By Tamika Whitenack
for the ease of sharing this quickly, i will be writing in english.
i have had a lot of lovely experiences in the past day and a bit and they have reminded me that doing things that arent part of the college routine are very important.
i went on a walk after dinner with my friend yesterday. we walked through the neighborhood and it reminded me a little bit of after dinner walks at home, and also about how miya and i used to walk around ECHS before school. the trees are blooming and everything is very spring, there was even a gentle rain when we started off...which meant we later saw a gorgeous, giant rainbow. it filled our hearts with joy. and we had a really good discussion, which was nice. that is something i value most about my time here, is the meaningful and nourishing conversations that i share with others here.
today was a BEAUTIFUL day. the weather was perfect, clear skies, lots of sunshine, but not too hot or gross and humid. a perfect day to be outside! and i was outside a lot.
in the morning, a friend and i went to the poughkeepsie early learning center, which is the local school for all kindergarteners (Poughkeepsie school district is weird, idk why they do this, but all Kindergarten is in one building). we have been working for a while to organize a collaboration between them and the student club that i am part of/in charge of at Vassar, and it finally happened! we led the kids in a planting activity and planted peas and carrots in their garden beds. it was great to work with children and really reminded me how much i like education and how much i believe that gardening and cooking are great spaces for learning! even though it was a really simple activity, i was a little nervous bc i was the one who sort of planned out the lesson activity and facilitation, but i think everything went well! we made some group agreements to not throw dirt and to respect the bugs, and while there was a lot of excitement about worms and a large group of ants, the kids were overall super easy to work with, and it was so rewarding to see how joyful they were! favorite moment was the unexpected hugs from some students and this one amazing child who said we needed to make sure to give the seeds love and then joined me in thinking hard to send positive thoughts to our seeds (this is accomplished by putting ones hands together and scrunching ones face in great concentration). ahhhh i just love the kiddos and the dirt and the sun
after this lovely morning, it was back to vassar...but for my environmental studies class today we were just going on a walk to "appreciate nature" and contemplate landscapes, so my group went to sunset lake and found some animal friends (fish, frogs, turtles) and then walked by the creek and spent the time on a log contemplating the stream and chatting. it was quite lovely.
in spanish, we read aloud a play called El Delantal Blanco, so that was pretty fun and not too mentally taxing. then i had a meeting for a project that will hopefully happen next year, focusing on practices of well-being with Wendy (my former boss) and another student, its going to be a community thing and i think it will be good.
after that, i made a poster with a friend to honor all the ASA seniors (theres a dinner for seniors of color this friday) and then i made shortbread cookies for the worker's appreciation dinner (an event put on by latinx student union to honor vassar staff, such as dining workers, custodians etc etc). then i had dinner and the dining hall was surprisingly ok today (by which i mean that they had quinoa and so i diversified from my normal salad bar pickings. also some shrimp, a rare occurence for me to eat fish as my protein!)
so overall i did minimal homework today (though i spent the past 2 hours working on a project), and it was great. and tomorrow i am off to wisconsin for the association of asian american studies conference! exciting things and i am in a good mood. apologies for the complete lack of editing in this post. also! i've been writing more articles for the newspaper:
http://miscellanynews.org/2019/04/10/features/as-four-recipes-display-green-can-go-gourmet/
http://miscellanynews.org/2019/04/18/features/workshop-teaches-simple-skills-seasonality/
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| creek for contemplation |
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| rice and furikake! thank you bachan! |
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| taste test |
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| taste test: shiso edition |
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| i roast so much broccoli omg |
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| curry veg + cucumber salad |
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| i made bread! i used beet cooking water so it is a little pink hehehe |
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| we <3 roast veggies |
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| quinoa, sweet potatoes, and avocadoes? rare treasure at the deece |
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| somewhere over |
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| the rainbow! |
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| tortugas |
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| sunset lake |
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an ugly toad friend
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how are we going to touch the dirt so that we don't get it all over oursleves or on our friends? with one finger! can everyone show me a finger? can you...touch your nose with your finger? now let's touch our shoulders...now let's point to the sky...and now let's point to the ground...and touch the dirt! and now we're going to use our finger to make a hole so that we can put our pea seeds in....
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