No prompts at all this week--just to write about a belief and be prepared to read your essay on Tuesday in class. Post your essays here before class on Tuesday, February 27.
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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
In seventh grade, I made my dad drive me to the recycling plant in Louisville (my hometown) to pick up a bin they promised to donate for my Halloween costume. We cut the bottom out of it, outfitting it with bungee cords that I could wear around my shoulders. That year I went trick-or-treating dressed as a recycling bin, giving out pamphlets that listed the city recycling guidelines at every house I visited. This was my first experience as an environmental educator. Since that day, my goal has always been to be a force for change, especially in terms of environmental sustainability.
ReplyDeleteMy parents inspired two of my greatest passions in life: the natural world and education. Some of my earliest memories include weekend hiking trips with my parents and siblings. While pointing out and naming every tree and bird and leaf we passed, my father instilled in us an innate love for nature. We learned not only that the natural world is beautiful, but that it is a gift that must be protected.
My mother is also a powerful force for change in my life. Herself an educator, she continues to push me to empower others in my community through education. This, too, has become a seemingly unquestionable aspect of my life.
When I entered college, I decided to combine these two passions into a designed major: Sustainability Education. With this degree, I hope to teach others what my parents taught me. I hope to take part in the necessary, radical transition in the ways youth and adults alike think about and interact with the earth. I want to ignite a fire in the ecological imaginations of this country’s young people. I believe in the power of mother nature. I believe in the power of education. I believe in a dorky little girl's dreams.
After reading this essay, I want to meet your parents. Maybe one day I will!
DeleteI believe in change.
ReplyDeleteIt is Autumn, the old wise oaks are letting go of summer’s energy through every branch. The deep, full, and strong green leafs transition from the stem to the very farthest tip bursting into a bright fiery red. Then with no more energy left to hold on, the leaves fall to their death. Damn, how sad right. Most people are losing their shit over making everything pumpkin flavored, while I mourned the loss of those great leaves that shaded me from the sunlight in the summer. Okay, that might be a tad dramatic or romanticized but I have a point. Leaves change color. They die. We die. Nothing in this world stays the same. Not a single person is exactly the same as another. Thank Goodness for that fact because I could not handle if there was another Donald Trump in this world. I believe that not only are no two people are the same I am sure that people also change. Some distant friends I hope never change, and some others (the president) I hope change tonight.
As every second passes there is something new happening. I’m pulling some John Lennon, hippy shit right now but in all seriousness Image, all the possible feelings that not just the people around you are feeling but also across the world are feeling? Image how in every second a feeling will change, that person instantly affected by this change. All the hypothetical questions that race around in my brain are tamed momentarily while I am comforted by the fact that change is the only thing I can count on. Either I have to keep going or life will go around me. I believe in change.
ReplyDeleteMeet me in the spine of my favorite novel
The crevices where I’ve spent hours
With the cover folded back
Meet me between the lines
Underneath my notations
Where Jane tells off Rochester
For 10 whole pages
Meet me where Maya Angelou
Set her caged bird free
Where she sang her song
And became a woman
Phenomenally
I’ll meet you there
Between the dog ears
And the wrinkled pages
We’ll skip among
Sherlock and Watson
We’ll solve mysteries
And then
We’ll meet Gloria Steinem
And learn how to liberate
We are the protagonists of our own stories
We are the antagonists of someone elses
But in the beat up spine of my favorite novel
I am nothing less or more than myself
I belong to no one else
So if you want to know me
Outside of someone elses story
Meet me in the spine of a novel
And we’ll go exploring.
I believe the best way to know someone is through their bookshelf.
Yes!
