Inch by inch, Row by row.

Let me first explain why I quit the original second-choice for summer job (first choice was Hyannis Sound). Sarah and I were “hired” to work for the Campaign to Save the Environment as canvassers. The office is in Harvard Square. The pay was supposedly 400-600 per week depending on what we can fund-raise, because we will earn 35% of what we fund-raise. To top it all the job is meaningful!

In reality:

Sarah and I weren’t actually hired. We were “hired” to a 3-day observation period, at the end of which we would “make staff” or not, depending on our canvassing performance for the first three days. So we do get paid, at $8.00 / hour, for the two 8-hour days. But we didn’t make it to the third day. First, the commute turned out to be like 1.5 hours on each end, so our 8-hour work day was actually over 11 hours. Second, to “make staff” one would have had to raise $135 per day, and even after making staff there are still intense standards for fund-raising and zero job security. The first day I raised $2.00 and $20 the second. If I hadn’t quit, I probably would have been fired. Third, the deal IS NOT in fact that we make 35% of what we fund-raise; rather, we make 35% of the weekly average of what we raise. That’s a drastic difference. Finally, none of the other people working there were enthusiastic about the job. The girl training me the first day was on her iPhone applying to and interviewing for and getting another job. That wasn’t encouraging.

So those were all the blemishes Sarah and I discovered. Beyond those, though, the job turned out to be not as meaningful as we’d thought. Its main focus is to solicit, and I’m not comfortable harassing people on the streets for money. To pass out petitions and raise awareness and stuff, that’s acceptable. But money was too heavily the focus of Environment Massachusetts.

So I’ve been sitting on my thumbs for two weeks since, but I started my job at Nourse Farm around the corner this morning. I’m a field hand, and it’s a great job. I work hard, long days and it’s all outside, and it’s growing local food, and I feel like it’s the purest form of labor – growing food from the earth! So even after one day it’s already really rewarding. All day I had the song “inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow. all I need is rake and a hoe!”

I also applied to work in a bookstore cafe in town, had a good interview, but haven’t yet heard anything. I’d prefer two jobs for variety’s sake, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I was working 35-40 hours at Nourse Farm. Things are looking up! The sooner I make lots of cash, the sooner I can go on crazy expeditions.

List of Desired Expeditions:

1. Montreal via Middlebury with Marion.

2. Block Island

3. Cape Cod

4. Hershey Park to see Kevin

5. Acadia / Cadillac mountain to see the sun hit America earliest.

6. Potentially road-tripping with Marion back to SD and flying home, but we’ll see.

“Temporary absence”

The title to this post is in quotations marks because I’m hoping I have the discipline to return to this, so my absence is actually temporary. But I don’t think I’ll keep up doing this for the next few months (Summer break) because I don’t really have any discipline right now.

Brief recap: Got home, unpacked, spent a week relaxing, started my Cambridge canvassing job and quit it already (2 days) and tomorrow I’m looking for new employment!

Summer’s goal: CASH and recreation.

The time draws nigh!

I set my alarm for 7:55 this morning, the earliest all semester. I woke up at 9:30. Damn that frustrates me, but that’s still pretty early considering.

I got into Armstrong library at 10:30 and worked on my Political Geography final / paper / thing until 1:20ish when I went to lunch until about 2. From 2 – 7:30 I was back in the library! I finished it, I believe, and while it’s not superb it is done, which is something. I don’t know about straight A’s again this semester, sorry Bumdaddy!

Well that leaves just one more paper! And it’s for Women’s and Gender Studies (WAGS), to boot. It’ll be a delight to write. We read the novel “Egalia’s Daughters,” the first novel I’ve read in college (I’d forgotten how quickly fiction reads, as opposed to journal articles! blech.) It’s a sort of utopia / dystopia book, depicting a parallel world in which the “wim” are the empowered gender and the “menwim” are the submissive, passive, and gentle gender. “Menwim” are biologically what we’d call men, and they’re all as straight as we are (however straight that is), the roles are simply reversed. Wim are given pay bonuses for maternity leave. Menwim stay at home and cook etc. It was interesting brain-bender. I’m writing my paper on the language the author invented (“wim” and all the corresponding pronouns, the philosophers Clara Sparks and Sigma Floyd (haha…), the unit of currency is a “dollable,” things like that) as an outlet for my linguistic cravings. It should be a fun and easy paper.

