fieldworkterm2017

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A reflection on all this reflection

Hi all,

Here’s a few thoughts centered around one large large question:

What am I taking away from this last FWT? Many things. First I’m more invested than ever in the college education that I came to Bennington for, I feel some degree of certainty that I am interested in and ready to do work in land-use design, especially for non-profit organizations with a focus on agriculture and education, I can see that what I’ve learned at Bennington will enable me to do that work, and I learned so much about communicating not only specific practical tasks and information but also about communicating who I am as a person.

To be frank, the last several terms at Bennington have been rough for me and a big part of that has been feeling academically lost. Last FWT I had a great position in a non-profit working to create a book on water-health activism with an amazing artist/activist of 70 years. I was something of a secretary to her which was interesting and involved a lot of writing and research and some illustration. The salient point is that a lot of that work was essentially recording and reworking dictation from her and I didn’t really see how my Bennington education was getting used. At the same time it was often more fulfilling work than the academic work I was doing at Bennington. It’s hard to explain all the contradictory reasons, but that FWT experience made it harder to come back to Bennington and feel that my work here was useful. This FWT was different in that the classes I’ve been taking and the classes I’m in this Spring had direct bearing on the research and planning I was doing for Project 1808. It really helped to take a step away from the college but to still be doing the same kind of work and to be having an immediate impact with that work. I was reading scientific articles, NGO-published articles, government documents, and hearing stories from individuals about the ecology of the country and the different levels of understanding about agriculture. This was so fascinating and followed directly from so many skills I learned in ecology, anthropology, and design classes at Bennington. In addition, it gives me so much potential material for inspiration and discussion in the assignments for the classes I’ll be in this spring which are mostly focused on human-plant relationships.

As for learning about living somewhere other than Bennington… Every FWT teaches you that and every FWT teaches you about communication and inhabiting a new place. This FWT went farther in that respect for me than any other FWT has before. Being in one of the least developed nations in West Africa as a white woman getting an education at a small liberal arts college in Northeast of the US was an experience of learning at every moment. I began to learn a new spoken language, but I also began to learn a new body language and cultural language as well. I was an unusual sight, but I was treated with respect as much as curiosity, generally, so I had the privilege of absorbing a lot of information, and later, as I got more comfortable and acquainted with the environment, I was able to begin to respond and further engage with the work and my coworkers. It was difficult at first to know how to make myself understood and how to interpret what I understood from my coworkers, but in the end I had a lot of latitude to ask questions and raise opinions in equal measure. This was a really interesting experience because it taught me something about constantly being seen as someone out of place, and about the moment-to-moment reality of arriving in a place where there is a totally different language of behavior. And above-all, I had the chance to see and learn a lot of things that I might never encounter in the US and most importantly to make friends and connections to another organization with whom I share so many central values and interests.

Looking forward into this term and into the ability to keep in touch in all sorts of ways,

Lauren

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Week 6 wildly late

Trying to wrap this all up and post what I wrote in the airport... sorry folks for the latency, but thanks for the company this winter

A hard week. Everything was an ending because the most frequent topic of conversation was my impending departure. And in some ways not much got done. Mr. Jalloh was again mobile and able to drive places, but we spent some not insignificant time visiting the various secondary schools to speak to teachers, check in on students, and other forms of membership maintenance. I heard more about the challenges that 1808 deals with in making sure that the students who are receiving scholarship, are a) coming to the organization's events, and b) not also receiving scholarship from other places. There was a parent-teacher conference at the beginning of the week in which the teachers -- “mentors” in 1808 -- called a meeting so that they could talk directly to and hear from parents about why kids are absent, or late, or only show up to sports events, etc. At the end of the week, the mentors met all together and discussed that meeting and also other more internal challenges that the organization faces, and it was an interesting chance to see how the organization must be evolving over time, especially as it grows and develops new arms. I pulled together some drawings for the Sokuralla site and am starting research on the landscape portion, but I learned only on my last day in country about the plans of one of my co-workers who has been working on this for some time. I was rather frustrated about that, it would have helped a lot to know what he was thinking, but nevertheless, it’s good to have his ideas on paper to give me some more guidance and inspiration. I will certainly be working with 1808 in the coming week and probably extending into the semester in small ways, and that will allow me to finish the plans for the classroom building and clarify some of the plans for the agriculture sites. I think it will be a lot easier to manage those things from the US, than it has been here, although I also think it will be sad to lose my coworkers, and hard to keep in touch very much.

In any case, while I’m leaving the country in a few hours, I am still feeling engaged and in the middle of these projects.

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I’m very excited to be back here. I feel more grounded than I did last term, and I feel like this is a direct result of being with Sarah every day. On the day I was leaving, she said, “You know what? I think I’m going to know you your whole life.” Sarah is absolutely the most grounded person I know. I think that to say that to someone, and to have that person believe it and know it to be true, takes a level of conviction, or maybe groundedness, that I haven’t known before.