DeleteI go to the same club most weekends. Yes it is a Gay bar but I’m not a lesbian. Why do you go there if you’re not a lesbian? Well let me tell you a little something about me. I hate drama! I really do not understand who wants to consume it. It is already exhausting enough worrying about my own problems and then to consume anyone else’s...that is just plain ignorant. I can’t stand people who judges others either. Like, who are you to criticize someone else’s style or what they do? Again, you’re just plain ignorant but that goes to say that if I walk into a black club...yes I will be judged as soon as I step in the door because I do not fit in. In addition to that, I do not want to be risking my life, knowing that they are always shooting just like this past weekend and the man died. Also, I want to see all flavors of people together so that is why I go to this club. But lastly, why do I go to a gay club when I’m not a lesbian? Because, I enjoy not having men who will try to talk to be every time I looked around, who will not call me a stuck up “bitch” if I reject them, who will not grope my butt when I’m dancing, and who will not ask to hook up when I know they are not rocking with any protection and my goodies are too good for them so that is a no go. That is why I go...I am not judged in there, I can be myself and not have to worry about someone wanting to fight me, and lastly whether I am not “black” enough to be in this club. I believe in going to gay bars.
ReplyDeleteI loved going to the Bar (THE Bar)...I went there almost every weekend for an entire summer. I loved going there for many of the same reasons you do.
DeleteFrom my early years in elementary school all the way to my senior year of high school, I would get up every morning and eat breakfast. This daily affair became more ritualistic the older I got. I would fix yogurt and granola with two sausage biscuits, sit in my red chair, and turn on Spongebob. Now it might seem silly that even as an eighteen-year-old I watched a show for elementary schoolers, but it was a great way to start the day. Not only was I feeding my stomach, I was feeding my heart. Every morning gave me an opportunity to laugh at the most asinine thing-- something I cherished, especially when my grandmother lived in with us during my senior year. That time of my life was consumed by turmoil as my family struggled to deal with her mental illness. To be able to laugh and feel like a child was important; it gave me a way to cope with the seriousness of it all.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, my morning ritual gave me sense of stability and normalcy. Seven a.m was one of the few times of day when she wasn’t sitting in my red chair, watching everyone in the house like a hawk. Any other time, you could find me holed up in my room; it was difficult being around her when she lashed out at me and my mother. So, that ritual was my way of reclaiming the living room and my life before she moved in.
Ultimately, that ritual was a way of connecting with my childhood and getting back to a simpler time in my life. Most people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it gives you the energy you need. They’re right when it comes to food, but I also believe it gives you the levity and constancy you need to tackle tough times. That’s why I believe in eating breakfast.
On my forehead, I have a small squiggly scar that can only really be seen from just the right angle. One Christmas, my father thought it would be fun to chase the cat with my brother’s new remote-controlled car. In her panic, the cat tried to leap onto the couch—only I was sitting on the floor in front of it. My vision darkened as her back paws landed on the lenses of my glasses and her front claws ripped into my face.
ReplyDeleteOn my right ring finger, there’s a J shaped scar that was etched deeply enough into my skin that it permanently warped the muscle underneath. Leading off of the J, there are tiny marks on my middle and pinky fingers which echo the curving slice that created this little cluster of scars. I was playing in the woods and I picked up a rotting log to find a small snake coiled in the dark mud. When I dropped the log and flung my hand back in fear, my fingers swiped across a broken glass bottle half buried in the ground.
Down my arms, back, and thighs, there are dozens of lined scars about two to three inches in length. Our driveway creeped up a tall, steep hill and at the bottom the gravel spilled out onto a one-lane road. On the other side, there was an almost 90-degree drop off before a wall of barbed-wire rose like a tall fortress to guard the goats on the other side. My brother and I decided to race our bikes to the end of the driveway, but I wasn’t skilled enough. I couldn’t control the handlebars as I slid down an avalanche of gravel, flew across the road, and was thrown upside down onto the barbed-wire. It took nearly half an hour for my father to remove my body from the fence.
