Friday, November 6, 2009

lyfe in COLOR!!!!!

haaaaaa.


so, speaking of those mountain goats, how great is it that john darnielle (lead singer and that guy who writes all the songs) has a flicker page? ahhhh looking at it just now kind of makes my heart want to bust outta my ribs. it's weird seeing a person you know only through their music in pictures with awkward lighting and facebook type commentary. i love it. and i love that after a while you sort of figure out that even though each person moves through the world differently, everybody inhabits the same 3D universe that's full of poorly composed graffiti, anonymous highways and emo self-portraits with a webcam.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

mountain goats, oh, oh, oh

just bought tickets to see these lovely people:




november is clearly the best month.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

All work, all the time.

I kind of feel that way, especially working days like this, when I leave the house at 7:50 and don't come home until 9:30. And when I'm not at work I'm thinking about work! Which means this whole teaching/working with kids thing is pretty serious. I want to give a good, solid rundown of the school I'm working at and the after school program I help with twice a week...I'd like to recount what I'm doing with my kids and what I'm getting out of all this (which is a fucking lot, let me tell you!) but I'm just too tired. But as I drove home today after dropping off two of my kids, I thought, this is the best kind of tired. I'm learning so much and my brain feels so full its busting all its seams. It's challenging for sure. Even though I've only been working at Humbodlt for a few days, it is already painfully clear how messed up No Child Left Behind is. I look around the high school I work at and feel frustrated with the "teach to the test" mentality forced on teachers, and the lack of fun, meaningful work the students get. Then again, it makes me invent crazy lesson plans and classroom activities in my head. The ideas seemed to spill out of me today as I wrote them down after school. God, it's so bizarre. I swing back and forth so much in just a day. Even after feeling so charged and elated, tonight I also felt the first pangs of rejection when I realized one of the two kids I had so much fun playing and joking with on Monday was acting kinda frosty towards me. I pondered and fretted about it the whole way home, wondering if I had tried to be too friendly too fast, or said something weird on the drive home. And then back again...on the other side of the pendulum I had a nice, quiet tutoring session with a Hmong High school student who made me smile inwardly as we tried to figure out the square root of 11 and talked about being shy in class. Kids are such peculiar creatures. But they make me bend my mind in directions it doesn't usually go. Maybe that's why I'm so physically and mentally drained...I can feel excited and challenged and contemplative and playful all in one day, and all those spins and circles keep me thinking and stretching my brain in ten different directions. So yes, I'm tired. But I feel really 'on', like someone plugged me into a socket. It's really is the best kind of tired. And sometimes I even find myself thinking: I could get used to this.

Has it really only been three days?

Monday, September 14, 2009

First day...

So, here I am, with my first day as an Americorps worker under my belt. Although I made it for the last day of training on Friday, today was my first full day on the job, and it was a very long, hectic day. I'm exhausted and have to get up in a few hours, but on my drive home tonight I decided I want to keep track of this experience, tired as I may be at the end of the day.

Quick reflections:

- Nervousness about working at Humboldt High - no one seems to realize I need some help here! I'm totally unprepared! I didn't even get to see the lunchroom! I just got thrown into a class and bamn! Whoa.
- Taking a 1/2 hour to help a student get her locker open...was not the best way to start my time at Humboldt
- Realizing that I may need to be proactive when it comes to Humboldt - i.e. asking questions and talking seriously with teachers about how I can best help them, since it doesn't seem like anyone is planning on doing it for me
- Feeling socially awkward with my 6th per. 7th grade ELL class - am I that bad?!?
- Need to acquire more "biz-cas" (business casual) attire, as my wardrobe is sorely lacking...sneakers? tank tops? These will not do, no sir.
- Lack of air conditioning in a crowded high school = one sweaty me; compare and contrast with the overpowering gusts of icey wind at the baker rec center (where the jane addams school is located)

Whew. I'm off to bed. At least tomorrow I'm off by 2:30.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

I AM EMPLOYED

Praise the heavens, throw confetti in the fucking air, kiss your lucky rabbit's foot, this girl is gainfully employed.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Entering september

It's strange to think that I've been in Minneapolis for almost a year now - I arrived here on September 13th of last year, after a three day drive from Massachusetts. It's funny...I had been living through the summer as I always do - as if it will never end, and then a few weeks of late august cold have blown September in again. When the air began to turn I started to feel that same crisp in the air, that wide-open-sky-ness and sense of lonesome possibility I think I felt when I first moved here. It was strange to feel that way again - maybe a sense of hopefulness or a sense of movement that I didn't think I'd feel it again for a long time. But then again, I guess the fall does have a way of sweeping in and pushing changes no matter where I happen to be. I think that's why it's my favorite season. I've been keen to notice the circular patterns of things since the leaves started to change, and I'm trying to find some sort of reason and rhyme to this gweird (that's good + weird for all of you not in the the know) year...but instead of finding meaning, I find only the beginning of another cycle that sometimes looks the same as the last.

Anyway, it seems appropriate that I should pick up this blog again, and try to record some of the goings-ons and happenings and brain laps I've been doing.

Some of the things on my mind:

- the move into my new house in S. Minneapolis, with new roommates and orange walls
- the possibility of working for Americorps, very last minute, and ah, STRESS!
- reaching out to friends more, in other words communication, communication, communication!
- I hate to say it but...winter(!?!)
- Mark's departure, bringing mixed feelings
- the State Fair! I feel like a true Minnesotan


That's all for now. More soon!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Who is pwning the job circuit? Who issssssss?

Fancy that.

I'm FINALLY getting my shit together job wise and things seem to be working in my favor...for now. I sort of have it worked out right now so that no matter what happens, I have an alternative route to doing "something-I-halfway-care-about" set up.

I had a big, fat job interview on Monday with Camp Fire, which I thought went pretty well. I botched one of the questions, but I think they liked me anyway. I also have another interview set up at the first LEED certified restaraunt in Minnesota (aka the the Red Stag Supperclub). I have also applied for a 6 week farm internship at the Womens Environmental Institute, which I should hear back about by the end of next week. Basically my insides are getting that cozy toasty feeling of contentment because every job I've applied for has asked me for an interview without me even calling them. PWN.

The options (some of which may be pure fantasy):

1.) Work at Camp Fire

cons: bit more corporate than I'd like, would probably be challenging and stressful, would offer very little wiggle room in the days off area

pros: part time, so I would have time to volunteer or work on a farm, good pay ($11-12/hr), doesn't start til last week of May and ends Aug. 21 (i.e. gives me some time to travel before and after)

2.) Work at the Red Stag Supper Club

cons: would probably be expected to stay past the fall; is probably the position I am least qualified for; unsure about pay scale

pros: get to work for a sustainable business which also happens to be quite classy; would probably get discounts on delicious organic food; would be able to stay in the twin cities *and* volunteer or work at a farm during the day

3.) Take the WEI Internship

cons: would require me to live at the farm (1 hour north of the TC) 5 days out of the week; only lasts for part of the summer; requires hard physical labor and pays very, very little

pros: get to learn the ins and outs of organic farming; get to work out in the open air and see the fruits of my labor as they grow; get to conduct research into organic farming policy; get to read about Wendell Barry; gives me lots of time to travel, meaning I could visit my bro & mum for extended periods of time



Right now I think the thing I'd most like to do is the WEI internship. The only trouble is I'm not sure how good my chances of getting it are since a.) I sent in my application way past the original deadline (more on that later) and b.) I have very little experience with organic farming. But if I don't get the internship, I still plan on taking part in WEI's Farm School, which is a series of lectures on progressive food culture and alternative farming techniques. I'm basically convinced that I want to do some kind of farming this summer, and I've set it up so that even if I don't get to do this though WEI - which is the most comprehensive overview of organic farming out of all the options - I will still be doing some kind of outdoor work. I talked to the folks at the Minnesota Food Association CSA farm and they said they would be willing to offer me a sort of informal farm internship a few days a week. So all that's left to do now is wait and see who bites.

