Keeping to my One

Today was my first official day of classes at Hiram, and I must say that it was packed. I really should not be writing this blog with all of the stuff I have to do tonight, but I want to write it all down before it all ebbs away from me.

The day began, after a quick breakfast in Miller, with an 8:00 a.m. Intro to Literary Studies class. I was excited to see Brian, one of my high school friends, there with me. Lit was in Hinsdale today, but from now on classes will be in Bonney Castle, headquarters of the English Department. That is cool because it is just like a home and has a kitchen, and the professors stock it with warm drinks to help us early students wake up. Class was a hodge-podge of discussing our roles in the class and analyzing literature. Then we participated in a group activity where we drew objects from a bag (my group's was a framed cross-stitch of a small alley in Shambles York) and critically analyzed them before discussing our conclusions. Our homework for the class was to read a section of the text and take notes, and from those notes we will work together to construct our class syllabus.

Immediately after Lit I hopped on over to Frohring for my colloquium, Music in a Changing World. We received a syllabus, which very conveniently lists all of our assignments and tests for us. We were told that a mandatory part of the class is to participate in 2 meetings of the African Ensemble, the first of which was tonight. Extra credit is offered to those who participate in at least 9 of the 11 meetings throughout the semester. Then we were assigned quite a bit of homework: a reading from the textbook (both the introduction and the first chapter, roughly 68 pages), a chapter to read from a book that Prof. Dreisbach xeroxed for us, and the first draft of a 3-5 page essay!

Before classes started I viewed my Monday afternoons as a great break from classes, but after the flux of assignments I decided it would be best to spend some of that time working. So after lunch I decided to check out the library. This was the first time I've visited the library properly, exploring it a bit before picking a seat to work. The library is simply amazing. It is a beautiful building, and is much more spacious than I first predicted, judging by the outside. There are four floors, and each of them are packed with books, and the media collection is in the basement. The architecture of the building is simply wonderful and it can sometimes be hard to read in there without letting my mind wander, tracing the curves of the beams and ceiling. One of my favorite rooms is a large, round reading room with a few tables in the middle, computer stations lining the circumference, and international flags hanging from above. The ceiling opens to the second floor. If you visit the second floor, you will see a large, round bench that looks like a circular bar with plenty of room for books and materials, but in the center is the hole that looks into the reading room below.

Also, there are so many books there that I didn't think would have a spot in the library of a out-of-the-way village like Hiram. I found a very useful book that dissects and explains all of the radicals in Chinese characters, which will help me a bit with my Chinese. (I am not registered for a class, but Wenhao is teaching me Mandarin himself, and I'm teaching him German in return. Very quid pro quo.) I also found dozens of books in German, several of which are by an author that I have been interested in reading for over a year, Stefan Zweig. There were even a good handful of books about the Baconian Theory, one of my favorite conspiracy theories!

After the tour I worked at a table on my readings for a couple hours, but I did not finish. I took a break and hung out with some friends before eating dinner and running off to Frohring to catch the African Ensemble meeting for the evening. I was expecting the experience to be a bit awkward, but it was really one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had yet. Our instructor, Olu, was very funny and engaging. He really pumped some energy into our colloquium class! First we learned a few different types of ways to strike the drums. These drums are all hand played, which means that there are several ways to manipulate the sound with one's hand. After we learned the hits we practiced drumming in sync with each other, which we accomplished pretty quickly. Next we learned a very catchy rhythm and Olu was pleased with how quickly we caught on. We did a lot to mix up the music with different breaks, tempos, and patterns, and by the end we sounded really good. Olu had told us that the drumming could be very hypnotic, and he is right! I found that it is best to play without really thinking about what we are playing, but to feel it, to let the hands strike the rhythm that they knew. After a while, my hands, as well as many others' hands, began to get very sore. My palms were, and nearly still are, raw red, and the base of my right ring finger has that puffy sort of swollen feeling one gets after being stung by a bee. My hands ached with pain but my brain did not want to stop just yet. Then Olu had us stop and rest with our eyes closed as he tapped a quiet rhythm on his drum and spoke to us soothingly and had us repeat him, mantra-style. He likened college life to the drumming we just learned, that our hands keep looking for that first strong beat that will lead them into the rest of the patter before finding the One first beat again, repeating. He called this keeping to the One, and that we should keep to the One in life: to concentrate, and give our studies here at college our best effort. If we lag behind, keep to the One and speed back into the rhythm. As the pace of life changes, keep to the One and change tempo with it.

By the time we left we learned that we had accidentally been playing over half an hour longer than we were supposed to! We were doing so well that we just kept going and progressing to more difficult breaks. I left excited, and I cannot wait until the next meeting two weeks from now. My hands will have healed by then, but will they have healed for tomorrow morning's piano lesson?