New Years Resolutions

So it's been 2010 for a little while now. But my resolutions for the new year are really for the new semester, and that hasn't quite begun yet. On new years, thinking about school and such felt really distant and unimportant, but as I'm preparing to go back the things I'd thought about for resolutions pre-Acorn visit are coming back to me. So I'm going to write them down. Here. So that anyone who reads this can hold me to them. ;) (You can do that, right Jacob?)

1) Phone home!
I'll admit it, I've been atrocious with this. And I can do better! I will figure out, early, a regular time to call home. (Doesn't seem that hard... so as soon as I know when quintet is meeting...) Also, I realized over break that there's no reason I couldn't call other friends from home in an effort to keep in touch. Therefore, I intend to do so. Also, I'm going to say, for the sake of saying it, that I'll post in this blog no less than biweekly. That's right, every other week, for the rest of the year, Miriam will update Obuabamos. It's one more way to communicate with those who aren't right here with me. In return, everyone's always welcome to comment! :)

2) Journal
In the vein of writing regularly, I'm going to go back to keeping a journal much like I did during Walkabout. I won't be sending it to anyone, and I won't have anything to prompt me to write about certain things, but I still want it to have the sort of feeling of a Walkabout journal. What that means is, I want to take time to reflect on the learning experience that is life, and make sure I'm actually accomplishing what I mean to accomplish. It means setting goals and actively gauging how well I'm reaching them. It means facing my short-comings and learning from them instead of letting them slip away forgotten. And, keeping a journal is a pleasant, relaxing activity that I think just makes me a happier person. Theoretically, one writes in a Walkabout journal everyday. In reality, no one quite does this. So, I figure that I'll treat myself about the same way as I did during Walkabout, and I'll reap about the same benefit.

3) Make friends
I was supposed to do this first semester. Well, that's not to say I didn't make any friends. I even started a successful relationship! But in general I feel dissatisfied with my social life and I think that in some cases all I really need to do is be more assertive by doing simple things like asking if people want to hang out with me sometime. (gasp) Being social is generally pretty hard for me, and yet when I made it a specific goal for my Acorn Walkabout I more than succeeded, connecting with some people to the point that I feel like part of a family. Part of that was the openness and awesomeness of people in community, but I suspect a lot of the difference was me.
3a) Spend more time in the Loft...
...or other common space. The point is, I need to get out of my room. It's really quite silly.
3b) Tell people how cool they are
Hey, wanna be friends? Cause you're pretty awesome and I need a life. I don't know why this makes me feel so vulnerable. Again, silly.

4) Make Veg. Club awesome.
I'm president of veg. club now, bitches. What now?

5) Prioritize the gardens...
...above everything else. I mean, I won't skip quintet rehearsal, friends' recitals, or classes with strict attendance policies/that I'm worried about my grade in, but that's it. I'm going to try to affiliate Veg club with the community gardens, so that won't cause conflicts. Homework and practicing can be done anytime, so garden events take precedence. This is one thing I know makes me truly happy, that I truly care about. I'm not letting other things get in the way.

6) Come back to Acorn.
I mean, that's given. But I think it nevertheless belongs on the list. I will be seen at Acorn again in 2010. Count on it.

Rockin' Out in VA for New Years

So, today got back from my visit to the ol' Walkabout placement, Acorn community in Mineral, Virginia. It was a lovely experience all around, except for getting there and especially coming back. Buses are not fun, yo. Being told you have to go all the way down to Tennessee (which is further from Columbus, Charlottesville or Knoxville?) to catch a bus home because Greyhound can't send busses through West Virginia is just plain uncool. So is waiting in the Knoxville bus station for 8 hours. But that's not really the point. The point is, I got to go back to Acorn! :)

Apparently, I have the innate ability to show up right when Acorn's having a party, event though this hardly ever happens. In August I came to Acorn right before their rave, and this time around Acorn had a "New Years Eve Eve" party on December 30th. And after that, there was the infamous Twin Oaks New Years Eve Party. And while another person might see this as a blessing, I would usually be disinclined to feel that way. I surprised myself with the amount of fun I had at both of these events. By the end, I had gained a real sense of having become a part of the family, as it were. Even though I didn't truly know everyone, most people seemed at least familiar. And there was just love and goodwill in the air.

I've met some cool people in the past 10 days that I've been hanging around at Acorn, as well as reconnecting with old friends. There were a couple pretty awesome interns, as well as a pair of visitors from Eastwind. I've been thinking lately that I should someday visit some of these other FEC communities. But I haven't even begun plotting my next visit to Acorn yet, so that's sort of just something to hold in the back of my mind for now.

It's interesting, there hasn't been work to do in Bowling Green's community gardens for a time now, and I wasn't really expecting to find work in Acorn's either. But I wasn't entirely correct, there were a ton of carrots to dig up before the ground froze, greens to be harvested/thinned, and a fight to be had with some row cover. In all of these cases, it was amazing to me how refreshing it felt to be working in the dirt again. Particularly Acorn's dirt. Or just heading past the greenhouse with a garden cart filled with row cover... there was a rightness to it.

Of course, I did have to find other ways to entertain myself. I feel that my most significant project was helping to construct the temporary bedroom in one of the farmhouse living rooms by helping with covering the fold-out wall and constructing a bunk bed. And then I lived there for the rest of my visit. None of my other work was particularly note-worthy. Seed packing and the like. Really, the point of a visit like this, for all that I am ready and willing to work and be helpful, is to spend time with people and such. Which I did. Success!

Home!