Friday, March 13, 2009

big big big big good good good

the world feels big today, like it does sometimes when the sun's hanging out and your shoes are off and you kind of want to put your clothes on but feel better in your slightly smelly old pajamas.

there also seem to be a lot of good things. i feel like there have been a lot of good/bad, gweird, etc. things happening since this year started, and i haven't really said much about them. so i'm gonna do a bit of that now.

today these are things on my mind:

impending spring adulations and then summer bike rides and swims.

new internet excitement: StumbleUpon & GoogleReader (Em yr so right, GR is addicting!) this week i started this thing where i have folder called "Lookbook" on my internet browser...it's kind of a catchall for random websites i find, but it seems to be a good way of tracking what the inside of my head looks like on any given day. it's weird how small things like a new film or a sentence you read or the way someone eats a hotdog can affect your state of mind, and i'm kind of interested in tracking that stuff right now.

in the folder so far: anatomical street art , C.H.U.N.K. 666 bike club, Roadside America, the wikipedia site for "Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers", freegans, 10 best treehouses.

i hadn't been feeling it for a while, but today I'm feeling that cracked open like an egg feeling i get sometimes, when all the good yolky parts of life dump out from behind that too solid wall tend to like hiding behind. i'm feeling like this most likely because of another good thing:

i finished my cover letter for the Youth Farm and Market Project! it took me so long. i kept getting REALLY anxious about it, because i'm didn't feel perfectly qualified for position. i also don't like lying or bullshitting too much or trying to make myself look really awesome in cover letters, because i always think about how if i were the person reading it, regardless of the person's experience i wouldn't want to work with them because their writing style makes them appear arrogant and big headed. guess my way of thinking doesn't really work well in the business world. you're not really supposed to be sincere if you want to get ahead. maybe that's why i don't want to get ahead. i spent a bunch of time last night reading all these really painfully depressing cover letter samples, which made me feel super inadequate. yadayada, got over that, realized i just had to sound excited (which i am!) and banged the thing out and sent it on its way. if they like me, they like me, if they don't they don't. but i was feeling extremely stilted about it...like i just COULD NOT write the stupid thing. it reminded me of when i'd get roadblocked by a paper at 4 am when i was still at smith, and would just sit there agonizing over one sentence for hours. it's kind of ridiculous that i worried about it so much...the position i applied for is basically just watering, weeding and mowing their lawns and gardens. really, it was the listed qualifications that made me all nervous: they want someone with "farming/gardening experience" and "experience working with youth" so i got my panties all in a knot about how i haven't worked with kids enough or worked on a farm. but seriously, anybody can water plants. and i'm good with kids, even if i haven't worked in a school. so i have calmed down and am zenlike about it. :D j/k. but now that i've sent it off it i'm sure they'll like it.

Youth Farm & Market Project is really interesting. you should read more about them: http://www.youthfarm.net/index.cfm

i'm trying to STOP doing that "i can't do it" or "it's so much effort" thing i do, because it's really getting in the way of life.

anyway...other good things. i'm taking a bunch of classes at the experimental college of the twin cities and i'm really starting to get excited about the coursework. over the past few weeks i have been fretting that my interest in filmmaking is just a bourgeoisie pursuit and i start to criticize myself for being interested in it because it can be so elitist and disconnected from the people living down in the streets. i have this internal battle frequently, but this time i was feeling particularly nihilistic about it. and to be honest, some of my fears are founded: filmmaking sometimes does remove you from lived experience, since you are always telling a story about a moment that no longer exists. and as always when those little voices come nagging, i have been wondering if i should be devoting my life to something that isn't hands on work in the community. as you can tell i've been on a pessimistic kick for the past month. so, however unconsciously, i've been sort of searching for a rationalization, something to give me certainty that it is possible to make art, and make films that DO help the community, that don't set up this whole "elite artsy filmmaker" vs. "average people" kind of dynamic. and i'm happy to say that this week has been FULL of reassurance in that respect. on monday we had this huge discussion about appearance vs. reality and documentary film, which ended up turning into a discussion about memory and time, and yes, the meaning of life. it was one of those conversations that make the world shrink up into the little room you happen to be in and your mind flips and leaps from all the new discoveries. it also made me feel much better about the purpose of recording the world around you, no matter how badly or amateurly. i'll probably post a little more about that later. anyway, for the time being, suffice to say it was an eye opening night that sparked my enthusiasm for films and my determination to make them.