I’ve got some things to do before Saturday! I need to clean out my gym and music lockers, return my skiis to the alpine shop (pretty sure they’re 2 weeks overdue… shit.), unplug the fridge before it molds, sell my books, buy some books, fill out a nothing-in-my-room-is-damaged form, and clean up everything and pack it up. In a few minutes I’m headed to the “Otter Nonsense” show – this is the college’s improv group. My good friend Ken is in it this semester, but I haven’t seen any shows this spring so I’m excited. Afterwards, there’s Midnight Breakfast, which is always offered during finals week but which I’ve never had enough energy to go to. I still don’t have any energy, but I figure I should make an appearance at least once.

I got another call from the Cambridge office for the Campaign to Save the Environment. My other boss, Sarah (different Sarah!), was just checking to see if I had any other questions. The only one I really had was where the office is. So I have an address and directions! While I’m excited for the job, I’m going to RELISH the 10 days of pure vacation I have between college and work.

I keep asking Sarah (the girlfriend) whether or not I should invite her to the family reunion in June. As the date approaches it looks unlikely, mostly for financial reasons. Maybe next time.

May!

19 was a pretty good birthday, and the uber-musical weekend went reasonably well. The parents seemed to enjoy their visit!

The Madras Album was released in a great, plaid concert! The wine and cheese reception that followed was really nice, unfortunately I had a typically over-scheduled day so I needed to rush off to rehearse “Eli, Eli” with Cloe and Shelsey. That night, the jazz concert was pretty good. I’ve personally played the songs better, but I’ve also played them worse. I had a great solo, which is a rare but super feeling. The next day for Yom HaShoah my arrangement of Eli, Eli went off really well. I got complimented on it afterwards, not only on the performance but specifically on the arrangement. It’s nice to have people who know what an arrangement is, and who know what to listen to. Linda Schiffer, the coordinator of my commons, commended me yesterday and told me she’d been sitting with Peter Hamlin, somebody in the music department, who wanted Cloe and me to contact him re: singing with him. Recognition always feels good!!!

I just finished presenting in Arabic about “Amal Alsaif,” my summer job. It’s nice to finish things like that.
I have a pretty linear workload – linear, as opposed to a scrambled mass of gooey stress. I should be able to finish one after another so it should be a pretty steady stream of work. Time’s grooving like a soul.

The First Last Stretch

I’ll be packing out in 17 days! Yes, that’s a small number, but I’ve got plenty of things to pay attention to before then. I got over the first hump yesterday when I finished my 10-pager for Political Geography. The rest:

Academics:

1. Arabic test 5/2

2. Arabic presentation 5/5-5/9

3. Israel final due 5/12

4. Arabic Final due 5/13

5. Political Geography Final due before 5/17

6. WAGS paper due before 5/17

Music:

1. Jamming with potential band 5/2

2. Mamajama CD release concert 5/3

3. Sound Investment Jazz Band concert 5/3

4. Yom HaShoa Service, “Eli, Eli” 5/4

5. Mamajama Senior Farewell concert 5/11

Other cool stuff:

1. Parents visiting 5/3-5/4

2. Sarah visiting 5/8-5/10

So it’s a busy three weeks, but I’m riding the wave pretty well. Last weekend a few friends got together to jam for a little bit. We’re doing some covers, some crazy funk jazz stuff, and whatever we feel like. This is the first context in which I’ve ever been the least musically-talented player. So I’m the singer, at least for the covers. Any original stuff we write will have to have original lyrics / melody, which has been a perpetual quagmire for me. We’ll see how that goes. But the players are Sasha on piano, Ross on sax, neighbor Ben on bass, Cameron on drums, and Jared on guitar. It’s a TIGHT group.

I also got my first solo in Mamajamas yesterday! It’s “It’s All Been Done” by BNL, which was also my arrangement. Pretty exciting. Also, this Sunday is Yom HaShoah and I’m performing “Eli, Eli.” Cloe is doing a dramatic reading of it in English, I’m singing it once in Hebrew, a second time with Cloe harmonizing and Shelsey on cello as a third voice, and a final coda-esque thing with just Shelsey. This was the first thing I’ve ever arranged for voice and instrument, so I wasn’t sure how it was gonna turn out, but it sounds beautiful! Especially with the acoustics of Mead Chapel. Crazy good.

Unfortunately the weather’s regressed. It’s as if last week and this simply came out of order. While the cold wet dreariness makes it easier to focus, it’s still cold wet dreariness. I’m sure I’ll get my fill of sunny warmth in a few days.

Grüp Projects

I hate group projects! The composition of a group is irrelevant, and my case is simple. Even a group with great friends still requires orchestrating schedules and allocating work, neither of which is ever readily possible. This week I had an Arabic presentation with another student (we met 15 minutes before class over breakfast), a political geography presentation to “Fix Iraq” (9 hours over two days with a group),  and today I met with a discussion-leading group for my WAGS course.

