Wonderful Wednesday

Well, today I had the chance to go into Putney since we only have a half day on Wednesdays since we have Saturday classes as well. It was nice to be able to walk around in town and get a cup of decent coffee, along with the opportunity to just be outside a little bit. Putney seems like a nice town, very small, which seems typical of Vermont. The countryside is dotted with little towns about fifteen minutes apart, and in between on the hillsides are scattered houses. I always thought of the Northeast as quite full until I came to Vermont and saw the watch out for moose crossing signs and the vast expanses of open hillside. It all adds to the loveliness of the area, and the isolation that The Putney School feels in its own little world. Today is the halfway point in my stay here, and I'm not sure that I want to go home. Yes, i certainly do for all the people I miss and my friends and family, but at the same time I slid into this community much more easily than I ever thought I might of, and I sort of like where I am. It feels like I've been here for ages, not simply a week and a half. At this point, I know most everyone's names and the faces to put on them, the drama going on, who's in trouble, who ought to be, and much of the inner workings of the school.

Anyways, today I had my day off from AM Barn, and so got to sleep in all the way to 7:15. My two classes were poetry and Ceramics, and I got most of the body of my mask finished. I'm making an elephant, and tomorrow I ought to be able to begin sculpting the face in preparation for painting on the slip (liquid clay that behaves as paint) in preparation for glazing. I'm still slugging through my poetry project, and it seems to be taking a lot more work than I anticipated, but it's still fascinating all the same.

One aspect of the school that I've been learning more about this week is their Standards committee, which has been in existence since the founding of the school in 1935, and is a student and teacher collaboration that discusses any transgressions of the students and hears their case before assigning them a punishment. Earlier this year, there had been some mishaps with the student members of Standards, and so the system was overhauled (for the first time since its founding), and elections were held for new student members. The philosophy behind the committee is very interesting, and also very Putney. Nearly everything here, from the care taking of the school to the hiring of new faculty members, relies heavily on student input and decision, and so the student body has a huge responsibility to their own lives and school environment. The idea that student leaders in the community decide on the punishments and ensure that any doled out are deemed fair and just to the crime is, to my mind, fantastic. Not only does it ensure that the students are not disgruntled and feel put upon by the administration, as may occur in other schools, but they also are invested in the process, and so do care that students are punished when they ought to be, which contributes to the school environment in a huge way. I think that the idea is marvelous, and, perhaps, one that could be implemented anywhere. This idea of student activity and student leadership is not limited to only enforcement of the rule, but to all areas of school life, leaving the school a better place because of it.

Election Day

(Us watching the election)

Well, as I write this post I am sitting in a large auditorium with about a fourth of the school, everyone cheering for Obama and booing Romney. Vermont has been established as an extremely liberal state, even if I didn't know it before. It's a lot of fun to be here for election da because everyone is very involved in politics and well informed, and I dare say that the experience of watching the election wil be one that I remember forever.

However, besides the obvious excitement about the impending fate of our nation, today was fairly normal. I did manage to miss barn again....which is fairly awkward, I set my alarm to pm instead of am, and hence did not wake up. Despite that, I didn't get in any major trouble, and have managed to make it through the day and will still have my day off tomorrow, so that's a plus. Anyways, my first class today was American Studies, and since our apple pie won the mock election n the school used to demonstrate the electoral college, we got to peel and chop apples for the pie we're having on Thursday. After that, I had poetry, in which we split up into groups in order to discuss our projects. After lunch I had ceramics, in which we are teaming up with the African History class to build tribal masks, and we began to gather ideas for designs today. In excited to begin actually building them tomorrow. For my afternoon activity I had ballet, and I thought it was pretty good. I feel like I'm getting a little out of shape though. For the most part, today's been fun, and I look forward to seeing Ohio turnips poll in on the election. Also, for my scarf to be finished in Fiber arts, seeing as I got a lot of it finished tonight.

Monday Monday Monday

Well, this morning I was greeted with the lovely sight and smell of rotten hay, courtesy of the dampness from Hurricane Sandy. Along with that, the weather has taken a turn for the quite brisk, and there's rumor of a Northeaster (snowstorm) coming up, so this ought t be fun. I adore snow, but when it's cold and snowy, the cows have to stay inside all night, leaving the barn ate a mess to clean.