part of the reason i worry about the value of making films so often is that i rarely find films that seem accessible and poetic at the same time. it seems like the more poetic, the more distance between average people. and the more accessible, the more "unreal" and un-lifelike they seem. i've been thinking a lot about trying to make films that don't try to create some idealized picture of the world, but also speak to the part of us (a part that, i think, is in everyone no matter how buried) that needs to not just know about the world in some abstract sense (Politics, War, Injustice, Struggle, Death - capitalized, big, remote!) but craves human interaction, human stories, intangibles. i want to see how the bigness of the world connects with the small parts and i want to see not just the happy, not just the sad, but the happy-sad parts of life. but how to strike a balance!? that question plagues me. and as is typical with me, i spend so much time worrying about the QUESTION that i don't produce anything, good or bad.

anyway, it seems to me that documentary films have the possibility of offering us the most "realistic" (because a film can only ever be "realistic"; it can never depict what is "real") sort of film possible. but those films never really seem to inspire me the way narrative films do. at least that's the secret opinion i had harbored until i started taking this documentary class with EXCO. but this week we watched a series of films that made me realize that documentaries, if they can be called that, CAN speak to both big systems (politics, society) and small ones (poetics, emotions, individual worlds).

i have been thinking about the purpose of art a lot too - is art necessary to live? a lot of times i don't think so. especially, lately, i have been tempted into thinking art is really selfish, and that it's basically only possible to produce it when you have a certain level of comfort. i mean, when you're worried about putting food on your table, who the hell has time to think about why we're here or big questions like that?! it's absurd! but then i think, well, isn't that a bad thing? when you have to worry about getting food for your kids or finding a job, it still affects your mind, how you feel, and how you see life. you heart and all the gushy parts may get hardened, but blood still flows through them and you still feel them, no matter how dimly. maybe inner city kids don't think about needing to let all that out, but they have a lot to let out regardless. everybody does. it's just that we're taught that other things are more important than probing the depths of your inner world, and in an immediate, life or death kind of sense, it's true. food, stability, survival - those things ARE more important than where our minds go. and especially here in the U.S, we're taught that art, which is basically a way of looking around at the world and trying to make sense of it in, isn't essential to life. that only those with time and money deserve to think about how they feel or how the world makes them think about things. and isn't that wrong? but how do you address the very real, very immediate issues of survival AND address the emotional world at the same time? how to strike a balance? and more specifically, how to take those ideas out into the city, into the community, and really MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. because if i've figured anything out in this bizarre, gweird, impossibly strange year, it's that i've spent so much of my life thinking and talking and planning what i want to do that i haven't really done anything. i mean nothing concrete. i haven't dug my fingers in. i'm not saying that it's not possible to, because i know that it is. i'm saying that i haven't done it. but the question remains: how to take all that intangible mush and make it into something that will really affect people's lives?

i don't have an answer, but i got a glimpse of what it might be last night when we watched this experimental documentary called "Roswell" by Bill Brown. and in this documentary by Agnes Varda I am watching as we speak. both films ... well i can't totally describe them, because you kind of have to see them, but they feel like documents that capture fleeting things, but at the same time state plainly that the world itself is fleeting. does that make sense? they aren't lofty, they aren't hard to understand or completely inaccessible, they don't try to bludgeon anyone into thinking something, they just *are*. in reality, i know you can never hope to "affect people's lives" because there are so many different types of people, with so many different structures of thought at play inside each one. but i think i *can* hope to produce work that is sincere, and in doing so, will reach some people. and hopefully affect them in unseen ways. or maybe even tangible ways. in the end i've sort of made my peace with the idea of art vs. life - i think you can positively affect your community no matter what kind of work you do. you just have to constantly be aware that you are IN that community, and as such, offer yourself and your world to it.

i know that it's unproductive to think that you have everything figured out, because like the trudging of the seconds and minutes our minds are constantly in flux. but i do feel like, for the time being, i know what i think about things. and what i think is simple, and plain. i want to be a good person, and i want to give a part of myself to the community that surrounds me. i want to offer what i have to the world. i want to turn inward and pull from my gut, but always keep my hand reached out. because it seems to me that that's the most any of us can do. i don't want to be famous, or important, or big, or the most intelligent, or the most successful. i just want to try and exist as sincerely as possible. it sounds small, but so few people do it.

Monday, February 16, 2009

I keep thinking about that fullness in my chest when the moon comes out and the ice begins to melt:

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss,
except that they have no tongues,
could lecture all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing as
though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now the
crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky - as though

all night they had thought of what they would
like their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

by Mary Oliver