HALLOWEEN!

This was definitely the most energetic Halloween I've ever experienced at Riverdale. It made me wish I has worn my costume (don't ask) and all the positivity and fun worked it's magic on my eventually. CandyGram deliveries were hilarious and there was blasting music and people dancing in the cafeteria during lunch. SO MANY people had on costumes! I got pictures of most of my favorites, but I have to talk about Tarik's. He wore a costume meant for a dog to be man. Let me repeat, Tarik was wearing the costume of a dog trying to be a man, but is really a dog. Tarik was a man trying to be a dog trying to be a man. YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN MY FACE; THAT BLEW MY MIND. haha! And while were talking about this in the Deans'office, someone made a joke about the costume being philosophical or something, and I heard someone (maybe Tarik) say in a philosophical voice, "We are all dogs trying to be men." HAHAHHAHAHAHAA, SO FUNNY!

Hey!

Just some random stuff:
- I've found myself being super, crazy busy, but I really enjoy all these things I'm involved in: dance, peer-tutoring, Impressions, getting in shape for basketball, doing research on gender issues (which is SO interesting), etc. I truly love it all in the moment I'm doing it. The problem is that I get home and everything I have to do kind of pours on me. It's all good though. I got this!


- On Thursdays, I go downtown after school to a spot called Urban Word for a writing workshop. I've only gone twice and have encountered so much talent in words and execution. (It's very slam/spoken word influenced.) Even just the second time I improved in confidence and didn't shake while I read personal writing, and I even got a snap-applause for writing my best poem yet. YES! haha It's really such a beautiful, free, and friendly space where everyone is listening to your every word and catch your connections and play of language. And it's so inspiring to hear everyone else's confidence and genius. It's really sad that I'll have to stop going because basketball season is coming up, but I'll try not to think about that and enjoy it while I can.


- THANK YOU TO EVERY ONE WHO CONTINUES READING THIS BLOG AND HAS BEEN SO SUPPORTIVE. I REALLY REALLY APPRECIATE IT!


- Some of us will be applying to college next week. CRAZY. Good luck to everyone! and join me in finishing up those supplements this weekend!


- So I get the Psychology Today magazines and one of the big articles is "The Battle Over Beauty: What Matters Most to Men-- and to Women." How perfect is this for my art project on gender?! Also, my mom got this month and last month's Gay City newspaper, which I think will be super interesting. And also, I told someone about my gender project, and it's crazy what you learn from people! She told about how the artist Paul Gauguin spent a lot of time in Tahiti and sparked an interest in this Third Gender called Mahu vahine. I thought this was so unusual, but I kept doing research and this isn't so rare. From what I know so far, I third gender is formally recognized in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. There's also a third gender community in the Dominican Republic called guevedoche. which was really surprising to me. And I found a list of almost 50 third gender/ gender "mixed" groups all over the world and in history. Interesting....


- This week has been tough.


- I found it very cool that Neil had a petition going around to get dessert back and addresses other food-related concerns. He also referred to Mr. Randolph as "mah boy", which I thought was funny. (Of course, with affection and far from disrespect..just saying, just in case.) Haha! Paranoid!


- HOLA this week was hilarious, but a little loud. We got the start of a lot of good ideas for our assembly and we got to know each other a little more. Good energy!


- and I'm going to get some work done now.






NIGHTY NIGHT

Manifestaciones Exhibition

On Friday night, I left on my cute jeans, tucked in a white long-sleeve, put on some new "taupe" (beige) heels, and topped the outfit off with a cool jacket Lex's mom gave me while she was getting rid of old clothes. Why was I rockin' this oh so fly outfit? Because I was heading over to CUNY's Dominican Studies Institute (DSI) for the Opening Reception of Manifestaciones, a group portfolio of twelve prints by twelve Latino artists. I had to look good for my fellow Dominicans, of course.