I just lost momentum on that rant, but the bottom line is I’m tired of group work. Beyond that, I have papers and presentations and finals galore marching up to greet me in rapid succession. From this Saturday the 26th I have 2 weeks of class and a week after that of finals before summer break. The amount of work that I have to fit into those three weeks is absurd, so I try not to think about it too much. Instead, I just look at what’s right in front of me. The next fun is a 10-page paper about border conflicts. After a hellish group project, it’s comforting to know that at the very least I will be able to just sit at a desk for endless hours and crank out a paper on my own terms. So in that respect this big paper seems a little more doable. And that’s the only assignment I’m going to mention because, in my new state of mind, that’s the only assignment I’m aware of! Ignorance is bliss!

Extra-academic activities this week were plentiful. The Mamajamas performed on Tuesday night for the accepted students evening, to much acclaim. We choreographed silly hip hop dance moves to “Baby When The Lights Go Out” and the crowd loved it. My prospie that evening was Tim (the successor of Tom!) who had already committed to Midd, so my job was easy. He was nice, but due to my orgy of work I was unable to spend much time with him, so I wasn’t as well acquainted with him as I was with Tom.

The Mamajamas also performed tonight at Relay For Life! I can’t believe it’s already been a year. I meant to help out organizing this Relay, and then I meant to be on a team, and then I meant to donate, but instead I didn’t do anything. Time seems to have given me and my restricted attention the slip. At any rate, the show was awesome. We premiered “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles, which was my first Mamajama arrangement. It was also Ali’s first solo and she brought the house down, it went really well and it was nice to have that musically rewarding / fulfilling feeling again.

After that I went to watch Sweeney Todd on campus. Shudder! Good movie, weirdo though. Now I’m hitting the sack to wake up at nine for four hours of bookstore work.

What a frustrating week! I’m outside a lot, that’s great. It was 78˚ today, which is absurd, but Battell Beach (the “quad” behind my dorm) resembled central park: people in bathing suits soaking up the sun, frisbee, soccer, whiffle ball, field hockey, hookah, lacrosse. It was like a paradise! I played some frisbee and really enjoyed it, but the whole time I had this cloud of work hanging over my head. This has been the theme of the week.

All week, I’ve watched many papers / presentations chilling on the horizon: a paper due tomorrow, a presentation due next thursday, and a presentation and a paper due next friday. This week, I’ve had very little immediate work, so why not get started with the heavy stuff? There’s plenty of research and reading to be done, after all. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to start. I would sit down at the computer and then just listen to and play music for two hours, and then kick myself. Perhaps I need pressure to get things done? I never thought I did, but it’s possible. Even as I write this, I’m taking a break from writing tomorrow’s paper. Ugh, very frustrating.

In addition to all of next week’s work, I’m hosting a second prospie on Tuesday. Hopefully he’s as cool as Tom was, and worth the trouble.

The latest “major” tangent: self-designed linguistics major. I’ve been asking around about this “Self-designed” thing and mostly I’ve heard “it’s a bitch, not worth it, don’t do it.” Also, I’m sure how I feel about paying a premium for a crazy college if I’ll be holed up in a library poring over books in independent study and calling it a “top level education.” However, the “Linguistics Major” is a much-precedented self-designed major. I sent an email to a senior who I was told is doing it, and am awaiting a reply. Also, I have a meeting with my adviser tomorrow to discuss life, the universe, and everything. ALSO, my Arabic professor (who got his masters in linguistics at UMaryland) teaches two linguistics courses “Intro to” and “The Unity and Diversity of Human Language” (more an etymological study about emergences / extinctions, language families, other REALLY EXCITING things!!!). Neither was offered this year and the former won’t be offered next year, but I’m planning on taking the latter next spring. At any rate, I just sent alustaad Usama (Usama Soltan) an email asking basically the same question I asked the senior: “What can you tell me about a self-designed linguistics major?”

So I’m hoping they’ll all tell me that because it’s so well-precedented, the linguistics major is actually quite enjoyable to do, studying in Egypt for a year will fit perfectly with it, you can save the world with this major but if you change your mind regarding your career it also works really well in almost every facet of your life, and in fact they wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a real major by my graduation in 2011. We’ll see…

There, I’ve now managed to throw away the 45 minutes I had between Mamajamas’s dinner and The Office, so I guess I’ll have to really do my paper at 9:30. I hate to wish away the last few weeks of freshman year, but I’ll be glad when all these assignments are done. (Those I mentioned are just the first round – finals are close on their heels!)