Coming back from that, I know that many of the relationships I have here are not quite sure. I see it in myself and in others. It’s a kind of flakiness, committing only when and where necessary but not beyond. I had not questioned it before.

Working was also good for me in that it forced me to give up a useless, confessional tone I use habitually--generally to state the ways in which I have been useless in the past. Useless is the correct word to use. At my internship, I aimed to be pleasant and useful, not interesting. I am going to have to try to find a way to apply that here.

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Blog Post the Last

It isn’t really fair to ask friends how their Field Work Terms were, because it’s a time that ushers people through a full range of emotions and anxieties.  It also isn’t yet clear to me how my month and a half in D.C. really was.  It was challenging, to be sure; at times isolating, at times joyous.  I dealt with a cancelled flight and housing emergencies and professional insecurities and being a political spectator and public transportation.  We all take on the task of fashioning these imaginary futures for ourselves during Field Work Term -- in fact, each time, I’ve experienced a moment towards the end where I wonder if it would be feasible for me to take a term off of school and stay put.  But each time, I return, and what I have been through over the past months becomes a story I tell relative to how it feels to be at Bennington -- cozy, loved, stressed about classes, sometimes bored, sometimes overly stimulated.

Field Work Term was both magical and fickle because I was trying on these new identities, most potent among them being that of “adult.”  It’s a bit like playing dress-up: I was worker, I was press, I was activist.  I was coming of age, but only for six weeks.  

My work for Mariah continues, actually.  I drove to Hoosick Falls last night to videotape a meeting for her.  The meeting was cancelled last minute, and the outcry from the audience was so fierce I felt certain for a moment a fist fight was about to break out.  It’s nice, though, this continuation.  I never thought I’d become so enraptured in small town politics, but this is how it’s turned out.  

Maybe most clarifying for me over Field Work Term was getting to sit down and talk to a number of journalists about what they do, what they like about it, and what advice they would give to someone aspiring in their general direction.  Nothing I’ve envisioned myself doing in the future has ever made more sense to me than this.  I want to chase down stories and characters, write, see that writing enter the public sphere, and be a part of a continuous dialogue.  That sounds like fulfillment.  

And I’m ready for the grudge work, too.  That was something I went into this Field Work Term wanting to know about myself, if I could really handle the parts that aren’t fast-paced or overly fascinating, and I learned actually that there are certain topics that are fascinating all the way through.  Plastic is one of those topics, believe it or not.  If you don’t believe it reading this, give me just five minutes of your time.  

I like D.C. and can see myself living there after college.  It’s a very practical city -- built on a grid, filled with people whose work requires their residence there.  I’m thrilled by the free museums, and the feeling one gets of being in the middle of something important just by being present there.  And living in both Vermont and Oklahoma, my compatibility with the weather doesn’t feel like a concern anywhere else in this country.  

Sunday will be the first Bennington Free Press meeting of the term.  I’m eager to apply what I’ve learned about investigative journalism to our charming little paper.  It might be a clash at first, but I think it’s a worthy pursuit, and I think that Bennington is capable of producing revealing, hard-hitting work.  

And mostly, I feel this infinite delight to be back in this community, a part of impromptu gatherings in the house, seeing friends at meals, bouncing senior work ideas off of others.  College, in its most ideal form, is about being kept up past your bedtime by the best sorts of people.  No wonder nobody seems to sleep at Bennington.

-- Jorja, 2/24/17

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This place is packed and layered—packaged by undercurrents.“Simplify, simplify” is not the full-stop of eloquence.Hello Bennington. Hello to all of the familiar, unknown faces. 

During the second half of my internship, my projects were varied, long-term, and engaging. Reviewing the Word Works series was certainly a highlight—being able to essentially attend these events exposed me to work and authors I was largely unfamiliar with. Similarly, the themes and works often cited in the lectures were amply material for me to mine, and incorporate in my own reading, writing and research. One thing led to another, and another, and everyone seemed to quote or reference Eudora Welty. I have since read a slim volume of hers—”One Writer’s Beginning”. In it, she discusses her young life in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as those of her parents and extended family.    

The detective work that went into tracking down the contents of the Literary Series was also a rich experience. The project was to account for who spoke, when, under what theme, and to find a digital copy of the work presented. I was able to sift through literary platforms I had never previously heard of in order to find some of the elusive documents. This carved a path to the contemporary literary scene I hadn’t taken before—instead of my usual specific hunting, I was looking for something specific but unknown to me.  Archival work—if even from my altogether limited experience in the field I can make generalizations—is solitary, at least among live specimens. Haunted, perhaps, is a more apt consideration of the endeavor; accompanied would also do as an adjective. I handled the collateral for events, the fliers meant to attract and entice the public; I sorted through records of those same advertised events, and read the audience’s thoughts on their experience. Time travel is possible—this is how it is done. After, we return to our contemporary age either weary or refreshed, with recently adjusted lenses in our daily frames. This is not a new idea, this is not a treasured phenomenon that I alone experience, yet I did undertake, it felt like, a few fleeting bucks of time while working in Seattle. The quickest portals are the old newspapers, and the slowest are the advertisements.       