So I headed there by myself and was worried about being late, but it's okay because I didn't miss anything. Just a few minutes after I arrived the Program started. Altagracia Diloné, a very sweet woman, was the first to greet us and introduced to the next four speakers: Sarah Aponte, the Head Librarian; Pepe Coronado, one the the group of 12 artists called Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA; Dr. Ramona Hernandez, the Director of DSI; and Jay Hershenson, Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations. All very lovely and important people with BEAUTIFUL Spanish accents, except for Mr. Hershenson. He made up for it though, and touched my heart as he decorated his greeting with precious splashes of Spanglish in this not-so-bad Spanish accent. He was appealing to us with a good heart and had me smiling the whole time. "¡Viva las artistas!" is how he ended and I think could've possibly made my week.  

For the rest of the time, I walked around and looked at all the prints. I must say, I felt a little out of place since everyone seemed to know eachother and I was feeling too shy to start any conversations. I had me some crackers, cheese and water, and walked around the really crowded and warm room again. Then, for the first time in my life (and I'm sure this won't be the last), I felt my toes numbing, a feeling I'd only heard Ms. Morales speak of. Not fun. So I walked into the lobby area of the building, took a seat and my shoes off, and read some Junot Diaz. SO Dominican, and I swear I wasn't even trying. It happened to be the only book I had in my bag. 

After my shoe break, I was determined to make a friend. So I went back in and stalled by looking at the VERY COOL and prints again, not that I would ever mind. Some of these prints don't even look like prints. One looks like a photograph, one had lines of silver, and one was a very detailed map of NYC with Manhattan shaped as a banana. One was dark and smudges I didn't know you could create with prints, and they all just really made me wonder "How?". Incredible stuff that was definitely on point when it comes to Dominicanidad in NYC. 

I approached Ms. Diloné who gave me so much information about what DSI is about and all I can say is that I will definitely be returning to use DSI as a recourse. She told how in December they're going to be starting a Music Series of Dominican classical music. (Yes, even to my surprise, we do have classical music.) She asked me about myself, told me about internship opportunities, and then introduced me to Freddy Rodriguez, a Dominican painter, who she said is the most well-known Dominican artist in either NYC or the nation.. I forgot. She told me how he's the artist who created a Memorial for the victims of Flight 587 that was heading toward the Dominican Republic in 2001. (Now, I'm recalling how my father was so close to being on that flight. Wow.) I ashamed to not know about, and he tried to save me by saying, "She's too young." I'm still embarrassed. Anyways, I also had a nice conversation with this very humble and calm man on my way to Amsterdam to take the bus. I went home and looked him up...just amazing. And he has been on display at El Museo del Barrio, which is my next stop.

Feeling so fulfilled after this experience, I pulled out my notebook and green Sharpie and started writing. I got home in the BEST mood. My mom even said, "I'm going to have to send you there every Friday." :)  Like I said before, I'll definitely be returning. If you're interested in going, it's in the DSI's Library (which is open to the public! YES!) and will be on view until December 21, 2010. Check it out. It's genius and transformed my mood completely. 

Sorry, I didn't take my camera with me. 
Go see it yourself!

I love me some BRONWEN!

1. If you knew you had to lock yourself in a room with a hungry tiger in it, what would you take in there with you for the tiger to eat instead of you? (This tiger eats all things and will want to be friends with you after you feed it.)

Hm...I would bring some tofu and turn it vegetarian, and then we would cuddle forever.

2. Describe to us your ways of procrastination.

So I get home from school after play practice around 6 30 right? Then I give myself 30 minutes to relax by watching TV, telling m self that 7:00 sharp is study time. 7:15 I enter my room and begin ILS, where I then fall asleep on my desk. 7:30 i drag myself to my bed where I proceed to sleep for "just 20 minutes mom" 8:30 I wake up, go yell at my mom for not waking me up enough, slip in a little homework and then I insist that its time for dinner, giving me the excuse to watch another TV show. Then I'm up till 1 am doing work yay!

3. Do you like being a senior?

Love/hate relationship. I love going off campus and coming back feelin all cool with ma Tierney's bag but I'm not sure its worth all the stress...

