Adventure Learning Grant

Today I submitted my Adventure Learning Grant proposal.

As you may recall, way back in August I finished my first proposal draft. It has certainly been through quite a few changes since then, but I'm pretty happy with my final product. While I have, at times, become quite exasperated with my ongoing revisions to the grant, it has been an amazing process. I have been able to think through, in great depth, what kind of an experience I would like to have, explore contingencies, and more generally think about what I want to learn and why.

The why is important to Fairhaven (and life), and the process of not only working on my grant, but also my concentration, has helped me think about why I want to study democracy and rationalize those reasons. I am coming out of both processes with a better understanding of myself and the things that drive me.

The help I have received along the way – from professors and fellow students – has been invaluable in these processes. Even if I don’t get the grant – and there’s quite the competition, with subjects ranging from weaving in Latin America to fishing in the Balkans – the process has been completely worth it.

I realize I avoided what my proposal was about in the above, so I’ve pasted my abstract below (in case anyone is interested):

People power: Grassroots democracy and Ubuntu
I want to go to South Africa to become involved with grassroots democracy movements and gain a holistic understanding of why its democratic transition was successful. I want to explore the philosophical concept of Ubuntu – an existence premised on community - as it relates to these movements, the democratic transition, and to the larger theoretical foundation of South African democracy. I want to blog about my experiences and use them as a way not only to educate myself, but also others when I return to Fairhaven.

I Be Happy Today :D

Dear Blog Followers,
Today I feel super fantastically alive. I went to a potluck brunch at the Oasis in the morning where we enjoyed plenty of fall foods. I was invited by the Oasis community (an eco friendly, intentional living space off campus) as part of my Human Ecology class. It was literary a feast with apple butters, crisp, oatmeal, pumpkin waffles, fruit salad, banana and pumpkins breads, deviled eggs, coffee, tea, home pressed cider, and much more. Before serving ourselves we stood in a circle holding hands and chanted om several times together before breaking with a hand squeeze passed around the entire circle.

Afterwards, I walked over to the Outback, Western’s community garden to take part in the work party they have every Sunday from 11-midafternoon. Riding off of the positive energy of the food, I had the best time gardening ever. This summer I was supposed to do yard work for my parents and I dreaded it, but in the Outback it is fun and I get to live my values, working to live with the land. Projects that would take forever with one person take as little as an hour with many hands digging and moving. Plus we can talk, sing, and yell a celebratory cry whenever we toss another piece of cardboard into the pile, ready to be used for *sheet mulching. At the end of the work party I even got to take home some beautiful kale, chard, and carrots! I am going to take these vegetables over to my friend’s house to cook for another potluck in our 201 class: The Five Senses (this class is part of the Fairhaven core). I am really excited because this saves money I was anticipating spending on groceries and will provide a delicious and organic contribution to our class eating festivities. I am really starting to feel linked in to Fairhaven by growing, cooking, and eating food with my follow students and teachers. It is such a wonderful feeling because Western itself is very, very large.

Who I am

Sorry everybody, I realized that I started posting already and most of you don't even know who I am!

My name is Alekz and I am a Junior at Western Washington University and am a Fairhaven student making a concentration through the Law, Diversity and Justice program. I will be focusing my concentration, more than likely, around how race is involved in the law and legal issues.

I have been on the executive board for the Mixed Identity Student Organization for the past 2 years and am now currently the President. I am a coordinator for the Social Issues Resource Center which is located in VU 512. Overall, I am just a really passionate, and dedicated person who works really hard to educate himself on issues that people handle on a daily basis.

I chose Western because coming out of high school I really wanted to become a high school English teacher. Unfortunately, my dream was kind of crushed after taking the required English 101 class. So I started looking at other alternatives and through the Western Leadership Advantage program on campus, I came into contact with Fairhaven College. I immediately fell in love and decided that Fairhaven was for me. So I talked to my Woodring College of Education advisor and told him what I wanted to do and unfortunately he told me that because No Child Left Behind required teachers to be "highly qualified" I needed to have an approved/distinguished major from the University (i.e. English, Math, Science, Sociology, etc). So I had to make a decision, continue on the path to becoming a teacher or do something that I know I will enjoy and will make my learning experience more holistic? I chose Fairhaven and have been extremely satisfied with my decision ever since.

Blackface

I was surprised to see blackface make news headlines for the second time in the past two weeks, thinking that the first instance was an anomaly, a once in a blue moon kind of thing. Some Australian talent show showed white individuals who put on black face and fake afro wigs parading around as the "Jackson Jive" and now French Vogue is celebrating "super models" and parading them around in black face and 'culturally inspired dress' (when ironically enough no black models 'made the cut' as supermodels). Ironically enough, Japan has had performers sing in blackface and Mexico produced a national stamp that was honoring a comic book where the main character is an offensive, monkey looking, black youth and despite US pleas to not produce the stamp, they wre produced anyways. (all of these occurences are discussed in the CNN hyperlink posted below).

