Week #2 Pictures

Week two of camp is over already.  Both existing gardens have been planted, and so our focus will be on the Spring Street property from here on out.  We planted some tomatoes and some other vegetables Thursday at the Linmar Day camp.  Here are some photos from of the third and fourth graders planting tomatoes:

The first and second grade class also helped with some planting of cucumbers and string beans, but I misplaced the camera so I don’t have any good pictures from their class.  It was really hot outside by the time the fifth and sixth grade class would have gotten outside, so in lew of planting, we watched the video The Story of Stuff.  The class seemed to really like it and they really understood parts of it.  Hopefully it encourages them to think critically.

Art camp continues to go well too.  Ethan and I have started facilitating a mural project that I picked up last summer from a fellow grad student at Eastern University.  Here are some photos from the project:

Students created images out of different pictures from National Geographic.

Then they selected their three favorite images as references for the mural.

Using an overhead projector, we blew up the image, traced it, and began working on a black and white acrylic underpainting.

After day one of the black and white underpainting, the image is already starting to take shape. I think it is going to look great with some color.

an end of the year post

In less than 50 words, here was my year:

• graduated from college
• started graduate school
• moved to PA
• began work at Starbucks
• dropped out of graduate school
• quit dating deanna
• wrote a lot
• read a lot
• painted some
• still a pacifist
• met some great people and made some new friends

Best books I read this year:

• Dandelion Wine
• For the Time Being
• An American Childhood
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
• Watership Down
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

Favorite Music Albums:

• Tennessee Pusher, Old Crow Medicine Show
• Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
• Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Assortment of Eggs, Andrew Bird
• A Ghost is Born, Wilco
• Drunkard’s Prayer, Over the Rhine

Most haunting quote of the year that I will take with me into 09:

Cry the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.  Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.  Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley.  For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

I hope two-thousand and nine is a year of:

• writing
• painting
• quiet

I’m definitely starting graduate school.  I graduate with my BA May 17th, and less than three weeks later I will begin working on my MA in Urban Studies.  I’m pretty darn excited, so excited its making concentrating on my current classes a bit more difficult.  Nothing to kill your motivation like being accepted into grad school, eh?   I’m so tempted to just throw in the towel, but I seem to be temperamentally incapable of quite rolling over and dying.  My first residency and classes will be June 4-11.  I’ll be taking the following:

1. Foundations for Arts in Transformation
2. Arts, Creativity, and Human Development
3. Arts and Spiritual Development
4. Arts in Education
5. Organization for Community Arts

I’m sure there will be lots of fuel there for future pontifications.

I’m really nor sure where I’m going to be working so if you know any place that is hiring English Majors, besides Wendy’s, then feel free to pass along some information.  I was listening to The Prairie Home Companion the other day and they told me that, “An English Major’s prize, is a job selling fries, or making lattes nice and hot…”  I’m afraid that might end up being my lot, at least for the next couple of years.  I do have an interview next week with Americorps for a possible literacy position in Pittsburgh.

On April 1, 2008 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr’s latest work, Armageddon in Retrospect, was published.  I received it in the mail on the 9th, and was done with it by the 12th.  I really do love old KVJ (not to be confused with KJV).  He really did respect Jesus, I’m a little disappointed he never really became a full, outright, follower of him.  Anyway, Armageddon is a series of short stories and essays about war and peace.  KVJ served during WW2, and even though he was not in combat for very long he saw some gruesome pictures of humanity.  His accounts of his German captivity in Dresden is haunting.  His depictions of Americans as just like their German enemies, as well as the Russians, helps remind us that we are no better than our enemies most of the time.  The allies firebombed Dresden into rubble.  Dresden that was a civilian city filled with hospitals, schools, the arts, and churches.  Over 100,000 lost their lives overnight, many of them women and children.  Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners spent weeks digging out bodies from the rubble.  One corpse he found was of a young boy with his dog still leashed to him.

Anyone who likes KVJ will like this book.  It is much more reserved than some of his other books.  It has an older feel to it.  Anyone interested in some creative arguments against war should pick it up too.  Fiction is capable of making the truth digestible, even if not desirable.

Looking Ahead

I’m a forward thinking person, and I think that drives some people crazy. It sometimes drives me crazy. I’ve been looking forward to life after graduation for a while. I’ve wanted to move to Aliquippa since I first worked there back in 2006. I considered transferring to two different colleges in the area. But now, graduation is finally on the horizon, and I’ve got some exciting things coming.

A little over a week ago I received a letter of acceptance to Eastern University for a graduate program in Urban Studies: Arts in Transformation. I sent in my non-refundable deposit this week, which pretty much seals that I will be going there next Fall. It is a two year Master of Arts program designed for people who work full time on the side. It is low residency, so I only need to be in Philly for about two weeks a semester. I’ll be moving into Aliquippa initially for at least the next year. When I get more information on courses and all that I’ll probably update.

graduate school?

Alright, so in my last post I mentioned I was planning on joining a CPT delegation to Israel.  Those plans might be shifting just a touch.  I found out Friday morning that I’ve been accepted into graduate school at Eastern University.  I’d be working on a Master of Arts in Urban Studies, concentrating on Arts in Transformation.  It is a fascinating program, and a privilege to be accepted into it.  I’ll be deciding in the upcoming days/weeks whether or not to attend.  More updates to follow…