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Created January 6, 2020
Community? Engagements? Arts? Well, for starters this is a class taught at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY by professors Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde. The goal of this class is to form a relationship with the community by engaging in artistic projects with the community. The outcome of this will manifest itself in many ways, some recognizable and others not so much.
CETA 2020: Our first 2 emojis (of hundreds)
Created January 6, 2020
Individual Tasks
Collect addresses, make & write thank-you cards, design pronoun buttons--Anna Davis
Blog Manager--Paige Wessling
Recorder/archivist for This I Believe essays--Sarah Metcalfe
Social Media--Lydia Baggett & Garrett LeVan
Photographic Inventory (3 people)--Yousef Alsdudi, Sarah Bennett, & Faith Boles
Space, raw material, & tool inventory manager AND order enforcer--Emily Neat
Quality Control & Class Ethicist--Alex Toney
Software Design Team (3 people)--Shelby Barker, Emily Cecil, & Abby Pearson
Fabrication Team (3 people)--Brooklyn Greer, Will Hemingway, & Marissa Price
Finishing Team (4 people)--Nannie Baze, Emon Daneshmand, Ally Frederick, & Madison Phillips
Additional photographic documentation--Kremena and Kurt
Working with production design at Kre8Now Makerspace--Kurt and Kremena
Publicity for the class--Kremena and Kurt
Securing materials needed--Kurt and Kremena
My home is pretty small: a living room, a bathroom, three bedrooms, a kitchen, a laundry room, and a “miscellaneous” room. Just about anything you do, everybody in the house can hear. There’s really no such thing as privacy. I remember it was the end of my birthday--I was in fifth grade at the time--and I was sad the day was ending, so I started singing "Happy Birthday" to myself. I don’t remember being particularly loud, but my parents heard me nonetheless. As I lay staring at the ceiling, I hear my squeaky pocket door open. In come my mom and dad. My mom sits on my bed and hands me a card and my dad has the camera in his hand. We take a picture and my parents wish me happy birthday before we all go back to sleep. I learned later on that my lamenting rendition of the song elicited tears from my mother. I get embarrassed every time she tells that story, but it always reminds me about how the smallness of our house makes it a home.
ReplyDeleteI live in a lower-middle class neighborhood and in high school a lot my friends were from the surrounding upper-middle and upper class neighborhoods. I would always feel slight shame whenever I visited them. There was this sense of jealousy, like, "Wow, I wish I had three bathrooms, a basement with an entertainment center, and an attic." But then I would think about how incredibly close I am with my family. There were never really any spoken rules growing up. My parents knew me and I knew them. They always trusted that I’d do the right thing. And if I ever broke that trust, it was difficult to avoid talking about what I’d done.
I used to listen to my friends complain about how controlling their parents were, how they always had to sneak around to get what they wanted, and how they were frequently punished for doing so. While I used to envy them, I now feel pity for them because all of those walls and all of those rooms make it easy to isolate oneself, to make strangers of one’s own family. There doesn’t seem to be any love in those houses, no warmth and glow. Everyone seems to be alone. A small space pushes family members together, and I’m thankful for that because I can look back upon my childhood with a smile. Unlike a lot of my friends who dread going home during breaks, I look forward to it because I get to spend time with people I deeply love. A small home has a value beyond the material, something that’s lasting, and that’s why I believe in growing up in them.
There is real warmth in your narrative about the small home you grew up in--just as there was in your home.
DeleteI hope you will consider giving a copy of this essay to your parents.
Where I am From
ReplyDeleteI am from fresh baked rolls
From angel cake and pumpkin pie
From don’t walk on the floor!
It’s wet!
