Remember...?

Well, the first module of my first semester of my first year at Oberlin is now finished. Midterm papers: All completed. Midterm exams: All taken (with the exception of the "take-home-open-notes" midterm for my Theater class. Not exactly worried about that though...) There are no classes for the next week, and then after that the fall semester continues. So what, you may ask, will be happening for this week? I'M GOING BACK TO BINGHAMTON, THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING!

I must say, even though I absolutely love, adore, cherish and worship the ground walked upon by this wonderful school and all the wonderful people I have met here, I must admit something: I do miss Binghamton. I know, I KNOW, it seems crazy. I'm having the absolute time of my life in college, and I truly do feel at home here. But I also miss my Binghamton home. My house, my family, my friends, my ADORABLE dog, things like that.

In addition, here are some WONDERFUL things about my home that I have missed very very much at Oberlin and have definitely taken for granted in the past:
•The feeling of showering without shoes on
•Meals that don't require waiting in lines
•Being able to measure time in actual minutes, as opposed to "laundry machine minutes"
•While we're on that topic: Doing laundry. FOR. FREE.
•Constantly wondering whether or not I have enough quarters (again, the laundry thing)
•Bathroom privacy
•Privacy in general (Everything you say in every hall and every room of this dorm can be heard. By everyone.)
•To mention a totally obvious college cliché, food cooked by my wonderful parents
•While we're on the subject of food, The Lost Dog Cafe, Cyber Cafe, Java Joes, Foliage, and J. Michael's.
•BUBBLE TEA (I still haven't made peace with the fact that a school that is home to so many hipsters can possibly not have a place to get bubble tea on or near campus....)
•Being able to go places that are beyond walking distance of home (I don't have a car at Oberlin and don't have any close friends who do, so we don't leave the immediate surrounding town of Oberlin very much...well, ever.)
•Toasters
•All the books/DVDs I left behind (not that we have free time in college or anything...)
•Not having to worry about violating quiet hours
•Not having to deal with sleepless nights caused by other people violating quiet hours
•Being around people who know what a spiedie is

So yes even though I am going to miss Oberlin and my Oberlin friends quite terribly for the next week, I am most definitely looking forward to reaquainting myself with these aspects of Binghamton (and the non-college environment in general). I'll be leaving Oberlin tomorrow afternoon, and returning next weekend. So until then, Happy Fall Break, Obies! :)

Do I hear a waltz?

Okay, so I'm just going to do an EXTREMELY brief post about the OMTA showcase, which went up this past weekend. And I'm pretty sure the entire experience can be basically summarized in one word: OHMYGODITWASSOMUCHFUN!!! (Okay, almost one word...)

It was an extremely brief showcase, consisting of only seven pieces total (one of which was unfortunately cut from the program on Saturday, due to an unfortunate illness). And it took place in the Slow Train Cafe, which is a wonderful place that serves really great coffee, but unfortunately presents some predicaments when it comes to performing (i.e. awkward coffee-grinding noises and baristas loudly trying to figure out which customer isn't claiming his/her pumpkin spice latte in the middle of songs). But it was still a fun place to be for the show. And even though there wasn't a whole lot of seating, we got great audiences for all three shows.

Of course, each piece went very well. The opening piece, "Aquarius" from the show Hair sadly only got one performance because of the lead singer's sudden sickness. However, I was of the opinion (as were many people) that they should have tried to figure out another solution, rather than just cutting the piece altogether. After all, the ensemble members put in so much work and they shouldn't have had their piece cut simply because one person couldn't be there. And the truth is, any one of them could have sung the solo...

However, once that was cut, the piece that was second on the program got moved to the opening spot. This piece, incidentally, turned out to be "A Little Priest" from the show Sweeney Todd. Which was the piece I was in. Yikes! Overall I felt very good about how our song went for all three shows. Having an audience for it definitely had an enormous impact on our performance, since there were now people to laugh at all of the highly amusing cannibalistic puns (which, I must say, got much bigger laughs than I anticipated in one of the performances.) We had so much fun every time we did it, and I think it went very well.

