The Cleaning Lady

As I was staying at Nate and Megan's, I tried to be a good houseguest, which meant being as out of the way as possible.  Megan and two of the other roommates went out for the weekend, so it was just Nate and I hanging out.  I was thinking about blogging here to you, but then I decided that I should do something nice for Nate and co.
I had just taken a shower, and, perhaps feeling like there needed to be some cleaning, I started working on the kitchen.  In my pink bathrobe.  I started on the dishes, but then realized there were just too many, and many of the things were caked on.
So I went looking through their stuff for one of those brillo pads that scraps stuff off really good.  That was my first clue that people didn't clean too often, because there weren't any.  There were just one sponge.
Then I noticed that someone had tried to bake stuff.  There was a small cake in a pan.
"Should I put this in the fridge?" I called to Nate, holding the pan up.  Nate was on the other side of the room, on his computer, working on his online class.
"Yeah...that's a good idea."
There was a cupcake pan with chocolate cake still stuck, glued really, to it.  I would need to soak this.  Soaking something requires that I temporarily plug their sink.  So I went looking for the rubber stopper that every house has.  Nothing.
This of course led to the next best thing: filling the two bathroom sinks with water and then plugging both of those up.  And then putting in the pan, silverware, plates, a water bottle, Tupperware.
On the way to the first bathroom sink, I found a spoon sitting next to a sock.  If I had seen it in any other context, I would assume it was a piece of modern art.  I showed Nate and he was grossed out by it.
Putting things in a different part of the house would mean I would need to carry it.  They had a plastic dish holder/rack thing that was meant to hold dishes as they dried.  I was about to use it when I noticed that too was stained a orange color.  I imagined it was meat sauce from something.  But I could be wrong.  So I started scrubbing it.
In the meantime, Nate saw me and decided I needed some music to help, so he put it in some Lady Gaga, a favorite of mine.  He put on one of my favorite songs, "Bad Romance."
As I was cleaning, I bounced around and sang the song, as Nate almost certainly knew I would.  Nate, for some odd reason or another, really likes me singing.  He sang along too.
There was something nicely and bizzarely domestic about the too of us.  I could totally see us living together, doing this sort of thing.  Nate would make food, I would wash dishes, we would pretend to be in a musical about the woes of college life.  We'd be bigger than Rent.  
After "Bad Romance," Nate put on "Telephone," which I am embarrassed to say is a song I'm actually working at perfecting.

I scrubbed at the rack thing.  The tough thing was it's odd shapes and little crevices that I couldn't get to with the sponge.  If I had a toothbrush on me, I could have used that, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice my own, and I was afraid going to look for one wouldn't work, since I had already tried to find a vacuum cleaner, to no success. 

Embarrassed and Frustrated

Today has been way more frustrating than I planned on it being.
One of the many things that managed to grate on me was about this charity dinner my Mom wanted us to go to.  A girl my sister knows from high school was diagnosed with cancer a few years back, and they occasionally hold events to raise money to take care of her.
I really didn't want to go, but I decided to play nice about it.  The reason I don't want to go was that I really hated my high school.  Not even everyone, but a large portion of people.  I'm really glad that whole part of my life is over.  Despite my Mom always encouraging me to go back and talk to people, I generally don't want to.  There are a few people who I don't talk to anymore that I wouldn't mind running into or hanging out with, and a small group I still text or have fun with, but I'm generally separated from those people.  And glad to be.  I didn't want to go to this dinner because I would inevitably run into a least one person I couldn't stand and would rather not see.
I'm especially sensitive right now because I feel like, despite working so hard in college, I have nothing to show for it.  I have no employment as of right now.  I could make excuses about the economy and about my family situation, but they're just excuses.  And in any case, I'm sick of people's judgment on the subject.
But I was still planning on going.  So, I started picking out my outfit.  I was planning on wearing a nice purple blouse with my black professional pants.  And then I couldn't find the pants.
I searched all over the house.  Nothing.  This is one of the many reasons I hate living here.  I don't want to use the washing machine because my Mom has flooded the house with it no less than six times.  The ones at school are far more reliable and no one would blame me if it exploded.  So my Dad does the laundry and then clothes go missing because, despite labeling my clothes, he puts them elsewhere, in other closets, in the living room, hoarding them in the laudry room, and as I discovered today, storing them in the basement.  I wore those pants about a month ago at the Honors College event for graduates, so I know they have to be somewhere.
I'm increasingly worried that I left them at school.  As I mentioned yesterday, I have only recently started going through certain boxes, but I'm starting to wonder if a box got misplaces.  I am missing part of my beloved music collection (including Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below), two anthologies of feminist theory I was working on, God's War, and now these pants.  In the rush to get out of Lansing, I can't remember if these items were all in the same box or not, but I'm getting worried. 
If I lost that stuff, I'll be heartbroken.  The pants can be replaced, eventually, though the way my body is, it'll be hard to find a pair of pants that looked that good on me.  But I don't even remember all of the music I had in there (though it was probably around 20 CDs).  Sometimes I have CDs that are rare/signed by artists, and I'll probably never be able to recoup that loss.  And those books were expensive; two of them were around 800 pages. 
So I'm really upset right now.  I decided that I wouldn't go if I couldn't find those pants, because in addition to being judged by the appearance that I haven't done anything in the last five years, I really couldn't stand people looking at me and thinking about how ugly and/or unkempt I am.  I'm further embarrassed and frustrated by my concern for a) my appearance and b) what people think of me.  These people were almost all assholes, if not incredibly dense, so just finding them thinking at all would be impressive. 

