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This week I decided to approach my spot on the campus in a new way. I wanted to do an illustrated representation of the moon bench, and look at it from a different perspective. Usually when I sit in the moon bench I look down senior row, it is a beautiful view but it is not the only view. Today I sat facing the moon bench and it gave me a different feel for the space. I noticed the "mini forest" behind the bench, and after I did my sketch and added color, I realized how ugly it is compared to the beautiful green, gold, and brown colors that surround it. Looking at the moon bench this way gave me a new appreciation for it. It provides a wonderful view of the campus, but the bench itself is not so beautiful. Even the golden glow cast by the sun did nothing to enhance the bench, it remained cold, and gray, and stone. The life aroud it however lit up, and interacting with the wind and the sun. Overall, I enjoy sitting on the moonbench to appreciate the surrounding nature, but the bench appears to me to be distinctly out of place among the beauty that surrounds it. I wonder what it will look like in the winter, will the enviornment take on similar qualities of the bench?

Since our class lunch on Friday, I've been thinking a lot about what 360-inspired activism might look like and what we might want to focus on.  I've also been thinking a lot about the skepticism expressed by some members of our class about what kind of dent a small amount of activism might make on problems as huge and systemic as the ones we’re discussing.  I don’t think that any of us are able or willing to take the kinds of risks Rigoberta Menchu did to fight against injustice this semester, even though I know some of us wish we could.  I was thinking a lot about Rigoberta Menchu today when I went to interview a former Philadelphia School District teacher who is also a peace activist for one of my other classes.  We spent the day together, from early this morning until about a half hour ago, and it was riveting to hear this 80-something woman talk about the on-the-ground activism she did in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala throughout the 80s and 90s.  It was shocking to hear about the ways she was willing to risk her life, and the fact that she made it clear she would even give one of her children’s lives if it meant stopping the mass murder she saw happening all around her.  Her other stories of fighting for water access in Mexico, being in Cuba during their revolution, doing reconciliation work in Vietnam, Cambodia and the former USSR, and going on peace missions to Palestine were incredible.  This is also someone who relates very well to our class because of her significant time spent in prison – whether after protesting Langl

I'm beginning to feel all written out – and we're not even halfway through the semester. I suppose, mostly, it's because I feel like my voice has been overused of late. When I'm not speaking, my blog posts are speaking for me. When I'm staying silent in class, I'm still, somehow, making a statement. I feel as though I'm never truly silent. Sommer talks a lot about silence as a way "ethnic" writers draw a line and mark where they need to be respected. Rigoberta says, "I'm still keeping secret what I think no-one should know," and reminds us who really has the power in her novel. But I feel we're not doing enough of that in our classroom. Last week, HSBurke said she thought it was ironic that in a class about silence we were "ALL SO LOUD." I agree. As I work on becoming a better listener, I want to also work on being a better person of silence. During our lunch meeting on Friday, when icouldntthinkofanoriginalname mentioned that she felt we shouldn't feel pressured to speak about personal topics, but that there is value in sharing, I wondered the opposite. Isn't there also value in not sharing?

I'd like to follow the lead of Jesusa Palancares, quoted in Sommer's introduction, "Advertencia/Warning" and simply say, "Fuck off, now. Go away and let me sleep."

Stress clung in my mind, but I stayed waiting and hopeful under the canopy of leaves.

Wanting the tension to blow away with the breeze that blew by me.

Wind pulled at my hair and took with it as it left the anxious energy that had been sitting in my head all day and stifling my thoughts.

My mind was free again and I was blissful.

Funnily enough, sometimes animals live in nature. There are squirrels in the tree that I'm observing in, and we have some unresolved issues.

This morning at the English House I was drawn to the perimeter -- where the grass meets the woods, and the building. And I found today that what stood out to me were objects and bodies in motion. This was because mostly everything was still (except with the aid of this wind). So when something moved on it's own it caught my eye.

I encountered two eye catching events of movement.
First was the floating spinning leaf.

Spinning occured around, and around, and again. 

The second was a lot of bees. 

