November 7, 2014 by Zubin Hill | Comments Off on MisterWives
Cool band. Filmed at Bryn Mawr (so obviously that the first time I watched the MV I was like, but that looks like Carpenter Beach…and that looks like the Cloisters…IT’S BRYN MAWR!). Further, the Bryn Mawr Concernt Series is hosting them and the band is COMING TO CAMPUS NEXT WEEK! What-what!
November 5, 2014 by Zubin Hill | Comments Off on The Magic of Ordinary Days
Sunday was City Project Site Visit Day (I know, what a long title!) This meant my Structure and Growth of Cities class group went into Philadelphia to explore the site we’ve been given. It is called the Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady, Joy of All Who Sorrow. As a requirement of entrance, we had to don head scarves and skirts (provided by the church).
Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady, Joy of All Who Sorrow
I felt the fear of lice but, needing to enter, I did as I was bid.
It was all very strange for me. I’m a Baptist/Pentacostal and Russian Orthodoxy is about as far from Pentacostalism as you can get. Where Pentacostals are all about singing and dancing and interaction and kinda being crazy, the Orthodox church is all about ritual and physical signs. There were photos of large-eyed saints on every wall, halos surrounding their heads. The incense burned thickly enough to shroud the room in smoke. Almost the entire service was standing and the chief liturgist mainly stood upon the pedestal or behind the elaborate facade erected in the front of the church.
I was highly estranged from the whole thing, unable to relate much of myself and my beliefs to their method of relating to God.
My Sunday Funday Photo Boxes
On my return to campus, I participated in Student Activities’ “Sunday Funday.” This week was making photo boxes. I decided to go as I rather need some additional nicknacks to decorate my room. There I took the free candy and plastered as much printed paper and tape as suited me. I think my boxes turned out fairly nicely. I really do love taking advantage of the many campus activities. There are just so many free things waiting to be gotten…for example, the other day, I and a couple friends burst into an AMO (Alliance of Multicultural Organizations, I think) meeting and stole their cookies and pizza.
Sighs. C’est la vie que j’aime.
October 31, 2014
by Zubin Hill Comments Off on UPDATE
October 23, 2014 by Zubin Hill | Comments Off on Birthday Wishes
Ah, my much belated birthday post.
Due to my tardiness, I think it shall end up a combination post. My 19th birthday was spent on the West Virginia trail…metaphorically. It was during the overnight part of my service learning trip. And though I had intended to keep everything on the down-low and focus on why I was in WV to begin with, somehow the others found out. It started with a sly, “Happy Birthday” that morning and ended with one of our trip leaders walking into the room where I was and asking, “What day is today? And is anything important happening today?” This last resulted in a round of the Happy Birthday Song and a chocolate cupcake with 19 written in chocolate sauce. It was quite sweet of them (though I actually forgot to eat the cupcake) and pleasantly unexpected as well. Now, hold on before you cry ungrateful! The reason I forgot to eat my cupcake is that I was busy hurrying painting a watercolor picture. It turned out as well as can be expected when I’m painting quasi-from memory.
My birthday Picture
To other matters, the return to Bryn Mawr has been fairly good. Classes have been as fun as they can be and I feel like there is tons to do–which for me is a pleasant experience. It’s funny, though. I don’t really feel like I go to Bryn Mawr. When I say this, I mean that first-year was the year of Gifts and Traditions. Every time I turned around someone was giving me something, and another Tradition was being described and partaken in. This year, because I was feeling somewhat curmudgeonly, I didn’t go to Parade Night and opted out of getting tickets to Lantern Night. I think I will go to the Step Sing though.
[Brief BMC trivia: Parade Night = 1st Tradition of the year, welcome for the first years that’s at the end of the first week of classes. Lantern Night= 2nd Tradition, when 1st years get their class colored lanterns. Step Sing = a time when all the classes gather, sing, and generally make merry.]
Anyway, it’s just been a really different experience from last year. People assume I know stuff, which I like, but at the same time no one organizes celebrate-you! nights for me either. That’s about it. I’m still trying to bring up my grades to Zubin-approved levels, working out where I’ll study abroad, and applying for externships. [More on these at a later post.]
