Off the Wall February 2012

NEWS 3 PHOTOS 9 POETRY 12 EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS 17

KATE VALLIMONT

The Sharp End of Eden

Endowment Overview

CHRISTIAN WAGNER

JAMES CRAWFORD

PHOTOS

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Off the Wall FEBUARY 2012

La Ville De Québec

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EDITORS’ NOTE Whoever said winter was a time of dormancy? There’s been lots happening in this neck of the woods and we’re pleased to share some of it with you here. There have been some intriguing, and at times quite provocative, conversations about the college’s endowment or our choices around carbon neutrality. There have also been all sorts of occasions to get dressed up and dance till...the cows come home?* Better yet, a climbing wall was built in the Witchcliff Garage and looks splendid with colourful foot-holds and old mattresses strewn on the floor.

I suppose winter has been rather disappointing weather wise – it feels more like early April than February – but that hasn’t stopped some from venturing off to find those real signs of this cold snowy season with tobogganing races, skiing adventures down mountains and through forests, or even visiting a place that embraces the beauty of winter in full, Quebec City.

And of course, there’s the usual melange of poetry and prose, photography and drawings, from the artists amongst us. So take what you will and share what you can. Watch the birds, and a sunrise every now and again, remember you live by the ocean, and breath deep – the softness of the earth coming to life is a beautiful smell. Happy reading.

— From the girls who eat pears and chocolate late into the night to get this done

*for a long and indefinite time (cows are notoriously languid creatures and return home at their own pace).

JULIA DESANTIS

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IN BRIEF

Student Photography Exhibit in the Yucatan GRAY COX

CHLOE CEKADA

Think there is not much snow at COA this year? At “COA-South” in our program in Mexico THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO SNOW! But there is a lot going on with the eight students there who are studying Spanish, the history of the Maya, contemporary anthropology, agriculture, dance, midwifery, equinotherapy, and all sorts of other stuff -- including photography.

Six of them took a photography workshop with Miguel Cetina Muñoz and were invited to mount an exposition of their work at a gallery in Merida, where the program is running. A photo of them is included here. A more detailed article is online in the Diario de Yucatan (http://www. yucatan.com.mx/20120126/nota-7/226698--mirada-extranjera-a-la-cultura-yucateca-.htm) The team who did the photos, including Nicole Evers, Anouk de Fontaine, Corinne Boet Whitaker, Chloe Cekada, Polly McAdam, and Kandyce Bartee (left to right in the photograph below) are planning to exhibit their work when they return to Maine in the spring. Write them now if you are interested in updates – though it may take them a while to reply because many are currently off in rural communities doing field projects.

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PHOTO CREDIT: BESSIMA MCGUIRE

One Classy Night MARIA ALEJANDRA ESCALANTE

The number of times I have heard people referring to this school as, “That hippie place where smiling barefoot students walk around hugging trees and partying around fires on a Friday night’ is almost unbelievable. And I don’t blame them, it is very true. But those people have probably never seen COA as a place of sophisticated, classy celebrations that might require a tie, a bow, and high heels. Trust me, we do have glittering parties here. At the end of last month, the Aurora Ball-ealis, a dance dedicated to the northern night sky and its lights, everyone was invited to dance off their polished shoes. But such events rarely occur, which must be why I saw so many girls fixing their hair and choosing the one and only right dress to wear.

When I entered Gates with my own high heels, I saw beautiful ladies dancing with handsome boys, and Sarah Luke, partying as if she had never left her twenties. Most dancers dressed formally, and of course some could not resist the temptation of donning extravagant outfits.

The night went by surprisingly fast because, well, we had so much fun. Big Dee, an incredible band, played classical jazz and swing, along with Frank Sinatra, Barry White, and Billy Joel. When I think of the Aurora Ball-ealis, I see friends dancing nonstop to an excellent saxophone solo, then pumping it up to “party rock is in the house tonight.” I see people drinking cider and eating strawberries bathed in chocolate.

It was such a good night!

WHAT’S NEW

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The Sharp End of Eden: Rock Climbing at COA CHRISTIAN WAGNER

PHOTO CREDIT: HAMIDA SHAHAB

Thoughts stop, fear stops, breathing stops - all is silent and immersed in the essence of simple movement. ‘Mindlessness’ is so often synonymous with carelessness but in this situation you are much more “mindless” than “mindful.” Your hands are thinking; your feet are calculating their next strategic move and yet your mind is forgotten- a mere hindrance to the present situation. Thinking here is certainly careless.

It is hard to say why we climb. What is it that happens in the time it takes for a rope to wind it’s way up a cliff face? For me it has always been about the little details: that one perfect crystal to stand on, the two finger pocket to hang from, the way brass has of sitting just right in the narrowing crack.