The bees surrounded the entire tree. 

Working up and down. Gathering and back again.

While I was walking around the perimeter of the backyard of the English house I was tempted to go into the woods. But I reminded myself that my place was in the backyard of the English house and not in the woods. I felt slightly stuck.

Cannot move out. 

ORIGINAL:

SIGHTS

Yellow little sunflowers

Sparkling rocks

Sunlight blanketing treetops and bushes

Dead leaves

Falling leaves

Students in hats, carrying books

Hazy sky

SMELLS

Grass

Roses

TOUCH

Wind on face and in hair

Grass in my fingers

Chills (shoulders, spine)

Rheomode Site Sit - 1

SIGHTS

Yellow sunflowers existing beside sparkling rocks bathing in sunlight overwhelming treetops, bushes, and all that is. Leaves dying, falling, re-falling, touching students in hats carrying onwards under a sky filled with clouds connected to clouds connected to jetfuel residue.

SMELLS

Olfactory analysis confirms particles flying, re-flying in the air of the garden, entering cells within nasal passageway and brain percepting rose, grass.

TOUCH

Air moving through pressure effect(ings) carrying colder air particles colliding with skin. Colliding and re-colliding with skin cells to create vibrations vibrating down spinal cord.

In Fun Home, Alison's father loves lilac, and it wasn't an unexpected choice. With its pale color and delicate shape, lilacs have been fascinating poets for ages. Originated from Greek Mythology, lilac has been a symbol for love and innocence. Nevertheless, in ancient Chinese poems, poets have often denote their sadness by lilac. Lilac is a flower of beautiful things, but it is so delicate that it could be damaged by slight tearing.

On the site I chose to sit, there weren't lilacs. Most flowers have bright pink or red color, and they could easily be spotted even in cloudy days. They look bright, energetic and exceptional on the endless green field. Their existence could encourage people to move on in their lives.

There is one thing that is same between the campus site I chose and the Fun House--both place have scattered plants that do not make people feel crowded. The plants are there, because they are supposed to be there. The plannings of both places are natural and undecorative.

Read the photos from top to bottom, or from bottom to top. I meant the one on the bottom to be the first, but I do not know how to control where they are inserted, and the Serendip fairy put each one above the one before. So, ok.

Nor do I know how to write in between or below-- so here is the story. Maybe it is a puzzle for you, to match each caption to the right picture.

Back in the "real" world.

Still ghostly.

The house my mother grew up in: 210 Roberts Road. Ghostly-- the camera decided to make it ghostly. Camera gremlin, or something I touched by "mistake".

View back toward campus from Cambrian Row. With poppies. (They are not poppies, but they look like poppies in the picture.)

Roots.

Three ladies = one beech tree.

Labyrinth from below.

Labyrinth map, from memory.

No, I must admit, the labyrinth does not have the magical feel I was expecting from it. But maybe I have not found its spirit. Maybe this picturing is part of penetrating. Walking to the center does not equal discovering the mystery.

Go deeper. Where one enters, it's the third circle. That was the key to drawing the map.

The circus music flowed from Thomas, yet I am reluctant to join the mass.

The sun embraced me with warmth, yet I am bleak skin beneath.

The grass under my feet was similar, yet unfamiliar.

The moon last night was bright, yet was not right.

The squirrels were leaping back and forth home.

I am sitting on a bench, gazing the blue blue sky. 

In her graphs, Bechdel didn't hightlight the animals and their motions. But I think animals and their ANIMATION are important part of the ecosystem and should be noted.

Reading Fun Home made me very very homesick.

Somewhat Like Alison, I also have a "sissy" dad. He has a driver's license but he never drives, because he doesn't trust his own driving skills. He locks and checks the door and windows before the family goes to bed, because he is afraid of burglary. He only goes to work 3 days a week and work at home other days, because he fears getting into a traffic accident while commuting. I never liked staying at home, for my father always sits on the dinner table and reads all the news involving accidental death to me.

My dad is "death-phobic". Yet, I still adore him and miss his companion.