After such a long and rather depressing post on Sachsenhausen, I thought perhaps we should change it up a little. Okay, maybe a lot in actuality.
Here's ten things that are on the ground right now for me:
1. Americorps finally contacted me. Now granted, it was about a new program I had applied for, but it's still super exciting to be going through a formal application process. This particular program requested more material from me, a sample of my writing style, two more references, a resume with cover letter, etc. I'm really excited, and already have my new references lined up, so life is looking good for the next few days. Maybe I'll have plans within a couple of months!
2. My internship is going awesome. It's lot of data, and number crunching right now, but I'm just loving the logistics of everything. I also love the fact that what I'm doing could have a lasting effect on the way things work at William Jewell. That may be the most exciting thing for me.
3. My piano recital is in T-six weeks! I'm faltering a little on some of the line up in repertoire, we're just the slightest bit short right now, but I may have figured out a solution to this problem, so check back in. I'll be announcing the date formally in three weeks, but the unofficial date is March 10th, at 5:30 pm.
4. If the piano recital is six weeks away, this means I only have 13 more weeks in which to write, assign, and rehearse everything for my composition recital. On that front, things are coming together slowly, but surely. My quartet has been assembled (yay, thanks Peter for agreeing to be my tenor!) and I have high hopes for the choir to come together soon. I have a reading for my strings piece two (three?) weeks from now, and we're *this* close to being ready to turn things in! I think my next composition lesson should take place over coffee. I plan to suggest this to him. No more stuffy classroom. :)
5. At the end of the second week of classes, I've switched my art history to pass/fail, which has lightened my homework load. The professor for this class tends to uncommunicative on my research topic choices, but that's okay, there's not as much pressure.
6. Speaking of that homework load, I think I've settled into the rhythm. Most of my classes have a fair amount of homework, which is slightly worrisome for my sanity, but if I just don't fall behind, ever, at all, with no exceptions, then I should be fine. Uh-oh, I think I'm already behind....
I think that's all for now, but it's enough. I'm still muddling through. Check back soon for final plans on the recitals and further travel updates!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sachsenhausen
If you were following my previous blog: The Year in Oxford you'll know that I left off on my travel updates right after Salzburg during spring break. As we are nearing spring break this year, I thought it might be fun to go back and reminisce about some of the trips I took last spring that I haven't posted on. I know it seems an odd starting place to go back and pick up sort of right where I left off, but I couldn't figure out a way I liked better than chronological.
I'm skipping Munich for the moment, because it was merely a 16 hour stop over (some of those spent sleeping) to break up the trip to Berlin, and I did very little there, I made it to the Residenz and the English Gardens, but that was all.
No, I'm going to pick up my trip again, right after I arrived in Berlin. My first day there I went to Sachsenhausen, the first concentration camp from World War II.
The day was bleak and grey, which seemed to fit the mood of visiting a place where so many suffered and died. On my way to meet a walking tour I debated with myself about the idea of taking photos at the concentration camp. Was that a disrespectful thing to do? After much debate (which continued through the train ride and walk to the camp), I came to the same conclusion my friend Megan did when she was at Auschwitz. I took the photos, because I needed to never forget the human suffering that happened, the absolute sheer brutality and cruelty that took place in an organized orderly fashion because eugenics and politics willed it be so.
Taking a walking tour, having a guide, made it so much better in terms of comprehension of the magnitude of everything. Part of the site is still standing, but a large portion has been burnt out, and if you do not have someone with you the likelihood of you understanding everything is greatly diminished.
First we met our guide and gathered while she told us some of the history of Sachsenhausen. It was first opened in 1936 and officially closed in 1945 when the Soviets liberated the area. It is also known as Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. After taking a quick regional train out to the area, and a brisk walk, we came upon this building, the main governance offices.
I suppose I was dumbfounded by the next photo. We were just walking along, and coming upon the gate really drove home for me what I was seeing and experiencing.
The next place we went was the underground crematorium, and even though it's mostly a burnt out shell, I still found myself moved entirely to tears at this point. Inside the crematorium area, there is another memorial as well, also laden with flowers. I also learned at this point, that most of the crematoriums at German concentration camps were not built until later in the war period, because the original belief was to keep the blood of people such as the Roma, the Senti, and the Jews, outside of Germany. So Sachsenhausen was a work camp, not a death camp, such as Auschwitz. That said, it was still horrifying.
