Surrealism and Spirituality

Surreal. It’s the only word to describe what this feels like. The other day, I was laying in the Commons, in shorts and my CULTU(RED) t-shirt reading Shakespeare and people watching; today, the winds ripped through campus and I remembered my environment a little better, provided I foolishly decided to wear shorts again.
Yesterday morning, on my way to class, I passed a guy wearing boxer shorts and a hoody, eating a bagel as he went along. On the way to the grocery store, a homeless lady on a streetcorner looked right down Boylston Street, straight into the gusts of wind and screamed, “Stop making it so windy!!!” as if God was standing at the end of the road, forcing the wind down the compact space. On the way back from the store, I saw a man on a scooter with an open trash bag attached to the scooter to create a sail, propelling him down the road as if he were on water.
This is now my city. These are now my people. And yet, I’m not entirely accustomed yet. I still look around me and have to remember that I’m living a thousand miles away from home. In my mind, I picture a map and me on the map in Boston, zoomed in on a building like on Google Earth. Then, I slowly zoom out, eventually getting a full view of the country, and a full view of the true distance that separates me from most of the people I know.
I chose this, but what have I chosen? I have no doubt that I should be here- it’s intrinsically perfect. I’m incandescently happy, like Darcy at the end of Pride and Prejudice, except my Pemberly is this incredibly baller new residence hall in the heart of downtown Beantown. It’s all just… different.

* * *
Recently, there has been much ado from a host of people about the spiritual life in my new home. So, before I left, people kept telling me, “Oh, it’s gonna be so hard to keep your faith up there with those people,” and, “You’re headed to a God-less place.” I was like, thanks a heap for all the encouragement homies.
First of all, this is in no way a “God-less” place. Where exactly can you find a place that God isn’t? Yeah, you go chew on that for a while and let me know if you fully digest it. Naturally, this place is no Bible Belt, and I couldn’t be any happier. I was so ready to leave that in the South, you can all enjoy it. But, people are so incredibly open about spirituality, in the sense that it has come in conversation at least once with almost every person I’ve talked to. I can’t say the same for people I’ve only known for three weeks back home.
I’m finding that I’m so much more ready to accept people who are at least honest about what they believe, rather than having to sift through all the fronts I’ve been putting up with my whole life. People believe what they believe, and if it’s controversial, it’s probably viewed as better. No, this campus isn’t crawling with Christians; but that also means that people who don’t actually believe it don’t pretend to. This is what I desperately needed.
Yes, people don’t understand why I believe what I do. Yes, it’s not popular. But at least it’s real.
Now, the whole church conundrum I am having some problems with, simply because most of the churches in close proximity are Catholic or Synagogue. Those aren’t so much for me, especially on a week-by-week basis. I have been attending church with my roommate Ryan, who goes to Boston Church of Christ. It may not be the perfect place for me, but it certainly beats nothing and they’ve got a great college ministry established in their church full of a great, kind group of Christians. It’s working for the time being so we’ll see where I end up.

* * *

To the classes. Here’s the rundown on what I’m taking and my thoughts on each course:
-Intercultural Communication- This course is one that I didn’t intentionally sign up for. It looks at the ways people communicate in other cultures, even ones that are not ethnically or geographically defined (ie Starbucks culture). I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it. It’s not too too much work, but it’s some. Dr. Angela Cooke-Jackson, my professor, is really cool and laid back but organized when it comes to the work schedule. Nothing is helped in this class by the fact that it’s at 8:00am.
-Appreciation of Theatre Arts- Although I thought I was going to love this class, I’m kind of on the in-between. There are good days, and there are bad days. It depends on how much material we have for the class. I wasn’t expecting all the facets of work we would have to do (we have to perform one day for the class and we already had to write a play) but I do like theatre and this is all about appreciating it. It looks like we’re going to go see some interesting plays this semester, so that’s fun.
-Gender in a Global Perspective- By far, this is the absolute best class I have. It’s the one that I look forward to going to, and generally enjoy almost all the readings for it. The course is concerned with defining gender (social habits of male and female) vs. sex (the biology that decides male or female). Also, we look heavily at masculinity vs. femininity, and why society causes us to view certain things as manly and certain things as feminine. I cannot stop talking about this course. It has already been so insightful, and we’ve only been in it for three weeks. Our teacher is Indian (her name is Tulasi Srinivas, for Emerson students who need to take this course) and her perspective on American society is extremely interesting because she speaks as an outsider.
-Honors Seminar- Where to begin with such a class? This class is such a roller coaster- either it’s a great day or it’s completely miserable. What’s rather frustrating about the class itself is that the whole thing is structured to be conversation between students and the professors. What this turns in to is people trying to one-up each other or throw out bigger words. I can only handle so much. However, I haven’t really altered my speech for this class, since I’m into that whole genuine thing some of you may know about, so I do say phrases like “true life” and “holla” in class, which has at least once resulted in laughter from my peers. Is that a good thing?