October 16, 2014 by Zubin Hill | Comments Off on Wild and Wonderful: Fall Break in the Misty Mountains
There are many ways to pass your Fall Break. Last year, I opted for the lounge-in-a-home-with-extended-family route. This meant I slept (late), watched TV (Korean dramas—too much), and harassed my young cousin (often). This Fall Break has been different, notable not only for having one cancelled international trip but also for my service-learning trip to West Virginia.
Self-proclaimed as “Wild and Wonderful,” West Virginia was a state I had heard/known little about. Now, I’d say I have a better understanding of it as a place. The Weather: English—lots of mist and rain but with random bouts of sunshine. The landscape: like a Thomas Kinkade painting. The people: Southern, in all the best ways. Alabama is called Alabama the Beautiful but…we seem to be outclassed by WV. It’s a lot like something that’d appear on one of the “valley”s—Nature or Hidden (that is).
Or it could just be that I’ve become desensitized to Alabamian beauty.
I got onto the service-learning trip in the wake of the cancellation of my other trip. It’s a partnership between Haverford (and Bryn Mawr) and High Rocks Educational Corporation. High Rocks is a (mostly) girls camp and academic-year program which aims to foster motivation, leadership, and connection by hosting group meetings and the intense summer camp. Haverford (and Bryn Mawr) are here to help build/fix things on the main camp site, participate in the monthly overnight, and just generally learn about High Rocks’ mission and place in WV. We’ll be here until Saturday and through my birthday (the 17th). I’ve decided to keep that last fact on the down-low as I don’t really want it to be a thing. Nineteen is not one of the “Big” blah-blah ages.
Anywho, it has been pretty nice. The mist on the mountains has been somewhat constant but has left by midday almost every day we’ve been here (I like to think it’s because of us). In WV I can see some of Alabama, even as the ruggedness of the terrain tells me otherwise. The Misty Mountains song (though I have no pictures of the actual mist) seems quite appropriate considering I watched a wooden shed burn today. “The trees like torches” can thus be changed to “the sheds like torches in the (day).”
October 11, 2014 by Zubin Hill | Comments Off on Moo-Moo Cajuboo
So,
It’s Fall Break.
I’m sitting in my dorm room.
And somehow, even when I feel free, I know I still have too much I should do.
I guess I can’t really (don’t really) want to believe it’s the half-way point. I haven’t done as well this year as I would have liked and already there have been a couple setbacks for me. But I’m pressing on.
This week I: scampered around trying to atone for my previous grade-related mistakes, had a Chamber Singers performance, and an Econ midterm. It is only after the break that I’ll see if I hath salvaged myself from the jaws of defeat and despair.
The Chamber Singers performance was an interesting experience. The play, the Events, is about a women who has part of her multi-cultural choir killed by an extremist. It attempts to highlight the mental experience of going through a traumatic event like that. As a member of the choir, and hence the show, who was also supposed to be an audience member (I’d never seen the script and was only given a vague idea of what was going to happen) I know I came away with a difference experience than the rest of the audience. I was constantly waiting for my queue and sometimes couldn’t hear the actors/didn’t dare listen so I didn’t miss my queue. I feel I would have processed the whole thing better if I’d had a reaction-mate–meaning a sister to gasp and whisper with. Often, it’s how I make sense of the world.
Overall, I do feel like the performance highlighted how both victim and perpetrator get swept up emotionally in a traumatic event.
My other tidbit is a result of the Bryn Mawr stress-game. As I am want to do, on Thursday I went into my roommate’s room to harass her. However, she was moping: feeling bad about class stuff. An intervention was required to get her back to her normal crazy, cat-noise self. This namely consisted of: two Sara Bareilles songs (I’ll post one), snickering (heh) at this book The Dark she tried to read (it’s by Lemony SNICKet), and giving her a lesson on Liberian vernacular [all movies, TV programs, whatevers = shows].
That’s how to handle the Mawrter-stress machine, in my opinion. Annoy the heck out of people. They’ll be so irritated they’ll forget all problems but you!