Last week was exam week, a week of madness. I really only had three things to worry about, but it was still kind of intense. I had a jury on Monday, my first jury. I had to play a solo for the woodwind faculty and take up 10 minutes. Except, they were running behind so I wasn't even in there for that long. I came in, nodded to my accompanist, played through the second movement of the Saint-Saens, (which, happily, I've played many times in my past) and was excused. I think it went well.

My only other exams were biology and environmental studies. I did awesome on these. The results are already on Blackboard. I also got to meet with the adviser for if I change my major to environmental science or environmental policy. I really think I might do policy. It looks exciting. A friend said to me, so you're going to major in hippie? Some people would be offended by that. However, it pleases me.

I got home on Thursday, just in time to go to WK's choir concert and come up to sing Come to the Water. It's a tradition for the top choir, Kilbourne Singers, to come from the back of the auditorium to the stage singing "Come to the Water" at every concert. At the winter concert, the alumni get to come up to the stage and sing with them. I've been really looking forward to that. It was odd though, for all that I've sung it many times, I almost forgot the words. I hadn't actually thought about the song at all until suddenly I was on stage and supposed to be singing. Oops.

I also got to sing with the choir at Beth Tikvah, my synogogue, Friday night for the Chanukah service. I learned Sargon's "Blessed is the Match" in the car on my way there. It was kind of intense and there were a couple things that were kind of weird at first sight, although when I heard the accompaniment it all fell together in my head and I could sing it. See? When I've studied more music theory I'll be able to predict what all that will sound like too and ge able to learn choir music that much more quickly. Singing felt really good on both occaisions. I wasn't in choir this semester and I've missed it.

Now I'm scrambling to see my friends before I take off... for Acorn!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot express how excited I am to go back! Happy winter solstice y'all! (that's tomorrow right?)

The Lorax

Today, we watched “The Lorax” by Dr. Seus in Environmental Studies 1010. How adorable; much like the rest of the curriculum. Not that I dislike the picture book, and I remember sitting down and watching the animated video all the way through some months ago when I should have been doing homework. In certain contexts, the video would be strikingly appropriate, but I did not feel that way this morning.

Perhaps I am frustrated because I feel that my class is at least half-full of little once-lers, paying no real heed to the message of the class, a message quite like that of the lorax. Unfortunately, I fear it is being communicated just as ineffectively here as in the picture book and that my classmates are no less determined to chop down every last trufula tree than they were when the semester began. Stocks are up! Let’s keep biggering!

I write this as a final tantrum, finally admitting to my true feelings about how I have been spending my time lately. I woke up today to complete the assignment in our cute little lab manual. The entire thing asked us to jump from webpage to webpage, writing down some specific piece of information. Some of the pages didn’t actually exist anymore, although really the whole thing would likely have moved more quickly if I had Googled each question individually.

But you’re supposed to read the articles and learn from them!

That’s not what I was asked to do. If you want me to read about ozone in the troposphere, why don’t you just assign me articles to read about it? Why, you could even put the information you want me to know in the textbook itself! Why have me jump from place to place, regurgitating information like I did in middle school from articles written at a third grade reading level? The real reason, Professor, that students complain when you assign us readings from scientific journals and ask us to synthesize information in an academic essay is that you, not the rest of the system, have lulled us into expecting assignments like what I completed this morning. Why are you surprised, or even disappointed?

As for class today, “The Lorax,” is a well-written story. We’re all familiar with it, a small fuzzy man speaking out against the greedy onceler and his thneed business. We have all heard the refrain, “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!”

And the class just sits there as our professor explains that we should take notes because it has to do with class.

Yes! Yes, “The Lorax” is a call to action! And that’s exactly what this class is missing. By this point in the semester, this moment when we have covered every topic in the manual and theoretically have a sound information base in all sorts of environmental issues, the story of the Lorax might just be exactly what ought to tie it all together. Now that you know, now that you see how all of this is connected, take care of that last trufula seed! What? The Lorax is a fictional character? Then it is YOUR job to speak for the trees.

But it has instead become just one more exam item, as if there were any point in testing anyone on “The Lorax.” And when the class was over we all began asking straightforward questions about when assignments are due and how we might weasel out of them. And the tiny little Lorax, he and his message are forgotten.

A Semester (almost) Done With

Well, so much for writing regularly. But what do you expect of a busy college student? What? Other people manage this? I will here none of this nonsense! (But might try harder in the future. We'll see, I make no promises.)

It's been a crazy semester indeed. About halfway through I finally conceded that I was simply not happy and could improve the situation by discontinuing my self identification as a performance major. No worries though! I will continue my studies as a music minor. I don't have a major picked out yet. I'm taking an environmental studies class right now and liking that department a lot, but I'm exploring some other things next semester, including Native American studies and Asian and African geography. Fun times? Maybe? I hope so.

In the mean time, for all that time is running out, fall semester still in fact will last me a few more weeks. Really, less than 2 + exam week. (blech) Speaking of exams, I have a scale jury on Tuesday. (Play 15 scales, the full range of your instrument, it might be any major or minor key played normally or in 3rds. You only get 2 mistakes. Ready? Go!) So, good times.

This Saturday is BGSU's Double Reed Day, which should be plenty exciting. Lots of riciculous music, including some world premieres I will hopefully remember to blog about afterwards. ;) I'm excited. I'm excited to get it over with; I'm playing in 3 ensembles and I barely know when I'm rehearsing with who where.

Other than that, I've been involving myself pretty heavily in Veg. club. I might blog more about that later, perhaps as events start coming up. Also FREEDOM, which is a social justice/activism/we don't know how to self-identify group on campus. Again, more on that soon. Vegetarian potluck after double reed day! Hurrah!