I live through those moments. They remind me on some primordial level of what is really at stake in our lives.

We all could use a wake-up call -- a little shot of adrenaline with our morning coffee. It’s too easy to get imprisoned by our minds, contract cabin fever of the soul. Lets get out there! Get to know the intricacies of the granite, the sound of the peregrine flying silently by, the view of the waves far below. Let’s make our way into the most unlikely of places, standing where few ever have. Most of all, let’s enjoy ourselves! Let’s tap into the perfection that only the details can bring us.

I think our new bouldering wall is a great launching point. I hope we can use that space and what happens there to build a strong climbing community once more here at COA. It existed in the past but has begun to fade in recent years and I am not sure why: The granite is still there, the same bold lines remain unclimbed, the same feats unrepeated. There is a whole world of challenge and excitement literally at our fingertips and very few of us get out to experience it.

COA’s new bouldering wall is located in the Witchcliff garage adjacent to the bike program space. All community members are encouraged to come use it daily. We would like to wholeheartedly thank Millard Dority and the B&G crew for supporting the project as well as Ryan Bouldin for his extraordinary contributions and encouragement.

So come on by for an hour or so. Give your self a daily challenge; meet new friends; go new places. You’ll be surprised what you might end up finding.

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Endowment Overview JAMES CRAWFORD

“

While the specifics of what we do here at College of the Atlantic can be hard to pin down, we pride ourselves in allowing for and encouraging a complete liberal education in the true and traditional sense of the term. A liberal education, one providing knowledge and study in science and literature, language and music, history and philosophy, was once considered a requirement for all active members of a society or community. Sadly, the practice and reputation of this tradition has waned in modern history, society instead favoring a more pointed and conservative approach to education, one which focuses narrowly on a career or particular skill set, ignoring its context in the greater world, or its application to greater problems. This shift has fostered the creation of entire office complexes of itemized jobs, being shuffled between itemized and categorized employees, no one person capable of seeing an issue from start to finish.

At COA, we strive towards the traditional liberal approach in both our operation and education. However, we are not simply a traditional liberal educational institution. While we share the same goals of education aimed at solving the world’s complex, multi-faceted issues head on, we do not venture willy-nilly into ancient lines of thought or spend years perfecting the art of oration and rhetoric like the liberal scholars of old. We instead take an active approach, teaching context and precedent in relation to an issue rather than taking up their study directly. Furthermore, we as an institution hold common particular values and expectations, particularly relating towards common stewardship and a general sense of sustainability. These traditions and values set up a pleasant yet functional bubble around the college community allowing an awareness of the narrowly focused conservative world at large but enforcing a sense of isolation from that reality.

Unfortunately, such bubbles do not exist; especially in the current reality of a globalized economy which values profits over all else and which often seems to actively attack the sensibilities of our institution. We do a remarkable job of engaging with the outside world in a way which supports and furthers our values, whether it be exercising purchasing power with our choice of food or office supplies, or our support of alternative energy solutions and efforts to mitigate climate change; these sustainable and socially responsible interactions are publicized and talked about whenever possible.

These are all excellent behaviors and deserve to be commended. However the consequence of this focus is a prevailing assumption that all of our interactions outside our community follow these standards. Every time a Dead River oil or propane truck sits idling on campus filling one tank or another; every time the IKEA logo is seen on the dishes in the residence halls; every time the dumpsters are emptied; the fallacy of this assumption is brought to light and yet it seems to remain. Perhaps these interactions are viewed as inevitable or as a necessary evil. Perhaps the notin-my-backyard mentality takes hold, allowing attacks on petroleum or multinational corporations or egregious waste management practices in general but prohibiting any action that might directly affect our quality of life. Perhaps both reasons are true; but perhaps we do not hold an assumption of purity as such. A third reason exists for the silent tolerance of these behaviors: a practical, achievable, accessible alternative is not currently available. Perhaps we hold the far more reasonable assumption of purity when and where possible.

Dr. Darron Collins, ’92 discussed with us on February 1st during ACM that as a non-profit educational institution we are subject to the oversight of a Board of Trustees. The main concern of the Board is the continued successful operation of this institution, a fact that has been questioned several times during our short history. To continually achieve this goal the board manages our endowment with the same feelings of fear and apprehension that I imagine prevailed at the start of this experiment and lingers to this day. Unsurprisingly, many of the risky, high-yield (but often controversial) practices associated with some larger academic institution’s investment behavior have been avoided in favor of a conservative, classic long-term investment portfolio favoring stability over growth.

Every time a Dead River oil or propane truck sits idling on campus filling one tank or another; every time the IKEA logo is seen on the dishes in the residence halls; every time the dumpsters are emptied; the fallacy of this assumption is brought to light and yet it seems to remain.