All in all, my time at Hugo House was rewarding, and I feel fulfilled in the work I have completed. Each task lead to another, and my “field of literary vision” has certainly been broadened. I am looking forward to taking the research I was able to privately pursue with me as I head into the term.  

I have been back on campus almost a week now—how I have missed the rural North East! For four days, the campus was populated by no more than one hundred students—the campus felt open, available, and refreshed in the same way a bedroom might after opening the window for the first time in three months. 

House Chair Training was a microcosm of some of my main concerns this term: namely, to be aware of the structure as well as the content of my work. During several of the sessions the administration had prepared for us, instead of simply participating in the programming, we heisted the time to analyze, dissect and reconsider the proposed activity. Unfortunately, I can name one such session as one of the two most engaging, richest and thought-provoking two hours I have ever experienced in my time as a House Chair. In a similar move, I have already altered my schedule—this term, I have an acute awareness of how to fully engage with a course. (Or at least a theory I’d like to try). Instead of working mostly with what my courses offer me and allowing my “outside work” to be influenced as I have in the past, I intend to turn the tables, and bring my interests to the abundance of the curriculum. I rank this as the most impactful element of FWT for me—chipping away at how I previously regarded pedagogy as a monolithic entity to bend to. The more my Bennington (read: daily) education commences, the more I work with the confidence to malleate my interests on resources I am fortunately presented with, and not only try to eke out enticing through lines from the raw “academic” material before me.     

Everyone poured and swarmed. The campus inflated, constricted. We’re back folks, and hear how wonderful it is from the staff who missed us, as well as from peers rejoicing. I join them, certainly, but also recognize a more purposeful mode organizing itself within me. Is this growing up, or growing up in the manufactured domesticity of Bennington College?  “Simplify, simplify” is not the full-stop of eloquence; this place is packed and layered—packaged by undercurrents. I’m plummeting into the font of the term. Thank you all for writing so generously over this past winter.          All the Best, Marshall 

[fieldworkterm2017]

I’m a bit behind and this is not even the last post

I returned to Bennington about a week ago for House Chair training -- which counts for 30 hours of my total Field Work Term 210, so I may as well describe it.

House Chairs, on the whole, take pride in challenging the administration to do better.  A few of our training sessions turned into critiques of the programming that had been planned for us.  For example, the administrator leading a workshop on “house culture” wanted us to put sticky notes up giving the stereotypes/negative things we’d heard about each house, and people had some real issues with this approach.  Same with an alcohol workshop the following day that didn’t really scratch the surface of Bennington’s drinking culture.  But, shout-out to Liam: his consent workshop was very well-organized and he’s a great presenter.  I was quite impressed and felt it was some of our most constructive programming.

Training was a definite change of pace from work the prior week.  It was sort of nice to be herded through the respective activities rather than having to structure my own time, but also, I miss the freedom.  However, moving into my last term as a House Chair, I felt more introspective during training than before.  It wasn’t just about considering my own role as House Chair, but how the program can be amended to make it a better job for all House Chairs.

Once those jam-packed three days were over, the HCs celebrated with some wild dancing in a Booth bathroom.  A serious job perk. 

Classes started yesterday and I’m about to run off to the first meeting of Studio Ceramics.  Will update with that mother of all blog posts soon enough.

Jorja, 2/22/17

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Summative Post

We’re back.  Campus is buzzing and busy again.  It doesn’t feel like I never left.  Campus sans-students is somewhat of a different universe than Bennington during a semester.  There will definitely be times I miss the cold, quiet emptiness.  It was peaceful, and I felt like I had both the world and in other ways my day more to myself.  

But there’s nothing wrong with a campus full of friends and peers again.  

My FWT this year was two-fold, with 105 hours devoted to these two positions:

1:  

Wrote, refined and delivered a one-hour workshop on consent and communication.

I began in the Fall, asking the intended audience essentially “Do you want this?”  Upon hearing yes, I gave myself two weeks to write the thing, spent the following three refining the writing, building out slides and sending it around to call out what I missed.  I rehearsed, made last-minute improvisations when tech needs fell through and gave the darn thing.  I now have a written start, a beginning model to ground later work.  

What’s difficult now is that I feel the work requires more people.  It would feel stronger and more appropriate coming from a small group of 3-5, rather than just myself.  In fact I feel this by now with all my sexual health work.  The logical next step is the begin developing that team, but that’s not so easy.  Particularly not when many of my closest co-workers have long graduated and BeWell long dissolved.  Mostly, it’s another initiative on top of what I thought I’d be doing already so it’s just unfortunate.  But I’ve known this for a while.  There is no reason for me to be doing sexual health work by myself.  It’s not a reflection of my ability or uniqueness, rather my failure to recognize and engage the other people who share my interests. So we’ll see what happens.  

