Graduation: Suits, Sundresses and Speeches!

Say "commencement" and I think of the iconic hats in the air, formal attire, caps and gowns, long speeches, hugs, final goodbyes, traditions, pomp and circumstance, Latin diplomas.

But Oberlin students don't really do traditional. So I had no idea what to expect.

We got up at 6:30, leaving the house close to 8, so we could get our placement card in time (the placement office closes at 8:30). Then, we did nothing for a while. I got some coffee. Walked around. People-watched. Only about a third of the school wore caps and gowns. More folks wore caps, some decorated the tops. Some folks were really fancy, dressed in prom-best. Most folks I knew wore simple dresses, suits, button-down shirts. Yoshi wore a suit and a top hat.

And me?

Wednesday of Senior Week, Conversation with Beloved Parents:
Mom: What are you going to wear?
Aries: Uh. I don't really know. I don't have time to buy a dress.
Mom: You don't have time to get a dress? I thought you were done with finals now.
Aries: Guys, circus. Circus every day. No time to take a scenic trip to score a dress. I'll look nice. I got a few dresses from the swap.
Mom: ... all right.
Dad: No cap or gown? There's going to be a lot of photos.
Aries: No.
Mom: Wear what you want--
Dad: Just don't do it naked, okay?


The next day, I looked at Weather.com. Sunny, they predict. Warm, they say.
Perhaps... a sun dress?


Sundress. Not a shower curtain.



At 9:00, I lined up, though the illustrious "I" section was pretty small. Then, we waited and waited some more. I skipped to the bathroom, running into professors in their official regalia, as well as Ben Jones, Captain-in-Chief. On their parts, the professors were wearing formal academic regalia, fascinating costumes indicating what kind of degree they held. Their robes were huge, adorned with collars of all different colors. They looked like ... well... Harry Potter characters.

The marshals, who led the graduation procession, held batons that looked suspiciously like magic wands. As if they were charming the whole event to go according to plan.


Wands out.



As I left the bathroom, I heard the blast of trumpets. Before I knew it, we had marched to our seats. The ceremony begun: a prayer, introductions, greetings, then Honorary Doctorate Degrees. Though the winners were really cool people: pioneers, activists, scientists and administrators ... some of the introductions were on the long side. The presenters told us the accomplishments of the award recipients, talking about the awards they had won, the councils they chaired, and the foundations they founded...

Meanwhile, Weather.com didn't lie -- the sun was pouring down. As the speakers went on and on, I could feel my arms and legs heating up.


Ary and San. Notice the sunlight?


My favorite presenters were Lynn Powell and Dan Stinebring awarding degrees to Mary and Steve Hammond. It was a perfect match. Mary and Steve are the pastors at Peace Community Church and serve as amazing community leaders. Their work supports so many different groups at Oberlin, from long-term residents to homesick first-years. Dan and Lynn, a physics professor and a poet, are deeply involved in political and arts work. They opened up their house to the Obama campaign, to which they and their children contributed thousands of hours. In Dan's astronomy class (which I loved), he stopped class the week before the election and gave us a lot of voting-related information.


Dan, looking super-serious.


Lee Fisher, Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, gave the introduction for our commencement speaker, Richard Haass. It was an amazing introduction as the two were friends, graduating from Oberlin in the same year. While Haas won immediate success, Fisher had 7 rejection letter from top law schools. The speech was funny, unlike all of the introductions before. Fisher also shockingly humble, never mentioning that he's running for US Senate.

And then, the Commencement Speaker, Richard Haass, speaking on dissent. ... It was interesting. Take a peak here, if you like. Haass gave an apology, not a speech. He didn't make a strong case for showing dissent by working within the system, or how to gracefully duck away from a diseased organization (as he allegedly aimed). The trouble? He used himself as an example. Haass was a foreign policy adviser to both Iraq wars, and stands within the line of bureaucrats that enabled the current situation.

Moreover, the question of dissent in the workplace is not uncommon, but the extremity of Iraq is a bit... enormous. And, at this time, very clear. Most office issues are gray; they're tragic choices for employers and employees to make. They're personal, confusing and unclear. This was not a speech about shades of gray, the kind of thing a recent Oberlin grad is likely to experience.

