Happy Halloween!
I have practiced playing my
recorder during my spare time. I have
played songs from a book of songs I got at the Renaissance festival when I was
seventeen. I played Kum Ba Yah, Ode to Joy,
and Greensleeves. Gabe, a second year THRIVE student, and
Kimmie and Kriti, two THRIVE mentors poked their head in my dorm and said they
loved the flute-playing.
I have been running on the
treadmill almost every day from Monday to Friday for about an hour to an hour
and a half. During my spare time I like
to play my flute which some of the THRIVE students who heard it said it was
really good. I have also been reading a
novel I checked out at the UCM library called Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins. The plot can be a little hard to grasp at first. It is set in early nineteenth century
Japan. A tanuki (a breed of Japanese
dog) comes from a world known as the realm of the animal ancestors and he courts
and has a child with a human woman which is forbidden. The child and the woman now have to escape
the lords of the animal ancestor realm who are after Tanuki's (also the dog's
name) wife and child.
I went to my interview which was
broadcasted via radio and did pretty well. They asked me what my name was, where I was from, why I chose THRIVE,
what I hoped to bring to THRIVE, the best part about college, the hardest part,
how I learned about THRIVE, who my favorite instructor was, and who inspires
me. They also asked me how I heard about
the THRIVE program. I told them my name
was Ben Edwards and I am from Mission Hills, that I chose the THRIVE program
because it would be a perfect segue from community college to a regular
four-year program and that I could bring the qualities of leadership, kindness
and responsibility to the THRIVE program. I told them that Suanne Carter was my favorite instructor because she
really connects with her students and that the Buddha and Plato have been some
of my greatest inspirations. I told them
that I heard about the THRIVE program because my grandmother was instrumental
in getting it going. And that I hoped to
go into writing and filmmaking. They
asked me about my screenplays and I even told them the premise of my newest
screenplay. At the end I said, "I
choose THRIVE because I believe in a community of people with diverse
abilities. Choose THRIVE!" Karen Fahrmeier, the THRIVE coordinator was
really pleased with me.
I went to see the inauguration
of UCM president Dr. Charles Ambrose because it was required for my Freshman
Seminar class. I went with two other
THRIVE students, Jack and Mallory and heard Ambrose speak. It sounded to me as if he really cared about
working with UCM students.
During the end of the first week
I got sick and was coughing regularly. My throat felt extremely sore as well. I drank some tea, hoping to make it feel better. By Friday I felt a lot better and after that
I think whatever I had was gone completely.
We went to a mandatory meeting
for THRIVE students and during that meeting we sat in a circle with all
twenty-one THRIVE students, the mentors, Kimmie, Kriti, Nathan, Daniel and
Keke, and the CA Ashleigh. We each told
the person on the left a positive thing about them. Zach and Gabe, two THRIVE students with Down
syndrome sat next to each other and Zach said to Gabe, "Gabe, I've known
you since we were babies and you're like a brother to me." and they
hugged. It was nice to see.
Pierce who sat on my right said,
"Ben I think you're really cool and I love how you play your
instrument." That felt good. When it was my turn Daniel (who was also the
mentor on duty that night) was sitting next to me and I said, "Daniel, I
think you are an efficient and productive mentor." Kimmie, Daniel's girlfriend said, "Ah
that's sweet." and after that I joked, "So now I expect to get full
points on my point sheet." Everyone
laughed. I also said to Kimmie that I
wanted to make business cards for a UCM Autism Spectrum Support Group. She talked to Kriti who said she would help
me do it.
I started reading a new novel by
the same author who wrote Villa Incognito. It was called Still Life with Wood Pecker. So far it seems really interesting. The theme of the novel is how to make love
stay. I also checked out a book of his
called Wild Ducks Flying Everywhere: the
Short Writings of Tom Robbins.
Over the next weekend of October
I found some classes I might want to take while I'm at UCM. So far I have found seventeen. I finished my Personal Math I after taking
the final test and passing with 93%. I
saw a poster in the Rec Center and saw a poster for the social justice film
festival. I also started Valuing
Differences this month.
When I was in the cafeteria I
saw Cassie in the lunch line and we stopped and said hello. I asked her if she was going to the film
festival which I thought she would interested in since she was taking criminal
justice. She said she was going on
Thursday and asked me if I wanted to go with her. I said I would love to.
Over the next few days I worked
on a paper for Valuing Differences, an autobiographical essay about how race,
culture, class, gender, religion and sexuality have all impacted my life. On Thursday I met Cassie at Hendrix Hall
where I met her friends, Raymond and Matt, and we saw the film Cultures of Resistance was showing. We saw the film which talked about several
things such as the plight of the Amazonian Indians defending their land against
logging, Ogoni people in Southern Nigeria, Liberia in the aftermath of a civil
war, Rwanda after the one hundred day genocide, the Iranians during the Shah's
rule and the Iran-Iraq War, street children in Brazil and the protests of
Burmese Buddhist monks against their countries dictatorship. When I got back I called my granddad to catch
up with him and he was really glad to hear from me. I also called my dad who was also glad to
hear from me.
That Saturday I ordered a new
recorder and a fingering instructions book on Amazon. I also went to see a movie called Fambul Tok with Jack, my roommate. The movie was about Sierra Leone, Africa in
the aftermath of a civil war and how people were trying to bring together the
victims and the perpetrators through reviving a tradition called fambul tok,
creole for 'family talk,' where they sat
around a fire in the evening and talked. I found the movie to be very interesting and important.
