One of Many Odes to a best friend. September 27, 2009

This is a manipulated song about just wanting to mean the world to that friend who means the world to you. You have a lot of history, but somehow those times seem to get lost or forgotten, and before long you start to fear you can’t remember what that bond was in the beginning. You want everyone to know all that you’ve shared. Wanting a soulmate is not selfish.

Hello, tell me you know. Yeah, you’ve figured me out? Something gave it away…
It would be such a beautiful moment to see the look on your face, to know that I know that you know now.

I guess that’s a case of my wishful thinking: You know nothing. You and I, we can carry on for hours on end. We get along much better than you and that person you’re interested in.

Well, all I really want to do is love you,
The kind that the closest of friends use.
But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through.

And all I really want from you is to feel me,
As the feeling inside keeps building.
And I will find a way to you if it kills me, if it kills me.

Well, how long can I go on like this, wishing to be your everything, before I rightly explode?
And this double life I lead isn’t healthy for me; in fact, it makes me nervous. If you find out, I could be risking it all… There’s a lot that I’d miss in case…

All I really want to do is love you,
The kind that the closest of friends use,
But I still cant say it after all we’ve been through.

And all I really want from you is to feel me,
As the feeling inside keeps building.
And I will find a way to you if it kills me, if it kills me

If I should be so bold, I’d ask you to hold my heart in your hand, and tell you from the start how I’ve longed to be your friend. But I never said a word– I guess I’m gonna miss my chance again.

Well, all I really want to do is love you
The kind that the closest of friends use
But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through.

And all I really want from you is to feel me,
As the feeling inside keeps building.
And I will find a way to you if it kills me, if it kills me.

[Song thanks to Jason Mraz, of course. Speaking of soulmates...]

Friends in high and unlikely places September 22, 2009

So sometimes, I tend to get extremely overwhelmed by barbershop. Mostly, this is because i have no idea how to convey to people how much I love it and how much it means to me. Also, it seems a little strange that it’s so specific. Like, I could be just in love with singing in general, or by karaoke or something, but no, I have to be utterly obsessed with barbershop. It’s just weird.

However, in the barbershop community, it is completely normal. I challenge you to find someone in this organization who is just sort of so-so about barbershop. Someone who can say “eh, I can live with or without it. It’s just sort of a hobby.” No. That’s not the way it works. You may not be obsessed with it when you enter the org, but you sure as hell are after two months, if not after one visit.

So, here is my absolutely fantastic barbershop story for the day.

About a year ago, this woman in my chorus said something like, “oh, you’re going to Evergreen? You should look for this police officer who sings barbershop, Tom or Tim or something… I can’t remember his last name.” Of course I thought, “well, gee, isn’t that specific,” and I didn’t try too hard to find him. Plus, their uniforms just say their last names, so I didn’t have much to go on, and I didn’t want to go to Police Services and ask for some guy who sang barbershop. ha.

So today I was sitting at the Student Activities fair with my roommate. I was representing the CPJ and the Police Services booth was right next to ours. She pointed at the officer who was at that table, and said that she’s heard him sing at this drug and alcohol presentation thing she’d gone to, and that he was quite good. Then I heard the EIC and biz manager of the CPJ talking to him and calling him Tim.

Long story short, once everyone left, I said to him, “so, I hear you sing,” and he said, “yeah,” and I said, “do you sing barbershop, by any chance?”

He said, “Barbershop is my life.”

And with stars in my eyes, I’m sure, I said, “meee toooo!”

Thus began a long conversation during which we discovered that we know many of the same people, but it turns out that he’s actually WAYYYY high up in the organization and so is his wife, so he’s, like, friends with the lead of OC Times and stuff, and coaches by ex-director’s quartet and stuff.