That said, it was interesting. A speech from a top-notch alumnus speaking on really, really high-security decisions is pretty fascinating, regardless of whether it clarifies my office-place moral quandaries.


Conveniently, President Marvin "Much Adored" Krislov gave an excellent talk that was everything I could have wanted from a commencement speech. From Krislov, we expect brilliance. He's a Rhodes Scholar who took a case (Grutter/Gratz v. Bollinger) to the Supreme Court. His speech was about his unability to get a job after college until he took a part-time job at the YMCA ... it was encouraging. Sometimes, opportunity takes a while, he said.

We stood to receive the diplomas, crossed the stage to shake hands/hug the President-Much-Beloved Krislov and the Class President, Sir Derry. President Krislov gives good hugs, the sign of a great leader.

I walked back to my chair, dazed. When we'd all finally gotten our diplomas, the hats flew into the air. Folks started to hug all around me, wishing each other well.


Liz and I see each other...



And strike!



Everyone loves hugging Yoshi. Especially pretty girls.

The Job!

A week after the first interview, I got an email that I should come in to "answer a few questions." I flipped out a little. Put on a dress, my nicest/tallest heels, tried not to vomit. From the email, I wasn't sure who was getting a follow-up. 38 people applied for the two fellowship jobs, many of them very qualified.

When I arrived at the office, a bit shaky in my heels, Ben Jones was smiling. He asked me a few hard questions which I stumbled through.

Then, he shook my hand and offered me the position.




So... I got the job! I'll be in Oberlin for one more year!




Have a lovely summer.

PS:
From the Source:
Aries Indenbaum -- Web Fellow
Aries works in the Office of Communications assisting the director of new media explore third-party social networking opportunities for Oberlin, managing the Oberlin Stories Project and the admissions blog site, and generally maintaining a connection to the student body. She graduated from Oberlin two days ago with a BA in creative writing. Aries was born in Point Reyes, California, and went to school in New Rochelle, New York. "In my free time, I tell stories, contra dance, write, run, and do circus," she says. Before graduating, Aries worked in admissions and blogged about her experience as a student.

Senior Week (in Webcomics!)

There are two questions of commencement:
1. What are you doing next year?
2. How are you feeling?

I
The job search, in this economy, is very difficult. It causes a lot of stress for graduating seniors who aren't set up with something by commencement. Given the recent strains in journalism, publishing and academia, a lot of upcoming alums have difficulty getting jobs in the fields they want.

It's not a dead-end, but it takes longer than normal. More students are moving into entrepreneurship and starting up with new companies. There's a silk-screening collective start-up, a Chinese learning software company, a music clinic for kids, and a fair-trade Moroccan crafts business.

Environmental studies majors get more luck with the swell of green jobs. Given the billions in stimulus funds given to science research, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, physics and engineering majors (in total, about a third of Obies) are sitting pretty.

I just got a job for which I'm incredibly grateful and happy. And I'll talk about soon, I promise.

And it's not a job like this:


Yeah, I don't think it'll be like this.




II
As for the more difficult "how do you feel" issue...

Everyone takes Commencement differently. Seniors run though several different emotions:

1. Joy! No more papers! No more tests! No more cramming! It's beautiful and there are parties with cool people whom I need to say goodbye to!
2. Sorrow. Where are all my friends going? Should I live with my parents? I'm going to be so lonely...
3. Bliss! I'm ready for the real world! College was amazing, and I'll continue the things I learned here way out there!
4. Anxiety. The real world is scary. People are mean and cruel. What will I do after I get out of work?
5. Confused. I don't know what to feel. I'm going to miss Oberlin, but I'm okay with my plans.
6. Everything All At Once. Like below comic.







While other folks have had the time to feel/think about graduating, I really haven't. Between organizing another circus (we do a commencement show), finishing up a Creative Writing Anthology (Little Leaf), going to functions and freaking out about how cool my job is going to be... I haven't really been self-reflective. Surprised?




Savage Chickens understand me. Even if I don't really understand me.





But I'll try.