The smell of Pine Sol
I am from landscapes of pure beauty
From yellow, red, orange skies
Cicadas, cactus, mountains
And sun
From 100 degree temperatures
Wearing an oven mitten while driving
You're a genius
Cooking an egg on the sidewalk
Possible
Where the best food is from food trucks
And spring break the whole of Tucson hikes to Seven Falls
I am from dirt trails and pavement roads
From another mile
Another lap
From worn out shoes and bad tan lines
I am from church on Sunday
From John 3:16
I am from a quiet father and loud mother
From british accents
And deep conversations
From pics or it didn't happen
And finding love young
Hiding away
Curled up in my bed
Replaying songs until I hate them
Crying over the end of great books
From do good in school and be a better person
Always brush your teeth
You have to play a sport
Knowing
I am from a supportive father and a loving mother
I believe in the memories are where I am from
Twenty years ago I watched as three men carried the packages of my life off a truck, across the yard, over a stray shoot from an untamed rosebush and up two flights of stairs into my apartment. I slept alone on the floor of my new home, two blocks north of here, and woke periodically through the night to a thundering, cacophonous sound. Though I leapt from the mattress and ran to the window each time, I never caught glimpse of the hooligans that I knew were attempting a break-in.
ReplyDeleteEach morning I walked to work and came to know most of the people who lived between my studio on Transylvania’s campus and my home: a place still troubled by an ice-cube maker without a connection to the water service. Set to produce ice cubes only at night, it delivered crashing noises: a soundtrack to my dreams. There were no attempted break-ins. I did not live amongst hooligans as I had suspected.
My university did not know that. Judging by the rusted sea of chain-link fence and the expansive windowless walls on the north side of campus, Transylvania still believed that bands of thieves prowled about my house. I wonder if the President and the Board of Trustees would have been afraid of my ice cube maker in the same ways that pizza delivery men still are. Though the pizza they offer is only slightly better than soggy cardboard sprinkled with fake parmesan cheese from green-foiled cans, I learned to appreciate Dominoes for their willingness to deliver under heavy artillery fire. No other company ferried their pizza to the homes between Fourth and New Circle: a no-pizza zone established to prevent poorly installed kitchen appliances from striking out with murderous rage.
Thank you for letting us use your piece in class. I think it had a lot of basic conventions of traditional drama in the structure of the story you told.
DeleteGetting yelled about about minor and subtle imperfections. Always being preached to about responding in the respectable tone of, “yes sir, no sir” and “yes ma’am and yes ma’am” even though you do not want to say it because you are getting scolded. Having to still answer to someone who isn’t family in that tone because if my ”Family” finds about they will yet, correct me again. Having a coach at a early age cuss you out and yell that you are “pussy-footing” up the court, you still had to respond in the the tone of “yes sir” even though I knew it was a insult.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have a coach who belligerently wants to break you down and is also telling you to quit when the the two of you know that you are passionate about the sport of basketball but you have to respond, “no ma’am, I do not want to quit”. Having to keep your head held high even though I felt at my lowest, but I had to set the example of “yes ma’am” during the scolding. Being told that I needed to say “yes ma’am” even when I do not want to because I am a natural leader and can take the heat even though I do not want to respond in that manner. Having to take the blame even though it was not my fault, I had to say “yes ma’am” to the manic voice in rage.
I can hear my conscious saying, “Ken’yale do not respond this time, tell her how you feel”, and in the background you hear that raised tone, “Demus do you understand me?” and once again I fall into that tight uncomfortable and lower spot of saying, “Yes ma’am I do”. Leaving the court with that terrible thought of saying “yes ma’am” even when I did not want to say it, but finally saying it to someone and that finally responds, “You are so respectful, God I love it”. This is why I believe in positive scolding responses which pays off in the future to southern respect etiqutte.
I totally didn't anticipate the ending of your reflection! It is poignant and funny and powerful. Well done, Ken'yale!
DeleteThe Sycamore tree
ReplyDeleteAs the leaves change, tides shift, and moments pass there will always be life and death, and though out life there should be respect. I believe that with life there has to be death. With every beautiful birth there will be cold and lonely death.
I believe that there is beauty in every moment of life. In suffering and in celebration, life can be destructive and heartbreaking. Cutting down of a tree and cancer cells taking over the human body, there will always be death.
I believe that my life is no more valuable than the rocks that have shaped this earth. There are many who believe that life is only capable if the object can think, feel, breathe, but I cannot agree. This earth is living. The rocks, the trees, the oceans—they are more alive than my soul will ever be. Life’s worth cannot be measured or compared to others, it can only be exactly what it is. We are all the same and we are all completely different, and that is life.