The rest of the acts went very well also. The other pieces featured in the showcase were "At The Ballet" (from A Chorus Line), "Unworthy of Your Love" (Assassins), "Every Day A Little Death" (A Little Night Music), "Take Me Or Leave Me" (Rent), and "Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair" (South Pacific). In particular, two of my favorites were the Assassins piece and the A Little Night Music piece. Two of my close friends were in those songs (playing Squeaky Fromme and Charlotte) and they both did absolutely gorgeously. (Is that a word? "Gorgeously?" It doesn't really sound right. Quick dictionary.com break...Yes. Yes, it is a word. Huh...)

As a whole, the showcase was so much fun, and even though it was a logistical nightmare much of the time, I still had the time of my life and I'm actually a little sad that it's over. However, I'm still participating in the workshop of Vessel, and there are more auditions coming up down the road, and rumors of certain musicals that may or may not be put up at Oberlin (more details to come). So I'm not in any way short of theater opportunities for the time being.

I now leave you with a link to a video my piece. (Since sadly none of my family members or friends from Binghamton could make it here for the show, I made sure someone got a video of it. Snaps to my roommate, who put it on Youtube!) In addition, once you see that video, on the same channel you'll find recordings of my friends' pieces as well, which are amazing. Enjoy! Note: This post was brought to you by the wacky musical theater people of Oberlin College. They sing choruses in public. That's mad enough for you, old man. (A gold star goes to anyone who can name one or both of the things I just referenced. Hint: One is an operetta, the other is a movie...)

In the heart and in the head

Okay, so first of all, don't get used to this, because this is probably the ONLY time I will ever post two days in a row. I just wanted to comment on something that I inadvertently neglected to talk about yesterday.

As many of you may (or may not) know, yesterday was National Coming Out Day. While many people immediately associate this with simply "a time for all the gay people to just tell the world how gay they are, it is my understanding that NCOD is actually about much more than that. It's about people being proud of who they are, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or pretty much anything else that may influence a person's identity. 

Yesterday, in honor of NCOD, my friends and I attended an event at the Cat in the Cream coffeehouse called "Coming Out Stories: An Open Mic Event." I must say, it was possibly the most inspirational thing I have witnessed since arriving at Oberlin. So many people eagerly jumped up on stage in the Cat to tell the story of how they came out: students who identify in dozens of different ways (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, gender queer, an ally, or even something as basic as a slash fiction writer) coming out to dozens of different people (parents, siblings, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, professors, therapists). Every story was so intensely unique, and yet at the same time managed to communicate a unified message: Regardless of what anyone says, we are who we are and we deserve to be proud of that.

Several people's stories have stuck with me, but I'm only going to share one of them here. One notably brave female student named H told the audience about how she realized she was bisexual in highschool when she fell in love with one of her female friends. The two briefly dated, but it ultimately didn't work out because she was so uncomfortable telling people about their relationship, particularly her conservative Catholic parents. "I still haven't come out to my parents" she said, pulling her cellphone out of her pocket. "However, I thought tonight that could change." She dialed her mother's phone number and it went to voicemail. Within a minute, though, her mom called her back, and we listened to the entire conversation on speakerphone. H told her mom that she is attracted to girls and identifies as bi, and without hesitation, her mother responded "Honey, that's great!" Thunderous applause filled the Cat, and H started to tear up (as did most of the audience). When she expressed how happy and relieved she was at this reaction, her mother actually said "Honey, you're my daughter! I love you no matter what! How could you think, even for a second, that anything would change that?" More thunderous applause. 

Eventually H left the stage to have a more private conversation with her parents, and the night continued. Person after person revealing extremely touching stories of how they realized that they were somehow "different," some telling their loved ones, some not. Some getting enthusiastic, loving responses, some not. Some who didn't even come out at all, but rather had a loved one who came out to them. Several people, while the didn't all make the phone call ONSTAGE like H, announced that they are planning to come out when they return home for fall break (these announcements were met with even more thunderous applause.)

Inspired by all of the truly moving stories, I decided to add my name to the list. I told the story of how my mother came out as a lesbian. She told me when I was in eighth grade that she was in a romantic relationship with an absolutely wonderful woman who, up to this point, I had just assumed was a close friend of hers. She also told me, however, that this needed to be kept quiet because it could complicate her job as a Presbyterian Minister and her role in the local religious community.