Something About a Circle

One of the strangest things about ending college (the last year, the last semester, the last few days) has been how my life has been coming around in full circle. They're little moments, to be sure, but I still feel them acutely.
Tonight, I had to take down my wall decorations. I'm really into collage, and every year of college, I do a wall collage of some kind. It's gotten increasingly personal as the years have gone on, and this year was very scrapebooky, but obviously on the wall. I took some pictures of this year's efforts, and I might post them.As I was about to take it down, I remembered taking down the one I had freshman year. I remember as I was working on the stuff above my desk, Emily came in. I was listening to Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm, which I was obsessed with and trying to write a musical over. Emily winkled her nose as she spoke to me. Emily hates country music, and that's what she interpreted Aimee Mann as. She's not country music, she's not even as irritating as adult contemporary!
So tonight I put on Aimee Mann's Lost in Space. Seems appropriate, given how I am anticipating feeling lost, as this will the first time in my life I'm not in school. And because the album was so important to me at the end of high school. It felt too perfect not to do.But that's not all. As I was working on my wall, Dan came over to hang out and chat a little. This too, felt like another bizarre moment of full circle. When I was putting up my first wall collage freshman year, Erik watched me, and we chatted about some stuff he was having problems with. Somehow, Dan watching me bring it down while we chatted felt totally right.
So here I am, thinking about the end of high school, the beginning of freshman year, the end of freshman year, and the end of college. I feel really sad and little scared for my immediate future and also excited. Like I did at all those moments.
I'm planning on having some more of these moments tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how if it keeps happening.

Afrobeat

Why couldn't I have taken a music appreciation class in college? We had a second music day in my African history class, and it was a blast. Today, we concentrated on Afrobeat music while talking about Nigeria.

Basically, Afrobeat was developed by Fela (1938-1997), the "king" of Afrobeat." He was from a prominent family. His grandfather was J.J. Ransome Kuti (1855-1930), an early Christian convert and church leader. Kuti was a notorious pain in the ass to British authorities, using religion as a way to keep Nigeria's colonizers honest. Fela's father was Ransome Kuti, who founded the Nigerian Union of Teachers in 1931, arguing that people need more access to education. After the second World War, Fela's father was recruited to join a London commission on higher education in Africa. His mother was a leading feminist activist and nationalist. In the 1940s, she organized 20,000 women to protest taxes and abuse by chiefs, who were notorious for stealing property.

While in London, Fela began playing gigs, then enrolled in the Trinity School of Music. Fela began playing African jazz, then blended Nigerian highlife and Juju music. He was also influenced by the awesomeness that was Bob Marley, Bruce Lee and Miles Davis. He sang it what is called a pidgin language, meaning it blended several different languages. This particular pidgin is the lingua franca in West Africa. Fela started his own clubs in Laos, then the capital of Nigeria, where he would play all night long. All of his music is political, and he clearly saw his music as a way to educate people and encourage them to be proud of their African identities. While in the U.S., he interacted with the Black Panther Movement and Sandra Isidore, who introduced him to radical literature.

Once again, the only thing I don't like is that Fela wasn't much for feminism or women, even though his mother was a leading feminist. I keep hoping as I learn about Africa, that some great women and men will promote women, but it's been few and far between. I guess this just means I'm going to have to love those few who do even more.
I'm a huge fan of American jazz and funk, so this is totally my style. I don't like every song of Fela's I've heard, but I've posted some of my favorites here. I actually think that I like him better when he doesn't sing. I would love to see music videos or this kind of music used in movies, because there's something lovely about it. It's impossible to listen to and not want to dance to, even if it's just a little swaying here and there. Of course, the lyrics are important since they articulate Fela's political beliefs and are the primary education tool.