As the next weekend came to an
end I printed off business cards, with my name, number, e-mail, address and the
name of the blog, which Kriti helped me do. During study hall I saw Cassie and asked her if she would like to
volunteer as a peer mentor at the UCM Autism Spectrum Support Group. She said she would love to and thought it
sounded like a great idea so I gave her a business card. During that nights study hall I also gave a
card to a volunteer named Levi and Keke, one of the THRIVE mentors. I called my dad to tell him about the
business cards and he was happy to hear about it. I called my Granddad, too, and he was glad to
hear about it as well as glad to hear from me.
When I went down to the Rec
Center for Adaptive PE class around the middle of the month, I did something
other than my usual running on the treadmill. I did some arm and leg exercises that involved lifting weights and I
jogged around a few times. I started my
Personal Math III by taking the pretest and based on my performance I was
exempt from most of the lessons on there. I also put a poem on the outside of my door by Zen poet Ryokan titled You Don't Need Many Things along with a
paper wheel saying either 'in,' 'out,' sleeping,' 'eating,' sleeping' 'sick,'
and 'class' with a line in between them and an arrow to point to which ever or
wherever I am or doing at the time. I
have also finished my paper, an autobiographical essay on how race, religion,
gender, sexuality and class have affected your life, for my Valuing Differences
class. I also helped my roommate, who
was having trouble coming up with ideas for what to write in his paper.
I read a poem in Wild Ducks Flying Everywhere: the Short
Writings of Tom Robbins that truly inspired me. It went: A brown spider dangling/ from a
single strand/ Up down, up down./ A Zen yo-yo. I like this poem because it inspired in my understanding that everything
we see is only limited by our imagination. I also decided I might try and look
into the yoga classes offered by UCM.
I went into town to buy some
business cards. They didn't have them at
Walgreen's but they did have them at Walmart, which Kimmie and Daniel drove me
to, which they were going to get pretzels. The next day I found out how to open the business cards onto my
computer, which is a MacBook and does not take publisher documents, by saving
the business cards as a pdf file on my flash drive and opening it on my
computer.
I went to a football game with
Jack. UCM against Pittsburg State. UCM lost but it was good that I got to go
with Jack. I decided in the end to print
the business cards of on non-perforated paper.
I went to the Halloween pumpkin
carving for people in the Ellis Building. I carved mine to look like the eyes of Buddha, similar to the design on
a pendant I got in Jamaica last winter break. I put it outside my window so passersby could see. Jack got the idea to put his pumpkin up
outside our window and did that as well.
I went bowling on the last
Wednesday of the month. Study hall was
cancelled that night and I was on a team with Kimmie, Kriti, Cassie, and Mallory
from the THRIVE program. During that
time, Kriti said she could get me non-perforated business card paper from the
Access Services where she works at. Kimmie and Kriti left leaving just me Cassie and Mallory. We walked back with Jack and a couple of
other THRIVE students to Ellis.
The next day I took my test for
Freshman Seminar in the testing center and was one hundred percent certain I
got most, if not all, questions right. That Saturday I finished reading Still Life with Woodpecker. I really loved the theme which was that love
stays as long as the mystery of the connection stays. We cannot attempt to define love because in
doing so we limit it. I returned the
book and checked out another book by Tom Robbins called Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. Meanwhile I have been taking notes for one of the students in my
Freshman Seminar class and my Independent and Daily Living Skills class.
I walked into town where I
walked past a bookstore called Cornerstone Books. It was closed but I decided I would walk into
it on Monday when it would be open. That
night I went to the Halloween party with the THRIVE students, mentors, several
of Keke's friends, Cassie and her friend Raymond.
The next day I read Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas and went
down to the Rec Center to run on the treadmill with Jack. The next day I thought about Tom Robbin's
message about how to make love stay and came up with a chant for it as I was
going to my Technology Literacy class. It went:
Love cannot be
defined.
It is vast and
limitless.
Everything you
feel is an art of love.
Love's vastness
makes it full of surprises.
Later that day I went down to
Cornerstone books. I found a few
interesting books, one by author Herman Hesse, author of the book Siddhartha, When Things Fall Apart by Canadian Buddhist nun Pema Chodren and a
book by the Dalai Lama. There was also a
book called The Four Arguments by a
Mexican author Miguel Anguel Ruiz, a book on the spiritual beliefs on wisdom of
the Toltec Indians for finding peace, love and happiness. Usually I am pretty skeptical of self-help
books with such descriptions but I liked what the four arguments were: don't
take anything personally, be impeccable to your word, don't assume anything,
and always try your best. As I was
walking back however, I wish I had asked if they had any Kurt Vonnegut
novels. I also saw several
trick-or-treaters. I must admit that I
normally dislike a lot of things about Halloween. I often find it to be so tacky and
commercialized. Never-the-less I am glad
it gives me good opportunities to be with friends.
I went down to the Halloween
Party in the Rec Center with Jack and played a game of throwing darts at
balloons. I managed to hit a balloon on
all three tries even though for some reason the balloons refused to pop. Never-the-less I won a prize, a small squishy
basketball like a stress ball.
