Peaceful Music
Although I have a migraine, I semi slept it off, and am now listening to Jack Johnson. I feel really peaceful. I am really happy with my schedule this term, I feel it really reflects who I am...if you added a religion/environment class it would be me in classes, except it's nice to get away from the science of plants and just work with them for who they are anyways, which is what I do in the greenhouse. Anyways, I am taking:
Advanced Techniques: Problems in Painting
Children's Literature
Music Composition
In the painting course I get to set up my own narrative still life and spend ten weeks painting it. I'm including an antique sewing machine, an antique typewriter, my dinosaur Boris, a vinyl and a picture of my great gramma, maybe some buttons, but I still need a drapery, something fabric, so I'm going to improvise that. I wanted to put in Kelsey's gramma sweater, but I wear it a lot, it's my antioch security blanket, and I can't go ten weeks, let alone 10 hours without wearing it.
In the Children's Literature course I basically get to read and give my opinions on children's books, so it's really fun.
In music composition I am learning proper chord structure and all my scales on the piano...it's wonderful to have some theory back in my life. Fuck you paul mccartney, at least I can read music.
Anyways, Matt is also putting together a zine, and I am contributing a lot. Matt was supposed to go to Antioch, and is the most mature antiochian first year at heart I have ever met. It's like he already understood everything antioch taught me without going there...Anyways, I wrote two articles, one a bit longer and one shorter, but I'm putting in here my longer one, entitled: commUNITY?...:)
Why does COA sound so inviting but really you don’t feel fully accepted?
Why is it that with a campus of 295 student, 29 full-time and 13 part-time faculty do we not know each other’s names?
Why does ACM sound like a good idea, but people are lazy and don’t care too much about going?
WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE INVOLVED?
Shouldn’t we want to know and participate? So what exactly is holding us back?
It should be important to us to go to ACM; we shouldn’t want to miss it at all!
I feel like ACM isn’t pulling or inviting enough for me to go. “It’s not about me, or doesn’t directly affect me,” so I think, when really it does, so what makes me think that?
Coming in as a transfer student was super hard. Even harder coming from a school that was like family to me. A true community, a true democracy, where people cared and showed it, where people weren’t afraid to challenge the norm and be themselves, where people spoke up for what the thought was right, and had fun at the same time. Where I learned by independent investigation and social interaction. When I was told to transfer, I thought COA possessed the same qualities, which I still think it does, I just think they are in hiding. So what can we do to bring out these amazing qualities in COA?
I think we need to make ACM more about what concerns us a community. Committee proposals and updates get really old when that’s all there is to an hour and a half long meeting. In the handbook it specifically states that the ACM is a time for Policy making, but more importantly Consultation, Community Building, Education and Communication. I don’t really see how Community Building, Education and Communication fall into committee reports very well. Under the list of primary functions of ACM, there are three underlined paragraphs, Dialogues, Community Forums, and ACM Membership. Let’s talk about the first two subjects.
The Handbook states that dialogues are scheduled by Steering Committee for the purpose of discussions on topics concerning the business of the college. It also says that Steering Committee “more generally addresses community concerns that are continually important or arise during the course of the year.” So really, we could all go to Steering Committee and say what’s bothering us about the atmosphere of the college, but really, who has the guts to be that first person? In a culture where conflict is avoided, and COA is supposedly so progressive, shouldn’t WE be the ones taking on the possible conflict to mend what isn’t quite right by standing up and speaking out for what is?
The second object listed is Community Forums. What?!? There is supposed to be a time in every ACM devoted to OUR concerns about the COA community and environment we live, learn and work in? The Handbook states, “The Community Forum was created to address concerns beyond the immediate affairs of the college. The Community Forum focuses on issues that benefit from an interdisciplinary discussion and illuminate the diversity of perspectives existing in the community. CommUNITY! The handbook calls us a community, even though most times it doesn’t really feel like we are one, even though we like to think we are, right? The definition of community according to the Merriam Webster online dictionary is: a unified body of individuals. I think in order to feel unified, like a community is, we need to address scary things, like how we feel about each other, the community and the actions of others that directly affect us all. I feel that Community Forum is a really important thing and needs to be brought back. I know it’s scary saying what you think. Look at me, I mean I didn’t even have the guts to go to a steering committee meeting without a friend who had already gone to talk about this issue I have, instead I wrote it down to be put in this publication, a less threatening way to speak my voice. But lets do just that. If it’s too scary to speak your mind out loud right away, try writing it down first and submitting it to the zine. But if you are ready to talk out loud, if you’re really ready to talk about why it’s important that we all wear green socks on Tuesdays at 4, and need to explain how it affects all of us and hinders our effectiveness as a community, speak your voice! The first action that is needed to strengthen COA as a real and true community as well as a more effective democracy is to give us a more accessible and less threatening way to speak our voices. BRING BACK COMMUNITY FORUM!
