Cameron

Blog 6/8/08

Well, the year is winding up, and it is almost time for me to go home. As I finish up my work for my program, I just can’t help but think what a remarkable freshman year I had. I met so many great people and was able to share a lot of meaningful experiences with them. I got to go sailing, bond with them on retreats, process through the streets of Olympia dressed in costumes and playing drums, and I got to Africa. I learned so much about myself and about how the mind and body work and how to relate to the world, and I am just trying to get a sense of how fortunate I truly am to have had such a great time. Sure there were some moments when I was wondering if I was going to make it or if it was all worth it, but looking back now, I can honestly say it was.
My faculty even had special necklaces made by a local artist and gave them to everyone in the class. They are so sweet (my necklaces and my faculty)!

But why am I getting so sentimental? I’m just a freshman, it’s not like I’m graduating or anything. But, as excited as I am to go home and to start my class next year, I still know this year will be hard to beat, and I’ll never forget the experiences I had.

Speaking of going home, I just started to take down my room today. It sucks. It is going to take forever, and I brought way too much stuff with me to my dorm! Like way too much stuff. But I just found out that my friend is going to take a road trip up here and he is going to give me a ride home, so that should be lots of fun. I am also excited to be taking an awesome class called Green Studio next year. It is about blending art and sustainability, which are two of my greatest interests at the moment. It should be pretty awesome.

Now I just gotta go finish my evals…

But first, I’d just like to say:

SUMMER’S ALMOST HERE!

Posted by hoscam18 at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Na nga def ? That means, “How’s it going?” in Wolof, which is the main language spoken in Senegal, where I just spent two weeks. It was probably the most amazing, surreal, and intense two weeks of my life, and it is hard to believe it is over. I went with ten other students in my class and one of my faculty members, Terry Setter, and we stayed with a very famous Senegalese drummer named Thione Diop (pronounced “Chown Jyop”), in his house that is right off the beach in the suburbs of Dakar. Thione and all his friends and family are the nicest warmest people, and made us feel very safe and welcome, while at the same time fully immersing us into their culture.

We did a lot of drumming and dancing, working with Thione and his friends who also were famous performers in Senegal. While the drumming lessons were great (we all had our own brand new djembes to practice with while we were there) and the dancing was fantastic (I had never seen dancers with such incredible moves and energy), many of my favorite moments came from the really simple moments when I truly felt presence in another country.

There was one moment when I was watching some local boys practice wrestling on the beach from behind an archway on Thione’s mom’s patio, when suddenly seven or eight little children start running along behind the wrestlers all in a line all rolling tires in front of them and laughing. It was like a scene from a movie, I swear.

Another day we were eating lunch in the sitting room in Thione’s mom’s house, and a goat just ran in through the open patio door and came a few inches from ramming right into Thione, when his friend Abdoulaye caught the goat by his hind leg and steered him out of the house like a vacuum cleaner. It was ridiculous. The goats were omnipresent throughout the trip. We even witnessed Thione sacrifice a goat as a way to cleanse his house of all bad spirits.

It was great just being able to watch the locals playing soccer on the sand (They are so freaking good!) and taking rides in these colorfully painted rickety sketchy buses called “Supers” (a back wheel fell off of one as we were driving to a concert in the middle of nowhere), and eating the delicious food and watching the sunset and moon rise and become full. It is a really beautiful place that has a charm all its own, and it was ceaselessly interesting to watch the struggle between new and old, and the blending of traditional culture and modern western influence. I saw factory workers walking down roads alongside a man in a horse drawn carriage. I saw beautiful women dressed in bright full length African outfits with a matching head scarf walking next to beautiful women dressed like they were about to step into a nightclub in New York City. I saw goats standing on parked cars. And while there were great new paved roads and public transit and banks and hospitals, there was also extreme poverty and trash everywhere and suffocating air pollution.

There really is no way to sum up all of my experiences from the past two weeks. I will post some pictures, but really, so much happened and I really was just a sponge soaking in all the culture and the sights and sounds and smells and tastes, and what I have written here is just a glimpse at what turned out to be the most incredible two week journey I could have ever hoped for. There truly could not have been a better way to see Africa.

As this trip pretty much ends the quarter for me, I honestly cannot imagine ever having a better freshman year.

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The air was thick with excitement and scientific inquiry as Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the nation’s premiere astrophysicists and the host of PBS’s show, NOVA, took the stage.

He came to Evergreen to be the speaker at a seminar held annually in honor of one of Evergreen’s founding faculty members, Willi Unsoeld. Tyson is a great speaker, very comfortable on stage and always backing up his points with a joke. In fact, I first heard of him on the Colbert Report during the whole Pluto scandal. During his speech he used his sharp wit to poke a message into the minds of the audience members. The goal of his presentation was to show how terribly under funded and under respected in the USA.

