Hi everybody,
I can’t believe it’s Sunday already. This week and weekend flew by. After going home last weekend, this week got me right back into the busy Clark swing of things. I have included a picture of the Albany, NY skyline to show our drive back to Worcester a week ago.
There were a lot of events in on campus, in Worcester and in Boston, some Halloween related, others not. I was able to participate in a few of them, and I took a couple pictures to show.
Last Sunday, I went to see slam poet Andrea Gibson perform at a cafe in Worcester with a couple friends. Slam poetry seems to be a tightly knit scene, as many of the poets recognized each other from different readings throughout New England. She’s a big deal in that performance genre, so it was cool to see her in such a small venue. It always impresses me how poets can memorize their poems, even the long ones lasting for many minutes. I was happy to try out a new kind of performance. More on performances later in this entry.
The first two days of the week were Alumni-in-Residence days. This means that Clark Alumni came to speak to classes about their experience at the University and how it affected them in “the real world.” In my classes, I heard from the Director of the United Way of Central MA, an attorney from New York City, a journalist who appears daily on CNBC, the co-founder of Rounder Records, and other interesting Clarkies. That’s about it for academics this week. I had a couple of tests, the usual homework load, nothing ridiculous, which was good, because there were a lot of other things to do.
On Monday afternoon, I went to see a French improv comedy group perform at the Little Theater on Campus. The French troupe played improv games with Clark’s own Peapod Squad (comedy group). It was interesting to see how the language barrier didn’t have too much of an impact on the show, except making it accidentily funnier to watch. At night, two University Police (UP) officers came to the basement of my residence hall to talk to students about safety and answer questions about Clark’s van and walking Escort services. They also brought pizza for us to eat. I liked being able to ask them questions in such a casual setting. Students sometimes have a stigma against UP, but they’re normal people too.
On Tuesday, I went to the Worcester Art Museum to talk to their volunteer coordinator about doing some work with them this semester. As I’ve mentioned, they have an impressive collection and entrance is free for Clark students. At night, I attended the Fall Food for Thought event, sponsored by the Making a Difference Scholars. The topic was Teen Pregnancy in Popular Culture. Some of my friends organized it and they had fallafel and pizza from a local restaurant. It was a nice event, here’s a picture from it.
On Wednesday, I went to the Study Abroad Fair to learn about different opportunities for next semester or next year. The Dijon, France program caught my eye, so I’ll keep that in mind while selecting classes for this Spring semester. In addition to students who participated in each program, there were representatives from travel agencies, financial aid, and Visa/Passport services.
On Thursday, one of my friends from a different college took the train to Worcester to go to a concert down the street. We saw Estelle, the Gym Class Heroes and the Roots at the Palladium, which is on Main St. downtown. The show was awesome. I plan on seeing more bands at the Palladium. It’s a nice venue and allows fans to get stand close to the stage or sit back and relax. After the concert, we went to check out the annual Drag Ball. I was impressed by a lot of the people who wore drag. There were some convincing costumes to be seen. Here are some Drag-Ballers:
On Friday after class in the morning, I went to Boston with a couple of friends. We took the WRTA city bus to the train station, then caught a Peter Pan bus to South Station in Boston. Transportation is pretty easy and doesn’t take very long. Once we got to the city, we split up and I caught up with some friends at BU and Tufts. At night, I went to see Gov’t Mule (a band) at the Orpheum Theater. They were awesome. My friend and I have seen them more than 10 times, and this was definitely one of the best times. They covered sections of Pink Floyd albums in costume for their special Halloween set.
Saturday morning we caught a bus back to the Woo (Worcester). I lingered near the train station to check out Canal Fest. This is kind of a street fair dedicated to all things Worcester. There were booths from museums, parks, local restaurants, artisans, and other fun things. There was a big pool set up on the street where people could go kayaking. The name Canal Fest comes from the fact that below some of the streets in Worcester, there’s a buried canal. This body of water was dug by Irish immigrants in 1822 to allow direct imports to Worcester, rather than stopping at Providence, then filled in later in the century. At night, I dressed up as the Dude from the movie the Big Lebowski, because I didn’t want to bring a costume to Boston for real Halloween night. It was okay though, most of the campus celebrates Halloween for at least two nights. In fact, some people just walked past my door handing out candy to every room.
Today, I have been doing a lot of reading for classes tomorrow. I took a break to go to Yoga @ ClarkU, taught by my friend Jesse on campus every week. It’s one of those activities that I would have never predicted myself trying, but it’s enjoyable and not too intense for us newbies. After the class, one of the theme houses on campus had a table with snacks and tea set up for participants. It was a nice break in the day. After dinner, I attended Pizza with the Presidents. This program featured University President John Bassett and Student Council President Abishek Raman answering questions from people in attendance. Transportation, academics, campus safety and dining services were addressed, among other topics. It was cool to be able to talk straight to the Boss with my questions. Here’s a picture of the Presidents.
So, that was my week. Any questions? Please leave a comment or feel free to e-mail me if you are curious about anything I mentioned. Have a good night, Jeremy
posts by Jeremy
- Goodbye for now! - April 21st, 2009
- Glow Dance, Sex Fest and Milan Vodopivec - April 14th, 2009
- Spree Day - April 7th, 2009
- Just Do It Day, International Gala and more! - April 5th, 2009
- Televised sports, poetry and housing - March 29th, 2009
- Sportful weekend - March 22nd, 2009
- Springtime approaches... - March 15th, 2009
- Spring Break report - March 8th, 2009
- Spring Break - March 1st, 2009
- Stair Run, Hockey, and more - February 22nd, 2009
- Masquerade Ball and more - February 15th, 2009
- Ice skating, Flora in Winter and more - February 8th, 2009
- Super Bowl and AHL All Star Game - February 1st, 2009
- Inauguration Day and Happy Year of the Ox! - January 25th, 2009
- Round 2 - January 18th, 2009
- Pre-Finals week - December 14th, 2008
- First week of December - December 7th, 2008
- Jazz Band and more - November 24th, 2008
- Dining Hall Thanksgiving, International Journey and more - November 22nd, 2008
- Mid November activities - November 17th, 2008
- Election, Soccer, A Capella, Murder Mystery & more - November 10th, 2008
- Busy Week - October 23rd, 2008
- Pineapple Express, Walking around, Phish tickets and a lot of pictures - October 19th, 2008
- Long Weekend - October 11th, 2008
- Having one class on Tuesdays is awesome - October 7th, 2008
- My First Post! - October 4th, 2008