This project was only half of my FWT, however.  I haven’t written much about the other bit so here’s that:

2:

I gave myself the first two weeks and the last week to write the workshop, and in between I was helping Bill Scully write a speech.  Bill managed to measurably improve riverine habitat as a consequence of re-developing a small-scale hydro dam.  In March he goes to Boston to speak on how he did it, and how ongoing and persistent resistance from environmental groups is beginning to amount to a climate-denier stance.  

For the middle month of FWT and continuing still, I took a general assistant type of role. I organized his writing into the outline we’re using now, built a presentation, took care of logistics and tech needs with hosts and did research to ground comments on climate change.  As I did this, we met regularly to work through what he wanted to talk about and refine our talking points.  

I went through the classic FWT surprise of my boss routinely asking me what I thought was best, and me having good answers.  It’s been good, forcing me to elevate my concept of self a bit, while also noticing all the ways I had been at that point already and not known it.  

In addition to these, I spent another winter cooking, exploring and enjoying the quiet snowy nights. I successfully made a practice of cooking a week’s worth of food on Sunday or Monday evening, saving a significant amount of time, energy and money.  In particular this meant fourteen solid days of eating a delicious and vegetable-heavy lightly-fried rice.  I will be doing that again.  

Almost forgot:  on Saturday I return to the world of D&D, where I am currently at 1 hp and my friend just lost a leg.  

Byebye,

Liam

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That discount center turned out to be even wilder than I imagined, quirks of prezi

When I mentioned the A&J Discount Center a coupe posts ago, I mentioned that it was the cheapest I had ever seen.  By far. Bags of Cape Cod chips for a dollar. Sleeves of cookies and other junk food for literally ten cents.  Gluten free flours, canned goods – all for roughly a quarter of any common store price.

I figured out why. Turns out they not only stock food that is expired…. they stock food that expired in August.  I had one item that went past sell-by in December, but the vast majority were Six Months beyond the date.  I understand the prices now.  And I’ll probably still buy their canned beans.

On another note, I’ve been working with Prezi lately and it has an interesting quirk.  Most presentation programs employ basic animations: a picture pops in, or pops out. Multiple objects can plop into a frame, punctuating whatever a speaker is talking about on whichever slide.  

Prezi can’t do that, it turns out.  Or, rather, it can make objects appear, but once they’re in they’re not going anywhere. This makes sense, since Prezi’s whole thing is that you fly along a pre-built web of objects on a 2D plane. But when somebody like me want’s to feature the details of one dam and then cycle them out for the details of the next it can’t be done.  Instead, the workaround is to place a shape the same color as the background over the first layer of objects, effectively “blinking them out,” then popping the next layer on top. And each layer has to be added to the path before the other is laid on top of it, because once it’s buried it can’t be manipulated because the other layers are in the way.  

In the end it’s not a demanding process, per se, but it’s a weird surprise for a program as fundamental as Prezi, and a workaround worth talking about.  

Liam

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I Might Have to Quit Magic

This FWT has helped me realize something I really wish I didn’t have to do……

I’ve played Magic: The Gathering since roughly 2010.  It’s a trading card game where players cast spells and beat each other up with strange and beautifully rendered creatures.  It’s a process of collecting, fine-tuning and adjusting combinations of cards that are ever-changing and often unexpected.  Imagine chess where the object of the game is to get around how the rules work.  It is a source of joy, wonder and challenge for me, and I think I need to quit.

I hold my own nerd-dom sacred, and I hold the holding of one’s own nerd-dom sacred sacred.  Magic has been my core expression of that for nearly 7 years.  Games are how I remember to think critically about my lifestyle choices, making sure I do what I do because it’s what feels right, rather than what’s most acceptable, or accepted to be worth doing.  Liking dorky stuff is what keeps me anchored amid the rat race toward status and productivity.

Yet now I’m in a position where I need to take my work more and more seriously.  Not that I don’t take my work seriously now.  I do.  But it’s coming time to devote to that work more of how I construct my person.  

I’m feeling myself growing all the time.  Learning more things more quickly and pushing more concrete work than ever.  I’m transitioning into a more “professional self.” I can’t have my idle thoughts taken up by new synergies or scrolling for previously unknown cards anymore.  I need my idle attention to be available to my work…… it’s currently taken up by “what if I ran Sapling of Colfenor and all the Pestilence effects.”

