Fall 2009: Addendum and Follow-Up

[violetclm]

This post is obviously late, seeing as I'm already back in Portland by now, in the countdown to the Spring semester, but I thought I might as well go over a few more adventures for posterity/future reference.


Thanksgiving break was again spent at Kay's house. She's not at Reed this year, so Jonah and I contacted camille_c, who was driving up to Seattle, and she gave us and Gavin and May-Ling a ride up and back in exchange for gas money and surprise gluten-free muffins. (She is a camiliac.) We were all amazingly house-bound, but Kay's mother eventually kicked us out into the great city of Seattle, where we wandered around, bought a few things, took a few photos, and split up and wandered around a port looking very emo. The weather helped with the last part. Mostly we stayed at home, though, and played Munchkin and stayed up too late and other such things. A foot cushion proved surprisingly mobile for a prolonged period, and Thanksgiving dinner itself was glorious... a whole bunch of family friends (i.e. Kay's family) showed up, none of whom we visitors much knew, but we got to participate in the familial feeling anyway, which of course is rather different from that of school. There were some great uncles, furthering my desire to be an uncle someday. Prior to the trip Kay and I kept up an email exchange of decent proportion, but the time has flown by since then and I don't think I've written anything (other than the muffin recipe), and I should rectify that soon so as not to give the impression I only like her for her Thanksgiving dinner.

Near the end of the semester I signed up for and got in to a Gray Fund trip to the Bonneville Hot Springs. I had expected the Love Hina backyard, but in fact this turned out to be a spa resort with lots of relaxing rooms and activities and very helpful attendants. We were split into boys and girls and given slightly different treatments, in that the girls had specially scented towels and such and the boys got in and out between very hot and very cold baths in what I think was an attempt to heal our arteries. (I accepted that it was healthy without really retaining why.) Hot water is nothing new to me, of course, so I felt quite content turning it up, but the cold water was a bit of a stretch and my breathing sped up dramatically each time I immersed myself. After treatment we went to the spa's restaurant and spent $200 on the eight of us, thankfully all paid for by the school. In the group were some people I didn't know or didn't know well, a couple language scholars, and charcoalviolete, who also lived in Sullivan (albeit a lower floor) last year and who was in the Shakespeare: Text and Performance class in the Spring. I only put two and two together for her relatively late in that semester, and we never talked too much, so the spa trip was a nice opportunity for that which I looked forward to from our first receiving the participants list by email.

I've mentioned before that I was elected Gentle Giant of Reed College last Spring, and Fall 2009 was my first semester of what I take to be a one-year term by default. It did not go well. I hosted three events, which netted three, six, and two people respectively: first a talent sharing, which later had an incredible turnout when hosted by other people who were not me; second an eye contact workshop, for which six was thankfully the mathematically minimum number of people required; and third an anonymous hugging exercise I snuck in under the title "Goodbye Hugs," which dissolved into my wandering around campus breaking into dorms (i.e. knocking on doors until people let me in) with a large Free Hugs sign. I kept office hours every week until I lost faith in it, and even advertised their schedule in the Quest at the start of the semester, and reminded my friends on Facebook most every week, but I think only three people ever came (and two of them by accident). Part of my problem is assuredly insufficient advertising, but more than that, I just don't think I'm in tune with what the Reed student body wants -- no surprise -- and while what I'm trying to do is introduce new concepts, I do have to wonder what they elected me for if they're not interested in what I'm trying to do, because I did say I'd be doing these things in my election blurb and it's not like I was uncontested. People do remember that I have the role, though, and it led to some nice conversations after my article went out, and I give out hugs every now and then, although only to students so far. I'll keep on trying this semester, but it's really hard to go through all the preparation, logistical and mental, for an event, and then have hardly anyone show up, multiple times. Just one success could make it all work.

One thing I put more work into advertising was a book drive for the Children's Book Bank, a non-profit which takes used children's books and redistributes them to the children of low-income families who would otherwise be unable to afford their own book collections. This ran for about six hours in the library lobby one day, and I advertised it in the Quest, the official "At Reed" event listing, the Student Body Info emails, a few posters around campus, and more posters up at local businesses on Woodstock avenue. (At Reed is funny because they edit your writing to look more businesslike, so "There will be cookies." at the end became conjoined to the previous sentence "..., and there will be cookies.") Two people showed up with books, one of them a Reed librarian whose explanation for the source of the books I did not quite hear, and another a nice lady who learnt about the drive in some way I didn't ask about. Enough students asked if they could have cookies that I eventually started giving them out in exchange for stories, rather than books, but there were still a lot of leftovers. Mostly from the librarian, I think I netted a few hundred worth of books, enough for three or so families by the book bank's standards, but I could have gotten so much more had I put two and two together and had the event during Parents and Family Weekend, which was only a little while previous, because then I could have recommended students to tell their parents to bring old books they didn't need anymore while visiting, rather than relying completely on people who had grown up in the area.

Speaking of that weekend, my (nuclear) family did come up and visit, like they did in freshman year, except this time I was living in a house instead of a dorm. broccolipwns is an organic vegan at this point, so he compiled a list of organic vegan restaurants and stores in the area and we checked out a few of them, including Voodoo Donut and the Red and Black Cafe'. My parents and I dropped by the local rabbi's for dinner Friday night, leaving my brother to make his way across campus at 7:30 at night to find the library so that he could read books rather than being bored by food he wouldn't eat and unexciting conversation. Skills! I had very little luck finding anyone who was free, let alone willing, to spend some time talking with my family and proving to them that I actually do have a social life at Reed, which was very discouraging, but it was probably just a bad weekend. simwebb had his own family around, and we tried to set up a connection, but it didn't quite work out, and we bumped into Sam G at one point in a parking lot and chatted for a bit. They sat in for one rehearsal of the Bollywood dance I mentioned last time around, as well as a Greek rehearsal, which was appropriately incomprehensible.

Winter Break was pretty peaceful and uneventful. Ian A, Ducky M, Adam M (no relation) and I went on a small hike in the UCSC forest wilderness and built a fairy altar out of assorted gewgaws, after Ducky and I hanging out at her house for a while interacting with her variously-clad housemates waiting for Ian to get there. nitoya2 had a dance party at her house, including some very dulcet tunes, which party developed radical lighting when we turned off the house lights and everyone got out their red bike lights on flashing mode. Then we played Mafia and Settlers until it was very late. nitoya2 also participated in a henna festival at plaidsupersquid's house, in which I acquired a Jew joke on one arm and a message of warmth and comfort on the other. As were a lot of other people, for both events, but only so many people have LJ accounts. I will mention Barak, though, because it was a delight to chance upon him. I tried to have a Hot Party for Sexy People a little ways into the break, but only myriad_rainbows was able to show up, so we played a few games and listened to my sexy soundtrack ironically. I met up with the_hailstorm at one point at local Kelly's Bakery, and we talked about her first semester at college (Pitzer), and I answered some questions about Reed from her friend who wants to come here. Whom I really want to talk to about Reed is Kate, whom I met last summer in the Acting Conservatory, but we once again failed at scheduling a time to chat. Fortunately Reed is her top choice so presumably she doesn't need me too much at least to talk her into it. If only all these people wanting to come to Reed from Santa Cruz all of a sudden weren't a few years behind me, that I could spend more time with them instead of graduating right away or even beforehand. :|