Cool Things Dan Did This Week:
1. Philippa and Dennis- So I totally forgot to cover this in my last post, but I got to go see Philippa Gregory, my personal favourite author, on my first day of class. She had a booksigning at Boston University so I went like a huge nerd and loved it. The next week, Dennis Lahane showed up at our campus bookstore to do a signing. I haven’t read any of his books, but I have seen some of the movies, which include Gone, Baby, Gone; Shutter Island; and Mystic River. Cool.
2. Ohno Bono- I was going to the grocery store to buy more cake mix the other day with Curry Nugget and Jersey Joe and there was a large crowd gathering outside the Four Seasons. Naturally, something important was happening so we stopped. Within five minutes, U2 emerged. That’s right folks- Bono was within sight and I couldn’t reach him, but I’ve got phone pics to prove it. Sad thing was, I wanted to talk to Bono, not because I like his music but because he started Product (RED). I was even wearing my CULTU(RED) shirt. Oh well. :)
3. Collegefest- Every year, this thing called Collegefest is held at the local convention center. It’s just something targeted at the large amount of college kids in Boston. You pay $10 and walk around to different booths and get info and random free stuff. I won a ticket by playing rock-paper-scissors with a publicity girl on the sidewalk so I got in for free. I’ve never seen so many energy drinks or versions of tea in my life. Dan would’ve loved it- they even had samples of Muscle Milk (which I shockingly tried more as a joke and found rather distasteful). Other cool stuff- we got to see Hellogoodbye in concert there, which was the main reason we went. Also, me and the two friends I was with got free bus tickets from Boston to NYC cause the lady at the Greyhound booth thought I was funny. Score!
4. Building Fences- Kelly and I went to go see the August Wilson play Fences at the Huntington Theatre on Saturday. Not only is the production remarkable, but if I write a four-page paper on it, I can use that grade as my final in my theatre class. Awesome. Obviously, I intend to do this. And on the way to the theatre, we discovered the Church of Christ, Scientist, which has built this crazy big reflecting pool, similar to that in DC, and a huge gothic style church. Way weird.
5. Stork’s Here- One of the problems I’ve been having is getting connected into clubs on campus. Everything is so competitive. After being rejected last week from the only two singing groups on campus (yes, Clevie, I gave it my best shot), I was worried about getting into a club. I applied for a copyediting position at Stork Magazine and- shock- I got it! It’s really fun. The publication is strictly a literary journal for short stories so we read fiction and then talk about how good (or, even better, how bad) the writing is. Fun fun.
6. Give Us Moore- Tonight, I did something arguably upsetting to many Southerners- I attended an advance screening of the new Michael Moore documentary and sat through an in-person Q&A session with him afterwards without trying to remove him from this earth. Say what you will, but he does have a talent for convincing people of his point and making fairly engaging documentaries. This new film is Capitalism: A Love Story and I found it angering and insightful, taking it with a grain of salt of course. I recommend it to those who want to broaden their horizons and hate the bailout as much as I do.


People I Met:
1. Lauren- quickly becoming one of my better friends is RA Lauren. Yes she’s my RA, but I think she’s the stuff. She has great advice and a bubbly spirit and really likes to try all kinds of things. I appreciate it.
2. Johnny- my other RA who I find completely hysterical. Yes, this means I am personal friends with both my RA’s. Sue me. Johnny’s great and just might be meaner than I am. Finally.
3. Kayla- the RA trend continues, but she’s at least not on my floor. She likes to pick on me because I’m from the South but she has a nice heart underneath it all and she shows me new things like Bubble Tea- this odd fruit smoothie with tapioca balls in the bottom and a straw the size of a gerber daisy stem. It’s not really that great.
4. Krista- one of the people who goes to church with us on Sundays. She’s super cool and we became friends by default when we went to Collegefest and then consequently got bus tickets to New York. She’s a theatre freak too so that’s some great common ground. We love us some Spring Awakening!
5. Shauntelle- also an attendee of church on Sundays. Shauntelle is the kind of crazy girl that can get everyone excited about the very little things. When I baked her a cake on her birthday, she cried. Enough said. I freakin love her.
6. Christie- Shauntelle’s roomie who I met at church. She’s super nice and has a parallel life to my dear old friend of three weeks Christine from across my window. I don’t know Christie extremely well but I look forward to getting to know her more.
7. Jordan- another girl, don’t let the name confuse you. She’s in my gender class and we both love it. She’s the kind of person you want to sit next to in class and make comments about what all is going on. Great.
8. Santiago- who is, yes, Argentinian by heritage. We have almost the same class schedule so we finally started talking. We’ve discovered we share some very similar thoughts, especially about our odd little Honors class. Ironically, he’s living with a suitemate of Ash’s from last year, which is humorous if you know the back-story.

Was that long enough for everyone? Sorry- so much to tell, and so little space. Thanks for reading everyone. Until more interesting things happen…

-Daniel