Continuing Resettlement as the Year Dies

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.