For example, he told how shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, President Bush said, “Our God is the God that named the stars”, loosely quoting Genesis. He said this as a warning to the Arab terrorist groups that were responsible for the attacks. However, Tyson pointed out that of the known stars in the universe, 2/3 of them have Arabic names, and that he could have hooked Bush up with a better line if he had been on his Rolodex at the time. Tyson ended the night saying that if we think we are so much smarter than chimps, and we have only a 2.5% difference in our DNA, think about how much smarter a being that was 2.5% genetically different than us would be, and how with that perspective, how little we actually know about the universe.

He was awesome.

You know what slightly less awesome? My Hepatitis A and Polio vaccination shots. But I got a great deal on them at the Student Health Center, which is a great resource for students here on campus. And they really didn’t hurt that much… But at least that’s over with. Now I just have typhoid pills to take, malaria pills to take, and maybe a yellow fever shot to get. But it’s not like Yellow fever is that bad! Oh wait…

In other news, it’s true; the Black Front Gallery is in its last month. I went to check out their last exhibit and it was amazing. There were three local artists showcasing their work, and they were all awesome. The Black Front was a great venue in Downtown Oly, and I hope whatever takes its place will be as cool.

This week our class actually got to work with an artist who has had some of her work in the Black Front. Her name is Diane Kurtzyna, and she helped us all make dolls of ourselves out of trash and found objects. We also had a guest speaker come to our class who was a Maori artist from New Zealand named June Grant.

Overall, this was a very colorful, artistic, and slightly painful week for me, but probably one of the most memorable here at Evergreen.

Posted by hoscam18 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So basically, I had an amazing week, though it was very busy (BIG SURPRISE!). I was in the Procession of the Species Studio until like 11:30pm on Thursday and 2:30 in the morning on Friday just getting my stuff ready for Saturday. I basically don’t have an immune system anymore, but it was totally worth it. The Procession itself surpassed all my expectations. While I consider myself to be a creative person, some of the costumes I saw were just stunning and beautiful and often really creatively and simply made from all found materials. I also felt like a rock star, marching and drumming while 30,000 onlookers cheered and smiled at us. Nothing I’ve ever heard of comes close to Olympia’s Procession of the Species. Also working with other people from Olympia for days at a time in the Studio was so rewarding! I actually feel like I’m part of the community now. While I was there I even met a lady who said she has some rooms for rent in Downtown that she really wants to fill with Evergreen students. There are a lot of people in Oly that rent houses specifically to Greener’s or are at least very willing to accept college students as tenants.

But now that the Procession has passed, I am totally exhausted, and I need to start worrying about writing my research paper. I have a draft due on Tuesday, and I am also going to be reading a book that I have to help teach to my seminar along with one of my classmates. And all I can think about is just going to Senegal.

So, on a different note, I was giving a tour to some cool prospective students the other day, and we got to check out some amazing recording studios that we have in our Communications building. There were like a thousand little blinking lights and buttons and knobs and a lot of just really intense equipment in really cool rooms with gnarly retro lamps and décor. I was really impressed; especially when one of the students using this equipment (by himself, and he’s a sophomore) told us that Evergreen is 7th in the nation for sound recording. And I believe it after seeing all those sick music technology labs and the different mixers, some of which were really cool top of the line mixers form the seventies, and others really state of the art stuff. Also, the Communications building is gong to be refurbished in 2010, so they are going to get all this new equipment and stuff.

This is me painting a giant wave

This is me Drumming in the Procession. I didn't have a costume because I spent so much time painting the float and helping others with there costume

I'll post more pictures of the Procession once I get my Camera back from my friend.

Posted by hoscam18 at 01:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week I was quite busy, busy, busy. I had a paper due Thursday, I still have a research paper to write, Africa preparations to make, I lost my keys (found ‘em later though), and I‘ve had work every day of the week. And I’ve been staying up into the wee hours of the morning this whole week. I’m also having a little trouble with some of the kids in my seminar who aren’t quite taking the class seriously enough. But I know that problem will sort itself out as the faculty takes notice of their behavior.