A Quick Visit Makes All The Difference

To be honest, I haven't had the greatest summer. I've spent most of it moping around in self-pity, hating my job, and wishing to be elsewhere. Specifically, I spent it looking forward to July 31, the day I would make a pilgrimage back to Acorn, and looking backwards at my internship, wishing it hadn't ended. I do regret this; I think I could have made infinitely better use of my time if I'd approached things differently. Still, I went back to Acorn and have come home again, and it's time I tell (at least some of) my stories.

When my road trip started drawing to a close and I started recognizing familiar territory, everything started to feel incredibly surreal. I had this strange, "I must be dreaming," feeling, and yet I was quite literally physically shaking with excitement. I greeted friends, and then I had to meet the flood of unfamiliar faces.

Saturday night (August 1) Acorn had a rave, and when I arrived the day before, the place was bursting with people, many of whom I'd never met before. It was very challenging for me, trying to figure out who had what connection to the community. Who was an intern? Who was applying for membership? Who was just there for the rave? Who had been there since June? Who had only just arrived within the last week? I have been away just the slightest bit longer than I was ever present, and there was at least one woman who had arrived days after my initial departure. Finding someone technically (by time span in any case) more a part of the community than I had ever been who I had never met at first disconcerted me. I still remember the feeling, although it seems silly now, just as I knew it to be then. Gaining some level of comfort with new faces at Acorn was the first important step last week in finding the peace I was seeking.

Then there was the party Saturday night, which involved music, dancing, and yes, drugs, though I did not partake. (Walkabout may be over, but school was never the real reason for me to make that sort of decision) Really, I feel as if most of what I needed to get from my visit came only after the rave, but I did manage to have fun, hang out lots with Jess, and discover gleefully how many Twin Oaks members who I'd only met once or twice still remembered me.

Early in the week, both before and after the rave, I feel as if I mostly feel as if my social needs for the trip were addressed. This meant both that I was able to get to know new people and reassure myself of my friendship with people I had heard from only rarely (if at all) over the past two months. I've really come to realize what great friends I really do have at Acorn and I feel almost foolish for having doubted that. I came to feel even closer to a few of the members than I had over Walkabout, and I came to fully understand that I really can come back whenever I want/can manage to do so. Thank you everyone (in case you're reading this), you're wonderful.

Then there was the fine art of paying homage to all the little shards of my soul that had been sprinkled throughout the property and coming to terms with the fact that not only the social landscape, but the physical landscape of Acorn had changed. Most significantly, two building projects that were passed during my internship have actually seen some work (there's a bunch of tree houses being built behind Heartwood, and the foundation (?) for Bucket's natural building workshop project has been laid) and the garden is growing! The beans I planted are being harvested! Plants I helped grow are gone! Plants I've never seen before have sprouted! I ran around the garden, feeling like some crazy relative that comes up to you when you're young and exclaims, "look how you've GROWN!" And this was all well, except for the part that I've gone from knowing nothing, to feeling exceedingly competent, to not really knowing what's going on anymore. By the end of the week, I at least felt I was pretty sure I knew what plants were growing where again, and I had helped out with enough things in the garden to feel I'd left at least a small imprint on things. I have my fancies anyway.

Basically, I've made the cognitive leap to truly understand that things are happening and changing outside the world that I directly experience and feel--and it's OK. That doesn't make me belong any less. I don't know how many Walkabout students leave their placement feeling as if they've discovered a second family, but I know that I have. Again, thanks everyone. Can't wait to see you again ;)

What Has Obuabamos Become?

For two months now, I have chosen not to speak to the wide world of the internet for a while, not really knowing what I ought to say. That uncertainty stems from a deeper uncertainty of who I ought to be and what I ought to become. My second Walkabout left my inner compass spinning wildly out of control, and the purpose of any blog I might write became helplessly murky.

Literally translated from the context from which the word was derived, "obuabamos" means, "we used to oboe." This may turn out to be a very telling name for this blog. Certainly, we (me, myself, and I) used to oboe every day without fail. We haven't lately. I haven't abandoned the oboe entirely, and I haven't even decided to change majors--I'll go with Plan A for a minimum of one semester. But more than that?

The reason I made this blog was to chronical the adventures and misadventures of Walkabout for all who wished to hear what was becoming of me while occaisionally getting on a soapbox for the fun of it and pretending the internet was listening. I've recently realized that I can still do all this--only now I'll be documenting the adventures and misadventures of college.

And really, whether I become musician or... or... whatever it is I might be heading towards, I think it will be really cool to share how I get there. So, I'm just going to write about stuff that sounds cool to write about for a while, and slowly try to get connected to the larger community of the internet. Hello Blogospere! I'm back!

Yesterday was the final band concert of the year at Kilbourne where all the bands, from 6th grade to the Wind Ensemble, perform in WK's gym. This is when the senior awards are given. There are two scholarships from the boosters and two awards given by the band directors. The highest award given, the highest honor for a band student, is the John Philip Sousa Award, given for superior dedication and musicianship. As I finished pounding stakes into the ground (sort of) I noticed I had a text message from my mom. I got the Sousa Award yesterday. I'm still kind of in shock.

Pounding stakes into the ground? That project, which I really finished this morning, was part of the larger goal of preparing beds for the transplanting of tomatos. Each tomato plant will be transplanted right in front of one of those stakes and then a metal cage will be put around them, secured by the stakes. This way, the tomatos will grow vertically. I'm expecting/hoping a lot of transplanting to be happening soon. I'm pretty sure that's my favorite task here. I'm pretty sure my least favorite is picking orders.

I've had a really good week. I'm realizing how much I've come to love the people here and how hard it will be to leave them. Even (or especially) Jess, who doesn't even live at Acorn. There have been a few short-term guests here lately, although all of them have left again. I really liked all of them.