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/10/14/am.carroll.vogue.blackface.cnn

We know, most of us anyways, that in the US blackface is not something that is taken lightly AT ALL and I know that this part of our history probably isn't very well read or learned in other parts of the world so is it our responsibility to educate other communities as to why blackface is degrading? Is it our responsibility to say that it was used to portray the black community as idiots, buffoons, subservient, less human, etc. What do you all think? I know in the US a lot of people don’t take the histories of other communities seriously and a large part of that is ignorance. If people were to speak up and say, “Hey, that’s not right and this is why...” wouldn’t we listen? Maybe if we raised our voices collectively people would finally get the fact that blackface is simply NOT entertainment...

Introduction to Fairhaven College, Introduction to Me

Hey. I’m Jenna. I am a first year student at Fairhaven College and I’ve lived in Bellingham for most of my life. I ended up staying here after much initial resistance (little did I know that when I was little and told my parents I would go to Western “because I never wanted to move away from them,” the first part would be true).

I am SUPER happy with my decision. I love it here. The other day I was walking around campus and suddenly got the urge to have a big spoon to eat it all up: my excitement was that tangible! And at Fairhaven, I get the small class sizes and experience of a liberal arts education for a state school price. I can also spend a semester at any of their sister schools, which probably means I will spend some time at Hampshire College in MA. Right now, I am taking the Five Senses Critical and Inquiry class and Applied Human Ecology at Fairhaven, as well as Honors 103 [Major Cultural Traditions] on main campus.

I am interested in philosophy, art, finding patterns, asking questions, contrasting cultures, psychology, nutrition, wellness, forms of personal expression, yoga, hiking, sustainable living practices, dance parties, day dreaming, going to bookstores or the public library, parks, swings, and sunny days, writing, hugs, new experiences, stars, the universe, most social sciences, exploring and funny stories.

One thing that really screams Fairhaven to me is a sign I saw posted on one of the bulletin boards. It read:
FRESHMAN- if any of you are not reading your copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma please give it to me. [phone number] P.S. We could be friends!!!

Fairhaven IS different… but in a good way. It is the difference we need! :)

School is around the corner

It's amazing that I have been on summer vacation for over two and a half months and still haven't done all the things I set out to do before school ended.

I was going to finish up this ISP from spring quarter that I was psyched about in March - before I realized that I wanted to devote more of my time to other projects - I postponed that.

I was going to go to the Olympics and backpack for a few days - before I realized at a two-day layover at Lake Phillips that I'd forgotten my sleeping pads and the food - I postponed that too.

I was going to read a whole host of academic books that I was really excited about - before I realized that I was really into science-fiction - You guessed it, I postponed that too (I did read a lot of science fiction though).

I was going to work on my Adventure Learning Grant proposal, and I did that, and I like what I have, despite only having finished a first draft.

I was going to go on a kayaking trip in the San Juans, and I'm still going to do that. As far as I know at least.

While I had some plans I didn't quite follow through on, I have had a really great summer in a lot of respects. Amazingly enough, I have yet to get really bored and wish for school to come. That said, I'm really excited for school to start in 24 days. There's just something about starting school again, people returning from their summers, and the beginning of fall.

Alex

Yesterday was full of genetically modified pets, extremely-cute goat-kids leaping from compost piles and lots and lots lettuce seedlings, because my Ecology of Eating class visited Galactic Organics, a local farm. The mizuna we sampled was sweet, thickly tender (well, for a leaf). I was dead on my feet without sleep, so I didn't help mix the concoction of cow-dung, nettles, egg shells and other special ingredients, but I wish I had. Guess this mystic compost is so potent just a pinch swirled clockwise counter clockwise, does wonders for plantlife. I'd love to see it in action.

To clarify: the GM pets were not on the farm (now that would be quite the contradiction...not that that's stopped anyone...). Actually, a biologist came and spoke in my Research for Creative Writer's class, talked about genetic modification (specifically of plants). It was a little frustrating because, while she tried to remain unbiased, she made sure to let us know that our bulging word-population cannot be fed sustainably (frustrating because I've heard the exact opposite from a trusted professor) and that a farm can't be productive, unless it has the added input of pesticides, fertilizers, etc. Hm...I've seen and read otherwise.


Still a great and vibrant speaker and person, though-- eg: I needed a logical explanation for blue goo leaking from a body and she gave me some ideas.

Onto the genetically modified pets. One of my classmates in RCW found this:

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G e n p e t s !

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And, to calm the masses:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet