Diversity Banquet

I hear everyone had fun! It wasn't so peaceful on my side, but Chelsea made the night for me when she revealed herself as my Secret Santa. WOO!

Also, Jinexa helped me go table-to-table to sell the Watering the World bracelets and bags. I went to art class after Breakfast with Santa and had $134 dollars to give them. Thanks a lot! And I also picked up some more bags and bracelets, so if you'd still like to buy to give to Charity Water, let me know. ($3 bracelets, $8 bags)

I didn't have much time to take photos at the banquet, but I got some of Ms. Farkas' dance class performing:

Varsity Girls Basketball

4-0

They made me wish...

that I knew how to play an instrument.

There need to be more people in the world like...

Brett Miller said the cutest and most beautiful thing yesterday. I asked her if she's seen the documentary "Waiting for Superman" and she, face lit-up and all, started telling me how she has seen a part of it and loved it. She stopped herself from watching it though, because she said that if she wanted to keep watching she knew she'd end up compelled to have to do something about it (you know, for the education system). And she doesn't have enough time right now to occupy herself with trying to change that aspect of the world. 

I know what she means, but also I can't wait until she finally sees the whole thing. :)

NEW FEATURE!

So at the Mountain School (sorry, can't help it!) there was a beautiful soul named Anika who had the most contagious vocabulary. The most popular one was "Yikes!" and the most striking (at first) and heartwarming was her way of replacing the word "hand" with "paw." It makes sense since she's really into cats, and there such a cool story behind that that I think most people don't know.

The point of that was to introduce something new to this blog that will help me be able to put up more and shorter posts on the days when I don't really feel compelled to write about anything specific. Um, time management may also have an influence on how compelled I am...

Anyways! As I'm sure many of us do, I write on the back of my hand a lot because sometimes there's just no time to get out something to write on! It may sound like I'm mocking, but I'm not; I feel you. My left hand (since I'm right handed) is always filled with these random words that have a much larger meaning, interest, or task attached to them. Either that, or it has the left-over smudges.

And a lot of the times when I'm writing on the back of my hand, I'm thinking, "lalalalaaaa, just writing on my paw.." haha This is such a long explanation for something so simple.

What I want to do is have Paw Posts where I just take a look at what I've written on my "paw" for the day, post the words up, and then maybe give explanations behind them. This won't be everyday since I don't record on my hands everyday, but it will happen pretty often. I can imagine it being entertaining sometimes, but mostly be reflection of what's of my mind/ how my day went.

And so I'll start today!

SAT :This one is boring and predictable. I have to make a meeting with my college counselor to send SAT scores to my schools. woot.

[I just realized that this will be so helpful to my memory. Nice!]

existentialism :my nerdy side. This came up in Spanish today, and I know we studied it a little when we read The Stranger sophomore year, but I forgot. So I want to look it up again, yup.

explore

crayola :These are just some ideas for a potential supplement that asks about a time when I just had fun. "Explore" refers to how one of my closest friends and I spent a lot of summer nights just walking around the hood. One time we went up to Fort Tryon Park and heard someone who sounded just like Lady Gaga singing a Lady Gaga song. We were like, "Oh snap! That could be Lady Gaga!" but we couldn't see because there was some intense bushery and treeness (<-- straight out of the Yomalis Dictionary) between us and the Lady Gaga voice. We had to find a way to get to this place, so we went through some twists and turns while discussing whether or not its possible that Lady Gaga was there, and found the cafe/ restaurant in the park where they were hosting a party in what I'll call their really concealed and Troy-like backyard. We couldn't see anything, but we knew very well that it wasn't some sort of Lady Gaga concert (no, I don't know what we were thinking) because the next song that played was just not Lady Gaga anymore. Then, we went down a path we didn't recognize on purpose so that we could get lost and ended up walking through some crazy darkness. I mean, the spot needed some lamps up or something because we were a little freaked out. We reached the end of it, but before returning to light, we just had to look down a creepy stone stairway to find a dark figure at the bottom and ran out dramatically. SO FUN..and an anecdote that went on for too long. Therefore, I won't be explaining "crayola" but its not much anyways.

And that, my friends, was the first Paw Post. Tell if you (dis)like. 

I have something cool to write about for tomorrow!

Thanksgiving "Break"

This is a photo of a random page in my planner taken in August. I remember I was at work and I was just trying out the "Documents" scene mode on the new cam. I found this just now, looking through my photos because I'm submitting a few to Impressions (you should, too!) and I find the college-focused intensity funny because school hadn't even started. And even though the focus is different now (applications), this is the kind of thing I had at the back of mind all throughout this break. But supplements will be done by tomorrow! I can't wait to feel the relief.

I HOPE EVERYONE HAD A NICE BREAK AND A GREAT THANKSGIVING!

p.s.- I was listening to my Pandora Radio and a song came on. I didn't check what it was, but the chorus said "Snow day.." and I immediately thought of Riverdale. So I'm thinking it needs to get colder.. haha

Short Week

First: Jacob, you're the best for always making sure that I stay on my commitment to posting on this blog regularly. It's hard, but you remind me that people actually read and care about it, which makes me more excited to post.  ;)

My Monday morning started about pretty crazy. Chelsea, Dale, and I worked on our video for Physics which was hilarious to record. For this class, we just did the editing and cut out our laughter throughout the rest of the video.
Then, I found out that Leo, a new French teacher at Mountain School who I had met while he was interviewing for the job, was in the AV Room, ready to give a presentation about Mountain School. Becky had a master plan to act like she knew him (by knowing random info, like his birthday is next week), so I said greeted him excitedly and then ran to the theater to find Becky. It turns out that Becky's Senior Speech was during this grade meeting, so I had to run back to the AV Room to show some TMS support and tell the Juniors that they should feel free to ask me any questions, and then ran back to the theater because I couldn't miss Becky's speech.

Now, Senior Speeches. It was my first time hearing them (everyone else's second time) and it was so real and touching. It's interesting because they were real in different ways. Becky's speech on beauty (I caught the second half) addressed some things that I know I always think about but never really talk about. It was a pretty brave and very well-articulated topic, in my opinion. Katie's read her speech off of a hand-written formerly folded-up piece of paper and started by telling us how she had no idea it was her day to give the speech until very recently. It gave us so many different sides of her by describing her summer: Botswana, living in an apartment in Italy on little money, and a conversation with her girlfriend. She wrapped it all up by talking about her brother, and it just worked. I wasn't sure where her speech was going, but it didn't really matter. ALL of it was her speech, her words, and ALL of it had something special to say about her. I had to give her a hug when I saw her after. Also, the majority of the seniors I spoke to on Monday referred to me as "that chick Yomalis" or brought it up in small talk. I don't think it was that big of a deal, BUT IT WAS NICE TO GET A SHOUT-OUT!

I should explain senior speeches. The idea came from Mr. Lapidus to give seniors the opportunity to give a speech to just our grade and invite anyone else who wanted to hear them. So for every grade meeting two seniors give a special speech. I love the idea and I'm signed up for some day in February.. I have to double check that.

And then the rest of my Monday went by pretty slowly... 

College Visits

I spent the weekend visiting a college for the second time this year, and had so much FUN. It's such a tease. I spent the weekend with my friends who I met during a summer program and got to spend some great outdoorsy time, which reminded me of Mountain School. I flew over by myself. I used to have a lot of fun at airports by myself because it makes me feel so grown-up and I can walk around as much as I want. It was like this at first, but while I was eating my sushi I didn't know what to do with myself and felt a tad bit lonely. I tried writing some poetry, but I wasn't feelin' it, and I didn't want to eat with earphones on, so I ended up just sitting and eating. Weird. I didn't have to multi-task, something I'm so used to doing, and what a great start to the weekend. I got to spend a nice hour or so on the plane, not thinking, but having trouble sleeping...always an issue. But it was nice to not worry and the whole weekend continued with this chill-ness. My only job for about two days was to just enjoy and absorb the environment. Most importantly, I got another taste of the peaceful and free place we're all working for. (Please let me praise college; it keeps me motivated.)

The thing is that after these weekends, we pushed right back into high school mode. AHH! Craziness, but I guess I'm getting used to it because today wasn't so bad. Except I kept talking to Lorraine about how I'm dying to leave everything and in a completely new environment with completely new people. Oh, college. :)

And just on that topic, I'm very happy for someone who has already received an acceptance letter. (very subtle shout-out. wink wink) Enjoy the feeling!

Seniors: LET'S GET THOSE SUPPLEMENTS DONE WITHOUT STRESSING TOO MUCH. One thing that helps me get this done is setting aside a very specific time of my day to just get started. I find that the hardest thing is starting, but just go for it! ...I need to get on that.. haha

That is all. Now I shall please you with pictures of a very beautiful place.

This is my very cool and beautiful friend, Grace.

Sorry!

Basketball season started this week, so I'm adjusting to this new schedule...after my Fall season off. It's not really anything negative since I LOVE IT, but it's taking some getting used to.

I've just been slackin'. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to school and I (like so many of us) have so much to stay on top of and lots of college confusion. BUT IT'S OKAY!

Today, was a super beautiful day and I was happy to give a tour during my free and get some fresh air.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm watching the play tomorrow night. Mostly to see this gal:

haha GO BRONWEN!

Urban Word

I've been going to Urban Word every Thursday after school to write. I can't go anymore since basketball starts next week, but I'm really going to miss it and it has helped me a lot. I have to make myself sit down and write the way I did there, and I'll definitely be going back in the spring, some way some how.

This poem was brought to our attention today.


No Images by William Waring Cuney


She does not know

her beauty,

she thinks her brown body

has no glory.

If she could dance

naked

under palm trees

and see her image in the river,

she would know.

But there are no palm trees

on the street,

and dish water gives back

no images.

Girl

HOLA yesterday was GREAT. So much talent!
Before the school year starts, all 8 affinity group leaders met with Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Vidale, and Ms. Quarshie to start preparing and to get ideas flowing. Ms. Quarshie had us prepare by reading a short story called "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid and write up our own versions. "Girl" is sort of a list of ways that this narrator has been told she had to do, kind of like a set of rules.
For yesterday's activity I was going more for a discussion, but with Carlos' (Co- president with me) encouragement we decided to do this writing exercise with everyone else. In 15 minutes, we either volunteered or nominated people to read their piece. SUCH GOOD STUFF. Some people didn't read, which made me a little sad, but everything we heard was so interesting and really helped us get to know each other. I want us in HOLA to be close and comfortable with each other; I think this definitely helped with that.


I'll see if I can get some peeps to let me put what they wrote on here.


Overall, HOLA makes me so happy and proud.


:)

Last Volleyball Game...

WAS SO GOOD! It was such a close game and the first time Varsity beat Fieldston! The team had great energy and every single girl seemed to be playing her best. Great way to end the season and my stressful week.


Also, I'm always amazed at my girl Chelsea's talent; got me excited for our basketball season together!

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.