Fast forward. Approximately 2 or 3 years later. (I think I was in tenth grade at this point?) My mom had just begun working at a wonderful church near our hometown which she absolutely loves. And everyone there absolutely loves her, of course. However, she'd been working there in a temporary position, and soon her contract will be up for renewal, possibly to make her position permanent (to be voted upon by the congregation). On the way to church one day, she asked me about what I would think about the idea of her coming out to the congregation before they vote on her contract. I essentially told her that, while it is totally her choice, I would definitely be in support of her doing it, because ultimately, whether they decide to accept her or not, she would probably prefer to go through the process as honestly and openly as possible and not feel as though she was hiding anything from them. A few months later, she told the members of the session about it. The first response was from a fairly new member who said something along the lines of "Well, regardless of that, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we absolutely love having you as our pastor, and learning this about you certainly doesn't change that." Almost everyone else on the session said variations on the same idea. She had also sent a letter out to every member of the congregation telling them about it, which was met with several phone calls and emails from people telling her how much they love her and how wonderful of a person she is. There were some people who were less than thrilled about the news. However, when the time came to vote on her contract, there was an overwhelming majority that decided to keep her in the church for several more years (and she is still happily working there today). The ultimate bottom line was that, whether or not they were in support of her sexual orientation, or her relationship, collectively as a group they still loved who she was as a person and as a pastor. And nothing could change that.

From that point on, now that everyone in the church knew, news began to spread gradually to all of the other people to whom she had not yet come out. One of the people on this list was my mothers 89 year old, Republican, Fox News watching, UberCatholic dad. His only reaction: "I surmised as much." I still am not entirely sure exactly how he feels about the whole thing, but he has met my mom's girlfriend several times, and always seems thrilled to see both of them.

At a certain point, as I was telling this story to the audience in the Cat, I realized that I needed to figure out a way to wrap the story up in a way that would get my overall feelings across. This was the point when I began to tear up. "So, that is how my mother came out. And every single day I am completely in awe of how brave she was in doing that. Because when she told everyone, she didn't know what would happen. For all she knew, she might have lost her job, she might never have been able to work in the Presbyterian church again, she might not have been on speaking terms with her dad, anything could have happened, and she had no idea how it would turn out. But she just did it anyways. And because of that, she is the bravest, strongest, most incredible person I know. I truly admire her every day for having the strength to step forward and tell the world, 'This is who I am.' And I hope that one day, when it's the right time, everyone of us has the courage to do the same thing." Thunderous applause.

In the words of Tyler Oakley, a source of endless wisdom and inspiration, "National Coming Out Day signifies a moment when we can take some time to appreciate the courage and the braveness that it takes to truly be yourself, no matter what 'yourself' may be." I couldn't have said it better any other way. That is exactly what coming out means to me. And I know that it's a terrifying, difficult, thing for a lot of people to do. And no one should be pressured into doing it before they are ready. But I truly do hope that one day everyone has the strength and support to do it, because it is such an empowering thing to do. It will be a truly wonderful day when everyone in the world feels confident and supported enough to proudly tell the world who they are without being afraid of the ramifications, because everyone has the right to be proud of who they are, and no one can take that right away from another person. Ever.

No more questions, Please, No more tests...

Okay folks, I've got a truly amazing story to share with you. Just two hours ago, I experienced something completely unexpected in my college experience. Something that you always hear rumors and urban legends about, but can never truly be sure exists. Something that is never associated with college life, but terrifies every college student to their very core. That's right. I took my very first college exam.

Economics midterm exam, to be exact. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous. I mean, I generally feel like I've been doing well in the class, and for the past few nights I have been reviewing my notes and doing practice problems, so I was definitely well prepared. But there's something about the idea of your first ever college exam that just makes your mind do what is demonstrated in the helpful diagram to the right.

 But overall, I felt okay about the exam. It was made up of 20 multiple choice questions worth one point each and 5 multi-part short answer questions worth between 15 and 20 points each. Overall I felt better about the short answers than the multiple choice questions. (SURPRISE TANGENT: I've never understood why so many people find multiple choice to be so much easier! I mean, with a short answer, since there's a lot of explanation and calculation involved, you can get partial credit for your work even if the final answer is incorrect. With multiple choice, it's a 25% chance and if you're wrong, that's it. Nothing. I don't get it...)

