“and if i live i’ll be coming back again, in the bright sky, bright sky.”
Thanksgiving: a tale of travel, adventure, family, and a stomach virus.
I am always, however, massively thankful for that brief break before the push to finals week and Christmas.
If I had to search for one image to sum up that break, I would actually find two:
My grandmother’s table loaded down with snack-food and glasses, the family wandering between it and the living room, stretched out over every piece of furniture, and madly gabbing (who knew they were so loud or could talk so fast?).
The sensation of the car moving around me as I drift off to sleep as it’s getting dark on the highway.
Now? Only three papers stand between me and finals week! Plus the normal critiques and reading, classes and work. But that’s a paltry amount to stand between me and the end of my hardest semester ever. I’m starting to think about senior show in the spring, and it’s so exciting and terrifying all at once. . . . My studio space down in the Warehouse needs to become my best friend!
(The website is from last year and is unfinished. . . but you can at least see the building.)
Be well. . . don’t get sick. And check out past senior shows!
Filed under general | Comment (0)“all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise”
This is just a quick hello to say — goodbye! I’m leaving for break. My brother will come down to Indiana from Michigan, my family will come up to Indiana from Alabama, and I will come over to Indiana from Pennsylvania and we will converge for one huge eating-and-talking-nonstop-except-for-naps fest with both sides of my extended families.
Can you tell that I’m looking forward to it?
I will post again on November 30, the Friday after I return from my journey.
Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Filed under general | Comment (0)“we fall but our souls are flying”
I AM VERY EXCITED BECAUSE I GOT A LIBRARY RESEARCH GRANT! And not only that, but my roommate got one as well! Go Elena Yamamoto! Wooh!
What are the library research grants, you ask me? Friends of Murray Library offers Messiah students the chance to earn awards of up to $750 to go somewhere and research something near and dear to their hearts every year.
For me, the research relates directly to my senior honors project in English. I’ll be going to Vassar College to view Elizabeth Bishop’s poem manuscripts and travel journals. I want to study her revision practices, particularly the patience she displayed in completing poems. One poem, “The Moose,” took her 20 years to complete. If I can, I want to see how she made decisions about what should be kept, what should be scrapped, and when a poem was complete. I’ve never been to any part of New York that isn’t New York City, so I’m pretty psyched. Yeah adventure!
Elena is going to fly out to LA to see Japanese textiles for her senior honors project as well. She’s studying textiles in the Edo period. Did you know that in the Japanese weaving industry, as an apprentice, you are not even allowed to touch the loom for years? How amazing is that? By the time you got to the actual weaving process, it would seem like such a privilege.
Also, in other news related to fun campus happenings, there was an impromptu rave at exactly 12:12 in Lottie Nelson Dining Hall today. And by “rave,” I mean that someone snuck into the sound system and put on rave music, switched off all the lights, and about three people stood up and started dancing.
Still, massively entertaining. My entire table burst out laughing and didn’t stop for an entire five minutes. I like living in an apartment, but I sort of miss Lottie, just because there’s so much amazing group interaction that takes place there. Against all odds, Lottie Nelson is a cool hangout. Who knew?
Filed under general, humor, housemates, travels, raves, lottie nelson | Comments (2)“and when we sing I hear another devil dies”
I love fall and winter. These two season are an equation for both stark and abundant beauty. And together, they equal lots of hot chocolate and tea and coffee and cuddling up in blankets to read my favorite books. Well, at least as a kid they equaled my favorite books. Now it’s more like homework. Can I ask a question to northerners? Is there an equation for determining when it is appropriate to get out one’s winter coat? I didn’t even own one until I came to Messiah, since I live in Alabama where we get an annual snowfall of one flurry. And it never even sticks to the red Alabama clay.
Maybe I over-reacted to the cold, just a little, that first winter. I wore three layers at all times and the coat my family kindly purchased so I didn’t freeze to death on the way to class is so puffy and huge that in itself it weighs fifteen pounds. It is also, coincidentally, the same bright yellow-green of my living room walls back home. I didn’t exactly master appropriate footgear for winter at first, either. The first snow delay we had at Messiah, I went out to play in the snow — in clogs. Um. . . yeah, that was cold.
Then came learning to drive in snow. I didn’t realize that I should check my antifreeze, get a shovel to put in the trunk of the car, or budget time to warm up the car before driving anywhere. I also didn’t exactly grasp how much extra time I would need for braking, either. At least I learned without actually getting into an accident.
So now I’m seeking out things to do indoors to entertain myself. Not that midnight walks are unpleasant in the winter, there is just much more gearing up and girding of the loins that goes on. And somehow I lost one of my gloves since last winter. How does that happen? Are there glove gremlins or something?
One of the indoor activities my boyfriend and I enjoyed last weekend was a visit to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, conveniently located only 45 minutes from campus (although maybe Messiah does not tout that as a local attraction).
Mmmm. . . I remember my sophomore year Lucy and I visited the Faire and had roasted pecans. . . So delicious! So sugary and warm! It rained all day, so we were among the very few visitors and got to interact with many of the Faire’s denizens (including Will Shakespeare!). And Lucy is an individualized major here at Messiah, studying Medieval and Renaissance history, so she loves the old language and food and of course the enthusiastic improv. My favorite part of that visit involved Will Shakespeare. He tried to get us to act out Romeo and Juliet, feeding lines from the play to participants. He abridged, them, however — and Lucy knew the play so well that she quoted the correct, full lines, and Will was flabbergasted. We were so glad to get into the car afterwards and turn the heat on high.
