The Perks of Being an AM Cow Barn Worker

I realize today is no longer Thursday, but time sort of escaped me and I'm not entirely sure where it went, which seems to have been happening increasingly all week  a my departure looms. However, I shall now be writing two posts in order to cover this.

Well, yesterday, I went to AM barn and was welcomed by the pleasant prospect of getting to go to Dunkin' Donuts as an end of the trimester treat for the crew. We got all of the chores finished very quickly and managed to leave by 7 to drive into town, however, we didn't return until 8, leaving me with no time to shower and barely enough time to change and get to class on time. When I got to class, y first one was Existentialism and we heard about other's strange modern plays and the absurdity of them. After that, we had sing, my last one, which was as enthusiastic as ever, though some seniors boycotted it because the director and they had had a slight misunderstanding, and so did not come, cutting back on quite a bit of the enthusiasm. After that, I had ceramics, where I glazed some more pieces. I'm nervous about seeing how they'll turn out.... Friday is also the last  day for glazing. We also continued reading Angels in America, which is a fascinating play that is very well written and brings up controversial topics very well, but I think the teacher isn't doing as much with it as she could. Regardless, I'm enjoying it immensely. I had my presentation for poetry, and made it through despite some technical difficulties. Due to my computer's old age, is was unable to connect to the projector, and the version of office I have was not compatible with other's computers. As a result, we spent about half an hour working on it, and ended in a PDF file that we emailed to other students to look at on their computers. I managed to make my way through it with no further mishap, and I think the power point and presentation went across quite well.

During the afternoon there were no activities because of work job training for the next trimester, so I went to work in the ceramics studio. Since my elephant was not yet out of the bisque firing, I finished my other pieces and then did a bit of throwing, which didn't go too well but I think was an improvement from my first failure of an attempt. I'm going to miss working in ceramics every day.

Anyways, after dinner I had fiber arts, and finished weaving my scarf! It was extraordinarily exciting.  Milissa took it home with her in order to wash it, and I get it to keep on Friday. March of the Turkeys, Putney's version of thanksgiving, is tomorrow and I'm quite excited.

Wonderful Wednesdays

Today was my last day off of barn before I leave, and it really is marvelous to feel as if 7:30 is sleeping in. Although not exactly wonderful that that is the amount of sleep you then get...but anyways.

I only had two classes today since it's Wednesday, and in poetry I managed to finish my power point for my presentation tomorrow, and the rest of my afternoon was basically spent on writing the notes, albeit distractedly, which I shall now proceed to complete. It's getting pretty sad to think about leaving, especially since I have made friends with a lot of the people here. However, going on with the day, in ceramics I finished glazing the piece I had begun yesterday, and then glazed two more pieces. I'm excited to see how they'll all turn out since the glazes look entirely different before being fired. Tomorrow I should be able to finish the bowl I'm working on right now, along with the elephant mask, though I'll probably have to go in during my afternoon activity block, but that isn't a problem since all the other students have work job training tomorrow in preparation for their new jobs in the second semester when they return from Thanksgiving break. Today was slightly exciting due to the fact that there was no water until about 3 o'clock since Putney's water system has been being replaced for the first time in about 60 years, and today was the day when they switched off the old system to turn on the new. Unfortunately, everything has been muddy as a result of all the construction, but hopefully that will be fixed soon since they've already reseeded the grass.

After classes, I generally sat about with friends and hung out, very lazy as usual, though Max and I made it to the KDU to get some tea (they had Chai today, which was a treat) and bread for snack, and then the staff was very lovely and gave us some cake as well. I wound up not going to dinner at the KDU tonight either since one of my friends, Alonda, and her roommate had ordered Chinese food from Brattleborough and invited me to share it with them, so we had a little dinner party on the floor of their room. Tomorrow is the last full day of classes, since Friday is March of the Turkeys, and though I can't tell if we have classes Saturday, even if we do they're only in the morning anyways. Starting to take more pictures in order to keep the memories too!

The Last Tuesday

Well, today it has been really hitting me that I will be leaving on Sunday, which is both horrible and wonderful at the same time. However, I suppose I have the rest of the week so I had better make the best of it.

Anyways, today in poetry I finished revising my essay and outlined the presentation I will be giving on T. S. Eliot on Thursday, though the rest of the class has the honor of doing so after the break. Seeing as I shall not be here then, I think that would be fairly difficult, and so I am a bit more cramped for time than them. Ceramics was my second class, and since the masks are finished and everything is bisque fired, we were able to start glazing our pieces. It's very interesting to see all the glazes and how they combine, particularly since they look extremely different after being fired, often even entirely different colors, so it's a bit of a surprise to see how pieces come out. The surprise is lessened, of course, by the sample pieces that they have glazed in order to demonstrate how the glazes turn out, and then also a few little bowls that demonstrate how they react with each other when they're mixed. I started to glaze a bowl yesterday, but didn't have time to finish it or begin other pieces since the teacher, Naomi, had to demonstrate the technique for me and a couple of other newbies. Although the kiln won't be fired until after I leave Putney after Thanksgiving break, I think that I will be able to get a friend to package all of my pieces up and mail them to me if I give her the money to do so. Anyways, after lunch I had American Studies, where we began to read Angles in America, a play about the gay community in New York City during the Reagan administration. I have heard from some of the seniors that it's a wonderful play, so I'm interested in going forward with reading it. Well, after classes I had ballet, which was my last dance class here at Putney. I took a picture with the teachers and the other students for memories, but luckily I won't truly be saying goodbye to anyone for a while still. The rest of the afternoon was very lazy, but for evening activity I had Fiber Arts, and my scarf is very nearly finished. I actually had to stop early last night so that I will have enough room left to use some of the new colors that the teacher had ordered in time for today, but the shipment had been backlogged. Though the scarf is not exactly a work of art, I'm very excited to see how it will turn out in the end.

