That Northern Town

OoooliolioOooooO! I went to Olympia this weekend for a mini break. The trip was uneventful and after I'd set up my roost in that crazy room-that's-not-a-room room (it's essentially a way of connecting the sauna that was added later to the house... like a huge glorified hall with no insulation, that is separated from the rest of the house by a sliding door.) Star and I immediately started mixing this and that in bowls and eventually we created these!Butterfly cupcakes from that cupcake book we got together. They are a lemon-poppy seed cupcake, with lemon filling and a lemon sauce drawn down the middle. Even though they took zest from three lemons and the juice of two to make, they were wonderfully light and not too lemony. That book is definitely paying for itself.

I'm sorry these pictures are still so yellow even after I worked on them in the ol' Photoshop... we took them at night and whether we used flash or not they just wouldn't turn out beautiful. Trust me, they are wonderful and pretty in real-person life.After cupcakes we went to the re-opening of the library in town (apparently there was some sprucing up going on between the time I left and my visit) and listened to Kimya Dawson play. I say listen because there were so many people there that we couldn't actually see her, however Star did manage to gain about two feet by climbing on Ben for part of it. If you aren't immediately saying "Ohhhh Kimya Dawson... cool!" to yourself, it's because you don't realize that she's the one who is on the vast majority of the Juno movie soundtrack. Once you've heard the cd, I think you can imagine the gist of her style... there was an awfully cute children's song talking about poop and butts though. I'm always charmed by children's songs that don't try to avoid references to bodily functions because that's really all children talk about (ok, I'm going to qualify that, it's really all boy children talk about.)

After everyone woke up the next day we went to the Co-op down the street (I'd never been to that one and now I wish I had!) and got some tasties including some pretty purple carrots! Star had invited some people over for a little visit at 6 and in the mean-time we made cheese!Star had read about a cheese making kit either in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or Omnivore's Dilemma (sorry Star, I can't remember, but I'm sure that you'll correct me in the comments later). The idea intrigued her and she bought the makin's for hard and soft cheese. We made some mozzarella. Now, in hindsight, we probably should have used whole milk to do it (I think that's why we didn't have many curds, Starzy... just occurred to me... unless we did and then I don't know what happened), as it was we used a half gallon of milk, a tablet of some such thing that makes curds appear like magic, and a stove. When you make mozzie you have to knead it for a while until it looks like taffy which just so happens to be what I'm doing in these pictures. Unfortunately, you have to heat the cheese in the microwave until it's lava hot, so I was pathetically trying to do it with a spoon. It worked, more or less.

(p.s. If you ever wanted to create the illusion of cooking with yours truly, I bet you could print this last picture, blow it up real big, cut it out and then stick it on the wall of your kitchen. Cooking never seemed so cool! Just a thought.)

And then you have cheese! We made a lovely quiche for the party with the purple carrots, mozzie cheese and other tasty things. I decided to write about what we were doing in the pictures because Star has already done a lovely summery of what we did together on her own bloggerino and I'm going to be lazy and point you in her lovely direction. It was a fantabulous weekend, I even miss that little room I commandeer when I visit.

Oh And...

I get this e-mail from Evergreen in a roundabout sort of way. This particular incident irritates me so much more than this one because it's truly unprovoked. And COME ON, the organic farm?!? Really guys, find a more productive way to let off some steam.

"Two Suspicious Fires Reported at Evergreen Sunday, September 14
The McLane Fire Department and The Evergreen State College Police Services responded to two fires at Evergreen early Sunday morning that caused an estimated $35,000 in damage. Arson is suspected.
One fire, in a campus residential housing area near the intersection of Overhulse Road and Driftwood Road, was reported shortly after 2 a.m. and engulfed five Dumpsters adjacent to a housing unit. The unit closest to the fires, and those nearby were unoccupied. Housing check-in for fall term begins September 20.
The second fire, reported about 4:20 a.m., destroyed a tool shed and hoop greenhouse at the college’s organic farm on Lewis Road on the west side of the campus.
Damage from the Dumpster fires is estimated at $5000. Damage from the fires at the organic farm is estimated at $30,000.
The McLane Department will be working today to determine the causes of the fires. Arson is suspected. Evergreen’s Police Services will lead the criminal investigation.
In an effort prevent further incidents, potentially identify those responsible and maintain campus safety, the college will be temporarily stepping up campus police patrols, enlisting Residential and Dining Services staff to more closely monitor the housing areas for suspicious activity, and requesting additional back-up patrols by the Thurston County Sheriff's Department."

It's a Beautiful Day!

Trees on campus being pretty and green!

Schedulation!