Anyways, so that's that. In addition to that, last Thursday I had my first late-night-cramming-to-finish-multiple-assignments-library-session. Which was just honey bunches of fun (I'm experiencing so many wonderful college things, aren't I?) Assignment #1: 5(ish) page paper defending or refuting the statement that "In strict Darwinian terms, there is a selective advantage to creating art" (for my Psychobiological Perspective on the Arts class). Assignment #2: 1,200-1,500 word paper explaining what the John Keats poem "To Autumn" is truly about (for my "Beyond Disbelief" poetry seminar class). So essentially, after spending a total of 6 (or was it 7?) hours in the library, my brain was doing essentially what is depicted in the lovely picture to the left. To the left, to the left, Everything you own in the box to the left. (Oh yeah, I sometimes spontaneously burst into song. Just so ya know...)

But now the papers are completed and have been handed in, so I don't need to worry about those anymore. In fact, I just had a meeting with my Psych professor today to discuss my paper (most intense, stressful meeting ever) and he pointed out a few things for me to work on in my writing. It wasn't that bad. The main issue was that a couple of my arguments were unclear. When he asked me to specify what I meant and I explained, he said "Now, the way you said it just now made much more sense than it did in the paper." So I guess I'll have to work on that (also, because I was proofreading at 11:00 at night, I failed to notice that in the introduction paragraph, I accidentally used the word "illicit" when I meant "elicit." #vocabularyfail...) I have yet to hear anything about my poetry paper, but I imagine I will be hearing about it soon. So, now that those papers are done and my midterm is done, the next big work thing I have to keep an eye on is a Theater paper about a character from the play "All My Sons" (which we read a few weeks ago). But that actually seems really enjoyable, so I'll probably have fun writing that one. Because I am SUCH a FRAKKING NERD.

Last but certainly not least, IT'S HELL WEEK ONCE AGAIN! (That was put in all caps to demonstrate both excitement and anxiety at the same time. Either way, it's meant to be screamed....) Yes, ladies and gents, the OMTA showcase is this weekend! And BOY has it been exciting! And by "exciting" I mean "oh-my-god-this-is-so-freaking-hectic-and-crazy-what-the-hell-are-we-doing-what-is-the-meaning-of-life-anymore-expletive-expletive-expletive." Seriously. We just found out yesterday what dates and times our performances. YESTERDAY. Yeah....And tomorrow is our first tech rehearsal. By the way, funny story: The performances are going to be in a great little coffeehouse in the town of Oberlin called the Slow Train Cafe. And since they are open for business that evening, we have to wait until they close before we can rehearse. Meaning our rehearsal is going to START at 10:00pm. It's gonna be a lonnnnnnnnng night.

But really, who am I kidding? I'm complaining about the disorganization and the late rehearsals and how exhausting it's going to be, but guess what? I'm still loving every minute of it. I always love every minute of it. That's the thing about theater people. They put up with the long hours and the backstage drama and the crazy directors/producers/designers/actors/etc. because deep down they love it too much to give it up. That's why they audition for so many things at once even though they know it'll eat up their entire schedule. That's why they push through all of the pointless busywork during the day looking forward to their 10pm rehearsal. That's why they write long blog posts about their theater experiences and title every post with a Stephen Sondheim lyric. (Betcha didn't notice that, didya? Eh? Eh? Well, let's see how long I can keep that up before I run out of ideas...) So, as I sally forth into the dark depths of tech week, I am ultimately looking forward to the final product, which will be a fantastic, amazingly fun showcase of musical theater songs. I'll let you know how it goes!

This post was brought to you by RANDOM CAPITALIZATION and the ShoelessObiesFoundation, whose members challenge you to count how many people you see around campus without shoes. You may be surprised at how many you find...

Something familiar, Something peculiar, Something for everyone!

In the style of the epically awesome author/vlogger/Nerdfighter John Green, I would like to announce that this blog post is coming to you in three parts (Beeteedubs, if you don't know who John Green is, I URGE you to go find out. You're welcome.)