MY GOD am I excited. I never want to talk to people at Evergreen about Sweet Adelines, because let’s face it, it’s just weird. Sequins and energetic faces? Definitely not Evergreen-ish. So I cannot tell you how amazing it is to have this resource and be familiar with this guy. Unfortunately, it’s led to a bit of a stalking tangent on my part, so I found this video of his quartet (two of the members are former Kings, which means that they have won International before. Five times, in fact. SO amazing). Enjoy :)

… and I just read back over that post, and it’s awful. I think the more excited I get about something, the less articulate I am. So, I’m sorry about that. But I’m not going to change it because you all deserve to see my blunders.

A poem by Rumi: “An Awkward Comparison” September 19, 2009

[The formatting doesn't hold. I'll try to figure that out later. Also, I chose it randomly from a book of Rumi's poems that I have. I might decode it later in another post. Enjoy]

———-

“An Awkward Comparison”

This physical world has no two things alike.

Every comparison is awkwardly rough.

You can put a lion next to a man,

but the placing is hazardous to both.

Say the body is like this lamp.

It has to have a wick and oil. Sleep and food.

If it doesn’t get those, it will die,

and it’s always burning those up, trying to die.

But where is the sun in this comparison?

It rises, and the lamp’s light

mixes with the day.

Oneness,

which is the reality, cannot be understood

with lamp and sun images. The blurring

of a plural into a unity is wrong.

No image can describe

what of our fathers and mothers,

our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.

Language does not touch the one

who lives in each of us.

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teacher says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more

marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest. This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,

and it doesn’t move from outside to inside

through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.

The past can be the future. Why go back? September 18, 2009

Introducing the first thing I have posted on my wall (REAL wall, that is–NOT Facebook) since I have moved into my apartment:

The very first issue of the Cooper Point Journal (CPJ), the paper for which I am the print managing editor (there is a web managing editor for, obviously, the web edition). The CPJ is a weekly publication put out by the CPJ student group, but more broadly, it is a paper by and for the students, which is most important. The CPJ accepts any type of content from anyone enrolled as a student at the Evergreen State College, which is very cool. We have two advisors, but they don’t have any say over what goes in the paper (nor does any other faculty member). The student group is comprised entirely of students who put out the web and print publication, as well as students to manage and maintain the business side of things. We only receive a certain amount of funding from the Student Activities department of the school, and the student activities funds come directly from students through tuition, so the paper is quite literally BY the students, in all senses. Students in positions of responsibility receive a learning allotment most weeks of the quarter, which enables them to spend the time that they do at the CPJ.

The CPJ is not a “job,” and we do not get “paid.” We don’t even “work.” We have responsibilities, and are held accountable for those responsibilities by the mere fact that we are members of the organization. We don’t need to know a certain amount before coming into a position at the CPJ (seriously, I am a managing editor after only 3 years of being involved in journalism of any sort; that tells you something), but we are encouraged to learn while we’re at the CPJ–hence the designation of the CPJ being a “learning laboratory.”

Anyway, as my position indicates, I am responsible for the print edition of the paper, which is weekly. The first paper came off the presses today, and I got to watch it happen. I was given a copy right then and there, with that picture on the cover that I took and the cover design that I did. I was (and am) so proud of that thing.

So… why do I feel guilty? The thing about the CPJ is that, since we don’t “work,” we don’t have hours, so technically we are at liberty to leave whenever we want. But since we are responsible and accountable for certain tasks, they should be priority. Plus, there is always the chance that more may come up, or tasks may be delegated, and there is the real looming responsibility of the actual publication. So “leadership” (the business manager, associate business manager, editor in chief, associate editor, web managing editor, and print managing editor) are usually under the impression that other members will be (or should be) as dedicated to producing the overall result as we are. Well, frankly, sometimes they just aren’t.

That should be fine with us. I mean, technically their position has certain responsibilities assigned to it, and if they take care of those they are free to lead a life. The problem is that we get so caught up in what has to be done, and usually we are so short-staffed, that we feel the need to delegate tasks to these people that somehow have gotten done with their section early.