College has been better than any other time in my life. When I think about who I was when I arrived here, and who I am now... there's a huge difference. I am a fundamentally different person now. I met amazing people, learned great things, made many stories. I grew up in Oberlin. That's something that doesn't change when finals are over, or during Senior Week, or after I throw my cap into the air and hug all my friends. That change lasts for years.

Addicted to Bad Ideas: Punk-Metal-Rap-Ska Music Shows

Time: Tuesday Morning


There are tiny, intense bruises on my knees and elbows. My hearing is still iffy.

I can still feel the crowd's moshing, dancing and pushing, the way the ocean still moves you even after you've gotten out of the water. I can still see the crowd: folks making a space in the center of the dance floor to let couples kick-dance a demented carnival homba. When the Inferno changed the tempo, the circle exploded into a flying moshpit.

World Inferno Friendship Society. Bucketkickers.

This feeling is familiar.





Time: Sunday Morning (two days previously)


My ears hurt. My thighs hurt. I am super-duper happy.


Tonight: Music party at Harkness, with Andrew Gombas, Birthday Kids, and Dos Mil Días De Fuego. Before that, I saw Spring Back, a dance show, so it's been... a long night.




Spring Back!
The dance department here is growing, with more folks than ever enrolling in classes. We took in two new members of the faculty: Holly Handman-Lopez and Ashley Thorndike. Spring Back is part of the block of dance shows hitting around now -- Sprung, Colors of Rhythm, Essence's Steppin' in da Beat, Oberlin Dance Company and a lot of senior recitals. Warner, the main dance/theater building, is booked. If you dance, this is a good time for you.

The main focus of the dance department is modern, with contact improvisation, capoeria, bodywork and ballet getting some love too. Half of the pieces in Spring Back were modern, the others hip-hop, folk or break. As I have the dance awareness of a child, I seperate dances into:
- Emotive: You're communicating how you feel!
- Movement: You move amazingly! Your body is a work of art, a tool of creation!
There was a nice combination of both.

I must admit to a certain narrative inclination, which poses a problem in an unfiltered enjoyment of movement. Whereas in circus, I see tricks as, well, tricks... dance is an art form. It has meaning. So, to my plot-centric brain, it should have a narrative and relationships.

In the dance piece with three women, they were totally a mother with two daughters who had recently lost their elderly father in a tragic threshing accident. The daughters adjusted to the lost by throwing themselves with childish abandon into their farm tasks; while the mother dejectedly resumed normal functioning.

There were monks in brotherly love, a bride left at the altar, spirits of global warming wrapping their warlike arms around one another with apocalyptic glee...

Or, at least, that's what I saw.

I've had a few conversations with Kai about the difficulty of writing about dance. I can talk about how it made me feel, but not always so clearly about what occurred, without creating childish scenarios. The moves themselves were impressive: many of the performers wore kneepads, given the amount of times they flung themselves at the ground. All of the modern soloists controlled their bodies precisely. Their handstands landed slowly and gently-- they cartwheeled over and around one another.

With the folk/hip-hop/break dances, I find there's more of a vocabulary, because I'm less caught up in a search for story-meaning. They picked the crowd up. The hip-hop group did an incredibly tight piece that looked straight out of a music videos. SPARK rocked, showcasing their old heavies with their new blood. They popped, locked and broke, making Warner into their space. I've seen them do more ridiculous stuff in the past, but this act was so seamless.

I ran to Harkness, ready for action.
Question: Why don't dance concerts end with the audience having a dance party with the cast? Does strike really have to happen the instant the show ends?





Harkness Concert


Harkness Basement is a place of great joy. Amazing bands have played there, amazing food eaten there. It's a cafeteria: there are chocolate milk stains that will never leave the ground. The tables were rolled away and the ground was mopped. On the wall, there were still the co-op food posters on the wall by the drum set:
"Pros and Cons of Soy" and "Report Ideas to the "Fun Committee!""





Fun Committee of Harkness?




