly think of the Renaissance Fair like it's a state fair taking back 600 years or so. There's people in outfits, there's people in costume actually doing scenes as performers. And the Renaissance Fair Planning Committee ourselves will actually be doing a skit throughout the entire fair that people who are just visiting can interact with. I could totally see a renaissance themed analog arcade, like one of those things where you stack bottles up and you have people throw balls at it or something like that. Some of the other events that we do in the Renaissance Fair Planning Committee, the first one we do during the year is the boffing tournament. A boffer is a foam sword with a PVC core, and so a buffing tournament is a tournament where we get a bunch of people from Whitman, a bunch of students, and really people, whoever shows up, and we have them fight in a very safe, controlled manner. But it's a way to let out some maybe aggression, but also just some energy and have a fun time with people. This year we actually had a giant game of capture the flag, which was very fun.
The other events we do, we do a winter ball. This is our second year doing it and we just had it two weeks ago, I think, and it was wonderful. We had a little over 60 attendants, including the members of the club, and everyone was super engaged and was learning Renaissance era dances, which are honestly really easy. Some of them. Some of them were really hard, but we tried to steer away from those. There was free food, and just music, a lot of bardcore versions of modern songs. So you would hear Toxic by Britney Spears, but played on a violin and a harpsichord. So that was a wonderful time.
And the murder mystery dinner we're doing in a few weeks is ... We host about 60 people in the Lyman Residence Hall's kitchen area and dining room, and we prepare a multi-course meal for all these people, which is completely free for them to attend. You just have to sign up. And we, the cast of the club, actually act as characters. And somebody has been, quote unquote, "Murdered" and it's the audience's job to figure out who did it. It's very fun and it brings a lot of people every year, and everyone loves it.
My involvement with theater is mostly on the tech side. I did some acting in high school and realized that I don't really like being up on a stage in front of a lot of people, at least when I have to memorize lines. If I can kind of improv it, I'm fine. But I realized I really like working with my hands, and building things, and designing sets and stuff. So I'm taking the advanced technical theater class, where we're actually designing the set for the next play that we're doing at the school, which will be Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. And I also work in the theater shop, so not only am I designing the set, I actually get to build my designs as well.
I think the thing that surprised me the most about the theater, and working in there, is how communal it is. It's a lot of people who I like spending time with, and while it is a work environment, it's also a place where I can enjoy talking to people and have really interesting conversations while also building the set for the next show. It's really, really pleasant and it's fun work. As few like working with your hands, I could not be happier working there.
Outside of the Ren Fair Club, I like to play Dungeons and Dragons, and read, and play games with friends. Both board games and video games. I like to rock climb a lot. I used to be a competitive rock climber, but after a bunch of injuries happened over the course of several years, most of them unrelated to rock climbing, I've kind of fallen off.
I think anybody can learn to rock climb. It is a sport that appears to have a very, very closed community, but I think the rock climbing community is one of the more open sports communities. Especially with bouldering, which is rock climbing without ropes or a harness. You can sign up for a day pass at any local gym, and after a quick demo on how to avoid injuring yourself and others, you can just hop on the wall and get climbing.
The Whitman rock climbing facility, for being a college gym, is really impressive. It's, I believe, entirely student run and set, and while the grades are a little higher than your average climbing gym, I think the routes themselves are a little more difficult on average. I do think it is a really cool community that they've built.
I enjoy having just conversations with people. I really like interacting on a person to person level, and I love cooking. It's a passion of mine. I'm now actually a food writer at the Whitman Wire. The Whitman Wire is the school newspaper here. And me being a food writer for it means that once a month I get to write an article about either a restaurant review, or to cook in the college environment, or meal planning, or just how to balance your budget around food. It's something I'm very passionate about and I've had to learn while I'm here, and I think if there's a sort of guide that other students can use, I think that'd be very helpful.
I am Alistair, and this has been Our Whitman, My Story. There are more episodes of Our Whitman, My Story available right now wherever you get your podcasts. Music for this podcast provided by Big Joe, a band made up of Whitman students. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.