…Ok, I’m tired of explaining this, so the short version is that there is A TON of guilt-tripping in the CPJ. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

I felt the guilt pressure almost all of last year in my various positions, as well as this past summer when I was at home having a normal life when everyone else was at the office having responsibilities in which I was expected to take part or share.

So though I never told anyone when I came back this year, my ultimate goal is to never guilt trip someone. If someone is done and says something like “…so…I think I’ll head out now,” I can respond with no more than, “all right. If you find you have more time, let us know if you’re free and we can give you something to do.” That’s it. Because I am so fed up with these people being presented with that situation of someone wanting to leave and saying, “well… ok… it would be great if you could stay a while longer, because there’s a lot left to do…”

What BS. Suck it up and do some work yourself. Last night was production night, and I felt like I did a ton because we were short-staffed and people left. And I was fine with it. I am at the CPJ because I have an extreme passion for journalism. And I want that passion to show through my drive and motivation to put out a quality paper without too much perfectionism. Actually, I can’t imagine what it would be like if we had a full staff. What would I do?!

Our advisor once said, when we were anticipating the switch to our primarily online medium, that “Jo can put out a print paper by herself. So what you guys need to focus on is the website.” And, though that probably wouldn’t be something I’d prefer in the heat of the moment, it sounds a little daringly awesome.

It won’t happen. The CPJ is a students’ paper, not a student’s paper. [If you don't understand that line, please leave this blog. Now.]

And I don’t want it to happen. I am so caught up in the awesomeness of the ‘voice of the students thing’ that I never want to give that up. Why would a publication function any differently?

It seems like every time I find something new about Evergreen, I react to it like I did when I got my Mac: Why would ever go back to how it/I was before? In fact, that happens with many facets of my life.

Why would I ever go back to a school that gave grades and pushed a competitive learning environment?

Why would I ever go back to a life without barbershop music?

Why would I ever go back to being involved in a newspaper that wasn’t by and for the people?

It’s so important. I realized this when the EIC was working on launching the website today. Before, I had been rather caught up in how the site would look, and how it would function, blah blah blah, just so that people would want to look at it and come back to it and become a member of the site, etc. But now, I want it to look very rustic and work-in-progress-like, so that people will instead come up to us and say something like, “btw, that website of yours… uh… sucks.” Then, I will be able to tell them [quite honestly, mind you], “I’m so glad you think so! We would love to have your expertise, or at least some input about it!”

Does that sound dorky? Because I think it sounds really exciting.

[Something]’s Gonna Change My World September 11, 2009

I have about ten saved drafts of other posts I’ve started over the past couple weeks… but on this day, I feel more like starting anew.

You know how they tell you in high school that once you get into “the real world, then blah blah blah”? I never knew whether the Real World started after college, or before, or during, or at the moment of graduation from high school, or right when you became financially independent, or what. Who knows whether any of us are in the Real World at all. (I know that statement is a little too Matrix-y, but whether it’s a metaphor or not, sometimes there IS a world (or many other worlds) out there to which we are blind or deaf).

Occasionally, I know that I’m living in the world in my head. Occasionally, I know that I’m living in a fantasy world created by the media. Occasionally, I know that I’m living in the Real World.

This is what the real world is like: In college, they don’t hold a moment of silence for the lives lost during 9/11/01. I remember in middle and high school (gawd, I’m old) when we would stand with bowed heads, and I’m sure it happens still. But I’m not in an environment where that’s done, and I don’t know why. It’s not that I want that moment of silence…

I think I just want to comprehend the suffering of others. Or maybe I don’t, but I feel like I should. For instance, I have a friend who is in Ghana right now (her blog is at http://heidigroover.blogspot.com/. She updates often and her insight is really great–check it out). She’s sort of a participant observer in the third world/developing country scheme there, and she witnesses first hand the conditions in which the natives live.

It seems like things like that are really valued in our society, because we like to think we’re pretty privileged (when it’s put in perspective). On the other hand, being able to step back and have an honest, solid empathy for those who are suffering is “good.” When Hurricane Katrina happened, the rest of the United States felt sympathetic toward the victims and their loss.