Now, I fully understand the importance of diverse interests, and small personal pursuits – particularly in sparking new ideas from unexpected places.  So let’s call this a re-configuration of my “nerdy old self.”  I’m looking toward a deeper investment in Dungeons & Dragons and **here’s to hoping** a heyday for gatherings over board games and drinks.  Ways I can re-charge, while keeping my creative energy focused on things that are not just more important, but suddenly ok to have be more important.  

That’s all for now.

Liam

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Workshop delivered, next steps

First of a flurry of post from me, to get this tied off.

I gave the workshop this past Thursday.  It went about as well as it could have, and marks my third time facilitating on this subject.  The specific people I was most fearful of offending or setting off had a really good time, so everything else feels like gravy.  

There were a couple lines I did forget, which would have rounded things out, but the match between as-written and as-spoken is never perfect with something like this, certainly not the first time it’s ever run with a full audience.  My commentary on some things is definitely still clunky though; I look forward to the improvements made to whatever mark ii version comes next.  

Most importantly, I have a written start.  I have a product that can be adjusted, tossed out or otherwise built onward from.  This was my underlying goal, and I consider it achieved.  Step 3: Complete!

What’s difficult now, however, is that I feel the next step requires a team of people working on this, and that doesn’t exist.  More so, many of my personal collaborators have graduated so I feel like I’m at square one.  Scoping for new co-workers….. more on that in my summative post.  

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Hello all,

My final post. I’m writing to you all now from my room in Bennington: FWT has ended. There is a buzz about campus, one that rings this loud only after a winter of contemplative work. It’s good to be back.

The question that haunts Bennington at this time is, of course, “how was your Field Work Term?” It seems fitting to be writing this post now, the night after a day of receiving and asking this question ad nauseum.

I’ll start this post with the answer I’ve curated over the course of the day: “It was good! I was in North Bennington, which was nice, and I really, really liked the work.”

That really does cover it. My experience this FWT has been incredibly rewarding, not only confirming what I had hoped to be true—that I enjoy working as a dramaturg—but also giving me a sense of pragmatic drive; I’ve suspected that I like dramaturgy since before FWT, but now I feel confident in saying that it’s what I want to do. This is my first FWT where I’ve had this experience.

It’s hard to remember my first week of FWT, but I recall it being full of research and lessons in self-independence. That first week really offered me a glimpse of the joys and pains of living and working. I had to figure out not just how I was going to settle in, but actually how to settle in. The world feels a little more manageable, now.

My second week saw me really sitting down and getting into the crunch of my research. I wrote most of my dramaturgical writing that week and kept close to a five-page-a-day schedule. Essay writing is difficult for me—it’s not where I have the most fun putting my words to the page—and that week intimidated me the most. I came out of it, however, with an improved work ethic toward writing and a nifty first draft of my dramaturgy packet.

In the third week, I worked the archives at Hubbard Hall. I learned a lot about the history of American Theater in the late 1800s, my FWT taking a surprisingly academic turn. I also got a better perspective of what small, regional theater is and can be. This is my second experience working at such a theater, and it really helped bulk up my contemporary theater comprehension.

My fourth week I found a love of and fondness for archival work. I think my fourth week was probably the least interesting of the seven I spent over FWT, but it did bring me a kind of tranquility or peace of mind: I now know that I’m content with data-entry. As unexciting as that sounds, it really quells my fear that the only work I’ll be able to find post-college is administrative. That may still be true, but at least I won’t hate it.

I resumed research in my fifth week of FWT. It was very nice to return to it, but I also found myself at an all time low of productivity. I think I was simply a little burned out by this point in the Field Work Term, but all the same that week required a special kind of diligence to keep me on my feet. It was also the week where I really started to confront the feeling that my work was insufficient. One really valuable lesson I learned from week five was when to stop; that point isn’t necessarily where I want to stop, but it comes about all the same.

My sixth and seventh weeks ran together somewhat, as rehearsals occupied each one. By this point in my FWT, there wasn’t a huge amount for me to do but watch the rehearsals and occasionally offer the director and the actors a piece of dramaturgical advice. That all said, I learned a lot about the art and patience of observation. It’s not something I’ve mastered by any means, but the more time I spend simply sitting in the room, the more comfortable I am in the position of observer. I’ve also learned a lot about directing comedy—namely, that you have to make yourself laugh first.

All in all, it’s been a wonderful FWT, the first to live up to my pre-Bennington dreams of the winter opportunity. I think the biggest thing I’ve taken away from it is the fact that the work I want to do isn’t waiting for me so much as I have to look for it and make it myself. I’ve learned that wanting to be a dramaturg and wanting to do dramaturgy are two very different things, and though I don’t know if I could ever be a dramaturg, I do know that I want to and can get to work.

Truly,

-Sam, 2/20/17

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Hello all,

This is my second to last post this FWT. That feels like an accomplishment in and of itself. I’m excited to look back at my own posts, and see how my thought has changed from week to week. Really, I’m excited to pack up this part of my life, and head into a new phase.