But wait, you say, it sounds like the Renaissance Faire is outside, and I thought you were seeking indoor activities! Why yes, it is outdoors, and in fact it’s also closed for the winter. However, the Faire also hosts various performances throughout the winter months, such as spooky performances of Edgar Allen Poe’s work near Halloween and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol near (you guessed it) Christmas.
Greg & I went to the super spooky Edgar Allen Poe performances, where we saw interpretations of “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and last but certainly not least, “The Raven.” All the characters came back from the dead (so to speak) to entertain visitors at the old mansion on the Faire property. Surprisingly enough, Will Shakespeare appeared in this performance at the Faire as well. Only this time, he appeared as Fortunato, who gets walled up in a basement and buried alive in “The Cask of Amontillado.” I’m sure he didn’t remember Lucy or I, but I enjoyed seeing him take on another role.
I admit, I enjoy blogging on Fridays. I can wholeheartedly speak cheerfully about the coming days, because they’re the weekend. I myself intend to abandon the role of conscientous student, at least for today, and curl up with a movie, some hot chocolate, and maybe a book. Have a happy Friday!
Filed under general, lollipops, the renaissance faire, winter, fall, snow, incompetent southerners | Comment (1)“black bird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see.”
I’ll be candid. Normally I hate the Department of Visual Arts’ New York City field trip (last time, in sophomore year, I had the flu). I don’t really like cities, much less New York City, where it is a challenge to navigate the crowded side walks and the smell is so extremely distinctive. And I don’t really like getting up at 6 a.m. and getting back at midnight (it’s a marathon of a day). But this year, I count the sunken eyes and tired feet worth it.
I am a lot closer to the senior class of art majors than I was to the sophomore class of art majors. So hanging out with them was a lot of fun. Even if we did walk way more than can possibly be healthy. = )
Also, I am not as attached to or intimidated by tradition as I once was. I used to sit in museums and think, “I can never be an artist. Look at all this stuff. Look how good it is.” Or I would think to myself, “I can never be an artist. I don’t think this is art at all. How can I be an artist if I reject the tradition of art?” This time, when we visited the Museum of Modern Art, I thought, “Hey, this is great. Look at all this stuff. It’s beautiful! I’m gonna make something beautiful some day.” And when we visited the galleries in Chelsea, I thought, “No wonder these people are making such disturbing art. They live in New York City. I’m going to make art, but I’m going to make art that is true to my own little slice of life regardless of what is gallery-worthy or not.”
It was fascinating to see what NYCAMS students thought was gallery-worthy, too. The NYCAMS studios, which we visited over lunch, were beautiful. Hard-wood floors, big windows, the artwork the students are working through for their studio class hanging everywhere. Their one art class is basically whatever they want, culminating in a show at the end of the semester. The studios are seven floors up, so it is not nearly so claustrophobic as being on the street, and the kitchen area seems tranquil and focused (of course, I always do my best thinking in the kitchen anyway). NYCAMS students also get to work at an art-related internship, whether it’s working for a gallery, a design firm, or working apprentice-like for a painter. And that would be a phenomenal opportunity. Maybe it would be difficult to live in the city for me, but if I had some extra time at Messiah, I’d consider applying.
New York City is full of trends and absurdity, in art as well as in general. Some of the Messiah students who were studying at NYCAMS this semester showed us around and took us to their favorite cupcake cafe. “Cupcakes are so chic right now,” said Elena-my-roommmate. Yes, in New York City, even cupcakes can be chic. People wear the strangest hats and dresses over skinny jeans and high-heeled boots.
I engaged most with the city when we stopped for the cupcakes. I’m not that into cupcakes, no matter how chic they are, so I settled for a welcome dose of caffeinated goodness (i.e. coffee). Our group overwhelmed the seating available inside the cafe, so several of us retired to benches outside, and I ended up on a bench by myself. Not long after I sat down, an old woman in a plaid coat and a black scarf came out of the cafe and sat down beside me.
She started talking about how she is a pianist and walked in Chelsea at night once when it was dangerous (because there’s still such a homeless problem). She asked me where I was from and talked about the pace of life in the city and visiting her son and how it seemed boring to her but maybe it was peaceful for him. She talked about how hard it is to be an artist and that maybe I should consider another line of work or else choose to make mass art. She asked me why people make mass art? Well who knows the answer to that one?
I excused myself after ten minutes or so and went back inside the cafe to ask what time we had to meet the busses to go back to little ol’ Grantham, Pa. That conversation, however odd, made me realize that living in New York City could be valuable to a writer because there are so many strange characters to study and a particular rhythm of conversation that could be used to create an engaging narrative. But I think that I would miss slowly considered speech.
Living in a city could also be valuable in forcing one to develop a sense of architectural space, but I would definitely miss seeing green things and the leaves changing, actual silence and seeing the star-deep fields at night.
Filed under general, absurdity, the real world, travels, strange old women on benches | Comment (0)