Well, it was another lovely day at Putney, only four left!

Another Lapse....

I'm terribly sorry about not posting last night. Last night was slightly insane and dramatic due to some of the actions of the students, and as a result The blogpost managed to completely slip my mind. Anyways, yesterday was, yet again, quite balmy. I think we're experiencing a bit if an Indian summer here in southern Vermont, and I both hope that it will end to bring in the snow, and that it'll continue so that we can enjoy the great outdoors.

The cows were lovely as ever yesterday, though there was some slight insubordination in the ranks as a result of a couple of students shirking their responsibilities. There is also a calf who seems to have decided that it is quite amusing to head butt me while I'm scraping out its stall, and the play became slightly annoying yesterday, but another student gave me the tip to whack them in the shins when they do that.....so I might be armed, even though that sounds awfully unpleasant. The explanation for this behavior is, I believe, that the way they get more milk to fall into their mother's pouch is by head butting it, and so the calves occasionally do that to humans as well when their hungry, though it doesn't exactly yield reinforcing results. My first class of the day was poetry, where we workshopped my rather horrible draft of an essay, and determined that I will be presenting my project on Thursday.....which I can't say that I feel horridly prepared for, but we'll see. After the first class we had assembly, which I don't think I have managed to mention on here before, but is much more formal than MV's assembly, and is more similar to our soapboxes because they generally have presentations along with announcements. I think they get around having announcements every day by having this mass email system called Community Comments that sends messages to the whole school . Anyways, these occur Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and there's an semblance where we all sing on Thursdays. But yesterday's presentation was by a foreign exchange student on Japan, and the also speeches made by students running for dorm head, which is a position that coordinates dorm life and weekend activities. After that, I had ceramics, where I presented my elephant head that I had made as an African mask, and got to see everyone else's masks and the story behind the culture and tribe that they had based it off of, which was very interesting to hear about. After lunch, I had existentialism, where we spoke about the play Tango in preparation for our own presentations of plays of modern theatre.

I spent the rest of my afternoon helping a friend to film her movie for her final film in her class, which was very fun, but required quite a bit of running around campus in order to find costumes for her rather specific artistic vision. Dinner was sit down, where the seniors acted as waiters, and was quite good. They served squash lasagna and pesto. The night was mildly insane due to some students getting in trouble, but I think it will all pan out alright. The kids are going to Standards to get their verdict today (the day after I ought to have written this post).

Two Days Are Better Than One

Well, it would appear that I didn't quite get around to writing a blog post last night, so today there's going to be double.

The excitement that led to the blog post remaining undone was, namely, the event of coffee house. Yesterday was Saturday, was we had classes in the morning (Existentialism and American Studies), but none in the afternoon. As a result, I spent the afternoon sort of floating around after being introduced to the wonders of Dogma, a movie, by one of my friends, and had a generally lazy afternoon. Then, after dinner, everyone got sort of dressed up for coffee house since the theme was "casino," and they're much more enthusiastic than we are in that regard. So I helped a girl to look like she was from the 50's, and then put on my own sequined top from the 80's, and we went down to play cards before the performing began. I managed to play BS, but seeing as I have not had too much experience with other gambling games, my interaction with those was woefully lacking. However, the performances themselves began soon, opening with a band of four boys playing a song by Rage Against the Machine extremely enthusiastically. The coffee house lasted about two hours, but the funny part was that it wasn't painful. Typically at talent shows or coffee houses are anything like that, you get at least one or two acts that are at least mildly painful to watch because, though the person ought to be given credit for having the courage to stand up and perform like they do, they don't have as much talent as they might. However, here at Putney, it doesn't seem like they have that problem. Oh, certainly there were some acts that were better than others, but overall everyone did extraordinarily well and performed admirably. My room mate sang in quite a few different acts, and many of my friends performed. There were the typical sort of joking acts that were put on to laugh at, though they were good regardless of their intention. But along with that there were the acts that people had put real work into and took very seriously, and none of them disappointed. Then, there were the ones in the middle that neither took themselves too seriously, but still displayed real talent, such as a cello and violin duet that ended with the cellist clogging while the violinist played. Anyways, it all only went to enforce my opinion that everyone at Putney is supremely talented, and the entire community is very supportive of their work.

