Students’ Views

I haven’t had the chance to update in a while, but I do have a lot to talk about. Two Fridays ago, I went with my friends David, Walker, Joel, and Eric to see a lecture at Monkeywrench Books in Austin about the Zapatista movement. The lecture was interesting, it was given by a girl who was a student at the Autonomous University of Chiapas about the goals of the Zapatista movement as well as the economic and political implications. It was over an hour long, and the girl spoke in Spanish, but had another girl has her translator. I was vaguely familiar with the subject before going to the lecture, but now, I want to read more about it and I’m thinking about writing a paper for one of my classes about the impact of NAFTA and US foreign policy on the subject. Austin provides many opportunities to learn outside of the classroom and attend different event such as lectures, concerts, poetry readings, and art shows. Most of these events are easily found on the Internet, and The Austin Chronicle newspaper comes out weekly with listings of all of the upcoming events to the Austin area. Also, you can usually find a copy of The Daily Texan, which talks about events on the UT campus that you might not be aware of if you aren’t a student. Southwestern’s student newspaper, The Megaphone, comes out every Friday and has articles about upcoming events as well, and if you go to something particularly interesting, you can write about it for the Megaphone and get paid for your work.

On Saturday, I went to the “Big Hoo Hawâ€?, where everyone sat on The Mall (large, grassy area in the center of campus), painted pictures of vaginas (yes, vaginas, it was in honor of the performance of The Body Dialogues, a student-produced play about bodies, which was performed earlier in the week and has roots in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues), ate cookies, drank tea, did yoga, tie-dyed various clothing items, and made art. Students Walker Lukens, Eric Franco, and Nick Manusco played music for the crowd as everyone spent the afternoon in the sun. I finger painted and made a necklace, it was so relaxing, especially since it was the week before Spring Break, which is always a busy time because professors cram in a lot of work before everyone takes off for vacation. That night, I went to diner at Nonna’s, a family-owned restaurant in Georgetown on the Square, and had Italian food. The Square has several good places to eat, but Nonna’s is my favorite, and it’s great because several SU students work there so you can always go in and visit friends while having a fancy meal. After dinner, my friends Walker, Ben, and I went into Austin to go to a Daniel Johnston concert at The Parish. The show was so good, a string quartet opened for him, and then another band played that wasn’t very good, but tolerable. The concert was packed, but being in a small venue was awesome because we were able to get pretty close. If you don’t know the background of Daniel Johnston, well first, you can read the link provided, but there’s also a documentary film about him called “The Devil and Daniel Johnstonâ€? that I really recommend watching. He sang “True Love Will Find You in the End”, which is one of my favorite songs. The show was kind of depressing to watch, he shook a lot, and looked ill, but I’m really glad I got to see it.

Last week was also the two day lecture series at Southwestern called The Brown Symposium. This year’s theme was “Who Do We Think We Are?”, and was the 29th symposium in the series. The theme was developed by Laura Hobgood-Oster, associate professor of religion, chair of the Religion and Philosophy Department. The lectures were about human relationships to animals. Usually, during the Brown Symposium, professors allow students to attend the lectures instead of going to class, and you usually have a written assignment about the lecture to prove that you actually attended. It’s a fun two days, you see a lot of people on campus, they have a big dinner, and students are often discussing the lectures they’ve seen.

The week before Spring Break was very busy because I had a 6 a.m. flight on Thursday morning to catch, so I had to finish all of my work early. For the first part of Spring Break, I went to Winnemucca, NV to visit my friend Brooks. It’s in the middle of nowhere in Northern Nevada. It was a very strange experience; I’ve been to Las Vegas before, but never Northern Nevada. The town is small with about 8,000 people, and it’s surrounded by mountains and very isolated. I’ve never been in so much open space before, but it was very relaxing and I really enjoyed visiting my friend. He graduated from Southwestern, and is now working for the Bureau of Land Management – he really loves the environment– making maps of the region, which explains why he lives in the middle of nowhere currently. I got to experience the ‘wild west’, saw many casinos, and had a good time. I’m glad to be back in Texas, for the rest of the week, I’m going to go home to Kerrville for a few days and then come back to Austin. Spring Break is also the week of the South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin. I wish I were going to be in town to catch more shows; two bands related to Southwestern are playing a day show on Thursday. One called “The Frontier Brothers� with SU graduate Travis Newmann, and the other called “The Bright Light Social Hour� with student Jack O’Brien as a member of the band. SXSW is such a cool week in Austin, there’s a film festival, art exhibits, and a lot of free stuff to do that doesn’t require the $600 wristband.