Andrew Gombas went first. You may remember him from Ma'ayan's post about Organs... He does music too! Acoustic and electric guitar and brilliant songwriting. Most of his songs are about some twisted, mangled love... like that time you went home with the prettiest girl and she was really into roleplaying games. Like the role-playing game where she's the "dominant young woman" and you're the "stupidface who took her to your home, got stabbed 19 times and robbed blind." That was a good song. It was a singalong.


I love this photo. Andrew looks like Mr. American Psycho.


Andrew:: "You may now know this, but I used to be an improv-style spoken word performer in the south side of Chicago. A rapper, one could say. So, I'll need two words from the audience to let me go..."
Audience :: "Watermelon!" "Somali pirates!" "Elk!" ""
Andrew:: "I heard... ''gun-related violence" and "attractive women."


So, Andrew rapped about ''gun-related violence" and "attractive women," which has a refrain that's so virulently not-PC that I don't think I should share it. Despite all of his evil-doing and disturbing lyrics, Andrew is a truly kind, warm and amazingly stable man. His nickname is Pickles.



Birthday Kids went up after: Liz, Ralph, Jim and Jesse, playing jam rock. Liz sang like a mellowed Janice Joplin; Ralph played the bass like a bear locked in a cellar for a few months. Jim controlled his drum set perfectly, and Jesse loved that guitar like a lover long-separated. The boys were all Connies (conservatory students): Jim is TIMARA, Ralph and Jesse are composition.


They have a lot of fun when they play: one of their games was "Mess with Jesse." Game was: Jim and Ralph would make a rhythm, and Jesse would solo. When folks got bored, they would raise their hands and Jim and Ralph would set a new tempo. Five hands determined the game, so it changed a lot. It also proved how ill Jesse is. That boy loves his guitar.



Liz and Jesse. Note how Jesse cannot see how gorgeous Liz is, due to his overwhelming love of his guitar. This is devotion, people.






After that... Dos Mil Días De Fuego!
Grey on rap/vocals; Sam on vocals; Khari and Sarah on the turntables, Ryan on bass; Jim on drums. It was awesome to hear them in a better venue (not a living room), even if I still didn't hear all of Grey's lyrics.




Grey spreads the word. Word, Grey.




They're an interesting band, with a lot of fluidity. Some songs are really furious and hip-hop/rap/metal, others are silly. Grey makes an excellent emcee, really pushing the crowd; Sam makes jokes and keeps things light, leading interactive dance sequences. She has a low, sweet voice, like a cup of hot chocolate in the morning. Khari and Sarah are sick-- they played amazing dj sets between each band, keeping the energy high. Their samples were tight. Ryan makes superb faces when he plays and holds the beat steady. And Jim? Jim is incredible. He played drums for both bands and after their intense, kickin sets, he smashed out a crazy solo.




Note: Ryan's face. It is superb.





Jim declared King of America.



It was an excellent crowd. We had enough space to dance -- Harkness basement is able to serve over a 100 members for each meal, so it certainly had space for 100 people to dance. There was a lot of good energy there: most people knew someone in the band, or really liked their style, so we had less general-party people and more open, happy, high-kickin' folks.


I left happy and sore, the way it should be.

Introspection: Aries versus Aries

A friend of mine was looking at one of my stories the other day and noticed something, "Your characters don't think very much, do they?"

"What do you mean?" I replied. "They aren't stupid." She's read a lot of my pieces, so her opinion matters to me. We were in the library, in the Commons. I had just started drinking my every constant cup of soy milk.

"No, not stupid. Just not introspective."

"But why would I want them to be introspective?" I asked. I sipped at my milk.

She paused. "Aries, most people are introspective. Most people here at least."

"But I'm not."

"Really?" she seemed surprised. Her eyebrows did a cute wiggly-thing.

"No, I plan things. But I don't really think... about stuff." I paused. "Actually that's weird. I don't. I mean, I do think. Like this milk, it could be better. They should replace Silk with Edensoy cause it's a zillion times better."

"Introspection isn't thinking about milk. It's thinking about yourself."

"But I'm pretty boring on the inside." Even saying it, I felt disinterested. I looked around. The boy next to me was reading BBC News. He looked pretty unhappy. The girl at the other section of the desk was working on a Powerpoint presentation on the Black River Watershed.