When 9/11 happened, people all over the United States empathized and mourned (partly because it was a threat to everyone, not just those in NYC and the Pentagon).

But what if I can’t comprehend that?

I end up feeling completely heartless simply because I don’t understand suffering. I know what it is, of course, and I’ve experienced a tiny bit myself on a very small scale, but I just haven’t been able to look at suffering in terms of feelings. In other words, I can listen to specific stories of people’s losses around 9/11 and genuinely feel bad for them, but I can’t share their sorrow.

I look at Katrina as a mass loss of homes, pets, belongings, finances, loved ones… but not as a loss of hope or a loss of esteem.

I look at 9/11 as a mass loss of lives and loss of assets (buildings, money). I know it is symbolic, but I have some sort of emotional block from knowing what that really means for our country and for the people more directly affected by the attack.

And I won’t lie; I feel quite awful about all of this. It’s not like I’m apathetic toward everything. It’s just that I guess I have no way of translating that sorrow, so far removed from me, to something closer to home.

But how important is it, to share that burden of sorrow? I feel like it’s a duty for me as an American citizen to feel personally hurt and scared by the events of 9/11. I don’t. But is that something around which the United States really needs to rally?! Do we really need to take on some more pain, and remember it every year?

I may not be very adept [yet?] at feeling empathetic toward others’ pain, but I can sure as hell share their joy.

Heidi, my friend in Ghana, said that she witnessed a funeral procession in one Ghanian village where one of the elderly men in the town had just died. She says, “It was strange to see the way they celebrated the life of the 85-year-old man who had died instead of mourning the fact that he was gone. Even the signs posted around town announced the ‘Celebration of Life,’ not the ‘Funeral ‘or ‘Ceremony.’” (http://heidigroover.blogspot.com/2009/09/830-first-little-big-adventure.html).

I think joy is more universal than sorrow. Even with all the famine, disease, poverty, and other misfortunes ailing many parts of the world, those trials only make small things easier to appreciate, therefore creating more joy. Why don’t we rally around hope? Didn’t Barack Obama’s campaign prove that hope is a much more effective tool?

For a while, I remember plans being laid for an “uplifting” memorial to 9/11 at Ground Zero. While I do think it’s important to keep such an event in our history, I remember a line from one of my favorite movies saying something like, “the best way to forget something is by commemorating it.” Are we afraid of seeming heartless if we just move on? Are we not saving the victims still suffering from the effects of the attacks from enduring further strife?

In a way, it’s not so bad to not comprehend suffering. In fact, I think it’s pretty normal. I think confusion is a more natural and positive response than anger and hatred (but that’s not saying much).

How long did the people who started blaming others for the attacks stop to ruminate on what had actually happened? Life should not be a grand “whodunnit?” setup. Some things are mysteries, including the human brain, heart, and soul, as well as their feelings and functions.

I am not saying that we wouldn’t need to find out who was responsible for something like 9/11. I’m also not saying that anger is not part of the grieving process (i.e., anger IS part of the grieving process). But what do we need to do (personally and on a larger scale) to ensure that compassion is ALSO part of the process, enough to the point where we realize that anger and hatred are only bred from not understanding. We don’t understand death; it has always been mysterious. But we also know that to every time, there is a season. In the heat of the moment, it’s impossible to recognize something like that. I just wonder when blame has solved a problem, and whether it’s reliable enough to keep trying.

Though I may live in a bubble, and only venture into the Real World occasionally, my bubble does facilitate some self reflection. If I’m honest with myself in admitting that I don’t understand suffering and I don’t understand death, I can also realize that I share more common ground with people in joy than in sorrow. Rather than using ignorance in a way that is harmful to myself and others, I would like to exploit the similarity of joy, and breed compassion, hope, and love. Love can penetrate any personal bubble.

“Limitless, undying love which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me on and on, across the universe.” -The Beatles.