Monday:
10-12 (swim instructing, work)
6-7:30 (swim instructing, work)

Tuesday:
10-12 (swim instructing, work)
3-5:00, 5:30-7:30 (ASL, class)

Wednesday:
10-12 (swim instructing, work)
6-7:30 (swim instructing, work)

Thursday:
10-12 (swim instructing, work)
3-5:00, 5:30-7:30 (ASL, class)

This One's for Katherine

We had a glimmer of Internet this morning during which I was able to register for classes, frantically check my mail and post some of the things to the blog that you see below, and then also attempt to try to upload this video. It failed and failed and failed again. However, on a whim I decided to go to the computer lab on campus before class (which is where I am right now, squinting at all this business I'm typing on this nasty-sticky keyboard) when it crossed my mind to search for the video to see if, after thirty minutes of spinning hourglasses, decided to upload successfully. And guess what? It did! Hurrah! However, I also have an outdated version of the Flash player required to run said video to make sure that it's actually there. So I'm going to put some blind faith in youtube and embed the video. Hopefully it's there because it's a good one! Enjoy...

Peter, hopscotching from the COM building on campus down to the field while we waited for the Space Brothers comedy show to open (15 minutes late, of course). Hope Katherine sees this and has a great day in France-land.

Bees Knees

So I'm officially registered for Beekeeping class on Tuesday mornings. I think this'll be AMAZING. Star is in the class with me and we get to spend two hours a week on the campus Organic Farm wearing bee suits and messing with some hives. Plus, all of this is in the Spring which is gorgeous in Olympia.

So my official, final class schedule, as opposed to the one I posted in March, for Spring is this:
For a total of 16 credits I'll have class on:

Monday: 6-9:30
Tuesday: 10-12, 3-5 and 5:30-9:30
Wednesday: 6-9:30
Thursday: 3-5

One of the cool things is that the Research class from 5:30-9:30 only meets for five weeks and then we're done, so pretty much once April is done I will have a better, more manageable schedule. Cuz the way things are here, Tuesdays are grueling.

At the end of the beekeeping class (and if I pass all the tests during the quarter) I should have an apprentice beekeeping license, which would rock.

Welcome to Evergreen

I had my first day of my Doing Research class tonight. We came up with some rough and vague topics for research for the next five weeks:

- Women in Washington State Legislature
- Bipolar Disorder
- Transgendered parenting
- Pack behavior in canines
- Organizational Change
- Lost years of Jesus/Historical Jesus
- Spanish Civil War
- Deaf Culture
- Self-help Books
- Food insecurity in America
- Marketing

RRRRrrrraaaaaaaaaannddoommmmmmm.

Now, these are the topics we came up with during the first 4o minutes of our 4 hour class. We kind of messed around with them, did some exercises and I wound up with the slightly narrower question "How is language used within the education system?" More specifically, I want to look at the words the school officials use to define deafness and how that shapes their policy with dealing with children with disabilities within their schools. In the Puget Sound area, and in many places within the U.S. there are deaf schools set up. Deaf students from the surrounding school districts are sent to these schools, however, once the schools realize how much money is spent on the transportation, education and the materials for these students that could be spent within their own schools, the children are usually recalled back to the public schools. Only deaf students with behavioral problems are sent to special residential schools. Anywho, that's what I came up with after four hours. I have five weeks to change my mind and mess about with it some more.

Classes Pour le' Printemps

I registered on Monday. I thought, wrote down and then set an alarm that said I was to register on Wednesday the 12th, not Monday the 10th. So I was diddling around in class, when I noticed on the website that my time ticket was for that day at 8 a.m.! I paniced and registered for the two classes I knew I wanted to take and then threw in the closest relevant class I could find which just happened to be the only class that works with the other two time slots. What luck. Plus I think the research class would be good to have if I do go into library science or something. We'll see. Anywho, here are the classes.

The Fifties, Fab and Fraught. (8 credits)
6-9:30 Mon & Wed.

"Popular culture has recast the 1950s, creating a picture of stability, predictability and tradition in the decade that preceded the turbulence of the 1960s. Students in this program will study the history and culture of the 1950s in the United States , examining a more complicated picture of the decade. The Civil Rights Movement changed American lives, the Cold War shaped politics, music helped define new identities. Only a few years after the end of WWII, the United States was involved in the brutal conflict in Korea . Constitutional guarantees were challenged by the House Un-American Activities Committee, with Joseph McCarthy (and Richard Nixon) assuming lead roles. Artist and writers pushed conventional boundaries while television enshrined the conventional. Students in this program will read fiction of the decade, history, and cultural analysis. We'll study film, television and music. We'll explore the decade within the context of its own history and time-and think about how it has influenced us today."
(This class will be fun. I've already taken two of Susan Precsiso's classes and I love her, and this quarter she's team teaching with the choir instructor Marla Elliot so it'll be a combination of music, history and all sorts of fun things from the 50's).

ASL (American Sign Language) II (4 credits)
3-5 Tue & Thu.

"Students will focus on broadening their vocabularies, conversation skills and using appropriate and accurate ASL grammar, with emphasis on the non-manual aspect of communication. There will also be continued study of deaf culture and invitations to deaf events in this area. "

Doing Research (2 credits)
5:30-9:30 Tue. April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

"Students will learn how to translate their deepest interests into viable research projects, bring order to their thoughts, formulate good questions and hypotheses, develop promising strategies, and use traditional and electronic sources. Work will include writing several sections of a research prospectus and learning how to use the marvelous fund of information and expertise in the college's library. The aim is to cultivate both the skills and motivation to do research on a long-term project."