"Really? Don't you have a blog? Don't you have things to say about yourself?"

"Bloggers don't have to be introspective," I protested.

"Blogging implied introspection. It's self-reflection," she clarified.

"I am not self-reflective. Reflection clutters narrative."

She put her hands up, "It's not a bad thing. You just... might want to think about stuff. Sometimes. You don't have to, but it's good. Sometimes."

There was no more milk. Dammit, I thought.

"I have to go to class," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. We hugged and she left for class.





Questions:
How many happy introverts are there? Why would I want to be introverted? What could I gain? Aren't most writers introspective so they can mine the human spirit? Do I have to care about the human spirit? Do humans have a spirit?

Maybe I can come up with a motto. That's just like self-reflection, yes? Is it useful to include introspection in a narrative? In a blog? Do you care about what I think (do I?) or just about what I do? Is 'show, not tell' a good rule to apply to life? Can I be introspective without being crippled with self-doubt?


Are you an introvert? Are you happy?


Can't I just have a daily motto? That's like introspection. It's a game plan. I like game plans.

Like this one:

Mammoth Cave: the longest entry in the world.

Oberlin is a small town. A lovely, charming town, but a small town nevertheless. And sometimes, it's great to just get out of town. Thus: Spring break in Mammoth Cave!


Our Heroes: Yoshi, Erika, Andrew, Iris and I
Our Place: Kentucky, Mammoth Cave and Louisville
Our Enemies: Winter, rain, nighttime.



Highlights of Our Adventure:

Mammoth. Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave. Its held a tuberculosis hospital, a Methodist church, saltpetre (an element of gunpowder) and millions of tourists. We took two tours of the cave - a total of five hours underground. One tour guide was amazing: Jo Duvall had been working in the cave since the '60s and knew everything about everything. When President Reagan visited the cave, he talked to Jo to get information for his soundbites. He was a self-identified hillbilly with the articulation of a college professor.

The other tour guide was less amazing, but did have a great sense of humor. When we entered a wet portion of the cave and started seeing stalactites and stalagmites in formation, he explained, "When stalagmites and stalactites conjoin, we call them columns. Some people call them pillars, but I'm a Kentucky man, so pillars are what I sleep on."

We camped out about 10 minutes away from the main cave entrance. Our tent and a bunch of our supplies came courtesy of the Outing Club. Outing Club is so cool - they give free camping funds for food and gas, as well as backpacks, tarps, tents and anything you need for a week/weekend away from school. They've sponsored trips to the Rockies, the Adirondacks and places near and far from the college.



Team Family. Our second tour of Mammoth Cave was a lantern tour - we were given one lantern per family. Given we weren't a family, but yet we were a group, we bunched together and declared ourselves Team Family™.

Friendliness aside, groups take a while to bond. I'd never hung out with Erika, Andrew or Iris before for a long period of time. There's an easy way to tell when an Oberlin group bonds (cite: Yoshi) - it's when we all say we're from Ohio. Decisively. For the first day or so, the "Where are y'all from?" question yields... "Ohio, but-" "California" "Texas" "Wisconsin" "Pennsylvania, by Philly" "California, then New York."

After another day, we are from "Ohio." No ifs, ands, or buts.



Not us. Still, it's a big cave.




Delicious food. The benefit of going camping with co-opers is that they can cook like nobody's business. With excessive amounts of rice, pasta, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, olive oil and mozzarella as bases, Erika/Andrew/Iris made some pretty incredible food. Also, there was much less snacking than other road trips I'd been on. The focus was much more on meals and eating together.




Flutes. Andrew, a double-degree classical saxophone/anthropology major, was playing in the pit band for Reefer Madness. Though he has very little flute training, they wanted him to play a specific line from Peer Gynt for the show. So, he needed to learn flute in two weeks. Who better to teach him than Erika? Apparently, Erika played classical flute for over a decade. So, each morning, as breakfast cooked away, Erika would teach Andrew how to relax his embouchure and play gorgeous music. It was amazing to watch how fast Andrew learned the instrument and how well Erika taught it.