I know as life happens I will return to these thoughts and I will question if I still believe in them. Maybe I will understand more and maybe and I will understand less. I cannot and will not try to predict my future. Though I cannot change what will happen in my life, I know I can respect and be thankful that I am living. I should be thankful for every life that surrounds me, for every moment I remember, for every breath I take.
Every particle, moment, and soul I encounter should be loved and respected because it is life. I should respect that it may hurt me and it may hurt others, but through that respect I should also live life to help make it more beautiful. I should live more like a sycamore tree, by giving love and respect in every second of my life. I should live as they do, dedicating their lives to provide homes for animals and producing oxygen for breath.
I believe humor is a reflection of our emotional depth. When I was five or six, I was obsessed with television. Particularly the TV sitcom format. I was fascinated by the idea that if you said a joke funny enough that a live studio audience would laugh. If you were funny enough you could make any setting your personal television show. It didn’t matter what the severity of your reality was, if you had that special bone in your body that was able to turn the darkness on its head and make it something entertaining then you had mastered that particular “episode” of your life.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in what many people would call the “bad” parts of Chicago. I went to a “bad” school. I played on “bad” streets. And it was not easy. We didn’t have a lot of money. My father came to this country without even citizenship to his name. My mom died of cancer. And on top of that I was obviously gay. I don’t have to tell you that didn’t go over very well. Those kids would torment me. I didn’t have a single friend till I discovered my tribe in high school. But until then, I was all alone for the most part in the world. At one point, I remember telling my father of my own suicidal thoughts sometime before middle school. So for a performer I had a lot to work with early on.
But I remember doing an in class play. This obviously wasn’t broadway. But we had to write this play and come up with costumes and perform it in front of the class. And I had watched so much television up to that point, that I knew what a joke sounded like, how to deliver it, where to stand, how to walk. And I wrote these really dark jokes about how my mom had died, and I remember that no one in my second grade class laughed, but my teacher had let out a light chuckle and immediately regretted it. And it was like a light went off in my head. I thought “Huh. I didn’t just tell a joke, I told an intelligent joke that these standing next to me don’t even understand.” They lacked humour because they lacked the opposite side of the human consciousness. Pain. Regret. Fear. Failure. And so my teacher came up to me before school let out and whispered in my ear “You did a good job today.” And that was important because I felt that she had seen an intimate, mature, relatable part of me that my peers hadn’t developed yet.
And so my hope is that people my age realize that the art of laughing at something is really the art of learning to live. The art of learning to cope. To survive. To continue on. To make fun of. And that as you continue experiencing life, you’ll find that your humour will start to bend in unexpected directions and to let it happen. There are far to many people in this world that don’t allow themselves to have a sense of humour in the first place because they don’t allow themselves to experience and overcome their own darkness.
“Do You Want to Go to the Roof?”
ReplyDeleteThere’s something magical about gazing out on a skyline late at night with your best friends. About a year and a half ago I moved to Brooklyn, New York. I had already spent a year living and going to school in Manhattan, and my friends and I were ready to see what it was like to live in an apartment, and pay rent, and commute 7 miles (a 45 minute subway ride) to school everyday. We all already claimed to know New York City, but I don’t think any of us were prepared to actually live in New York. We weren’t prepared to be the only three white women in a hispanic neighborhood, to be walking symbols of gentrification. It just happened that way. We survived by making friends with our local bodega owners (and their bodega cats) and by spending long nights on the unfinished Bushwick rooftop.