Well, after my adventures of last night, I woke up to do barn this morning and it was downright balmy compared to how the weather has been lately. After barn, since brunch doesn't begin until 9 on Sundays, I went back to bed with the intention to take a little nap, and wound up sleeping all the way to 12 and missing brunch entirely. After that, I managed to grab some coffee so that the rest of my day wasn't miserable. I spent the day working on an essay about T. S. Eliot, and managed to get about half of it finished, which I intend to finish after writing this blog post. Other than that, today was very relaxed, and there was ice cream for dinner, which was a nice change, particularly after missing brunch.

Fantastic Fridays

Today it was much warmer than yesterday, leaving us all rather bemused, but still nice because barn was quite a bit more pleasant. Anyways, the excitement of today was that one of the writers of The Laramie Project came for assembly and gave a talk. The Lramie Project is a play that Putney is putting on about the murder of  Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in October of 1998. The play itself is a series of interviews based off of actual interviews taken by the Tectonic Theatre in Laramie after the event. It addresses the social climate of the time and homophobia in the area, along with the reaction of the community to the event and how they were perceived as a result of it. It was a wonderful talk, and extremely interesting. He discussed the process of writing the play, which was fascinating in that he was an openly gay man who grew up through the same period of homophobia that produced the horrible murder, and how he went through recording the interviews and then writing the play with the troop from those. I think, perhaps, the most interesting thing was his description of how th ecommunity received the during the first Laramie Project, which was first reformed in 200, and the sort of epilogue play that they went back to do interviews for 10 years later. The first time, Laramie was very glad to have someone come in and talk to the community. The news  stations had come in, made a big deal, and then left, leaving the community in a shell shocked state and ready for Tectonic Theatre to rep in and interview them about the event. He said that once word got around that they were trustworthy and would listen, people would actually be eager to come and talk to them. They were dedicated to staying true to how the character of Laramie, Wyoming, and as a result, those who interviewed people were dedicated to portraying their subject as accurately as possible. In the end, it was a cathartic experience for the community, and all but one of the subjects net reviewed were very pleased with how accurately they were portrayed. However, when the team returned 10 years later, there was great resentment and hostility towards them for portraying Laramie as a homophobic town, and branding them as the place that Matthew Shepard was murdered. As a result of this, the underlying homophobia of the community that continued to exist payed a large role nt he second play. Along side this, for the second play, they were able to interview the two murderers and feature them in the play, which leant an interesting twist. I thought that the most striking thing, however, that he said, wasn't when people asked him whether or not it was their story to tell, you responded yes because, in away, it belonged to all of the gay community. Tough the murder and laramie's reaction were very personal, at that time, all openly gay people experienced discrimination, and so so this manifestation was their own display. The author himself and been beaten with a pipe on a sidewalkinNewYork for openly kissing his boyfriend, and other events like that led to the feeling of indignance and injustice that was addressed by the Laramie Project. I feel privileged to have been ale to attend his talk at the Putney School, and it was simply one more thing to make me realize what a wonderful place it is to exist due to its tolerance and love for its community and world.

Let It Snow Let It Snow Let It Snow

Today in barn I was positively freezing, but thankfully we had our first snow of the year.  It came during Sing, which is the school wide singing session that faced a wall to windows, and when the first flakes began to fall everyone began to cheer. It was great, until we realized that it was more sleet than snow and it never stuck, and then everyone was fairly upset. Anyways, I'm upset about the lack of sow, it excited for this weekend because there will be a coffee house. It sounds as if it's much more elaborate than MV's, even has a theme, which is gambling. I'm excited for it because a lot of my friends will be performing in it, and since everyone here is rather horridly talented, the show ought to be pretty amazing.

But today I had Existentialism, where we chose a play to read and teach to the class form modern theatre, and I wound up in a group that's reading Rhinoceros by Ionesco, which seems to be every bit as confusing as Waiting for Godot at this point, we'll see. Then I had American Studies, which was interesting because it was our first class since the elections and we got to go through all the states and their results, which was fun. It's interesting to be from Ohio in Vermont during the elections because it's a swing state that gets much more attention than Vermont, which is very solidly democratic. After lunch I had poetry, and I'm now at the point where I shall be writing a rough draft of my essay over the weekend, which ought to be fun. I had jazz for my afternoon activity, and there was quite a bit of excitement due to the fact tat we've organized an exchange with the boy's soccer team so that we do their warmup and they take a bit of a class, which ought to turn out to be pretty amusing. W had sit down dinner tonight, which happens Mondays and Thursdays, where the seniors wait on the res to father school at dinner style meal rather than the buffet that we typically have. It's generally pretty fun, though the vegetarian option is never as good as with normal meals. Also, we got to eat the apple pie we peeled the apples for in American Studies on Tuesday, which added to the enjoyment. In fiber arts I can now see the end of my scarf, which is reassuring because it means I will almost certainly be able to actually finish it before I return home. Well, not much more to report, seeing as I am off to read my American Studies homework, which consists of reader Tinker vs. Des Moines and writing a case briefing for it. I ought to be jut tons of fun.