Last week’s post had a smack of pessimism to it. I suppose that was the mood I was in at that time, but now that rehearsals have started, I find myself newly invigorated by my work. This morning, Kirk (director of the play) and I were interviewed for a local radio program, on which we discussed the play and our involvement with it. I had a fabulous time, and it really helped me reiterate and re-examine the huge amount of work I’ve done for this production. I felt really proud.

It was one of many chances I’ve received this past week to simply talk about theater. Somewhat endlessly. Between it and rehearsals, I was reminded why I do love theater. It’s an electric, living, and generous art, which blooms and dies not for people but between them. I suspect that theater is truly the art (or ‘artification’) of communication, the creative pursuit of the ways in which people speak to each other. There are of course counter examples to this rule, but I think that’s where the love lives for me.

It’s all about talk. Of course most plays are about talk, but my love for them is really what I’m referring to here. I articulated this week that really my passion for theater is the discussion, critique, and analysis of it, the dizzying and playfully pretentious conversations we have about it. I live for that. I don’t know exactly where this rekindled love will take me, but I know it’s brought me somewhere cozy and comfy right now.

As I mentioned above, rehearsals have begun. The began last week with my dramaturgy presentation, and in reduced terms, it meant everything to me to talk about my work and have the actors and creatives appreciate it. THAT felt good. In academia, the process of other people reading your work is... scary and highly critical. Having a room full of eager, thankful people as my audience was importantly refreshing.

Perhaps the lowest point of this week is actually being a dramaturg in the rehearsal room. I’m able to pipe in with a well curated fact or idea from time to time, but most of my job is simply watching the play and occasionally discussing with Kirk our thoughts about its direction. I certainly learn a lot from being in the room, but I can’t help but feel that my work is mostly over--which is true. So for this final, upcoming week, I won’t have a ton to do but watch. And at times, that can be a tad dull. That said, this week’s question is: how do you watch the same thing with fresh eyes over and over again?

Didn’t mean to end on my most dour note--this has been a great week for my FWT. The snow’s melting, too.

Truly,

-Sam, 2/13/17

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In the office where I’m working, it’s race and social justice talk all day every day. Also there is a baby, and one day there was a mouse. Sarah’s background is as a social worker (10 years working mostly with the undocumented community in downtown Phoenix); Steve was born, raised, and now lives in the Central District, which was the only place African Americans or Jews could live in Seattle when he was born, and where he’s very active in his church and in the community or what’s left of it (gentrification) as a whole, the leaders of Seattle’s activist and immigrant communities all seem to know and respect him, remarkably, and he’s spent 20 years running Seattle’s largest multicultural festival; Ebony was raised in Kenya and then in the Central District (she knows Steve from childhood) and then worked as a community organizer and now has a baby who she brings to work every day named Achello; Rebecca quit well-paid advertising work in the corporate world to work for nonprofits that are doing work she can believe in. 

Sarah took a day off and called senators for eight hours, then ran a young writer’s cohort (which I used to be a part of) and then worked on sending her manuscript to magazines. This was after a vacation where she went home to Arizona and helped organize a neighborhood meeting to find American citizens to take care of every kid who had been born in America to undocumented parents in case their parents were deported. they organized people to hide undocumented people in their homes. What is the penalty for hiding an undocumented worker? No one knows yet. The trump administration keeps changing their positions on immigration issues, and activist communities are responding to outdated information and then appearing exposed, and appearing as though they do not know what they are doing. 

It almost goes without saying, but I have so much respect and admiration for all of these people and the way they live their values every day. I’m deeply grateful to be present for the conversations they are having.

Especially Sarah, who has been a consistant presence in my life since I was fifteen. She’s been my mentor in writing poetry all that time, a relationship we are both very conscious of. Her kindness to me has always been incredible, adn formative. Being able to see her doing this kind of work as well has been eye-opening. She’s both a writer and an activist, and while the two inform one another, she is attentive to their different needs. She never writes “social justice poetry.” She’s grounded as a poet and in her social justice work. Her poems are dark, small, make light of language, and are often about the desert.

I want to leave you with something she posted on facebook recently, which I’ve been thinking about often.

“Be present and active for today's needs, but overall be present before and after now. Pay the best attention you feel able to, and then pay even more. Be there in the large activist activity, and be in your neighborhood.

Who we are in the details matters.”

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Somehow, I’m wildly behind with posting on this blog. Although I thought I’d be better, field work term is mostly over--I have my last three days of work next week, and then I’m finished. 

I most often begin my interviews asking about how the Seattle Center impacts the people involved in it, and the city as a whole. Frequently, people bring up 9/11. When people did not know what to do, and had no set place to go, The Seattle Center is where they gathered, I’ve heard probably over thirty times. (The second most regular thing which comes up is people gathering at the Seattle Center after Kurt Cobain killed himself.) It was not planned, particularly. People, all sorts of people, just started coming. James Whetzel, who does the music at the fountain, came up with the idea of a flower vigil. (That it was his idea is not a well-known fact, but I learned it after interviewing him, recently. More on James later.) People came to the fountain to lay down their flowers in greater and greater numbers. The vigil, which was supposed to last two days, lasted five. 

