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. :)