My forehead squiggle once looked like a knock-off Harry Potter lightning bolt. Most of my pinky nail was cut off by the broken bottle and you can still see the scar underneath when my nails aren’t painted. My gashes from the barbed-wire definitely needed stitches, but my parents just wrapped them tightly with ace bandages and hoped for the best. These are just a few of the scars which remain on my body today. There used to be so many more which I wore with pride as evidence that I led an adventurous life. As the years pass, my scars become less and less visible and the memories that they hold lose their place in my mind. I believe in childhood scars and the stories that they tell, and then whisper, before fading away.
Yours is a haunting narrative, Kacy. And so well written!
DeleteThe summer I turned 15 was the summer before my freshman year of high school- it was also the summer of my first transatlantic flight.
ReplyDeleteMy brother was going on a trip to Europe put together by one of the history teachers at our high school, and though I originally didn't want to go, for some reason, my parents talked me into it.
The 23 day trip gave us a whirlwind tour of Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and northern France. It was the longest either of us had been away from home, and neither of our parents were able to go.
My brother is very smart, but rather lacking in social skills, and as such, my parents were extra concerned about him going on this trip alone and being homesick. So even though I was younger, I had significantly more sleepover experience, so my parents all but begged me to go so he wouldn't be completely alone.
Since the trip was composed of high school teachers, students, and their parents, and I hadn't started high school yet, I didn't know ANYONE except for my brother, whom I'm not close to, even in passing. But at 15, you're legally allowed to travel on your own, and I eventually realized it was an opportunity that I couldn't let pass me by.
I started off the trip not knowing anyone, but quickly made friends with a number of people, including one of my, now, best friends, Jessica, who became my regular roommate, bus seat buddy, small group partner, and general human to my lost puppy.
One night, we fell asleep to the comically intermittent baaing of sheep, and woke up to someone pounding on our door.
“The bus is leaving in five minutes!”
We stared at each other in horror for a split second- our alarm hadn't gone off.
We flew through putting clothes on and shoving our belongings into our bags so we could sprint for the bus. Jessica had to skip her shower and I don't think I even tied my shoes.
But the most mortifying thing to me was that I didn't have time to put on my makeup. I didn't wear much, just concealer and powder foundation, but I was deathly self conscious about my acne.
I got my first black head in fourth grade and had been fighting a battle to hide my marks of shame since then. They felt like bullseyes on my face for people to stare at, and, since I found them so unpleasant, I felt like not covering them would somehow be visually offensive to others.
As we scrambled onto the coach style bus and walked farther and farther along walkway in search of an empty seat, I made a realization.
While at first I'd felt paraded down the seemingly endless walkway like the freak in a circus show, expecting judgemental eyes to bore into me, silently condemning me for my blemishes, I realized my expectations were completely wrong.
Nobody cared.
Nobody gave me a second glance. Not a single weird, repulsed, or even remotely uncomfortable look.
Nobody thought less of me for having acne. For not wearing makeup.
Nobody cared.
And in that decisive moment, my life changed.
I no longer felt that I needed to wear makeup and hide my flaws. It became as much an option as jewelry, and to this day, I treat it as such.
I believe that makeup is an accessory.
I watched Sheila, my cousin’s dog, climb fast straight up a ladder so tall that I—in spite of my opposable thumbs—feared climbing myself. Seventeen ladder rungs above the ground I learned—in the dim light of a sun slinking below trees thick with summer-time leaves—how to flex my muscle. I learned, too, that it was laughably small. My cousin laughed at other parts of my body as we peed over the railing of a narrow deck woven from thin branches of white birch. The drunken arguments we heard coming from the house made us glad for the platform we had to sleep on, glad that it was too dark to climb down seventeen steps.
ReplyDeleteI watched, years later, as my cousin saved his mirror and the pictures of hot rods that were taped to it. He packed it carefully and vacated his room at the top of the stairs when they moved out, when they left the hill where they lived near my grandmother, my Uncle Kim and Aunt Kathy, my great grandparents, and my own family. The bank took possession of their home, removed the tree fort, and sold the land to a church in Long Island, five hours away by car—a church from which no one would ever come, no one ever laid eyes on my cousin’s house.