The atmosphere of my internship has changed pretty significantly since Trump became president. Someone I talked to the other day said that it’s a quieter, subtler version of 9/11 again. Part of it is that more of the people I’m interviewing are themselves immigrants. The other part is just the general state of the country, or the country as I understand it from Seattle, one of this country’s most liberal cities. 

When I ask at the end of the interview, as I do with each, what people would like to add to our interview, more and more people are talking about the Seattle Center as the antithesis to Trump, or how grateful they are to have been accepted into the United States, legally. They talk about how genuinely it is place where everyone is welcomed, and the cultural festivals (there are 22 of them now, and the Festivals started 20 years ago) where people come together to celebrate, but also I think most importantly, to share, their cultures in festivals at the Seattle Center. James, who does the music at the fountain, plays music from which ever group is having their festival. 

Where virtually nothing explicitly political came up in the first few weeks of my internship, especially in the interviews, now it comes up in every one. 

I interviewed the man who does the music for the International Fountain, which is in the center of the Seattle Center campus, and was built for the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962, along with most of the rest of the Seattle Center. He has been mixing the music for the fountain (there is music playing at the fountain all daylight hours, all year round) for the past ten years. Normally, he keeps the music mellow in January and February, and then bumps up the tempo in the spring and summer. Over the course of the year, he does not repeat tracks in the mixes he produces every two weeks.

This year, though, is different because of Trump, he said. The last mix he made he called the “Love, Justice, No Ban No Wall” mix. On it, he put instrumental (all fountain music is instrumental, because lyrics, he says, distract from people experiencing the fountain, instead they experience the music. Also if a mix runs for two weeks, people don’t get sick of instrumental music in the same way they do lyrics) music from all the countries on the ban, klezmer music, public enemy, and a lot of instrumental hip-hop. He is going to play “fight the power” on every mix he makes this year. 

You can hear this music through most of the Seattle Center. Located in the Seattle Center are many government offices (like the one I am located in, which produces the cultural festivals) as well as many of Seattle’s arts organizations, as well as Seattle’s biggest tourist attraction, the Space Needle (they are privately owned, which they try to hide, and they do not pay their workers near what they should. In case you are in Seattle any time soon, bare that in mind.)

People who were just going about their own lives, I think, are making increasingly radical statements. And so is Seattle itself. The interviews I’m doing now are going to be posted throughout the year. I am trying to create, with them, a picture of the Seattle Center as a place where people genuinely feel included, and welcomed. And possibly a place where people can come together, to resist what is happening.

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Penultimate

Monday will be my last day at Hugo House, concluding this winter’s Field Work Term. My third, neatly squared away, with three days on the West Coast remaining. I dropped into my first dance class since term—a different, yet similar, movement practice. The whole time I felt like I was masquerading, not only bluffing the technique, but pretending I was any kind of dancer at all.   

Two of the lectures I reviewed this week dealt with stories beneath the one being told—Urrea calls this “understory”. Strung together archetypes, as Nelson more explicitly spoke of, step one rung lower in the mines of time than history does. Imagine a vibrating world: the ripples are the understory.          

Thinking of this, I think of Bennington. Without becoming too Henry V about the breach, here we go again. This past week has seen the rise and fall and rise again of anxieties, hopes and goals often known to live in that small patch of Vermont. Bennington: the academic hotel you know the room numbers of that has the nasty habit of taking over the way we (its students) see the world—it filters. It isn’t a pressure-cooker; we make it one. It isn’t a bubble; we make it one. It isn’t a refuge; we make it one. Right?      

If you can, I urge you to see “I Am Not Your Negro”, the film by Raoul Peck, the film by James Baldwin.   “Simplify, simplify” is not the full-stop of eloquence.

Yours,

Marshall 

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For Week 5...