Another monday!

Busy weekend! It was relatively nondescript, but Sunday I was elected music director for the mamajamas next year, so that is exciting. I had to cut out of rehearsal early to go meet my prospie Tom from beverly massachusetts, one of the few and proud to have been accepted to midd this year (%18 acceptance rate), and he’s deciding between Haverford and here. I think we might have convinced him, though. He was a nice guy, I hope he comes here.

Today I did the usual school-thing, and haven’t done any homework! I went to the gym for a while, then had jazz band. My new distraction is Garage Band. I’m figuring out how to do cool things with it, so even when I’m done writing this I’m going to do more music stuff. Arabic homework? What?

I got the Members Only 2007 spring show on DVD in the mail today, courtesy of mama, courtesy of mr. silverman. It was really good! We were a little rougher than I remember, but the quality is awesome. Yay, Members Only!

Can’t think of too much else to write. Itching for more warmth and no more assignments, but that’s a mountain of work away.

WARMTH

I have spent so much time outside this week. It’s been great. When I’ve finished writing this entry I’m headed back outside for some Arabic homework.

I spoke with Matt today, the office director for the Cambridge office for the Campaign to Save the Environment. He cleared up a lot of my confusion. My job is 9-5, pays minimum of $350 / week plus 35% of what I fund raise. I do some canvassing, under the direction of a “field manager” (hopefully Sarah!), but most of my job is about organizing the office-end of the campaign, and writing letters to news outlets for PR purposes, lobbying.

Now for the interesting part. This summer, the campaign is working to push a new climate change bill through the MA State legislature. Matt says they’ve been working on it for a year, and just last month out of nowhere the Senate passed it! So our role is to stir up enough noise to get the House to pass it also. This bill is as good as they come: cut emissions by 20% by 2020, and by 80% by 2050. I think Matt said that there are only like 5 other states with this legislation either on the books or headed that way. Yay 1Sky! So that’s exciting, that not only do I have an engaging and well-paying summer job, but I am actually enthusiastic about it. 40-hour weeks will be interesting, but I have no qualms about vacationing!

I got some grades back this week, which is unusual. So now in my WAGS course I have one grade (a good one) and in Political Geography another grade (also good), tons of grades in Arabic (mostly good) and two grades in Politics in Israel (both good). The downside is that I have most of my grades remaining in the next 4 weeks in WAGS and PG. Gametime.

Spring cautiously approaches

The weather is playful! Two days ago it was wretched slush falling from the sky. Yesterday it was partly cloudy and like 50. Today it’s sunny and 52, and the projection for next week has two 60˚ days next to each other. It’s very exciting, and hopefully won’t distract from studying (too much).

Thursday night I went with Ariela and another feb friend named Ben (newest Mamajama) to the “Middlebury Union High School A Cappella Invitational” in mead chapel. Midd college choir and mountain ayres (chamber singers) opened the show, and then high school a cappella groups from Mount Abe, Vergennes, and Middlebury did various sets. They were all right, and it was nice to hear a lot of songs I’ve sung before! The evening ended with “Maiden Vermont,” a chorus (50ish of them) of Vermont women ages 35-70 I would say, but the median was around 55-60. They were AWESOME. They sang barbershop stuff, and had all this hilarious choreography. Mama would have felt in perfect place among them. I got a huge kick out of it.

Ilanna came over to visit on Friday! It was kinda a last minute what-the-heck affair but it was nice to see her. She, Ariela and I had a late night Friday night. Saturday I had work from 10-2 and ran over to the Middlebury-Bowdoin track meet as soon as I could. Sarah and I were able to chill for intermittent periods of like 10-15 minutes each, which is frustrating but life. Saturday night I stayed in and watched “Finding Neverland.” Gotta love corniness.

The tracks of the Mamajamas’s new album “The Madras Album” are almost finished! They just need to be mastered, but so far they’re sounding really good. We have our CD release party on May 3. – it’s a big weekend. Friday the 2nd is my birthday, then Saturday has the a cappella show and the spring Jazz show later that night. I sent an email to the parents and it looks like they’ll actually make a foray into the cold north to see the shows / celebrate the birthday! Never underestimate sentimentality, I suppose.

The 5 remaining weeks are daunting to me. I’m half at a point where I’m ready for the year to be over. It’s not completely overtaken me yet, but I’m really looking forward to warmth and old friends. 5 weeks isn’t so long, but when I look at my syllabi I’m blown away by what I’m expected to accomplish before then! Oh, huge pet peeve: classes that have both a final paper AND a final exam. What the hell?

With community service done, I should have a much easier week.