There was a party at Woodfolk House on Saturday which was pretty cool. It's a pretty interesting place.

It is kind of odd to me, realizing how much has happened at home while I've been away. I wish I could have been at Extravaganza, and I certainly do miss band. But at the same time, I suspect leaving here will be harder for me than leaving home was.

Yet Another Week

The week started out rainy and bleak and for the first couple of days, I couldn't really get outside. Happily, the sun has begun to shine again in recent days, and now I'm hardly popping into the office.

It seems that I've been spent the majority of my work time in the allium beds this week. Wednesday, a party of us went about weeding them, and afterwards, I was given the task of re-mulching. I spent almost all of Thursday afternoon mulching, paying no heed the the prevelence of thorns in the hay mulch until later when I realized just how much it had scraped up my legs. There's a visible line where my capris ended (at least I was wearing longer ones that day) and another where my socks began. In between is very scratched up. After that, I began getting up early to work when it was still cool enough for me not to hate my life while wearing long pants as I completed the job.

Last night I went to Twin Oaks to play ultimite frisbee and for their visitor party. (Twin Oaks has these month-long visitor periods that are concluded by the visitors throwing a party) I'm really not any good at frisbee, but I actually came out of it feeling like I'd done alright. To be sure, I was utterly exhausted from running so hard for so long, but there was something nice about that too. The visitor party was basically a bonfire with marshmellows and other food. People came along and played guitars and sang. I finally heard Cliff, with whom I often talk music here, play guitar. Twin Oaks also has a barbershop group and they sang. That was pretty sweet.

Once again, I feel like the week passed unnervingly quickly. I kept not believing I was already so far into the week, but now as I look back, it seems like an incredibly long time. A shift has started to happen now that wasn't nearly as gradual at ProMusica. On the one hand, I'm still counting the weeks that I've been here and have the feeling that this is a short time. I guess that's part of how I can look at the four weeks ahead and think, "how can I be almost half finished already?!" But at ProMusica, after the March concerts, I felt a distinct shift in thought from, "this is how long I've been here," to "this is how long I have left."

The beginning of my week mostly went as the last two have been. I definitely have become more familiar with the way things work here and with the people and everything. I'm able to feel somewhat independent most of the time and know where to look for work to do. I feel accepted here too, and I've been asked a few times if I was thinking of ever coming back. To be honest, I'm not entirely excited for coming back home. Going back to work at Zoombezi Bay just doesn't sound like much fun.

On May Day, we had a bonfire. Burning bamboo makes great exploding sounds like gunshots. Jess came over that night. I don't know if I mentioned her before. She lives at Twin Oaks and was working over here my first week here. She's really awesome, and has this tail she wears all the time just because she can. She stayed the night and brought me to Twin Oaks yesterday.

I don't know how much I've written about Twin Oaks before either. It's another community that existed before Acorn, and is about 100 people big (as opposed to Acorn's 15 members). My main impression of Twin Oaks was... big. Besides having that many more people, things are just considerably more spread out. The property here is already significantly less (even though it felt quite big when I got here), but then I basically never go onto most of it. Pretty much any place I go/work regularly could be pointed out from the porch of Heartwood. At Twin Oaks, we did a lot of walking through woods. There's a lot more walking involved in going just about anywhere.

When I was at Twin Oaks, besides getting shown about by Jess, I helped out in the flower garden some and helped Jess move her smoker. A few weeks ago she sort of made a smoker using things from the resource (aka junk) yard and successfully has smoked cheese with it, but people living in the building where it was assembled in their fire pit were getting tired of it, so she needed to move it elsewhere. It was kind of fun hauling it around just because the contraption looks kind of ridiculous if you don't know what it is.

Other than that, I don't feel like there's a whole lot to report. It's been getting cloudy and finally started raining last night--still is. I hope things are good at home. :)

Another Week

(The picture is from Obohemia: http://www.oboe-comics.com/ and it's like the best website ever)

It's amazing, on the one hand I don't feel like I've been here all that long, but at the same time, my last post feels like forever ago. So here goes my week in an attempt of something like chronological order:

I believe it was Monday morning that I began hacking away at bamboo. So Acorn has this bamboo, and I guess someone has decided that it has grown far enough. G Paul asked me to cut some down and beat it back to a certain line, and then I got to strip branches off. This has actually been an on going project through the entire week--there's a lot of bamboo. This was actually kind of entertaining for me just because bamboo is such a cool plant. I mean, it's bamboo!! I suppose as an oboist I'm supposed to like bamboo, as the arundo donax plant oboe reeds come from is closely related.

I also learned to pick orders this week. Now, as well as putting seeds in packets, I can work in the seed room, gathering together what people have ordered and rubber-banding them together. It's not real exciting, but actually takes a certain amount of concentration since the numbers start to look the same after a while. I understand the way the seeds are catalogged though, which is a good thing I suppose.

The other good thing about picking is that the seed room is temperature controlled as nowhere else here is. Yesterday and today the weather has been in the 90s, and it's not supposed to go down until Wednesday. The heat is brutal. The last couple of days working outside only an hour and a half was enough to completely wipe me out for the rest of the day. Today I only needed to work that long to make quota (42 hours a week, and I was almost there already) and I spent it in the office this morning rather than working in the garden. Hopefully not doing any physical work today will make me ready to face tomorrow.