That Old Feeling. September 8, 2009

You know how people always say that the most frustrating thing is feeling like you want to cry, but for some reason you just can’t?

Well, I disagree.

The most frustrating thing is feeling like you want to cry, and being completely willing and able to do so, but too busy to actually let yourself cry.

Some would just “get it over with,” but that’s impossible when you know it could last for at least a good half hour (and that’s a LOT of time essentially wasted when you have a ton to do), plus it will give you a raging headache/migraine afterwards, which will be a complete handicap when it comes to getting things done. At the same time, all the thoughts that made you feel like crying in the first place buzz around your head while you’re trying to accomplish things, and that’s pretty much all you can think about.

Is this too depressing? I’m trying to keep it real. I mean, I think most people have had this experience. Am I right? Can I hear an amen?

Progress for Progress’ Sake September 8, 2009

This is from almost a week ago, yikes.

By day two, not only have I unpacked almost everything except my clothes (which, really, I should have unpacked first), but I have also had company over. And not just my dad! My friend Emily (from Oly, not Cd’A) came over with her sister, and then a former floormate, Ian, dropped by. He had other motives, however; he was convinced that a menage a trois was going to take place.

Anyway, I cooked rice in one of the AMAZING pots Haley got (I doubt she knows just how great they are, since she never cooks, but maybe this year she’ll start) and besides that, all I could offer was apple juice and milk… But it was so fun! I definitely want to do that more, as well as having potlucks and just general cooking parties. We could make sushi one day, except that Haley hates sushi…

By the way, I’m not sure I added this in my last post, but I have a few tips on moving (now that I’m just such a seasoned pro, ha ha).

1. This is passed down from at least my grandmother, and it may go back farther. When everything is in your new place, the absolute first thing you should do is locate your sheets and make your bed. It sounds odd, but it means that when the day ends and you’re positively exhausted, you won’t have to do one more thing before you crawl into bed. Nice, huh?

2. I maintain that if you keep things clean from the beginning, it will be easier to do it later on, because you know what clean looks like. In the coming months days, we’ll see if this is true.

3. On your first or second day, scope out a walking path or trail around your house, or a route that you’ll be motivated to follow. Then, when you don’t want to leave the house, get outside, and walk somewhere, you won’t have the excuse, “well, I don’t know where to go!”

…That’s all I have so far. Anyone want to suggest some more?

Room With A View September 1, 2009

Today I moved into my own apartment. It is an epic day and one which will live in infamy.

It’s not exactly mine; my roommate moves in in two weeks. But for now, it’s all mine…

And it is the most glorious feeling in the world.

The things from my storage space came in, the things from home came in, we went shopping (and among the first things I bought, of course, was butter. Just like Julia Child had suggested!), the groceries came in, the dogs came in (my dad was helping me move, and he brought the dogs from home, YAY!), and I came in.

I don’t know why it’s so good, or how to explain it, but it’s just the best thing ever. I’m pretty sure I felt very similar to this when I moved into my dorm, but not exactly. This is completely different. I have bills to pay, mouths to feed (well, not really… just mine), and it’s amazing.

Like every apartment, it has its drawbacks, but for the most part, it is perfect, right down to the chipped molding and weird drawer system. I have a walk-in closet, my own bathroom, and at least as much room as I had in my bedroom at home.

As I’m writing this, cars are speeding by on the road that lies RIGHT next to our building, but it’s all good. Actually, even that is quite amazing. I live next to a ROAD!!!!

I’ll continue to update “you” about how this is all working. So far, I moved everything into the kitchen first, just because I was so excited that I HAD one.

The things I need to buy:

Tupperware, a set of knives, a standing light (because there’s no overhead light in my room), some more groceries, a shower curtain, and probably some more hangers.

Does anyone know a cheap place to look for these things? Especially the knives and shower curtain. The other things can come from Goodwill or Safeway or Costco. I’m thinking Ikea for the lamp thing…

Going to bed now, to rest for a full day of journalism training tomorrow. Wild Life!!!