In early August of 2016 my roommate, sister, best friend, and partner in crime, Faith and I moved into our apartment on Knickerbocker Ave. Our third roommate would arrive in late September. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Brooklyn the day we drug our boxes and my Grandmother’s old furniture (including a loveseat that pulled out into a bed) up three flights of stairs. My parents helped, as did two (very small) men we went to school with who were, yes, already staying with us “until they found a place”. That night after my parents went back to their hotel in Jersey, the four of us ordered a pizza, bought some beer, and headed to the roof. I had seen the view before, because I was the only one who lived close enough to go apartment hunting the month before. By close enough I mean ten hours away by car in Kentucky, and not 15 hours away in Iowa, or 20 hours away in Oklahoma. That trip with my dad was an adventure in itself, that might turn into one of these essays some day. All that to say, I was the only one who had been up on the roof, and in fact, it was the key reason I wanted this apartment. So pizza and beer in hand, we opened the old rickety door onto the rooftop. I remember stillness. Everybody just stopped talking, as we took in the Manhattan lights. There’s something so calming and eerie about Brooklyn rooftops. It’s a feeling that you’re removed from it all. All the business deals, the clubs, the struggling artists exist in a parallel world that you watch from a distance. You are in the world of a Brooklyn rooftop.
That night is still one of the best ones of my life. I don’t even talk to the guys who were staying with us anymore, but we laughed a lot, ate a lot, and drank maybe just a little too much. We spent many more good nights on that rooftop. We also spent many bad nights up there. Homesickness was a reality for all of us. Brooklyn, and New York in general, are not easy places to live. When you are also working full time, and going through a rigorous Actor’s training program, the stress is often too much. The roof became a sanctuary, a place to get away from it all. It was an unspoken rule amongst the tenants of 3L that anytime anybody looked at you and said, “do you want to go to the roof?” The answer was yes. No questions asked. The night I moved out to come back to Kentucky was no exception. After crying with my best friends in our empty living room, I got up and said, “Get the wine. We’re going to the roof.” And we did. And we laughed, and we cried, and we watched Manhattan from Brooklyn, and we all existed in this windblown feeling of new beginnings, and deep affection for the family we built in New York City. A family that included the graffiti’d, tar rooftop of our Bushwick shoebox.
Three American women stand at a bus stop in the middle of Seoul. They take turns reading the Korean signs that surround them, trying to translate what they can given their limited knowledge of the language. They each sip soju, disguised as water, from clear plastic cups. Cars fly past them on both sides, carrying wind and creating a euphonious symphony of sounds. Three Korean men are playing rock-paper-scissors to determine who among them has to employ his English skills to approach the Americans, not knowing that the Americans can fully understand everything they’re saying. In the midst of this pleasant scene, there’s a loud POP! The Americans instinctively crouch down to the ground with their hands shielding their heads. When they look up, the Korean men are frozen in their rock-paper-scissors motions, staring at the Americans in uncensored confusion. Unlike the Americans, when they heard a passing bus backfire, they didn’t assume it was a gunshot. Why would they, when it’s illegal to even own a gun in that country? They hadn’t learned how to hide from a school shooter at age 5. They didn’t have to participate in mandatory lockdown drills every single year to prepare for an attack that was made to seem inevitable. They weren’t taught to expect mass public shootings. The phrase “duck and cover” may not have any significance to them. They grew up just a few miles south of North Korea, yet they felt more safe than the Americans did. I believe that living in the United States is comparatively much more dangerous than we’re supposed to think.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the presence of pines. I spent hours climbing them, building houses in them, reading about faraway places in them, and envying creatures who called them home. I grew up understanding the value of a good, solid tree: the shade it provides on a hot summer’s day, the shelter it provides from the rain, the sweet smell of sticky sap on small fingers.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was twelve, my dad helped me add a new tree to our backyard collection: not a pine, but a Kentucky native tulip poplar tree. I went to an Earth Day celebration at the Falls of the Ohio and came home prouder than proud of my new sapling, which was little more than an eight-inch twig at the time. We planted that sapling the same day, and I have watched it progress from a twig to waist height, then the size of our backyard shed, now as tall as my parents’ home. Its roots now run as deep as my own.
Every year, my dad takes a picture of me with that tree. These mini-photoshoots demonstrate how I have grown and changed with that sapling. When I am away from home, my dad sends me pictures of “my” tree as it transitions from season to season, the effects of photosynthesis evident in its leaves. These pictures always find me pensive, reflecting on my own transition into adulthood. They serve as reminders that even when I feel like an overly-logged forest, mowed down by life time and time again, light comes in the spring to reinvigorate my leaves. My tree inspires me to try to create year-long springs, but reminds me that I will survive the harshest of life’s winters. New leaves will come when the storm passes or the winter clears.