Working outside has included not only the bamboo exploits but more garden work. I've been doing mostly weeding and transplanting lately. I still really enjoy working in the garden, but I think I need to rework my schedule, at least for the next few days to do it mostly in the early morning and after dinner before sundown. The thing that is both nice and difficult about living here is that I make my own schedule and can do pretty much whatever work I want. No one is telling me what I must do, so I simply have to look around to find what needs doing and ask around to see if I can help people. It's nice because I can do things like rearrange the order of my day, but it can be difficult if there aren't obvious things that need doing.

I'm quite happy here, except for the brutal heat, and I hope things are also good at home. I hear the Wind Ensemble got a 1 at state contest, which is awesome! Good job guys, I knew you could do it!!! :)

Good Times

I've now spent about a week at Acorn and I'm having a really great time. I was surprised when I got here how welcomed I felt and how much working in dirt made me happy. I've done a lot of work in the garden, mostly weeding, and have done quite a bit of seed packing in the office. Seed packing basically entails weighing seeds and putting the right amount into packets to be sold. I'm hoping that in days and weeks to come I might be able to do some other things in the office. I also did some paper stapling, but that's about the same level of task. I don't object to packing seeds of course since it does need to get done.

Yesterday was my "get off the property day." First I went to Charlottesville with Thomas and Juniper for the Earth Week eco-fair where Southern Exposure Seed Exchange--Acorn's seed business--had a table. It wasn't actually all that exciting and I had to attempt to be helpful to people when I couldn't actually answer any of their questions. Happily, we were so close to the stage that it was really hard to hear what people were saying so people didn't try too hard and I had an excuse for being confused. I was never at the table by myself either so it was really just a matter of getting people to talk to Thomas or Juniper instead.

I was only back at Acorn long enough to eat dinner and then I went to Twin Oaks, which is another community about 7 miles away. Twin Oaks is much larger than Acorn, 110ish as opposed to 15ish, and they make their money from hammocks and tofu as opposed to seeds, but they do have a lot in common and there's a lot of interaction between the two communities. The original purpose of going was a game of ultimate frisbee, and I discovered to no great surprise that I am still very bad at the game. I had fun anyway though. We then went to the "birthday" party of a Twin Oaker (now 9500 days old) and there was smoked cheese (made with Twin Oaks's new smoker) and popcorn. I enjoyed being there because I knew a couple people who had been working at Acorn when I first arrived and people are just generally really nice at these communities.

In general, things are going great and I am happy. I hope things are still good at home!

The Plan

Well here's the plan, people. If anyone's checking this blog at all anymore, you're aware that I haven't bothered to post anything for quite a while. There's something about posting personal experiences and feelings for the whole internet to read (things I do try to write about in my journals) that makes the blogging thing a little more complicated. Plus, at ProMusica anyway, I was almost more afraid of gossiping too much about the people in the organization or just the state of things because I don't know that they really want that kind of information out there. So from now on, I'm going to try to write once or twice a week completely separate from any journal so that anyone who wants knows I'm alive and what I'm up to, but if I want to keep some thoughts and fears and opinions between me and my journal reader, then then that is where they'll stay.

For this Walkabout, for which I will be leaving in an hour or so, I will be living at Acorn Community, an intentional, egalitarian community, in Mineral Virginia. It seems that I'll be doing household type chores, helping in the garden where most of the food grows, and helping with their seed business. But really, I don't have a great idea of what I'll be doing at all (heck what does any of that mean, right?) and even though that kind of makes me nervous, in real life that's not why I'm doing this Walkabout. The idea was just to find something entirely different to how I'm used to living and working, something out of my comfort zone. I'm uncomfortable with how comfortable I am in my own convictions and opinions of the world and my remedy is a good shaking up. So here's a whole new world of sorts and now I simply have to wait and see who I become.

Everything is Better With Band Class

It is Saint Patrick’s day. Yes. It is awkward to be around adults talking about the plans to go drink (or their premature celebrations due to a dance performance tonight). I got a shamrock shake at McDonald’s. That is how to celebrate Saint Patrick’s day: green food coloring. Lots of it.

Anyway, life at ProMusica was actually pretty normal. No more stinky sewers, anyway. I needed to work on sending out invitations for the Student Gala, and Julia asked me to find websites for the orchestra boosters of the MIS schools. The first school on the list was Thomas Worthington. I don’t think their orchestra has a website. I don’t think Kilbourne’s does either. They must have boosters, right? I know WK’s choir has boosters, and the band clearly has boosters, so there must be someone out the supporting the orchestra, right? The sad thing is, I don’t know. The orchestra doesn’t do all that much. They have their concerts every year and that’s about it. Band has marching band, at the very least, as well as all our fun trips and what have you. Choir also goes on trips, and has done all sorts of interesting things. But I don’t know if the orchestra ever does anything but their requisite concerts for the year, and they may not need boosters for that. I wonder. I was very frustrated though, because I thought if there were any website I’d be able to find it would be Worthington’s. I’ve also gotten used to thinking that you can find anything you want on the internet if you look hard enough. I seem to have been wrong on both counts.

Sending out invitations for the student gala will be amusing for me because basically, I’m doing a mailing. I’ve pretty much made the contact spreadsheet, although Julia needs to look at it and maybe change and add some people. Then she’ll show me how to use that to print a jillion envelopes without doing what I did for Ashley where I printed each individually. I’ve already printed about 200 invitations. That involved losing a fight with the printer. I caused a paper jam and couldn’t figure out where it was. Julia had to help me. Stupid printer. After that, I get to stuff envelopes and put them through the postage machine. It’ll be like all those mailings I helped Joe and Ashley with… only mine. Bwahahahaha!

STANK!