We went through a brief museum after this point, made from another restructured barracks. Within this museum, they had remnants of a few leftover uniforms, where once again, I felt myself tearing up. Looking at the different triangles, and remembering the fact that these men were reduced to being merely a number and dehumanized systematically, just because they were seen as different, or outside the system is a horrific idea to my personal ideals, and especially to my religious beliefs.
The last few things of note, were that during the period of Nazi control, there were many medical experiments that were started here at Sachsenhausen. They went on at other places too, but many of the eugenics experiments were started at Sachsenhausen.
During the Soviet period the camp operated from 1945-1950 as NVKD Special Camp no. 7. Horrifying all around, from all sides. In 1950, the Soviets closed the camp and erected this memorial.
The memorial is typically "soviet" according to our tour guide, in it's construction, the orange colored brick, and the sizing of the statues as "large, robust" figures. the orange triangles, should actually be red, which was the color for political prisoners indentification badges.
I'm skipping Munich for the moment, because it was merely a 16 hour stop over (some of those spent sleeping) to break up the trip to Berlin, and I did very little there, I made it to the Residenz and the English Gardens, but that was all.
No, I'm going to pick up my trip again, right after I arrived in Berlin. My first day there I went to Sachsenhausen, the first concentration camp from World War II.
The day was bleak and grey, which seemed to fit the mood of visiting a place where so many suffered and died. On my way to meet a walking tour I debated with myself about the idea of taking photos at the concentration camp. Was that a disrespectful thing to do? After much debate (which continued through the train ride and walk to the camp), I came to the same conclusion my friend Megan did when she was at Auschwitz. I took the photos, because I needed to never forget the human suffering that happened, the absolute sheer brutality and cruelty that took place in an organized orderly fashion because eugenics and politics willed it be so.
Taking a walking tour, having a guide, made it so much better in terms of comprehension of the magnitude of everything. Part of the site is still standing, but a large portion has been burnt out, and if you do not have someone with you the likelihood of you understanding everything is greatly diminished.
First we met our guide and gathered while she told us some of the history of Sachsenhausen. It was first opened in 1936 and officially closed in 1945 when the Soviets liberated the area. It is also known as Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. After taking a quick regional train out to the area, and a brisk walk, we came upon this building, the main governance offices.I suppose I was dumbfounded by the next photo. We were just walking along, and coming upon the gate really drove home for me what I was seeing and experiencing.
We then toured one of the restructured and reinforced barracks, where many had taken the opportunity to leave small memorials inside the building. This particular barracks that we toured originally housed Jewish men.
The next place we went was the underground crematorium, and even though it's mostly a burnt out shell, I still found myself moved entirely to tears at this point. Inside the crematorium area, there is another memorial as well, also laden with flowers. I also learned at this point, that most of the crematoriums at German concentration camps were not built until later in the war period, because the original belief was to keep the blood of people such as the Roma, the Senti, and the Jews, outside of Germany. So Sachsenhausen was a work camp, not a death camp, such as Auschwitz. That said, it was still horrifying. 
We went through a brief museum after this point, made from another restructured barracks. Within this museum, they had remnants of a few leftover uniforms, where once again, I felt myself tearing up. Looking at the different triangles, and remembering the fact that these men were reduced to being merely a number and dehumanized systematically, just because they were seen as different, or outside the system is a horrific idea to my personal ideals, and especially to my religious beliefs.
The last few things of note, were that during the period of Nazi control, there were many medical experiments that were started here at Sachsenhausen. They went on at other places too, but many of the eugenics experiments were started at Sachsenhausen.
During the Soviet period the camp operated from 1945-1950 as NVKD Special Camp no. 7. Horrifying all around, from all sides. In 1950, the Soviets closed the camp and erected this memorial.