Badass Hiking. I am virulently afraid of falling - I have trouble with any sport involving mountains. I love hiking, though, as long as the paths don't try to kill me. On our first real day, we went hiking, in search of the river. An ice storm had ripped through the parkland in late January and had felled thousands of trees and blocked off a number of roads. As a result, we had to take a more circuitous path to get to the river - a windy little path past tiny waterfalls and giant downed trees. Andrew found a tick on his leg, but the rest of us escaped (I hope). While there were hundreds of birds near the campground, we didn't hear so much as a peep up in the hills. Just miles and miles of woods.

Late March is not the gorgeous time in KY - it's still winter, there's not so much green. But there was gold. Some of the trees held little golden leaves that make a whooshing sound in the wind, similar to rain. It reminded me of the wobbly-headed tree spirits (kodama) in Princess Mononoke.


Kodama! Keep reading, it gets cooler.


After a while, we got a bit bored of this. We couldn't see the river, but according to the map, it was all around us. We went off the trail, which meant a sliding descent.

Given my violent acrophobia, this excellent idea turned uncomfortable very fast. Fear is a somatic emotion - I can feel my heart speed up, sweat pour, and a redness settle over my face. My voice becomes harsher, stomach acid sloshes around my gut. I wanted to be alone. I stared at the river for a few minutes. It was a shining aquamarine, gorgeous and clean.

However, it turned out that Erika was also afraid of heights. After a few minutes of descent, we crawled up to the trail.

Below us, the trio kept going: Iris and Andrew are rock-climbing geniuses and Yoshi has massive upper body strength. We could hear their voices, but not what they said. After about 15 minutes, they rejoined us on the trail, Andrew looking sheepish.

"What happened?" Erika asked. "Did you get to the river?"

"No. Andrew did something really stupid - " Iris said.

"For the sake of testosterone, can we replace stupid with badass?" Andrew interjected.

"Okay. So?"

Andrew had been climbing and saw a steep drop a few steps ahead of him. Aloud, he said, "This will be so much easier if I drop my bag down first."

After dropping the bag and hearing the smack a few minutes later, he said, "Shit. Guys? I need to get my bag back."

So Andrew jumped down and found he had no way to get back up the sheer cliff. There were a few minutes of frustration.

In order to retrieve Andrew, Iris gripped onto a tree, Yoshi hung onto one of her legs, and Andrew climbed up their human ladder.

"Badass," we said.




Our Heroes!

Iris. I didn't know Iris at all, before this trip. But over the days, I started to really enjoy her company. She's from Madison, Wisconsin, and is a life-long co-oper. When she was younger, she lived in a family-focused cooperative and grew up in a much larger family than most other people. We talked about co-ops a lot; I'm thinking of trying to live in one after I graduate for cost/community purposes.

Iris was a founding member of After Midnight, Oberlin's only coed a capella group that sings jazz standards. Whenever Iris or Andrew sat next to each other in the car, they would practice "Lush Life," one of the saddest ballads of all time. Gorgeousness. Iris also had some of the most insane camping stories of going out to odd little islands in Wisconsin to see gorgeous lakes and climb giant rocks. She's also one of the most cheerful, strangely ethereal people I've met -- someone who doesn't get brought down by the little things.



Iris wants to save humanity from becoming extinct. Like this guy to her left.



Yoshi. You know all about Yoshi, gentle viewers. He's my favorite person. On the second day, when he was driving, turkeys attacked the car. Yoshi was terrified. Whenever he drove after that, we pantomimed turkeys, playing into his gobbler-trauma. Though he hadn't gone camping as much as he'd like to, being outside of the school-world is good for him. When we told stories by the fire, I really loved to hear his. I know most of them, but he's a really skilled speaker, so it just gets better and better. He's really good at pausing.

I like him a lot.


Sleeping Yoshi is unaware of the panda about to devour him.