4. Tell us how green you are! Why green?

So basically one day my mom came to me and showed me this company about helping local farms called Just Food.  I was already totally into home grown veggies because we would always grow tomatoes and other fun stuff at my house up in Connecticut, and this compan basically was a way for volunteers to help start local gardens all around the city. I wanted to find a way to get Riverdale involved in Just Food, but as I tried to develop a way to get kids interested, I found it would be easier to start my own garden initiative on campus. I went to the faculty advisor of the sustainability committee, Mr. Patnaude,  and he put me in touch with the head of Pre-K development, with whom I then organized m 6 week summer job! I basically went to the lower campus four days a week, four hours a day and did what needed to be done around the gardens (weed, mulch, harvest, water etc) When the fruits and veggies started coming in, I used money from the budget to buy a food scale and I weighed all the harvest and made a really cute excel spread sheet!! Now we've started out the school year with a re-vamped Sustainability Committee and we already have pages and pages of new ideas. Everything is looking really amazing and I'm sooo excited to see what gets done around the Riverdale campus this year!!

Bronwen's Babies:

  

While Waiting for Bronwen....

I was very tempted to make this post about how busy I am, but decided against it because it might make anyone else reading this extremely aware of their huge list of responsibilities. So I won't.

INSTEAD, I'll tell you about an art project I'm doing through the Projects in Contemporary Art, except it's more like an independent study that will take me the whole year. Inspired by One World Day, (I did mention it briefly in that post) I'll be creating 8-10 portraits and the point is to show a spectrum, that the classic views of man and woman aren't the only genders, and that even terms "man" and "woman" don't capture all that there is out there. Basically, that lines are very blurred, and I'm going to use this blur to create art. The portraits will be based off of photos I take, and I plan to explore a whole bunch of different types of art media including photography, painting, collage, drawing, printmaking, more, and mixtures of all of those.
The main point is to confuse and then intrigue, and show how it's all beautiful. Seems pretty vague now, but I'll take pictures of my ideas and will document the process on this blog. EXCITING! I already have one set of pictures. It's just too difficult to explain. I might not say anything about it after this and just let you see the images.

Another exciting thing, putting together my writing portfolio. ..oh, the college process.
On that note, I took the SAT at the neighborhood public high school and walked there, taking pictures and going over vocabulary that actually came up on the test. NICE.

Tough Week

Note: This is me getting personal.

Last week was not easy. I started school very confident, with the same spirit I learned to share in an academic (but more than that) setting like the Mountain School. I've piled on a lot of work and commitments in and outside of Riverdale, but it's all things I'm very happy to be involved in. There's no doubt that this all comes from a development of courage to take-risks, one I feel I've been dying for all these years that I finally have. The problem is that some of the realities of Riverdale have started to hit me, and my skin (ugh) and energy are becoming a reflection of my stress. Not good, of course.

In my case, it all seems to come down to confidence. 

Confidence, in one way or another, is linked to familiarity. We're either very sure of who we are as individuals ("Yea! I know I look good!") or of our surroundings (like that kid who's really good at basketball). So here's the source of the problem: I've kind of lost my understanding of Riverdale. I forgot how difficult it is and that there are a lot more than 44 students around so I can't say hi to everyone that walks by me and not everyone is going to greet me. I forgot what it's like to not walk home and to arrive at an empty apartment. I used to live with 8 other girls! It's crazy....and I miss it a lot. But I also see that there are benefits to this disconnection from Riverdale. Now I my eyes are slightly new, so that I know it's okay to speak up and start a conversation with the person next to me. Of course, the challenging aspects of Riverdale will come as a shock (sucks!), but at least I'm seeing more and being more myself than I've ever gotten close to being at Riverdale. There's the good and the bad..

Anyways, I need to stay confident! And I keep seeing too many frowns and tired faces, including my own, soooo LET'S ALL TRY TO STAY CONFIDENT, especially those of us who are going through this college process. It's all very draining, but I think we can all feel a little more comfortable and smile more if we're happy with ourselves and never hold back.

:)

and I shall now proceed to trying my hardest to not take a nap. I'm slowly overcoming this phase..

p.s. HOLA TOMORROW! YUP!

Part 2

:)

Randomly Posted Beauty Part 1