The memorial is typically "soviet" according to our tour guide, in it's construction, the orange colored brick, and the sizing of the statues as "large, robust" figures. the orange triangles, should actually be red, which was the color for political prisoners indentification badges.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Americorps Essay
Part of my application to Americorps requires an essay, or "personal statement". Most of the time I hate that sort of a thing, but after mulling it over and talking it through with several "academic" types of people, I think I'm ready to write the statement.
"We would like to understand more about you and your reasons for applying to AmeriCorps. Take a few minutes and consider those experiences that have made you the person you are today. Please share with us one of these experiences and how it sparked your interest in community service."
"We would like to understand more about you and your reasons for applying to AmeriCorps. Take a few minutes and consider those experiences that have made you the person you are today. Please share with us one of these experiences and how it sparked your interest in community service."
Right before my nineteenth birthday I chose to take what is referred to as a gap year and put off pursuing a university degree for this period of time. I was working as a nanny at the time and the mother of the family was pleased enough at the prospect of having me work for her for another year, that she was willing to give me time off throughout the year so I would have the ability to travel. The first trip I took was the biggest, I went to Italy and France for two months to couch surf at my sisters and at my brothers. While I was traveling through Southern Italy, my eyes were opened in a whole new way to the poverty of the world. I had grown up in a comfortable middle-class family and I had not seen face to face the needs that are out in bigger world. I had always been involved in community service, with my parents, from a very young age, but for the first time I was confronted with true absolute poverty, people begging to have one more piece of bread. I felt my heart break inside of me. I would continue to labor under the misconception that this was simply a European problem until I came home and began traveling in my own country. For the first time I saw all around me people who were in a far worse place than myself, and I was astonished. When I did pursue a university degree I found myself wishing there was a way to be purposeful and organized in service work, and I ended up pursuing, and founding, a university-based Rotaract International chapter. That organization is the true pride of my undergraduate career, not my grades, honors, performances. What the organization now does is reach into the international community, where my eyes were first opened, raising funds, and serving as much as possible in the local community.
Why must I conform?
I told a group of people last night that I wanted to travel the world and get too many degrees. It may not be the most practical plan, but I was entirely serious. They took me seriously all for a moment, and then most laughed and said variations of this sentence: "well only until that special someone comes along, then it's all marriage and babies".
Hm, why is that always the answer in a girls life? If I want to have the aspirations to not get married and have babies, why is that considered odd, and something to be laughed at?
Now I'm sure the people who made these remarks did not mean them in a mean-spirited way, but I was slightly confounded for a moment. I'm not saying I'm trying to close my life off from what God has in store for me (please don't misinterpret it to mean that!) I'm merely saying, at this point in my life, I think God wants me to travel and study. I don't think I should be viewing my life plans through the filter of "eventually" getting married and having lots of babies. Right now I'm not looking for that special someone, I'm looking for what God's plan for me is, and right now, I think that plan has nothing to do with a special someone. Or babies. Because one assumes one requires the other.
What if: there is no special someone? Then I make all of my life plans based on the idea of eventually settling down only to be bitter and disappointed at a later date? What if: there is a special someone, but there's no babies? What if we spend the rest of our lives together traveling and working and having adventures? Why is there this idea of one path? We all think that way, the American Dream a mythical ideal is alive and well it would appear.
Hm, why is that always the answer in a girls life? If I want to have the aspirations to not get married and have babies, why is that considered odd, and something to be laughed at?
Now I'm sure the people who made these remarks did not mean them in a mean-spirited way, but I was slightly confounded for a moment. I'm not saying I'm trying to close my life off from what God has in store for me (please don't misinterpret it to mean that!) I'm merely saying, at this point in my life, I think God wants me to travel and study. I don't think I should be viewing my life plans through the filter of "eventually" getting married and having lots of babies. Right now I'm not looking for that special someone, I'm looking for what God's plan for me is, and right now, I think that plan has nothing to do with a special someone. Or babies. Because one assumes one requires the other.
What if: there is no special someone? Then I make all of my life plans based on the idea of eventually settling down only to be bitter and disappointed at a later date? What if: there is a special someone, but there's no babies? What if we spend the rest of our lives together traveling and working and having adventures? Why is there this idea of one path? We all think that way, the American Dream a mythical ideal is alive and well it would appear.
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