Andrew. I met Andrew as my co-lead for a play that Erika's girlfriend Sarah wrote for David Walker's Playwriting class. We portrayed wanna-be cultists who would do whatever it takes to get into "The Order." Andrew's character kicked the snot out of me while I creepily insisted that he do it. It was so much fun. But that show was at the end of the semester, so we never got a chance to hang out. (Also, I had a gigantic crush on him at the time so I found it difficult to speak in full sentences when he was around.) We did a lot of singing along in the car to Cake songs. Andrew was also a super-mega-tastic outdoorsman. He worked at a nature camp for seven years and thus knows all the less-dangerous ways to have an excellent time. He knows the dangerous ways too, but sometimes keeps mum on them.

And he speaks Czech. This boy is too hardcore.


Timmy and Andrew (Andrew on the right, looking like a Scottish folk hero. Timmy looks pretty foxy.) Credit: Ma'ayan.


Erika. Erika's been composing/playing for circus for as long as I've been around, but as a double-degree student, she's been busy. This year, she's sharing a house with Liz Hibbard, one of my favorite people in the world. Despite her practicing five hours a day, I get to see her more often when I chill in her house. This is excellent, as Erika is simultaneously chill and focused. She's got the easygoing Bay Area feel (her parents are Japanese hippies) but the ambition of a pianist. She's also endlessly curious, charming and considerate. We spoke about environmental politics for a while and I found out that Erika went to MLK Jr. Middle School, Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard. I've read about her middle school in academic papers on sustainability. Craziness. Also, as a shout-out to the project, she's working on urban food sustainability and wants to work in that field after college. Pay it forwards?



Erika, looking chill, photo courtesy of Yitka, who takes sweet pictures.

Swing Dancing > "Real World"

I never bought any of that "greatest years of your life" crap in high school. Sadly, it seems that sentiment might be valid as far as college is concerned.

This terrifying thought struck me last weekend at a Mardi Gras party at French Language House. It wasn't a great party. The venue was too small and didn't have the best acoustics. Still, it was $2 to see an amazing New Orleans-style jazz band ... with beads, tasty king cake and masks. While dancing, I realized it wouldn't be this easy in the "real world." Music wouldn't be ubiquitous; conservatory players would be hot, expensive commodities. Friends would be harder to access, communities harder to join.

In fear of the real world, I resolved to do as many excited, ridiculous things as I can this semester. Especially new things. Like swing dancing.


This weekend I spent a majority of my time at OJDF - Oberlin Jazz Dance Festival. All in all, I took five classes and attended four dances. The classes were perfect: equal follow-lead ratio, strong teaching, good dancers. Very few folks were raw beginners, but we all needed a bit of help, so we could all teach each other. It takes me a long time to learn anything dance-related, so my ability to pick up lindy hop, charleston, Suzie Q's, turns and swivels was surprising.

The Saturday night formal dance was incredible. Obies don't get gussied up all that often, but when they do, it's a sight to be seen. I can still see the shimmer of Ploy's red silk dress ruffling in the hot air. We destroyed that gym floor - the floorboards rattled when the whole crowd danced. The festival hosted two competitions, one individual and one for couples. Competitors weren't only Obies - a few pros entered in, as well as some folks from Kalamazoo who visited for the weekend. It was incredibly well run and the collective skill level was amazing.


I'd always liked swing, both participating and watching. In my first year, I took the Swing Dance Exco but I didn't keep up afterwards after busting up my ankle. Freshman year was a long, long time ago, so I thought I'd lost it all. But this weekend, a lot came back, and I found it pretty easy to pick things up. I've still got a long way to go to feel proficient or be a tolerable follow, but this weekend was so energizing and inspiring. I want to do it. OSwing organizes a jazz dance every 2 weeks, and does a smaller jam each week, as well as blues dancing.



And sometimes, they just do ridiculous stuff... Example: Brett and Haley.


Normal dancing




Preparing for something?



Hot damn.




So much air!




Awwww.

(Photo credits: Ma'ayan "Freakin' Awesome" Plaut)

The attitude of Swing, like Contra, is super-social. I must insist on the superiority of contra for friend-making, due to its inherent silliness, but swing is a social dance. I feel as if I understand my friends I've danced with... in a different way. Sometimes, even watching them dance is enough to get a bigger view of them. When some people dance, they drop their guard. They laugh, they smile, they sweat, they mess up and keep going.