For a total of 14 credits (I didn't realize the research class was only two, which means I'll have to take at least 10 credits this summer to graduate).
So for Spring quarter I'll have class on:
Monday: 6-9:30
Tuesday: 3-5 and 5:30-9:30
Wednesday: 6-9:30
Thursday: 3-5

Riots?

The Geoduck Union released the video footage of the Valentine's Day riots here on campus. Here are some of the comments students gave CPJ (Cooper Point Journal) writers about the riots:

"The melee that occured gave Evergreen a bad name" Jimi Sharp.

"I think it's crap that Hip Hop Congress had to come out at 3 a.m. to clean up. People didn't think about who had to clean up" Serena Powers.

"Impressive display of white privilege on the part of the Caucasian students. The repercussions would have been different on a more ethnically diverse campus. The majority of the crowd was white" Sky Cohen.

"It's not fair to Evergreen cops to have reacted this way. It was ridiculous" Sean Parker.

In the Cooper Point Journal there was an article about the "Student Reactions to Riot" by Jason Slotkin. In it there is a quote from Alexandre Chateaubriand that I think sums up what I think about this business:

"I saw the vandalism on the CRC that said 'Welcome to Evergreen' with an anarchy symbol, and it was really frustrating to me because that's not my cause and I understand that it is some students' cause, but all of a sudden it was alll of us... And we have to continue talking and make it understood that there are 5000 students here who all have different voices and all have a different point of view on this."

Here are the videos the Union released. They're on Youtube, so you can enjoy them there as well.

The basic timeline for the idiocy is as follows:

9:30: Concert starts, there are volunteer security workers in attendance but aren't wearing identifying markers. Reports of activity begin which include marijuana use, fighting, inappropriate contact between male and female attendants.

11:00: Reports of dangerous activity begin to filter in.

12:00: one offender is identified and the Evergreen Police services is called, they respond within the hour, and Officer Meyers arrives and arrests and African-American man.

1:00: Suspect is identified and arrested but not charged. The Officer and suspect leave the building and are approached by 12 attendees who question the arrest. Meyers calls the Thurston County Police to the scene to take statements because it is against policy to take statements while a suspect is in custody.

1:30: More attendees gather around the Police car and begin to throw objects and kick the car, the Thurston police arrive and begin to clear the area using batons and pepper spray.

2:00: Meyers interviews and releases suspect. She is then hit with pepper spray. Two Officer's cars are immoble because of environmental or mechanical issues, one car is then abused and flipped.

2:30: Crowd disperses and the car is towed away.

3:30: Show organizers are left to clean the debris (glass and trash) along with students working in Housing until 5 or 6 in the morning.

Really? REALLY?

I got this e-mail this morning from the Evergreeninfoshop, a mailing list I'm never really able to get off of. But today that's alright becuase, again, it showed the idiocy of Evergreen students. I love Evergreen, but this is ridiculous.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: "And they called it a riot, I called it an uprising..." REVISED
Date: Mon, February 18, 2008 6:16 pm
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The meeting will now be at 5 PM
Community Meeting, Thursday, 5PM, Library Basement.

RESPONSE TO POLICE ACTIONS

Now that frustration with the police and momentum for change has madeitself evident, we as a community need to discuss what our next steps willbe in building a movement and a strategy to remove the presence of police> from our campus and our lives. We need to formulate strategic demands and actions. All Power to the People!

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NEXT? THURSDAY, 5 PM, LIBRARY UNDERGROUND

__________________________________________________________________

But WAIT I just got another e-mail in my box right when I posted this the first time. Thank you Larry.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi folks, It is my understanding that some folks have been handing video to the police and talking with the police in the hopes that that will make them act reasonably and end the investigation. I hate to be the one to have to say this, but don't do this! The Miranda warning is accurate. Anything you say can and will be used against you. The most innocent appearing thing can be twisted. The police are not trying to resolve the situation. They are being very up front about their purpose; they are investigating to see who they can charge. Don't help them. Study, look at the role of the police in this society historically. They are not your friends. Even if they've helped you at some time in the past in your life. That is not their role here; their role is to find someone to blame and to prevent and deter a deeper analysis of what happened. there is an ongoing problem. Look at this critically, learn from history, and please, attend a know your rights training. Ask LeGrand, ask us. We're happy to get together and give one. Being nice doesn't keep you safe; being smart does.

Yours in Struggle,

Larry

Idiots

There was a riot on The Evergreen State College campus this morning at 1:30 am. One news report says there were 25 students involved after the Dead Prez concert, another says 200. Whichever it was, I was asleep, again, and totally missed it. But since there was pepper spray involved, I'm glad I did.

Here are some pictures.

These people are idiots.