I believe in photosynthesis.
My grandmother passed away my freshman year of high school. She was the perfect Grandma. Where my dad grew up was in the middle of Wayne National Forest in Marietta, Ohio on a road, literally called Cow Run. To get there, we had to go over a creek. So we literally had to go over the river and through the woods to get to my grandmother’s house. She was kind, gentle, generous, and had a way of telling you you’d done something wrong and telling you the correct way to do it without ever making you feel bad.
ReplyDeleteThe memories I have of her are very special to me. That house was where my artistic nature was nurtured, and I feel as though they were “my kind of people.” My father is an electrical engineer, my mother is a pharmacist, my bother has a degree in computer science, and then there’s me: I’m an art major. I often feel like a bit of the black sheep of the family. But having had Grandma and Grandpa in my life for my early years is a treasure. My grandfather made that house from scratch. He was a tool and dye maker that could make just about anything from nothing. He passed away when I was seven, so I don’t remember him well, but he was a part of that house, and the memories and items I do have from him are very special as well. Grandma used to make matching dresses for my mother and myself to go to church in. She taught me how to sew, and Grandma and Grandpa’s house was like a magical wonderland to me.
I got to sleep in the back bedroom, where all the extra craft supplies were. It was a magical place piled from floor to ceiling with little plastic boxes filled with bits and bobbles, glitter, ribbon, old stickers, and who knew what magical treasures. Grandma spoiled us JUST a little bit. She got the shaped mac and cheese, made cinnamon rolls every morning, and was so incredibly thoughtful and kind.
There was a hair brush I liked, because it went through my hair nicely. And she just gave it to me without a second thought.
When we were helping her move out of the house so she could live with my aunt, she noticed my toe nails weren’t painted, told me my toes were naked, and gave me a bottle of nail polish on the spot.
Perhaps one of my most precious memories is from some time before I turned ten. I can’t remember clearly if my grandfather was still alive or not, but I know I was young.
They came up for my brother’s birthday, and, naturally, he had a great big pile of presents, because it was his birthday. And I remember sitting in another room, and my grandmother came over to me and gave me a single gift.
At first I was confused, because it wasn’t my birthday, it was my brother’s. And when I questioned it, she told me it was because, even though it was my brother’s special day, I was still special, too. I’ll never forget that.
I hope I can be as kind and wonderful as she was.
But my parents taught me something vital as well in the context of kindness. I have been lucky enough to grow up in a loving household with a comfortable income, and we never really “wanted” for anything. And as kind as my grandparents were, my parents are incredibly kind as well. I’ve always been raised to be kind and help others- and without asking or expecting anything in return.
A friend once asked me why I was so generous and kind- why I did things like that, especially when I didn’t get anything out of it. My reply was that I liked helping others, and simply because I wanted to. But, when I spoke to my mother about the conversation, I think she put it best, and it’s the spirit in which I believe every act of kindness should be carried out.
I believe in being kind because you can.
I sat still as my hair lay on my shoulders and the wind carried it behind my back. I closed my eyes and felt the serene as the wind circled around me and engulfed me like a blanket. I could hear the water crashing against the rocks as it continued down the stream I’ve never followed. I haven’t been here often enough or long enough to really get the chance; although that doesn’t mean I haven’t explored the area in between what the eye could see. I’ve fallen in this stream more times than I can count. In the photos we have in our family, my face is covered in tears more times than it is not, especially here. Ironically, we had always taken pictures as a family after I had fallen in the water, and I was too young to understand that the water wouldn’t hurt me.
ReplyDeleteWe always came here with grief on our minds but family in our hearts. We always stopped at this inn before continuing our path to meet the resting place of those I have descended. We stopped here and had a country chicken dinner before anything else. I can still remember the lines of the buffet and sitting in the sunroom, feeling warm, full, and surrounded by the things and people I loved. I always tried to do everything the bigger kids could do, sit with them, eat like them, jump on the rocks like them, and that’s what got me in trouble. We had driven here as family, eaten here as family, and continued to meet family.