Today was certainly different. When I was talking to Julia at the beginning of the day, a loud noise started up just below the window to her office. There was a white rectangle spray-painted onto the sidewalk and a man was taking a large circular saw to the concrete while three others watched. (“Why is it always one guy doing the work while three people, now five I guess, watch?”) I eventually retreated to my own workspace, both glad to get away from the noise and reluctant to lose the chance to learn what was going on. The office I work in is on the opposite side of the suite from Julia’s, so the noise barely carried at all. This became more significant as the day progressed.

You see, what was being dug up was a sewer line. All of a sudden, Janet and Julia, whose windows face towards the work that was being done, began exclaiming that their rooms smelled like poo. Suddenly, any jealousy and curiosity was wiped out of me. After some commotion, the custodian happened to come up to empty our trash bins and was able to explain what was going on. Of course, the most essential information—that someone was digging into a sewage line—was all too apparent without explanation. Janet was eventually able to get a hold of the manager of the building and after a short while of talking with him on the phone, she and Julia decided to go to Panera to work rather than stay in their putrid offices.

This left me without a great deal to do. The office was certainly much quieter without Janet, Julia or Ashley. (Ashley went to New York this weekend and will be back tomorrow) Mostly I guess it’s quiet without Ashley. It’s not that I had nothing to do, but I didn’t feel any need to push things along with any gusto. It was Monday, after all. My office thankfully never got to smell hardly at all, but when I went farther back to print something it was already pretty bad. I’m sure that since Julia and Janet’s offices overlook the construction it must have been intolerable. I finished what Julia had given me to do and helped Joe some with a mailing. Ah mailings, how fun they are.

Julia and Janet came back around 4:00 and the air was pretty much back to normal. I did a little more work for Julia but I ended up leaving a little early. My dad was on a business trip today (but just today. He left ridiculously early in the morning and was home for dinner) so I drove myself to ProMusica and back. It was nice too, because it made it so that I could leave early. I think tomorrow we’ll be checking over all that needs to be done for the April concert and making a game plan. Things will definitely be picking up soon with that concert coming up. I’m excited because it will be just as important as the February concert with preparations on about the same scale (although it is all taking place at the Southern—no Josephinum) except this time I’ll understand what’s going on and be on top of things.

If you think about it, it’s all been broken up quite nicely. I started the week of the February concert, which was absolutely insane. I was utterly overwhelmed, but I picked up a lot quickly and had to establish my place almost immediately. I learned a lot right there at the beginning and basically saw most of what I’d be working on for the rest of the Walkabout in action. Then things slowed down significantly and I got to actually get my bearings and fill in all the missing pieces slowly. I learned about the Student Board and the gala and began working on that. The March concert came and went, and I was able to have quite a bit to do with it because it wasn’t a huge production. Now something much larger is coming up, very much like February, but now I will really be a part of it and will be able to say that I significantly contributed instead of just getting caught up in the whirlwind. Now, if I were I nerd, I’d refer to whatever it’s called when a piece is written in the ABA form (ternary form) and call it my Walkabout… Oh I guess I just did... well, I guess the truth comes out.

More Thoughts on Sleep, Inspired by Justin Locke

I've neglected to write any more about sleep since my initial post on the subject, but I was reading Justin Locke's blog just now and was reminded that I really ought to. The problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the human body and mind works.

Justin Locke wrote about the mistake which is the eight-hour workday. He used the model of a symphony orchestra to demonstrate that in a creative, thought intensive, work environment, more than 25 hours a week just doesn't work. You cannot be creative without rest. You cannot give the same intensity into anything without rest. You cannot accomplish as much without rest. The long hours, the extra time, the deliriousness and the agony, it's all for nothing. It is harmful, not only to you, but to the work that you are doing.

That point cannot be driven in hard enough. It's so counter to the philosophy from which we craft every single day, that really believing and living by the lesson is near impossible. I say this from the perspective, once again, of a student. High school students are taught that on top of school, they must participate in extracurricular activities, give back to the community with community service, complete their homework, and sometimes even work a job on top of that. Then the teachers wonder why we're falling asleep at our desks. But there's nothing we can do about it. Worse, I am speaking for an affluent school district that performs beautifully on standardized tests, a model for the nation. So if someone from elsewhere in the nation, or someone nearby at a less privileged school district, is saying "that's not how things are at all," the heads and tails of it is that this is how the powers that be feel things are supposed to be. The students getting into the top tier universities are the ones who work themselves to death and scorn rest most harshly. I wonder, how long until they burn out?

But I go to two schools; that's how I'm interning at ProMusica Chamber Orchestra today. And I have recently come to appreciate the one aspect that used to make me doubt the program: a lacking of rigor. I never minded that the classes were innovative and unique, but I felt that students at the main campuses were pressed harder to do more homework. I felt they had to stress more over tests. I thought more material was covered. But now I wonder. I wonder, even if they covered more material, who will remember more of it years from now? I wonder, what good does it do to pass a test? I remember when another Walkabout student mentioned some time ago that she felt that we learn more outside of work than we do working. She marveled at how much time people put throwing themselves into work when most of life happens outside of that. I wonder, do our straight A Harvard bound students ever learn from anything outside of school? They dutifully fulfill the extracurricular activity requirement, but they're still surrounded by students and led by a coach or a teacher. And it's a duty, so it's still work. Along with sleep, our culture could stand to learn to play. But I digress.

One of the methods used by cults on new recruits to reel them in is sleep deprivation. People are herded into a summer camp like setting and kept active for long hours for little break. People don't question as much without sleep. Indoctrination is much easier in this setting. Just what are our schools anyway? We don't need to crank out cookie cutter factory workers anymore. What we need are independent, individual, creative minds. That's exactly what we lose when we deprive our children of sleep. It would be oh so easy to claim some malicious scheme of our education system of indoctrination and brainwashing, but I know too many teachers too intimately to believe any such thing. Nevertheless, that is the problem on its face: if you listen to anyone talk about the future of education, you will hear a call for high powered minds that think creatively. If we want that, we can't just stuff kids full of knowledge. That doesn't do the job. We need to let them think. And to do that, we have to let them sleep.

