Well folks, the time has come. It’s May 10th. You know what that means! It’s time for Ozzie’s annual day in my life blog. You can read about previous days in my life here and here!
8:30 am — wake up
I enjoyed the luxury of an early bedtime last night, so I wake up feeling particularly well-rested. It has been a long weekend of stage managing the Oberlin Dance Company show, and I was glad to be getting some sleep.
8:45 am — catch the tail end of breakfast
Just like this time last year, I wander downstairs to the Harkness co-op dining space to have some eggs and breakfast potatoes. I stay a little while to chat with my friends before heading back to my room to get ready for the day.
10:00 am — Varsity Contact
I am taking an advanced Contact Improvisation class this semester with my advisor, Ann Cooper Albright. There are eight of us in the class, and we spend the first part of class doing a somatic meditation exercise to ground ourselves before the last week of classes. I came in feeling sleepy and headache-y, and this was a perfect way to reset and prepare for the week ahead. Then we have some time for open dancing and start preparing for our end-of-semester showing on Friday.
12:20pm — lunch
I walk from Warner to Tank co-op with a few of my friends from class. They are serving tofu and stir-fry with carrots and kimchi. It’s a beautiful day, so I put on some sunscreen and we eat outside on the lawn. While we eat, we enjoy observing everyone’s “monotone Monday” outfits.
1:00pm — art library
My roommate, Olivia, and I start walking back towards campus. We part ways when we reach downtown and I head to the art library to get some quiet work time in. We have a 5-page draft of our final papers due tonight for peer review, and I’m feeling a little behind because of how busy my weekend was. I write a solid 3.5 pages, and work on preparing the script for my performance in class. I’m writing in part about Alison Kafer’s book Queer, Feminist, Crip, and how it relates to embodied knowledge and futurity. Before I leave the library, I print out my draft and tuck it away in my backpack.
3:30pm — Collective Behavior and Social Movements
In one of two Sociology electives I am taking this semester, we have our final discussion of the semester on joy and resilience in social movements and the ways these concepts have been politicized. It’s the first time this class is being offered, and it’s been fun to have a small enough class for discussion-based learning rather than exclusively lectures.
4:30pm — snack & lounge time
After class, I have some chips and salsa in the Hark lounge and chat with whoever is around while I start working on the slides for a presentation the next day.
5:00pm — meeting with Julia
As a member of the inaugural BA+BFA class at Oberlin, I am also on the Student Advisory Board for the program. Today, the board, or “BABFASAB” has meeting with the program’s director, studio art Professor Julia Christensen. We are discussing candidates for Visiting Assistant Professors who will teach in the program at Park Arts in Cleveland. We have just finished the interviews, and it’s time to make a decision about which interdisciplinary artists we will hire for the next two years.
6:20pm — dinner
Harper and Lilly are the headcooks for Monday dinner, and they have made super yummy “butter chicken” chickpeas with rice and cabbage. There’s also a yogurt sauce and cherry chocolate cookie bars for dessert! The weather is still beautiful, so we line up for dinner outside and then sit on the grass in front of Hark once we have our food. During the meal, we have a discussion about who we will elect to be our Food Safety and Kitchen Coordinators next year.
7:00pm — Research as Practice, Practice as Research
My final class of the day is an evening seminar that only meets once a week. There are 12 of us in the class, and we have several final presentations to share. I perform an improvised dance piece to an automated voice reading an excerpt from the essay I am writing about disability and resistance. Then, we all have a snack of chips and bean dip, with homemade blueberry pineapple limeade made by Olivia. We end the class by looking over each other’s drafts.
10:00pm — Haymarket jam
When I walk back into Harkness, the cast of Haymarket—a new folk musical that premiered at Oberlin over the weekend—is having a folk jam. I think it’s someone’s birthday? There are probably 20 different musicians gathered around the piano in the entry way underneath the paper mache shark that is our mascot. I tuck myself into the window seat and listen to them play while I work on my presentation.
11:00pm — finishing up homework
I put the finishing touches on my slides for the next morning. I’m presenting about the spatial relationship between health and poverty in South Dakota, in my other sociology elective course, Mapping Inequalities.
12:00am — friend time
Once I’ve finished my slides, I head outside to listen to the remnants of the folk jam (they’ve moved outside to respect quiet hours in the building). A few of my friends are gathered around the bench out front, and I sit and chat with them for a while. It’s been a long day and I’m glad to have some time to connect with them before I go to bed.
12:30am — bedtime
Eventually, I head back inside and try to get ready for bed without waking up Olivia. I’m up a little later than I intended, so I set my alarm for slightly later in the morning to allow myself time to sleep in. Tomorrow will be another busy day!