Other than that, the only notable event of today was that all the students signed up for winter evening and afternoon activities, and that Huseby had its pride day, leading us all to walk around in pajamas all day. I also learned how to throw on the pottery wheel on the sly over the weekend, and the teacher wasn't upset with me, which was nice, since I was slightly afraid. I had jazz today and wore a Garrison Keillor shirt, and a girl recognized it, which made me glad. Other than that, we have a lot of projects in classes and we're reading modern theatre in Existentialism, which means that it's all rather absurd. Hopefully I might have something more interesting to report tomorrow! Ta ta for now

Lazy Sundays

So, I dare say that the only day that practically nothing happens at Putney is Sunday, which was a nice change, but has also been quite long. I woke up at my normal time this morning in order to go to barn, which I didn't miss today despite anxieties with day-light savings, and we took care of the cows and all the normal jobs. However, today I stayed much later than is normal, which was partly due to the fact that the pigs were loaded onto a truck in order to be taken off to be butchered today. I didn't much like the pigs when I had to take care of them, but their screams were, none the less, quite traumatizing. They  were very violent in their protestations, and I dare say that it was my least favorite things that I've done at Putney. After barn, I showered and did a little bit of brainstorming for a short-story in Existentialism, since Sundays have brunch instead and breakfast and lunch, and that doesn't begin until 9, leaving me with quite a chunk of time on my hands. After brunching for about an hour, I went back to Huseby, the dorm, and sat in the common room finishing my brainstorming, and then migrated upstairs to my room to read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass for AP Composition at MV, and got about halfway finished with it. I had intended to read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but realized that a 500 page novel on top of the school work and activities of Putney was slightly overambitious. At this point, I have read one assignment for APUSH and the reading for English. After that, I went to another girl's room and we all lazed about for a few hours until she realized that she needed to do a photography shop, which we then all helped her with. The one other slight adventure of today was my first time doing laundry, which allowed me to wash the old-lady smell out of my thrift store purchases, leaving them ready for wear this week, which I am terribly excited about. That brings us up to dinner, which I just got back from. The main excitement of that was the fact that we have ice cream on Sundays, which caused a bit of a scramble, and the mint chocolate chip proved itself to be well worth it despite the hard fought struggle. Now I am on to actually writing the story for Existentialism, which is supposed to creatively portray my understanding of The Stranger, a book that I have speed read to catch up with the rest of the class.

Brattleborough

So, today I had one of my first misfortunes at Putney... Which involved not resetting my alarm for AM Barn. Seeing as I then work up at 7:15, I completely missed it, and have yet to discover the consequences, which will likely involve some form of make up work. Anyways, it's no use eying over spilt milk, and hopefully it won't happen again.... But the more exciting part of today was going to Brattleborough after having Saturday morning classes, which were Existentialism and American Studies. We finished reading Waiting for Godot, which was good even if it was also completely absurd, and then in American Studies we took a quiz, which was fairly easy even though I hadn't studied most of the subject matter with the class.

But anyways, after lunch there was an excursion to Brattleborough, VT, which is a very quaint little town about 15 minutes away from Putney. I went with another girl, Alonda, and a few sophomores who we met in the bus there. There was a giant thrift store there, and I found two pretty great sweaters, along with a button down shirt that was printed all over with pictures of old bicycles, which was a lot of fun. After the thrift store, we walked down the street to a Chinese restraint, where Alonda ordered some food, and then went to this amazing bakery. Though a lot of people don't like the food at the KDU, I find it to be pretty good; however, there coffee is awful. Fortunately, the coffee at Amy's Bakery was wonderful, and the slice of hazelnut chocolate cake was extraordinary as well, despite the fact that its large size is now coming back to make me feel slightly ill. Anyways, that is my experience with Putney on the weekends so far, and seeing as tomorrow is our only complete day off, it is to be hoped that it will be even more relaxing, particularly given that I do, in fact, have a sizable amount of homework to do, both for Putney and MVCDS.

To Round Out the Week

So, with the last day of the week, so comes my last class description, leaving us with a basic understanding from here on out. However, it also just so happens that today was not quite my last day of classes....seeing as Putney has the delightful practice of Saturday morning classes. Other momentous news of the day was that I subbed in for a friend on her dinner crew job (on my day off from AM Barn I might add), and had an experience with that that made me thankful that I shovel cow manure every morning and wake up at 5:25 to boot. Perhaps the reason for their work program is in reality a deterrent for not going to college and getting a degree? If it is, it is working well. Other than that, I learned how to throw on a pottery wheel on the sly from a student rather than the teacher, I wove about a foot of my scarf (which I am terribly excited about, so much fun), and we started reading Waiting for Godot in Existentialism, which may or may not be the most bizarre play I have ever encountered. I get to go back to AM Barn tomorrow morning, and then have the pleasure of it on Sunday, which would otherwise be the only day I might be able to sleep in on.