Parking Garages and Vouchers

Julia wasn’t at ProMusica today but I was left a fair amount to do. However, before I got to start that, Ashley asked me to drive over to OSU to hang some signs for ProMusica’s next concert and put out some flyers. I have to say, it was a bit of an adventure. But as seems to happen with me, the task was not nearly so significant as the simple act of getting where I needed to be.

That said, OSU isn’t very hard to find. The difficulty was finding a place to park. Ashley told me where Weigel Hall, the music building, is and said that once I passed it there should be a parking garage or meters or something where I could park. All went well enough at first. I got to the parking garage, but didn’t notice until I had pushed the button to get my ticket that it was for keycard only—no visitors. So I had no choice but to back out a bit and turn around, which was kind of awkward but not the end of the madness.

I went around in a circle and then decided to turn on a random street in hopes of finding somewhere to park. I didn’t get very far until I hit a “do not enter” sign barring construction work. There had been nothing to mark this before it was too late (I checked as I left) so I found myself turning around in a way that must have been illegal (but I know there couldn’t be cars coming the other direction) although it certainly was an exemplary three point turn and had to decide what to do. I’d only driven a few feet when I saw a police officer. I decided that although I could well be questioned on how I’d gotten where I was, I figured that in asking piteously for directions I would come off as lost and confused enough as not to invite punishment. And, with his direction, I did find a garage for visitor parking. Hallelujah.

It’s ironic that I commented on my little vouchers as a sort of landmark yesterday because Julia wanted me to have everyone look over them before I made copies and Ashley completely rewrote them. Oh well. I don’t think I would have even minded if I hadn’t decided to make some significance out of them, but then it’s still a learning experience so I’ll take it. Still, I can’t say I wasn’t a bit disappointed. Then, I made packets for all the students who will be participating in the side-by-side performance on April 4th, sorted them by school, and sent them off to orchestra directors. This process was interrupted by Joe’s printing of 250 envelopes. Good God, I think it took two hours. Ashley was rereading my new and improved vouchers when he started so I didn’t get to print those until he finished.

Excitingly enough, King’s Island sent an email to Julia—they’re donating two tickets to the park to the student gala! But they aren’t due to arrive until May 1st, so I got to make vouchers for that. It was exciting though, because those parks are expensive so that was by far the heftiest donation so far. It made me quite happy.

Bad Reeds *ARE* The End of the World

My day didn’t start off very well on Thursday. When I got to band class, I realized I had left all my good reeds at home. We were recording our district contest music and I had a solo in every single song. I managed to get through it ok, but not as well as I would have liked to and that’s the recording that the performance will be remembered by. But that would have been embarrassing on any occasion—I know that in high school band lots of people don’t bother to play on good reeds all the time but I’m trying to hold myself to something like the standards I’m expecting in years to come. And in college, episodes like that will be utterly unacceptable.

Then, at ProMusica, it was basically determined that I would have to call those places for which I could not find a name to contact yesterday. For a while, this caused in me a swell of something like panic. Not more soliciting phone calls! Not more silent auction requests! Julia asked me to burn a couple CDs at about this point in the day and I meant to call places while they were burning. I didn’t, but I began when they finished. It was funny, because overall I was fine once I did. (as before) but I was just as overwhelmed to begin with, if not more so, as I was on the first day Julia asked me to do basically the same thing.

I did finish printing letters for Ashley yesterday, and the last thing I did was help Julia make some vouchers for students participating in the side by side performance the night of the student gala. Basically, there has been this ticket challenge thing where students at high schools competed to sell the most ProMusica tickets and the top five schools get to send students to play with ProMusica at the April concert. The winning school was supposed to open the concert on their own, but the director opted out because it was a younger ensemble and he didn’t feel they were ready for that kind of experience. So they’re all getting recognized but they aren’t playing a piece alone. The point is, I was to make vouchers for them to attend the student gala for free.

It occurred to me when I was working on them that most of what I’ve done hasn’t really required much creativity or even just decision making at all. Most of what I’ve done has been putting information into a template. So it struck me that even though it wasn’t some huge important thing, this was probably one of the more significant tasks I’ve done lately because I was just told to make some vouchers that should take up about a third up of a page and ask for contact information. I know it wasn’t some huge deal and there wasn’t tons of room for error, but it was still kind of nice.

Patience is a Virtue

Yesterday wasn’t all that interesting. Julia had no voice and she brought her dog to work. If no one minds, I’d rather not post my attempt to stretch that information into a full length journal entry. (Oh and I talked about my fight with the printer. I think he’s cheating on me with the computers.) So I’ll just skip on to my lovely Wednesday.

Ashley was my mentor today, haha. Basically, she’s really swamped right now and Julia isn’t so except for a couple quick things, I was helping Ashley out today. I really like working with Ashley, for all that I was basically doing the really time consuming but easily explained (and therefore not all too challenging) work. First I stuffed a bunch of envelopes with invitations to Artist Circle and put postage on them. Then I went back to printing the letters from yesterday. The bonus to envelope stuffing today was that I was also given the list of invites to check off who was being sent an invitation and make sure no one was missed. It was kind of interesting because the list was broken up into the board of trustees and then donors to ProMusica, further broken up by the range of money donated. So while I of course couldn’t go listing off all the trustees, I could recognize names I might have heard in conversation. Also, many of the donors had a business listed with them so if I was paying attention I could notice what businesses sponsor ProMusica. (Incidentally, I went to the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra’s concert Sunday night and I was suddenly curious to read all the ads in the program just to see who’s supporting the symphony. I never would have done that before my Walkabout at ProMusica.)

