I've got rhythm...

Last Monday, we watched a video in Musics of the World about northern Indian classical music. Since I found out we would be studying music, I've been keen to see if I recognize some of the music I heard this summer. As some of you know, my paternal grandparents grew up as missionary kids in the part of India that is now Pakistan. Earlier this year they came into contact with a UCF PhD student from Pakistan, Monas. They were amazed to find that he is a Christian, coming from a country that is over 90% Muslim.

Monas came to the New Wilmington Mission Conference along with me. While at Conference, the grandparents showed him a drum, called a tabla (I don't know where it came from, actually--Grandma? Grandpa?). So Monas played for us! He played the drum (although it was not in good condition, and another drum is played at the same time) and sang. It was really neat.

Now fast-forward to my Musics of the World class. I was so excited when I saw the men in the video playing the tabla! It made me feel quite cultured. Here's a picture of a tabla--which includes the pair. The grandparents only had the drum on the left. You tune the drum by moving the wood blocks on the sides up and down. Now if I were only coordinated enough to play something like that!

Activities with Amnesty International

There is so much that goes on at school. Tuesday night I attended a presentation (from a group called the National Security Network)on the effects of torture at Guantanamo Bay and other places related to the "war on terror." Sponsored by Amnesty International, I went mainly to support my group, but I'm glad I went, because the presentation was very good. As far as I can see, the speakers were quite experienced with the subject and didn't try to "spin" what they said.

Especially because of the upcoming elections, I've gotten exhausted of listening to two opposite points of views and trying to figure out what in the world is the truth. Mom, Dad, and Thomas will know well that I avoid political conversation like the plaque, and I guess I do it because I hate trying to figure out what really is going on amidst all of the twisting of the truth. At the same time, I've been reading Scott Peck's People of the Lie, which (surprise!) talks about the and havoc deceit wreaks in people's lives. I'm going to be looking up some more of his books like The Road Less Traveled, as they come highly recommended to me from my family.

During the past couple of months, I've become acquainted with a couple of "alternative" media. At the activism workshop I went to a month ago, I attended a breakout session talking about activism through blogging. The blogging community is not controlled by anyone--sure, newspapers and organizations have blogs, but the impression I've gotten is that the majority of blogs are just individual people keeping an eye on the news.

Also, I went to a poetry slam last night. It, too, was sponsored by Amnesty International, and focused on election issues. For those of you who have no idea what a poetry slam is (like me until a couple weeks ago), it's an event where people get together and read/recite poetry they've written themselves. This is not like your high school English lit class, though. The atmosphere of was more like a cross between a poetry reading in a quiet cafe and a rapping competition.
The poems read talked about racism, the church, being black and Jewish, romance, corrupt politics, being overwhelmed at the enormous needs of the world, and even a rant about how short people are great. It was funny, inspiring, and saddening. It was nice to hear what's on people's minds and to get a peek into their lives through this "alternative" medium.

If you're interested in learning more about Amnesty International, they have a website: www.amnesty.org Check it out! :)

Color Touring

This past Thursday my aunt Becky kidnapped me at school and took me back to Pittsfield for the weekend. One weekend each year Pike County, Illinois holds a Color Tour. Sort of like a county-wide festival, towns have booths set up along their main street or square with pies, chicken and noodles, hand-knitted scarves, jewelry, collectables and other doo-dads. My aunt, grandma and I hopped from one town to another with me at the wheel of my grandma's beast of a van. Besides eating and buying stuff, a large part of the enjoyment of Color Tour is checking out the trees turning color as you drive from place to place. Although most of the trees are still green here, trees here and there were a beautiful red or orange. See for yourself!




Friday and Saturday, my aunt, Grandma, and I shopped at about every garage sale in Pittsfield, I think, as well as booths at several towns in the area. I scored quite a few long-sleeved shirts, as well as a soft fabric guitar case for my guitar! (I think I came back with 2-3 times the stuff I left school with on Thursday!) Oh well--I'm pretty much set for winter, I think.

I got a haircut! I cut off 11 or 12 inches and donated it to Locks of Love. Since I was donating, Great Clips gave it to me for free. How nice! I love having short hair. Uncle Mark teased me about getting it cut just in time to not keep my neck warm over the winter. Maybe that's why I bought scarves this weekend..

Sorry for the silly pose (I just can't help it).