I enjoy the stories of these trips now, much more than I ever could when I was little and experiencing them. I guess that’s how life works though, appreciation comes after the fact. Although the inn is closed now, my family and I still try to go back on our way as we continue to visit the little stream behind the inn. I will always remember these trips, and I will always remember the people who we went on those trips to see. My family and I live those out memories as they are now, and cherish them greatly. I believe in Doe Run Inn.
Why I Teach CETA
ReplyDeleteHe was the one white kid among 50 fourth-graders who came to Transylvania that Friday. Accompanied by 2 teachers, they took 40 minutes to walk .8 miles from their school to the university. Their school is William Wells Brown Elementary. It is the lowest ranking elementary school in Kentucky, a state which U.S. News ranked #35 for education in 2017.
The kids who go to William Wells Brown live near the school. No eager, out-of-district parents send their children there. Thus the 50 fourth-graders who visited Transylvania that Friday all live within a mile of the university. When they arrived, we asked how many had been on campus before. No hands went up. Not a single kid had heard of Transy before Teddy and Katie signed up for the Thursday-afternoon slot that took them into Ms. Sword’s fourth-grade classroom.
On that Friday it was May: sunny and warm, not too hot. I thought it was good the 50 fourth-graders and 2 teachers had a reason to walk in this perfect weather. During lunch one of the teachers told me field trips are rare at William Wells Brown, because of the bus cost. The next time my third-grade daughter had to bring cash to school for a field trip, I paid attention. I paid $5 to cover the cost of busing.
The 50 fourth-graders and 2 teachers didn’t mind the walk. We had prepared a day full of treats for them. We showed them the indoor basketball court (only we hadn’t anticipated they would want to run on it, which they couldn’t do without official permission). We invited them to lunch in the cafeteria (only we didn’t expect some would eat too much, having never experienced a buffet). We made art with them in the university gallery (only we didn’t know not some of them couldn’t get along).
In the university gallery, 50 fourth-graders from William Wells Brown worked on self-portraits. They began by drawing in pairs. It was good for team-building, we thought. Only no one wanted to be on a team with the white kid. When I asked one of the teachers about it, she said it was because he smelled bad. All the kids knew he had lice and didn’t shower. His clothes were covered with stains.
On that Friday in May I squatted next to the white boy with lice in his hair. He lay down and I outlined his body on a big piece of paper.
I teach CETA because I work in a neighborhood where kids have lice and can’t go on field trips. I teach CETA because the 50 fourth-graders from William Wells Brown are my neighbors, too.
This I Believe Essay #2
ReplyDeleteIn a small, silver cage, three sets of brown eyed brothers glanced my way as I gushed over how small and precious the kittens were. I was at the humane society after months of planning and careful consideration on if I could care for a kitten financially and time wise. Two of the brothers were identical and the one that stood out to me was the little orange kitten that was different from his brothers. I visited each cage where a pair of brown or green eyes stared back, but I knew I wanted the orange kitten. We played in the room designated to bond with your future new pet and I fell in love with the tiny paws pouncing at stuffed mice and big brown eyes that stared up in curiosity. It was not part of the plan to find a cat on my first visit and the lady at the desk could not be convinced to reserve the orange kitten over 24 hours. The humane society cannot afford to have people break promises. My husband warned me not to be too attached to the orange kitten because the chance of him still being there was slim. It was too late though, I already loved him and when I went back to the humane society and he was no longer there, I knew I should have listened to my husband. Later that night I went to PetSmart, where the humane society had a small branch in the back of the store. When I heard a woman talking about a little orange kitten with the same name as the kitten I wanted, I sprinted over to the cage. When two brown eyes stared back at me with the same information written on his blue tag, I knew it was meant to be. He needed care because his ribs and other bones were visible from eating just enough food to keep him breathing. He coughed frequently from being in the shelter and he needed medication from the parasites in his bowels. After several vet appointments and weeks of love and lots of food, Thomas grew into a healthy, happy kitten that still pounces at stuffed mice and never gets in trouble because of his big brown eyes. This is why I believe in adoption.