A Chance to Breathe

As Nathan so kindly reminded me, it's been a while since my last post here. To be honest, I have not had the time or energy lately. With things winding down for the end of the semester, I've been horrendously busy and it's only now, approaching reading day (yeah, that's right, not reading week or reading days...just day...singular) that I can sit down and fill you in on everything that's happened.

First of all, tooting my own horn! I rode the bus here in Tempe/Phoenix (The Valley Metro) for the first time ever on the way home from the airport! I was so proud of myself! I didn't get lost or anything! Now I've found the trip planner website (the Metro has a ridiculous number of routes and lines...the bus book is several hundred pages) and plan to take the bus to the airport when I return home for Christmas.

After getting back to my room (after a 3am wake up! Boo!) I had to write a rough draft for English and do all sorts of other homework. I somehow got through all my classes for the next few days (and promptly caught a cold) and turned in all sorts of work and took an Italian final. Friday rolls around...I leave my room about 11:30 to grab lunch, read some, and go to my art history class. After art history I go to drum tuning and after tuning I go with Sarah and Bill to buy ingredients for Ceebu Jen (a Senegalese dish of rice and fish). We went to a Sudanese market and a Nigerian market but still didn't find everything we needed. I got back to my room about 10:30pm. Looonnnggg day!

Saturday, I catch a ride with Sarah into downtown Phoenix to a park there for a drumming rehearsal with the Kawambe Omowale dancers. After rehearsal, Lydia, Sarah, and I grabbed lunch at this amazing sandwich shop called Sacks and took it back to Lydia's to eat. After lunch, Sarah and I went to the Mill Ave. Arts Festival to watch her brother (a senior in high school) perform (he's a guitarist). The Arts Festival was fun and I wish I could have spent more time just looking around, but it also made me very homesick. It was like a larger version of Art on the Green/Street Fair and I wished my Mom was there to see it with me. After the Arts Festival we once again went on the search for ingredients...we hit Leelee's (a Chinese market) and Food City (a grocery store that caters to the Hispanic population). After going back to Sarah's apartment to put the groceries away and split up the bill, Sarah ran me back to my room. I got back around 9:30pm....another 12 hour day!

Yesterday, I went with Sarah to the north side of Phoenix (about a 45 minute drive both ways) to pick up her dance outfit from a seamstress there. We got back to her apartment and started to cook the Ceebu Jen but seriously ran out of time. I don't know what we're going to do with all the stuff now, but Sarah was hoping for having it done for Tuesday (our last class meeting of the drumming class). We dashed over to campus for the potluck/set up at 4:30 and ate, carried the drums over to the playhouse we were performing in, ran through the show, and started the concert at 7:30.

The concert was great! It was so much better than I expected! For one, it was the least stressful concert I've ever been in (I think because I didn't have anyone there to watch me...no one to worry about disappointing!) and it was SO much fun! The dancers were amazing and brought a whole new level of energy to the concert. The house was pretty full and everyone seemed very excited to be there. The female lead dancers of the Kawambe Omowale company were so nice and encouraging to us, even though we were almost all novices to African drumming. I'm so amazed by how those women are so strong but overwhelmingly feminine at the same time. They're the best!

After cleaning up the stage and taking the drums back to the basement of the music building, I headed BACK to the dorm and promptly showered...it was about 10pm. Are you sensing a pattern?

Today has been mild so far: got up at 8 to go to a UPS store (Mommy and Daddy sent me a care package!) and have a review session for art history. After class, I go to the UPS store on the OTHER side of campus (yes, we have two) to pick up some pegs Dad made for our Sabar drums. Tonight, I am going to Sarah's African dance performance. That one'll probably be done about 9:30 too. *sigh* Yeah, no real work is getting done today.

Home in ten days, birthday in two weeks. I can make it! Hope you all are doing well! Here is a picture of a hat...that looks like a badger...I want one.