Part One: OSTA Showcase.
So, for me this past weekend was basically consumed by the OSTA showcase (see one of the previous posts if you've forgotten what that means). It was an AMAZINGLY FUN time, and all three performances went extremely well. (Side note: In my past experiences, weekend performances have usually been on a Friday-Saturday-Sunday basis, but the three performances of this showcase were Thursday-Friday-Saturday...Whaaaa? I can only think of two reasons for this. 1-So the people who procrastinated on their work all weekend can catch up on Sunday, or 2-So that people who want to party after the last show can do so without being exhausted and/or hungover during their Monday classes. But it's still weird...) During the Friday night show, I was lucky enough to be able to actually watch the other one-acts featured in the showcase, which I did not perform in. They were all highly entertaining. Some of my favorites were "The Donor," in which a man goes to donate blood and gets interrogated by the extremely busy-bodyish nurse who takes advantage of all of the personal questions in the donor survey; "Perchance to Dream," in which customers who are assigned dreams by a fictional agency attempt to use inception to avoid recurring situations, like encountering their exes or having to fight off Rick Santorum's army of groundhogs; and the only non-comedic play, "Cones vs. Rods," which depicts a conversation between two people, one of whom speaks in color while the other speaks in light. It was a great experience, but I'm not really experiencing very much show-cling for it, since it was organized in such a scattered way. I'm primarily just relieved that I have one less thing in my schedule so I can focus on the OMTA showcase and "Vessel." (Oh, and classwork. That too.)

Part Two: Oh my goodness, I forgot to mention "Vessel."
Recently I auditioned for and was cast in a workshop production of a musical called "Vessel." One of the girls who is in the same a capella group as I am wrote the musical as her Senior Honors Project (she's a Theater/Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Double-Major). It's about a young woman named Faith who, just before leaving for college, is diagnosed with MRKH, which is a type of infertility condition (I would recommend looking it up online, because there's absolutely no way I would be able to explain it coherently). Essentially, Faith doesn't know what to make of this and decides not to tell people about her diagnosis yet (including her very religious mother) and throughout the course of the play, Faith deals with the question of what it means to be "female-bodied." There are also various plotlines about her two siblings and the dynamics within her family, and there is a group of Greek Goddesses (doubling as the doctors who treat Faith) who provide commentary and insight on the action. I was cast in the role of the Second Doctor (who diagnoses Faith with MRKH)/Hera (Goddess of Marriage and Childbirth). It sounds like it is going to be a truly fascinating work...once it's done, that it. As of now it's still in the editing stages, and the purpose of this workshop is to let the playwright/directors hear it aloud and make changes along the way. There will also be some public readings for invited audiences, who can provide feedback on the piece. Then, later in the semester, there will be auditions for the actual production, which will be staged and performed in the spring. As of now, I'm interested in being a part of both the workshop and the actual production later on, but we'll see how my schedule looks in the spring. Either way, I'm so excited to be involved in this process. It will most definitely be interesting, and I'll be updating you as we go along.

Part Three: The Best Idea For A Class That Ever Existed.
So, here at Oberlin, we have something known as the Experimental College (ExCo, for short) which is a department of classes which are not taught by faculty members. They can be taught by basically anyone (student, community members, etc) who has a certain level of expertise in any given area that's not offered as a course in the existing curriculum. There are classes in a huge range of subjects from Swing Dancing to Grassroots Organizing to Storytelling to Ecology & Meditation. This semester, I decided to sign up for an ExCo class on the most brilliant topic ever: Gender and Sexuality in Disney Films (taught by a GSFS student.) Essentially, every Saturday, we attend a screening of an animated Disney film (or a double feature) and then on Sunday we meet in small discussion groups to talk about the films and how they portray certain aspects of gender indentities and sexuality. So far, we have watched "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" (a fascinating documentary about the sexual/racial/social implications in Disney films), "Snow White," "Peter Pan," "Bambi," "Cinderella," and "Sleeping Beauty." The double feature of the last two films was particularly interesting because our discussion dealt primarily with the question of what makes a "Disney Princess." We have some truly fascinating discussions in that class, in particular regarding the roles that parents/guardians play in the lives of their offspring (i.e. Bambi's parents), comparisons of the aesthetic appearances and mannerisms of different characters (i.e. villians vs. heroes), and the ways in which some characters do or don't conform to typical gender identities (i.e. the dwarfs.)

Soon to appear on Exit, Pursued by a White Squirrel, tech week for the OMTA showcase (ack!), first college midterm (double ack!), first viewing of the script for "Vessel," and at least one in depth account of a discussion in the Disney ExCo, possibly the one on this week's viewing of "The Little Mermaid" (AAAACK!)

As always, thanks for reading. Today's post is brought to you by the ObieHipster Count of the Day, which was 17. A little high for a Tuesday, considering I only had one class (but I did have to cross Tappan Square several times. So all in all, not that unusual...)