What a mixed bag of a week it was. On Sunday, Jan. 29th, Mr. Jalloh had to swerve to avoid a flock of sheep crossed the road in front of him, and he took a fall on his motorbike. He had some road-rash, a bruised hip, and more importantly a pretty significant cut to the side of his left foot, and so he couldn’t ride or even walk very well. On the next day, one of the women hosting me sprained her ankle really badly. And then the next day, Nene, her grandmother, got sick. So each day, I arrived to her house to find that I needed to march back up to the Nar Sarah Clinic guest house where I’m sleeping and grab some meds and/or bandages. For this coming week, I have plenty of dramamine, so anyone who’s feeling motion-sick, hmu! On the other hand, I’m not just settled into the work and the rythms of daily life, I’m feeling settled into the community as well, and not just becasue I can find my way around town without asking for directions or because I have finally been allowed to help with the cooking or because while Mr. Jalloh was dodging sheep, I was having a international politics discussion with a few of the folks who live in the Clinic compound and it was more than a volley of questions about Trump. My Krio still isn’t great, but I’m able to communicate well enough that no one is surprised or uncertain when I say that I’ll walk myself home. Maybe even more amusing to me personally is that now, when the kids or the men yell some version of a greeting to me, I can tell them in Krio that I’m not stopping to chat and give them my name, number, and biography because I’m headed to work. And now that these various projects are up and running at something of their own pace, Mr. Jalloh and I have had more time to go to the school functions, like the school-to-school visits. So not only have we started clubs in those school-to-school visits, but I’ve become friends with a few of the students, and I’ve been going to the training of the Amadiya students after school. See, each secondary school (middle & high school) holds a sporting event which is essentially a track and field day for the school, and then eventually the schools compete against each other, and then different districts compete and a few people go on to represent the country, just like our regional and then state championships for track and field. So, the schools spend the 3 or so weeks training in preparation for the event. I don’t know how many kids Amadiya has, but they have four “houses” (you get put in one when you enter the school, and it’s nothing to do with living/sleeping, it’s just a way of dividing the school) and probably 60 or so kids are participating in each house, plus however many kids aren’t participating… So it’s a big thing, is what I’m saying. Between 5pm and 6pm each house trains at one of two soccer fields and I’ve been going to watch and hang out. It’s a lot of fun, it reminded me of track and xc meets in high school, and it makes me think that Bennington should do something like this. Maybe not by house, but by street or something… Because going to the field, everyone is there which only happens at Bennington for Sunfest; for this training, people are moving so there’s plenty of dopamine; and people are pretty casual about it, mostly standing around and chatting, cheering and ocassionally playing up the house rivalry a little. Today (2/4) Usman and A. Conteh, two guys who might be my age or just younger, got into a little trash-talking match. Usman started it by saying Yellow House is the best house with by far the most reccords, A. Conteh stood there shaking his head at me, and I made the “mistake” of saying that Yellow House might have the most reccords, but I had heard A. Conteh was by far the fastest guy in the school. Usman, said, “I know fifteen guys who can sprint more than A. Conteh. I, myself, can sprint more than A. Conteh!” A. Conteh returned with “I have 25 guys in my house who can sprint faster than you can!” Which Usman countered with “My 15 guys can all run faster than any of your 25!” This may not be funny to whoever is reading this, but it was very, very amusing on the field, perhaps in part because Usman is now 1808 staff having just graduated from Amadiya (technically, but he’s still training as a student) and A. Conteh is President of the 1808 students, about to graduate, and captain of his house, White House. They are very good friends and work closely together every day for 1808’s students, so to hear them pooh-pooh one another’s talent was so uncharacteristic. Also, I believe it is well established that A. Conteh is fastest in the 100m. Anyway. I think it would be good for Bennington. To spend more time together as a large group, physically sweating together instead of just internally and in our individual pursuits, outside, students and staff all supporting one another. And it’s not just that, but that it becomes a habit like going to VAPA galleries and performances or Lit or CAPA readings and Science Workshops. I think our school is a little lacking in the habit of coming together as a single community. Regardless, as usual, I’m wishing I had another month and a half of FWT because I’m having fun and engaged by the work and there’s so much more to learn about the town, the organization, the schools, the students… But I only have a week left here, and then a week working remotely from home (Mattawan, MI), and that is beginning to be one of the major topics of conversation among my new friends, how quickly time passes. Yours, flying through time and wishing you the best, Lauren

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Dear Bennington College, I am ready to be accepted back into your cozy folds, the real world is exhausting

And I am exhausted!  I’m having one of those weeks where no sleep is enough sleep.  This probably isn’t aided by there being so many intriguing bars to hit up here.  Thursday and Friday nights were taken up by my friend Louay’s birthday festivities.  I danced salsa, I drank beer, I failed at restraining Louay from buying us twelve giant cookies from Insomnia at two-ish in the morning.  

This afternoon, my very kind New York Times editor uncle arranged coffee between myself and Coral Davenport, who writes for the Times on energy policy.  She had many an interesting story and helpful tip.  I learned that it’s okay and even encouraged for me to send real newspaper reporters my articles if they resonate beyond the college community, and that certain journalists have actually jumpstarted careers this way.  So get ready for my writing to be WAY more international this term, Bennington Free Press.  Kidding.  But I am going to head over to Hoosick Falls this coming Tuesday after I return to school to attend a village meeting on the settlement deal that Saint Gobain (the corporation that’s polluted the town’s water) is proposing.  

And then House Chair training begins.  I am praying to return to snow on the ground, and also for a smooth move-in.  

Jorja, 2/7/17