Anyways, my last activity that I will be devoting a post to is American Studies, which is sort of like an United States History class and English class smashed together according to its description. I have yet to see much evidence of the English portion, but so far the history side has been focusing on the structure of the government, which is particularly interesting with the electoral college and the upcoming elections. Basically everyone here is extraordinarily liberal, and the teacher for this class is very adamant about the fact that the electoral college turns the election into something that is not, in fact, a free election, but rather a controlled one. This ties in to the topics of Federalists verses Anti-Federalists that we are discussing in class, which we also had a debate about in class today. Even though I don't actually go here, I was the only one on our team who had written up a bit of a statement for the Anti-Federalists side, and so we were not terribly well prepared, and neither side was particularly eloquent or organized in their thoughts and ideas.

This description of our rather lack-luster class brings me to an interesting point on Putney that I have observed over the past week, which is how they differ with Maumee Valley on the basis of how much importance they place on academics. Many of the students transfer to Putney after discovering that their high school wasn't really where they wanted to be after the first or second year, and so everyone is extraordinarily creative and unique, and the environment they form in that way is amazing. However, very few students focus on academics with any great diligence, and there is a very lax attitude towards homework and work in general. Perhaps this is only my observation because I have yet to see any of the assignments graded and handed back, nor any tests or quizzes. Nonetheless, that still leaves the fact that the shortest period of time in between the three classes that are held each day is an hour, and two of the three classes are themselves an hour long with one being an hour and a half. This makes for a very relaxed environment, and for the right people it certainly works; however, though I adore Putney so far, I'm not sure that I could bear the academic environment for very long.

Existentialism

Before getting to the meet of this post, I think I can give some updates as the Putney situation. My new farm experience this morning was cleaning it a chicken coop, which was positively horrendous. At first it looked as if the poop was the floor, but then when we started to dig in I realized, much to my chagrin, that in reality, it was the top of about a foot of chicken droppings. It had a disturbing similarity to paper mâché in texture, and as we shoveled it realsed a dust that got absolutely everywhere. Since I was avoiding breathing through my nose in order to bear the stench, the inside of my mouth and just about everything was coated the dust, and it was positively miserable. Just another thrilling day on the farm. Even though it sounds like I don't enjoy it, doing AM Barn really is one of myfavorite things about my stay. Getting up early and having a satisfying start to the day really is nice, and I truly am learning a lot from the experience. Luckily, however, I will have my day off tomorrow, meaning I get to sleep in past 5:25 for the first time since last Saturday... Oh the excitement :)

Anyways, the class today that I shall talk about is Existentialism, which is turning out to be a pretty great class. It's mainly discussion based, and student run, so it's great to hear all the ideas that other students have. I must admit, the Northeast was, is, a bit of a culture shock after the Midwest, but also certainly a welcome one. They are very liberal, even more so than Maumee Valley, which is both nice and strange. Back to the class though. I began in right when they finished reading Camus's The Stranger. Today was the final discussion, and the assignment of a project on our understanding of Camus's ideas, meaning that I am both lost and fascinated. I did manage to get some ideas in based in what others were saying and my bare-bones understanding of the book from Sparknotes. The philosophy involved in his writing is very interesting, and I believe, though I don't think the teacher expects it, that I might read The Stranger briefly and then do the writing project that he assigned, which was basically to relatively portray your understanding of what Camus was talking about. Is fun to be n a class whose main focus is one philosophical discipline, and though I'm a bit lost occasionally since I don't have as solid a base due to my jumping in as the others do, it's still fascinating to be in the class. The teacher, Lou Cannelli, is wonderful as well, and has very intelligent methods of getting us all to participate and think through the lenses of Existentialism.

My discussion in class has led to another topic, which is that of the people at Putney. Although I had a fear of not being able to relate or interact, or that it might be more difficult, everyone here is wonderful and a lot of fun, making the entire experience better than it ever would have been otherwise. I don't remember is I had mentioned this already, but I think it something worth reiterating,