This Final Term

Lately, I find myself annoyed with a few of my professors because I feel like they're not pulling their weight. It start three weeks ago, when a professor I've had multiple times gave a midterm. Although the basic format was the same, the questions asked on the midterm were surprisingly focused on a particular week's lectures, and the questions were short and vague. Neither of those things are like him. Usually, he writes questions that cover the widest range of topics that we got through in lecture. And they usually are pretty easy to write on, as long as you took notes in class and reviewed before the test. I've always felt that his exams were fair; he always asked us not to prove we knew everything but that we knew something about the topics at hand, and that we were critical thinkers who could synthesize that information in a way that made sense.
Today, in another class, we got a paper topic. That's right, a paper topic. Again, oddly vague, with little information, and from a professor who I usually think offers more. Offering one paper topic is risky, since the papers tend to be of lower quality. I also imagine the temptation to cheat is stronger, since everyone is already writing on the same topic anyway. I also dislike this professors bizarre habit this semester of asking us not to write traditional thesis papers but more creative narratives. I dislike that because I think it's important to be able to write coherently and persuasively, and because it seems like this class already struggles with that. (This professor complained, last paper, about students not using evidence to support their claims.)
I'm wondering if all my professors are so busy that they can't be bothered to do more for their classes beyond lecturing. If this is true, this could go either way for me. On one hand, they've had me before and both like me and think highly of me. So maybe they'll just kind of grade my work, checking to see I don't make any gross errors, and send me on my way. I have mixed feelings about that scenario, since I want to get good grades, but I also want to improve as a student, and making me feel bad about my work is the best way to motivate me. Rage has always been, for better or worse, the best way to get me to care. Or maybe my professors won't be paying attention and grade me down even if I don't deserve it. The latter scares me a little. I've worked so hard over these last few years, and I'm putting in more and more time to these classes. What I was really hoping to take this semester "off." I wasn't planning on giving up all my academic work, just taking some extra time to hang out for the last time with friends and have the kinds of good memories of this place.
I was thinking last week about the end of high school and how there was so much hooplah over it. I didn't want to do any of the things that one usually does: the ceremonies, the dances, the get-togethers. Some of it my Mom pushed me into doing, and the stuff we fought over the most was the stuff that I look back on and think was a waste of time. The few things I choose on my own were wonderful, and those are some of the limited good memories I have.
I wish I could choose to do those types of things now. I wish we had a senior skip day around here. Even though so many of my friends aren't seniors, hanging out with those that are, driving to and celebrating in Detroit or Canada or Cedar Point would be wonderful. I want to go to dances with these people, last dances. I want to have big parties with them. I want pictures, and presents, and, hell, even some tears. I need that now, and I'm sad that college graduation doesn't get treated that way. Graduating high school was glorious because I hated it there. But I love MSU and the thought of leaving makes me so sad. I want an opportunities to enjoy myself, with the people I love most, if only so I can say that I made every last second here count.

A New Breed of Turistas

One of the best things about hanging around MSU for break is how quiet it is. As much as I love the people I'm around, I sometimes need time to be alone with my thoughts, and breaks are always a good moment for that.
Which is why the caf being invaded by turistas is particularly disappointing.
It's so rare that the caf is quiet during the normal school year, and these turistas are a bunch of high school kids, so on top of wandering around and getting in your way and not apparently understanding how lines work, they also feel they're entitled to be that way. Oh, and their parent chaperons feel the need to yell at the card swipers. Because, clearly, it's the card swipers fault the parent loss their meal ticket.
Watching these high schools students brings some of my worst thoughts about high school back to me. The organization that is here this week is predominately white, and I have only spotted three African American girls and one member whose exact ethnic heritage and gender were unclear to me, but he/she was definitively not white. One of the African Americans girls was sitting alone at a table. I watched a young man, on his way to food, put his hands up as if to be appalled by her, making sure, of course, that his little group of friends were watching and she wasn't.
I never understand how anyone can idolize high school, especially in comparison with college. There's so much more freedom, especially from people who you don't want to be around. The only thing I can understand is being proud of yourself as a high schooler. When I think back to how I behaved, I'm struck by how I mostly stayed true to myself and how important it was to me to stick up for those who I thought were treated unfairly. I know what I would have done if that boy and I were peers.