Namaste
P.S. I went to yoga downtown with people I didn't know so it was a non threatening environment, and it was amazing and beautiful and I may have to do it more often. :)
Advanced Techniques: Problems in Painting
Children's Literature
Music Composition
In the painting course I get to set up my own narrative still life and spend ten weeks painting it. I'm including an antique sewing machine, an antique typewriter, my dinosaur Boris, a vinyl and a picture of my great gramma, maybe some buttons, but I still need a drapery, something fabric, so I'm going to improvise that. I wanted to put in Kelsey's gramma sweater, but I wear it a lot, it's my antioch security blanket, and I can't go ten weeks, let alone 10 hours without wearing it.
In the Children's Literature course I basically get to read and give my opinions on children's books, so it's really fun.
In music composition I am learning proper chord structure and all my scales on the piano...it's wonderful to have some theory back in my life. Fuck you paul mccartney, at least I can read music.
Anyways, Matt is also putting together a zine, and I am contributing a lot. Matt was supposed to go to Antioch, and is the most mature antiochian first year at heart I have ever met. It's like he already understood everything antioch taught me without going there...Anyways, I wrote two articles, one a bit longer and one shorter, but I'm putting in here my longer one, entitled: commUNITY?...:)
Why does COA sound so inviting but really you don’t feel fully accepted?
Why is it that with a campus of 295 student, 29 full-time and 13 part-time faculty do we not know each other’s names?
Why does ACM sound like a good idea, but people are lazy and don’t care too much about going?
WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE INVOLVED?
Shouldn’t we want to know and participate? So what exactly is holding us back?
It should be important to us to go to ACM; we shouldn’t want to miss it at all!
I feel like ACM isn’t pulling or inviting enough for me to go. “It’s not about me, or doesn’t directly affect me,” so I think, when really it does, so what makes me think that?
Coming in as a transfer student was super hard. Even harder coming from a school that was like family to me. A true community, a true democracy, where people cared and showed it, where people weren’t afraid to challenge the norm and be themselves, where people spoke up for what the thought was right, and had fun at the same time. Where I learned by independent investigation and social interaction. When I was told to transfer, I thought COA possessed the same qualities, which I still think it does, I just think they are in hiding. So what can we do to bring out these amazing qualities in COA?
I think we need to make ACM more about what concerns us a community. Committee proposals and updates get really old when that’s all there is to an hour and a half long meeting. In the handbook it specifically states that the ACM is a time for Policy making, but more importantly Consultation, Community Building, Education and Communication. I don’t really see how Community Building, Education and Communication fall into committee reports very well. Under the list of primary functions of ACM, there are three underlined paragraphs, Dialogues, Community Forums, and ACM Membership. Let’s talk about the first two subjects.
The Handbook states that dialogues are scheduled by Steering Committee for the purpose of discussions on topics concerning the business of the college. It also says that Steering Committee “more generally addresses community concerns that are continually important or arise during the course of the year.” So really, we could all go to Steering Committee and say what’s bothering us about the atmosphere of the college, but really, who has the guts to be that first person? In a culture where conflict is avoided, and COA is supposedly so progressive, shouldn’t WE be the ones taking on the possible conflict to mend what isn’t quite right by standing up and speaking out for what is?
The second object listed is Community Forums. What?!? There is supposed to be a time in every ACM devoted to OUR concerns about the COA community and environment we live, learn and work in? The Handbook states, “The Community Forum was created to address concerns beyond the immediate affairs of the college. The Community Forum focuses on issues that benefit from an interdisciplinary discussion and illuminate the diversity of perspectives existing in the community. CommUNITY! The handbook calls us a community, even though most times it doesn’t really feel like we are one, even though we like to think we are, right? The definition of community according to the Merriam Webster online dictionary is: a unified body of individuals. I think in order to feel unified, like a community is, we need to address scary things, like how we feel about each other, the community and the actions of others that directly affect us all. I feel that Community Forum is a really important thing and needs to be brought back. I know it’s scary saying what you think. Look at me, I mean I didn’t even have the guts to go to a steering committee meeting without a friend who had already gone to talk about this issue I have, instead I wrote it down to be put in this publication, a less threatening way to speak my voice. But lets do just that. If it’s too scary to speak your mind out loud right away, try writing it down first and submitting it to the zine. But if you are ready to talk out loud, if you’re really ready to talk about why it’s important that we all wear green socks on Tuesdays at 4, and need to explain how it affects all of us and hinders our effectiveness as a community, speak your voice! The first action that is needed to strengthen COA as a real and true community as well as a more effective democracy is to give us a more accessible and less threatening way to speak our voices. BRING BACK COMMUNITY FORUM!
Namaste
P.S. I went to yoga downtown with people I didn't know so it was a non threatening environment, and it was amazing and beautiful and I may have to do it more often. :)