Musics of the World

School is going pretty well, and, if my assumptions are correct, the semester is almost half-way over. I will be taking mid term exams over the next couple of weeks, but I've already had a round of exams, so I'm not too nervous about the next ones.

One of the cooler classes I'm taking this semester is Musics of the World. Obviously, we can't learn about all of the musics of the world, so we've been surveying different kinds of music from several regions/continents. We started out with Native American music, focusing on Navajo musical styles. Then, we learned about some music from five different people groups in sub-saharan Africa. We learned about Griots, who sing praises and oral histories of their peoples. You can find Griots in multiple cultural groups--we studied two in particular, Luni from Ghana that use (along with singing) drums that actually imitate the tonal language of the Dagbama people. They use an hour glass-shaped drum whose pitch can be changed by squeezing the cords that hold the drum head in place. We also studied Jalolu from Mali and Gambia that uses a large harp-ish instrument called a kora to accompany vocalists. In an interesting twist, the kora's highest-sounding strings are closest to the ground and thus the high-pitched sounds are called "low" sounds, while what we would call low pitches are the highest. It makes me think of the rat in the Narnia Tales that is so intrigued by a round world -- "are things upside-down on the other side of the world?" Apparently so!

After our section on African music (which obviously covered a lot more material than what I shared with you above), we studied African American music, with blues being our main focus. It was fascinating to see different types of blues as it changed into soul and rock and roll. I was particularly inspired to work on blues on the guitar. A girl in my class and I are planning to get together and have a "jam session."

The next section we'll be studying in Musics of the World is Indian music! I'm pretty excited. I'll have to talk to my grandparents and see how the material I learn in class compares to their own experiences growing up in India. This summer at the New Wilmington Mission Conference, I got to hear Monas, a PhD student in Florida but from Pakistan, play a drum (whose name I forgot) and sing for us. It was pretty neat. Maybe I'll learn about it in my class...

Fun around St. Louis

I went grocery shopping today. The nearest grocery store is called Schnucks. Believe it or not, they don't have Publixes up here! Anyway, Schnucks is just over a mile walk away from my dorm. I successfully found the store and all of the things I wanted (especially eggs and oil to make muffins from the mixes I got for my birthday). The most exciting part was that I got to use a new grocery bag made out of recycled plastic bottles I got last weekend at a Green Home and Renewable Energy Festival in downtown St. Louis. Quite exciting.


Last weekend, Leslie found a flyer for a Green Home and Renewable Energy Festival here in St. Louis. We rode the trains into the city and walked about a mile, maybe, through a dance festival going on at the same time (very cool!) and ended up at the festival we wanted. A block's length of street was closed down with booths lining the sides. There were booths for solar consultants, home energy consultants, energy efficient windows, green cleaning products, recycled clothing, green home builders, and many, many more! I impressed the person manning a booth about SIPS (Structurally Insulated Panels--used instead of normal 2x4 house construction with styrofoam insulation inside the walls already) by already knowing about them! He gave me a carpenter's pencil. :)
In addition, Principia College in East St. Louis had their solar racecar there. There was a group of 20-somethings that travels around on a vegetable oil-powered bus promoting PowerVote--a movement trying to get energy and global warming more political attention in the coming years.

In addition, there were many workshops at a nearby high school. Leslie and I attended one on rehabbing homes (they talked about the St. Louis Habitat for Humanity ReStore, I was quite excited because we worked there a month and a half ago), we also attended one on passive solar design for homes in Missouri. It was really neat to hear about home energy efficiency in another climate and see how it compared to what I've learned in Florida. The men teaching the workshop from the University of Missouri (www.MissouriFamilies.org if you're interested) put a lot of emphasis on added thermal mass, like a concrete or brick wall that absorbs heat during the day and dissipates it through the house during the night. If you're interested in more, you can read about it on Wikipedia by looking up Trombe wall. And no, I haven't actually worked on this page. Although it sounds like fun...

As we were leaving the festival, we stumbled across this church. The building had been burned down and the congregation couldn't afford to rebuild it, so the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis helped build a new roof for it! Of lights! Too bad I couldn't have seen it at night time.


In addition to roaming the city, I've had fun just hanging out at Wash U. Here's a picture of Anna-Marie and Leslie enjoying my colored pens and guitar (I was enjoying the camera).


Here's me posing with my "Happy Birthday" sign. It's taped to my ceiling above my desk, now, so I can look up and see it anytime!