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“

The intricacies of these practices were discussed by Andy Griffiths at the ACM on February 8th, however, for the benefit of the reader previously unaware of these proceedings I will outline the facts. We have a formal endowment of about $26 million. About $22 mil. is invested in common stock through two money management firms, Eagle Capital Management, LLC. and Gardner, Russo and Gardner; each of which holds about half of the $22 mil. Neither firm is particularly well known, nor handles a particularly impressive total capital. The reasons for using these companies remain unclear, and although both companies have proven competence and the ability to provide the expected return on investment, neither has gone above and beyond the market indexes.

A further 3.2 million of the formal endowment is held by Eaton Vance, a well known investment counsel firm specializing in fixed income bonds, traditionally a conservative (safe) but low-yield investment option. Our portfolio with Eaton Vance consists of Corporate Bonds, Government and Agency Bonds, along with other fixed income sources. While Eaton Vance has not performed as well as the indexes would indicate, there are numerous factors influencing this fact, including unusual factors influencing the index and the fairly short period of time we have been with them.

The balance of the endowment is held in Internal Management, mostly in local banks. The particular stock holdings of Eagle and Gardner, Russo, Gardner were widely distributed a few weeks back. A number of people including myself can provide this information upon request, however I won’t go into those details here.

Student outrage at COA is fairly common. It’s a side effect of focusing on current events and playing catch up on context and precedent of an issue after our initial reaction to it. Therefore the student outrage surrounding COA’s stock portfolio was not surprising, nor was the scramble to figure out what those five pages of company names, prices and percentage points meant. Nevertheless, actual student interest and involvement is a valuable commodity here, so the number of people who showed up at 7:00 pm on January 26th to learn about the workings of the most classically conservative branch of our society was surprising.

A group of students pursuing a career in business or banking or investment at a conventional institution would have already known this information, the conversations explaining proxy voting or the importance of an endowment in the first place would have been largely unnecessary, however the information from discussions with the administration, or even access to the endowment information in the first place would have been impossible. There is no place in conservative education for wild brainstorming, and little space for comprehensive solutions.

Even more surprising though, was that after the initial shock of reality wore off and the facts started to make sense, the discomfort with how we manage our endowment didn’t just rumble off with the Dead River trucks, IKEA dishes, and dumpsters. Instead, there was a steely conviction to change our ways. We have the educational traditions and tools necessary to do what a conventional institution cannot. While everyone has their own unique interests, our diverse backgrounds and community fiber allows us to effectively look at the entire situation we are presented with, to grapple with the complexities of performance vs. image, to discuss the benefits of voting rights brought by holding potentially controversial stock, and to evaluate the conflicts between our investors attitudes and our own mission.

What we can do here at the College of the Atlantic cannot be done anywhere else. We can talk honestly with our trustee’s, hold open conversations with the administration, and most importantly have a real and effective dialogue about how we can maximize the work our endowment does for us and allows us to do, while continuing to improve the position of the college.

We have the educational traditions and tools necessary to do what a conventional institution cannot.

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PHOTO CREDIT: JULIA DESANTIS

Our Town JULIA DE SANTIS Zabet NeuCollins and Ben Moniz, as Emily and George, share sodas at the West End Drug Co. in Bar Harbor during a rehearsal for “Our Town.” All photos by Julia De Santis.

Our Town is Gina Sabatini’s very favorite play. And since her home here is possibly not all that different from the New Hampshire town where Our Town is set, it is a natural for her directing debut.

But it’s not really geography that makes Our Town special to Gina. It is the universality of the themes, the focus on family, on friendship, and on the basic love we have for each other. “Of all the plays I’ve read or been in or seen,” says Gina, “this one touched me so deeply and caused me to think about the people in my life.”

Ask her for a short summary, and she’ll say, “It follows two youths who grow up, fall in love, and deal with life loss. It’s a slice of life—but it’s everyone’s life. Everyone’s loved and lost someone.”

Gina has seen Our Town, and performed in it; but this is the first time she’s directed the play.

Each experience has been different. “When I was in the play, I was sixteen, and young love was potent. The thoughts of where life will take me, what life will teach me, and what the future will bring me were so strong. Now, I still identify with Emily’s character, but more about what she learns in the third act—things that can’t be realized in living time. I’m now more interested in trying to learn those things than when I was sixteen.”

The story, which was written by Thornton Wilder and first performed in 1938, works almost like a camera, focusing in on the small town known as Grover’s Corners between the years 1901 and 1913. By following a paperboy as he delivers newspapers through town, we meet many of the residents. Then we hone in on two families, the Webbs and the Gibbs, and their teenage children, Emily and George, who—naturally—fall in love.

