Clark Diaries

If you couldn’t tell by the title of this post, I have a lot to talk about from the past 2 weeks!

Let me start at the beginning…One of the cool events I went to last week was a difficult dialogues event called “Climate Change on Campus“. We got to hear from administrators, faculty, staff, and professors who do work related to the issue on campus about what Clark is and should be doing to reduce are impact on climate change. It was really interesting! And students got the chance to ask some tough questions about the way we do things on campus in light of saving energy and carbon emissions. Hopefully this is the beginning of more communication between the student body and the administration, faculty, and staff about this critical issue that needs collaboration from all.

That weekend I attended one of the biggest events on campus: International Gala!!! It was really awesome! I got to see a lot of my friends in the show and enjoy so many different cultural performances from countries around the world! I also took a lot of great pictures of the performances from: Sri Lanka, Greece, India, Hip Hop Collabo, China, Mexico, Capoeira, Puerto Rico (Clark Salsa), Hawaii, Pakistan, US, Columbia, Asia United, and Jamaica. There were many more though! The show was amazing as usual with so many awesome performances, beautiful costumes, and great people! I really enjoyed it.

For the rest of the weekend I headed off to Boston for Massachusetts Power Shift, a climate change conference modeled after the national Power Shift conference in DC last November. It was great to have people of all ages involved in the climate movement come together in Boston for a couple days of training and activism. We went to a couple workshops on Saturday (I went to one on Green Roofs and another about Poverty and Climate Change), heard some local, state, and national politicians speak (including John Kerry!), and heard from some great leaders of the Environmental Justice and Green Jobs movement. Then on Sunday we had a rally on Boston common, which was really energizing and fun!

This past week was a great one too! On Tuesday we had a great surprise: Spree Day! It is a day when Clark cancels classes and everyone gets the day off to play games on the green, enjoy an outdoor barbecue, and see some bands perform. It was a beautiful day out, so pretty much the whole school was out on the green enjoying the festivities! It was a great chance to unwind the week before finals!

On Thursday night I did something pretty awesome for my Global Environmental Justice class; we did an activity called the Political Ecology of the Dinner Plate. Basically we all came together with different ingredients and cooked a dinner together as a class. We saved all the labels and packaging and are now figuring out where our food came from, how it got there, and what social/environmental effects it carried with it, looking at things like what country it was grown in, what kind of labor was used, what kind of chemicals were used in its production, and how far it had to travel and what that means for carbon emissions. It was really fun and interesting!

Later that evening I went to another fun and interesting event: the Beehive Collective presentation. The Beehive Collective is an activist/artist collective that uses artistic mediums to convey messages about global issues. The collective member who came to present at Clark brought 2 big canvas pieces that portrayed a really creative and complex visuals of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and Plan Columbia which were amazing! We all broke into small groups and took little sections to analyze and then came back as a larger group to share our thoughts. If you’re interested in seeing their work, check out their website at: www.beehivecollective.org

My last piece to share with you is the Variant Dance Troupe’s show this weekend! It was really great! They had a variety of dance types including jazz, modern, hip hop, ballet, and tap! I got to see my friend and suitemate Liz in a few really awesome numbers!

And now it’s time to get down to business with all my final papers and projects due this week. Eek!

posts by Ashley

• Last post! - April 27th, 2008
• Fossil Fools Day, Hip Hop, and Sexfest - April 6th, 2008
• Carnaval, Acapella, CASA, World Water Day - March 29th, 2008
• Vagina Monologues, Spiritual Haze, and Alternative Spring Break Trip to Nicaragua! - March 22nd, 2008
• Catching up - February 17th, 2008
• Too much! - February 5th, 2008
• David Orr, Nicaragua, and Semiformal - January 28th, 2008
• Back to school! - January 22nd, 2008
• Games, Shows, and Dancing - December 10th, 2007
• Finals creeping in... - December 3rd, 2007
• Bagels, Dancing, Singing, and Bikes - November 19th, 2007
• Harvest, Euphoria, G&P, Dinner, Hungerpalooza - November 12th, 2007
• An amazing weekend - November 7th, 2007
• Sustainability, Sisters, and the beginning of Halloween - October 29th, 2007
• Oh, how I love the fall - October 21st, 2007
• A mini week - October 15th, 2007
• Finally, midterm break. - October 8th, 2007
• Last week of September - September 30th, 2007
• My first post - September 21st, 2007

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