There was some good news, however. Down at the Procession of the Species studio, someone donated a gigantic papier-mâché wave that is basically a float, and we get to use it! I was so happy, because I was supposed to be in charge of designing a wave for our class to integrate into the procession. So that is one pressure that is removed from my shoulders, though still many other stresses are pushing on me. Luckily, I get to relieve some stress in dance class on Wednesdays, followed by a relaxing trip to the sauna in the men’s locker room. HOLY MOLÉ! The sauna is sooooo nice! I don’t know how I got along without one before! : )

I really can’t wait to go to Senegal. I just got the itinerary, and it looks like there will be over 24 hours of time spent just traveling! But, it will still be amazing, and when we get back, our class has a week of Sabbath, because we are reading a book called Sabbath for seminar. I just hope that I will be able to rest with the knowledge that I will have to do a research paper and a formal presentation due the next week. But of course, if there weren’t some level of stress, it wouldn’t really be college, would it? I definitely am busy, but not with busy work, so I feel good about it all. It will all start coming together soon.

Also, I just looked outside my window, and it is snowing and raining and the sun is peaking out through the clouds! We have had some schizophrenic weather lately. It’s CRAZY I tell you!!

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Class this week was awesome. On Tuesday we had a pretty good seminar; on Wednesday dance class was going well until I got a massive foot cramp and had to sit out for a while; Thursday was really awesome, and truly something special. We held class at a studio in Downtown Olympia because our class is going to take part in a ceremony that is now in its 14th year running in Olympia called “The Procession of the Species”. It is a little hard to explain exactly what the Procession is, because it hits on many deep levels, but basically, they close off the streets in Downtown and thousands of people dressed as different animals and nature themes process through town. It’s a huge deal, but it is not a “parade”, because parades have a military connotation; this event is aimed at reclaiming our spirit by submerging ourselves in celebration and appreciation of nature. It sounds really amazing, but words hardly do it justice, so I’ll post some pictures of last years Procession, and this year’s once it happens. Here is their website: http://www.procession.org/

On Thursday, I also got to see Bernadine Dohrn speak, a former member of the radical Weathermen group from the 1970s. It was interesting hearing her speak about the problems that we face today with the knowledge that she was an extremist in her time as an activist. I was surprised because she advocated that we just live a full life, and do our best to make a difference in what we can; each of us can't try to fix all the world’s problems at once.

This weekend has shown us much kind weather here in Olympia. As opposed to the norm of about 55 degrees, today, the high was (drum roll please) 81 degrees! While I guess it is a sign of global warming, I still wanted to take advantage of the clear skies. I decided to take my chair out to the field, you know, to get some reading done. The book is about how Western thinking has separated to the mind and the body into two different entities, but after about an hour both my mind and my body decided I wanted to play some Ultimate Frisbee. So I honored their decision and started playing. Of course, in this weather, I was shirtless, as were many of my peers. When the sun is out, Greener’s become more like reptiles, taking in the sunlight like it was dessert instead of UV rays. And since, of course, I didn’t bring sunscreen with me to Washington, I now have a healthy pink glow unevenly spattered on my skin. But it was worth it. Plus, Frisbee was awesome, and I got to play with a guy named Will, who helped put together Evergreen’s intramural Ultimate team, and he was really supportive of me coming out to their scrimmages on Saturday’s, which I think I just might do.

Last year's Procession

Posted by hoscam18 at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I’m back from spring break, and so far this has been a very interesting first week back at school. Right now I am trying to get my shots that I’ll need for when I go to Africa in May. Oh, yeah, by the way, I ‘m going to go to Senegal for two weeks in May! I’m going with about ten other kids and one of teachers from my program, and I’m super excited. I’m not so excited about all the shots I’ll need though. While we are in Africa, we will be doing a lot of drumming and dancing, and probably a lot of sun burning. Today we had our dance class, and I haven’t danced in two weeks now because of spring break, and my feet are killing me! But it was a blast, and I still have all my killer moves.

I’m really glad to be back at Evergreen. It’s been nice catching up with friends, and best of all, it’s been sunny and warm. Well, I consider the mid 50’s warm compared to the winter norm of low 40’s and 30’s. Come to think of it though, winter wasn’t that bad. Coming from Southern California, I thought I would become a Popsicle, but I managed to not let the weather get to me. Actually, I really love living in a place that has all four seasons. And I’ve been told watching everything turn green up here is amazing. I must say though, it is harder to settle down and study because it’s sunny until like 7:30 and all I want to do is go outside and play on the field and skateboard! But I’ve got tons of reading to do, so I’ll compromise and go read in the sun.

This quarter, our class is focusing on getting involved in the community, and we are being given time to do internships and volunteer work in the community. I’m thinking about volunteering at an art gallery in Downtown Olympia called the Black Front Gallery. They are running low on funds right now, so I want to get more students on campus interested in the gallery so that it gets more business. I also might volunteer there so they can get some free labor. Hopefully the Black Front doesn’t go under, it’s a really special little place. So I hope it works out. I think this quarter will be fun, but also lots of work. All I can say is, “Bring it on!”

Posted by hoscam18 at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)