contests, diversity, job

Contests: Our Yosakoi club is doing great in the homecoming contests! We won first place in the sidewalk chalking contest, first place in the Spirit Banner contest, and first place in the window-painting contest downtown! Our artsy side is doing us great services in propelling us toward the $250 reward for the student organisation with the most points at the end of the week. And we're having a blast doing it! Tomorrow is the parade...it's going to be grueling. 1.5-2 hours of dancing over a route longer than a mile. But I think it's going to be pretty fun...

Diversity: This is a beautiful thing with a little bit of a rant attached to it for today. I have to start off by saying that I'm really glad I am at a big university where there are students from all different cultures, countries, backgrounds, religions and areas of the country that I can get to know and learn from. That is the beautiful thing. But today in University Experience lecture, when a Hispanic organisation came to talk to us about their bicultural program and showed us a theatrical production put on by some of its students to demonstrate the struggles of Hispanic students adjusting to college life, I was shocked at the disrespect shown by a lot of the students there. While the presenters were talking to us, there was quite a bit of disruptive whispering, most of which was snickering at the presenter's accents and moaning about why we have to watch an interpretive poetic play given half in Spanish. This confused me and seemed to defeat the whole purpose of the lecture. The presenters were clearly trying to show that everyone starting college is experiencing a new lifestyle for the first time, and that we can all learn from and support each other. How is this supposed to work if most of the students in my class won't even listen to someone who comes from another country or speaks another language? I was disappointed and embarrassed to be part of a class that clearly did not wish to take an opportunity to learn from others different from themselves.

Job: Back on the bright side, I got the job I wanted at the bookstore!!! I will be working more on the paperwork side of things, upstairs in a little cubby filled to the ceiling with books...I can't wait to get started! The interview I had Monday was a little out-of-the-ordinary in that we spent half the time talking about an armoire my future boss bought at the craft fair in my hometown, as well as about mosquitoes, and why lobsters "scream" when you cook them - both topics of books that came through the office recently. Some of the questions were quirky as well, like what type of food I would describe myself as. (In case you were wondering I said blueberry muffin - sweet and a little fruity.) But the people at the bookstore are so nice, and I can't wait to get started! Oh, and we get our own little cubby where we can stash any books we want to buy or look at later. I think this is going to be a great job!

parents, crane party, homecoming

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. So here are my 3BT's for the past few days.

Parents: My parents unexpectedly came to visit me on Saturday. We went shopping and out for dinner, which was nice, and also a break from insane amounts of studying for upcoming tests.

Crane Party: This weekend both my roommates were out of town, so I had our three-person room to myself. So, I had my cousin come spend the night. We went to Hobby Lobby and bought decorative paper to make paper cranes. We had a nice relaxing evening folding cranes, listening to random music on YouTube and watching Bulletproof Monk, which was actually a pretty good movie. Now I have a flock of paper cranes circling around my bed.

Homecoming: Homecoming was kicked off at my university this Sunday morning with a 5K race. Ten members of my Yosakoi club (including me) ran the race. It was freezing to begin with, but certainly warmed up over the course of the run! We even had a small cheering section, yelling and clapping Naruko, the wooden castanets that we use while dancing. That afternoon we had a sidewalk chalking contest to incorporate our club with our homecoming theme, which this year is 'Homecoming of Heroes'. We drew our school's mascot dressed as a yosakoi dancer in front of our own version of Kakushika Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kanagawa", a picture that has come to be a symbol of Japan and shows a giant tsunami wave and Mt. Fuji in the background. We had a great time chalking out the design, and getting chalk dust all over ourselves. We even got a picture in the university paper. Next up: painting windows in the dowtonwn shopping district. Homecoming is turning out to be really fun, as opposed to the cumbersome obligation it could have been in a week packed with studying.