i get the distinct feeling that a lot of my learning here is going to be happening outside of classrooms. while the subject matter of my classes is me to a tee, i am not feeling incredibly inspired by the atmosphere in which they are taught. as an example, the other day, the following question was posed: "who knows where kabul is?" ... not a soul in the room. i'm also rather taken aback by some of the methods, whereby i am reverting to answering questions out of textbooks and periodically handing in response papers, to the exclusion of any kind of analytic essays.
on the other hand, i am increasingly finding my niche within a slightly different community in bridgewater; those who make up the unitarian universalist church have welcomed me in (i am intrigued by their ideas of faith without doctrine, but have yet to figure out how i feel about joining anything that resembles organized religion. any thoughts???) and through this i have met an organic farmer who teaches on campus, one of the founders of the center for sustainability, some new amnesty international supporters, and countless other stimulating and interesting individuals. needless to say, these souls are not what you would call my 'peers' age-wise, but they are makers of wonderful conversation, and so i am feeling happy to have connected with them.
the weekends are the highlight of my existence this month, as i have been able to use them for wandering the town and making friends. two weekends ago i went into boston with a friend from my ceramics class, who has lived in this area for ages and attended boston university at one point. together we went to newbury street to visit the pucker gallery, where a collection of pottery was being displayed that had been donated by brother thomas, a monk who had just passed away. the glazes were magnificent and i had the striking feeling that colour is what has been missing from my life for a while. i still have an urge to go out and buy a box of crayons. newbury street is a frufru area of town, where there is no shortage of designer clothing stores or upscale restaurants, but also lovely galleries. we were drawn into one by the canvas in the front window, which was but one of many gorgeous portraits of women playing instruments, dressed in rich textures and lush fall colours. the artist is felix mas.
that afternoon we visited the society of arts and crafts where an exhilarated man was trying on rings that looked like cartoons (imagine a king in a disney movie) and inhaling rapturously after each one. after looking at a price, handed classily to him on a piece of folded up paper, he looked up and said loudly, "that's it?!" the curator coyly answered, "we could increase it for you."
i found a number of sweet blown glass bottles that were purposely aged by an artist/poet who carved things into them like "time [caution: evaporates quickly]" or "hope [powerful substance]", and "trust [fragile: easily broken]". i quite liked these!
for lunch, we had japanese food - a welcome change from the cafeteria - and i had fermented soybean sushi, which has a gooey texture that will take a few trials to understand i think. going our separate ways, i headed on to cambridge to pick up a book for one of my classes that can't be found anywhere in bridgewater: "having faith: an ecologist's journey to motherhood." i then snuggled down in a small warm cafe in harvard square with a mug of chai and a big oatmeal raisin cookie...the combination of books and tea are very good for the soul...and started in on my book about pregnancy next to a woman cooing and playing with her baby. i also discovered a magnificent poetry bookstore nestled behind the harvard bookstore - it is one room filled floor to ceiling with more poetry than you can imagine, albeit only one shelf of canadian stuff.
on this note, i get the distinct feeling that americans like canada, as much as canadians can be the butt of many jokes (in the way that newfoundlanders can bear the brunt of it in canada). some evidence for me that day was the discussion i had with the owner of the poetry shop about canadian literature - i was searching for a book by richard van kamp called "angel wing splash pattern" - as well as a chat with a volunteer selling 'sponsor a child' packages on the street. talking about montreal in the music lounge on campus (it's the rage here to bus up to quebec to go drinking), i had a group of people ask me about school fees and health care in canada and promptly decide they wanted to gain dual citizenship. a new friend from south africa announced that he has never met a canadian who wasn't wonderful and polite. perhaps it takes going away to become really proud of and attached to your home.
on sunday i went apple picking with the international culture club and wound up with too many fruits for my single self, yet managed to distribute them so that they were gone before any had the chance to turn to mush on me. i have a soft spot for honey crisps and granny smiths, and a penchant now for some different kinds of fruit!
this past weekend i went up to boston to visit a friend, who promptly departed for toronto an hour after i arrived! we arranged for me to stay over at her apartment in cambridge, which gave me what felt like a vacation from my normal life, and a chance to become a pseudo-harvard student for a day. i ate in the harvard caf and was inspired to conduct some sort of correlative research study into the quality of cafeteria foods and the resultant quality of students (athletics, academic, emotional stability, etc, etc).
on saturday i visited the boston vegetarian festival and was mildly surprised to find it packed, but mostly for the procurement of the legendary free samples. there were several great presentations; i went to one about different kinds of fats - did you know canola is so named because they didn't want to name it after its source, the rapeseed, so instead named it for its home, canada? - and another presentation on vegan baking. in the evening i was delighted to meet with a toronto friend who popped into boston on a roadtrip and experience boston's chinatown for supper. sunday was a relaxing day of reading among the leaves and sitting in on the bridgewater amnesty international meeting that takes place at the local yoga centre. it has been gorgeous weather out and the fall colours do wonders for this campus. i am going to attempt to take some pictures so that you can see what i mean!
ok, i couldn't help myself and this nutshell has turned into a snowball. what can i say? i like storytelling.
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