Printing went slowly. My computer was moving at a particularly crawling pace, taking as long thirty seconds or so, at least, just to load the print menu. And I couldn’t just click print and send fifty copies to be printed. Every letter is, of course, personalized. Then, I also had to figure out to whom I should address about two thirds of the letters because most of the businesses on the asks list didn’t have a contact listed. The… internet… was… painful… to… use… I think I spend thirty minutes trying to navigate three pages of one website. As it happens, that was a pretty cool website. You learn some pretty cool, little known, history lessons if you visit Aspen Ski and Board’s website and find either the “about us” or “history” or something like that. Eventually, it occurred to me that I could switch to Yvette’s computer, but that was close to three o’clock. The frustrating part wasn’t so much that the computer was moving so slowly; on its own, I could tolerate that without a fuss. But Ashley asked me yesterday if I would be able to finish printing today and I thought I would. I didn’t at all. It kind of made me sad.

There was at least one moment today when I was just struck by how happy I was to be there. It wasn’t anything so much about what I was doing—I was sitting at the computer waiting for some website to load—but Ashley found a dead mouse at her house this morning and Joe was making fun of her… I don’t know it was just really hilarious and I realized how much I like all these people. In general, the staff is pretty awesome and in that regard I really like it here.

Dvorak and JAG

When I arrived at ProMusica on Monday, waiting for me was the printout I’d made of the April open rehearsal program, only now it had some red ink on it. That’s cool though: after college comp I don’t think twice about red ink. One thing I had fun with, however, was the spelling of Dvorak’s name. You see, it’s all very well to spell Dvorak “Dvorak” most of the time, but in real life the “a” should have an accent and the “r” should have a little scoop thing over it. It’s not too hard to put an accent on an “a.” In fact knowing how is absolutely vital in higher level Spanish courses. But I had never seen the “r” symbol before. I thought this would be easy too. I’d just go to the “insert” dropdown menu and choose “symbol.” I’d look at the list of symbols and find the one I wanted. Unfortunately, the “r” I was looking for wasn’t a choice.

Now, I had actually gone through that mess the first time around when I made the program to begin with. Everywhere the program notes referred to Dvorak, they listed “Dvo_ák” instead. I wiki’d Dvorak to find out what the problem might be but decided to just use a normal “r” when wasn’t one of the symbol’s on the computer. I tried copy, pasting the special “r” from the wiki article but it came out as _. Julia told me to just use a normal “r.”

When I got the program back from Ashley, however, she inked a little scoop over all the r’s in Dvorak so I decided to try again because I was at a different computer, after all. I found the wikipedia not for Dvorak, but for the special r in his name and tried to copy, paste. With much tinkering and cajoling, I got this to work.

The most significant part of my day came afterwards when Julia and I went to Hilliard Davidson to check on some kids working on the Creative Hybrids composition project. But it turned out Julia and Judy Shafer (Jazz Arts Group’s education director also involved in Creative Hybrids) were not really needed so we decided to go to Panera and have a meeting.

My, that was interesting, although there are many details I do not completely understand. They talked about the Creative Hybrids project, but also a new (potential?) piece of legislation that would require schools to offer students credit for learning experiences outside the classroom. (hmmm, does that sound familiar?) OK, so admittedly I don’t really know what I’m referring to, but it was intriguing because of the way the idea is going over in other circles. It makes me realize how much Linworth affects the way I view education and I wonder how I would view something like that without having been a Linworth student… except if I weren’t a Linworth student I wouldn’t have been present for the conversation.

It seems that Judy was present at some meeting of a collection of art and music teachers. The visual art teachers, apparently, were particularly afraid that their jobs would be put in jeopardy because students wouldn’t go to art classes anymore. That wasn’t the part that surprised me though, not because I think it’s necessarily true (and if it is, the kids would probably be better off that way) but because I expect a certain number people to take a “how will this hurt me?” approach to any kind of change. This led into a discussion of youth orchestras and bands that some people fear take away from the public school band programs. I know to be in CYSB you are required to be a member of your school band if it has one, and Julia said that it had been the same when she did work for CSYO. Apparently, however, CSYO has changed the rules from “required” to “strongly encouraged” because of lawsuits. I’m not sure what I think of that though. I’m especially interested to see why the requirement is a legal problem, but oh well.

There was also, apparently, the logistical problem to be solved of how to deal with actually giving the credit. Specifically, Judy mentioned concerns over compensation for the teacher to whom a student would present a project. I collect that in the midst of a discussion of what a band director would do, and all that they already do, Judy suggested that it wouldn’t by necessity be a music teacher. Imagine if a student wanted to study with one of JAG’s musicians from [I forget what latin American country] to learn about culture and presented to a social studies teacher. The room, Judy said, got quiet for about thirty seconds and I guess it was the person leading the discussion who said, “I hadn’t thought of that” and started scribbling notes.

Wait… what?! Is it really just because I’m a Linworth student that I don’t think twice about that suggestion? It seems so natural to expect that everything’s related to everything else, and that’s especially true of the arts. I’d go so far as to say that the ability to connect the arts to science and math and social studies is absolutely vital to keeping them a part of the education system. It’s well for Worthington, but in many districts both locally and nationally, arts education is dwindling and disintegrating. There’s something disconcerting to the thought that no one but Judy Shafer in a gathering of art teachers would look at the arts as an extension of some other field. Well, at least there’s Judy Shafer.