I watched my cousin’s house sink into the mossy floor of the forest just thirty feet from the road. I watched it fold in and wrinkle like my great grandmother’s mouth when her teeth fell out—people came to loot the bay windows, hardwood doors, toilets, sinks, carpets, and every large piece of drywall. I watched blackberry bushes bring the bones down to rubble as I rode past each day on the school bus. The boards rot through and everything caved into the basement where I found the skeleton of a dog, at the bottom of a ladder.
I believe stories grow stronger as the lives they speak of dissolve.
Until two days ago, I used to say I don’t watch TV because I grew up without it.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, I didn’t grow up without TV. I grew up with 2 state-sanctioned TV channels, which provided a total of 12 hours of programming Monday through Friday. On weekends Channel 1 had longer hours: 9 am till midnight. Channel 2 sported the same 4 hours of inferior programming on weekends, too.
Channel 1’s daily offerings included:
Morning news
Early-evening news
A show with talking heads
A bed-time cartoon for kids
An episode of Russian TV theater or Brazilian soap opera
Late-night news
You understand now why I say I grew up without TV. Though the bed-time cartoon was the only TV available for kids, I never watched all of it—I had to be ready for bed as soon as the cartoon was over. Brushing teeth usually interfered with TV viewing.
Two days ago, my reasons for not watching TV changed.
Two days ago, I was watching TV while running uphill on a treadmill in Lexington’s downtown YMCA. Though it’s the shabbiest YMCA in town, even here the treadmills sport a TV screen, enabling constant connection. I ran up many flights of stairs while watching CNN BREAKING NEWS. The more I watched, the angrier I became.
I became angry listening to interviews about death threats against the Florida high-school students who survived a mass shooting. The higher I climbed, the more details I learned, the angrier I became at the people making the threats and everyone supporting them. So I started plotting Facebook revenge. Now you know starting or continuing an argument on Facebook never works. Publicly attacking someone has yet to lead to a change of heart. In the end, I left the treadmill both perplexed by my boiling outrage and wanting to teach others lessons.
Hours later, I decided I will not watch TV. I believe TV makes me angry. Instead of listening to TV news, I will climb steps at the local Y to the thud of running shoes hitting rubber.
I was three or four years old in preschool. I was shy and always listened to my teachers. In my classroom we had observed caterpillars and watched them make cocoons that stayed in a net in our classroom. When it was time for the cocoons to hatch and become beautiful butterflies I remember this day not because of the beauty, but because of a traumatizing moment. Before we went outside the teacher sat everyone on the carpet and explained, “We are going to go outside and set the butterflies free. Under no circumstances are you allowed to touch or hold the butterflies. If anyone touches or holds a butterfly you will receive an automatic red light” Everyday we were sent home with a stoplight that was shaded either green, yellow, or red for your parents to know how you behaved each day. I am sure you can guess green was good and red was bad. The teacher then grabbed the net and all the children in my class including me followed excitedly behind the teacher. We counted down and released the butterflies into the air. It was beautiful and exciting to watch the colors fly around us. I was caught up watching the sight when I felt a tickle on my hand, I looked down to see a butterfly had landed on my hand. I lifted my hand to peer at the little creature and I noticed something was off about the butterflies wings. I held it up so it could fly away when I heard a little boy in my class scream, “Teacher! Elizabeth is holding a butterfly and she hurt it!” I could feel the blood drain my face as I started to panic from the realization how bad the situation looked. The teacher marched over, scolded me, and when we went back inside I received my first red light. I remember sitting on the carpet waiting for my dad to pick me up with tears running down my face. I was mad at that boy for wrongly telling on me. I was frustrated no one would listen to what happened. And I was scared of the red light. This obviously had a big impact on me since I am now 22 remembering a story so vividly when I was three or four. This is why I believe some read lights are not deserved.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story about your younger self!
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