The third act contrasts the rituals of daily life and the drama of individual lives with a more distant view, contemplating life’s continuity. Says Gina, “We learn that even years later, life in Grover’s Corners hasn’t changed, but how one sees and values what it means to be alive alters with time and circumstance. We all live and die, and the importance placed on those events help shape the kind of people we are and the lives we lead. What is it that so moves Gina? Lines like this one, spoken by Emily in the third act: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

“I want people to leave hugging their families,” says Gina.

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OFF-ISLAND

Baxter in the Dead of Winter Two weekends ago, which seemed to be the weekend for wintry things, seven silly skiers decided that heading to Baxter State Park in the bitter cold was the perfect getaway. For if there isn’t snow here, we’ll go find it elsewhere, was more-or-less the motto.

An essential piece of winter camping is gear and for the one-night trip we had enough layers to dress us for a week on campus.

Decked out in the highest fashion, bundled from head to toe, packs on our backs, skis on our feet, we were ready to hit the trails.

Once the only other vehicles on the roads were pickups and snowmobiles, we knew we were almost there. Katahdin was shining in her snowy glory and we oohed and awed at every turn in the road.

There was a lean-to somewhere in the woods that we expected to find and spend the night in. One wrong turn somewhere along the way and well, the sun was setting, and we pitched camp where we could. Stomped down the snow, started the stove, and tried to keep our fingers from falling off.

But we returned alive and happy with sweaty shirts, snotty scarves, rosy cheeks, and only a few frostbitten toes.

The morning was cold, -15F kind of cold! We woke to find tendrils of frost on our sleeping bags bordering our faces and snowflakes falling inside the tent every time we sneezed. Have you ever batted eyes with frozen lashes?

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OPINIONS

The Beautiful Game NATHAN THANKI

‘Everything I know about life I owe to football’ Camus once said. His words came to mind this past month or so as football events have made it to the non-sports sections of the papers. Here I want to focus specifically on two instances: a racism-row in the English Premier League, and a riot in Port Said, Egypt.

Let’s consider the Egypt case first. Maybe you saw the headlines. 74 people dead in a riot that broke out as Cairo’s Al-Ahly team played away to Port Said’s Al-Masry. A pitch invasion, street disruptions in Cairo, and very many manic headlines, all in quick succession. Had the sceptre of football hooliganism reared its ugly head in transitional Egypt?

It certainly seemed to have, and most of the early reports coming out of Egypt made mention of a group of hardcore Ahly supporters who seemed to have been in the thick of it: The Ultras.

Modelled on the sometimes political, often violent, and always volatile Italian Ultras, the Ahly faithful returned to Cairo with their wounded. In Port Said, though, they didn’t instigate the violence. It was their counterparts from alMasry’s fans. There’s always been bad blood between the two sides, nothing unusual in football. But this time, as their team were winning, the al-Masry ultras mounted a pitch invasion and the Ahly team ran for their lives. All hell broke loose, 74 people lost their lives.

Word spread to Cairo, where fans burnt the stadium in protest. Luckily, Al-Jazeera hired a writer who has spent years researching football’s relationship to politics around the world. He observed that it was the Ahly Ultras who were heavily involved in the Tahrir uprising. They were the only Cairenes who knew how to fight the police because they did it almost every week. They taught the Jan25 boys and girls how to throw Molotovs and what to do about tear gas. Essentially, it was they who—through football—challenged the regime. So it makes sense that the lingering regime (the SCAF military junta) would want to undermine and crush them. The security forces attempted to do this in a very underhanded (and therefore effective) way: make it look like the Ultras were destroying themselves, or at least each other.

Immediately after the tragedy in Port Said, Egyptian sources such as “We are all Khalid Said” and others from Tahrir were calling foul play. The Egyptian security forces had infiltrated the crowds, as they did during the January revolution. Similarly to January, criminals were used to cause mayhem. The police then sat back and did nothing to prevent the violence. A firm reminder to the politicised Ultras that the regime is still in power, and they’d better not get too uppity.

The second affair that suddenly threw light on the political nature of the sport actually began last year. Liverpool and Manchester United are two of the biggest clubs in the world and have a fierce but healthy historical rivalry. Things turned sour, though, when the captain of United, Frenchman Patrice Evra, accused Liverpool’s Uruguayan Luis Suarez of racism.

After a match in fall 2011, Evra came out to the French press saying that Suarez had racially abused him at least 10 times on the pitch. Suarez denied it. The FA fumbled around with

the issue, and it seemed destined to remain in the realm of football. Both players and clubs were insistent though, so a formal inquiry was launched.

Initially, the details of the incident remained clear. There was cultural confusion too: what constitutes racism (the exchange had taken place in Spanish). Had Suarez said “Negrito” or “Negro”? The public for a long time did not even know what the accusation was. The hearing found Suarez guilty, fined him £40,000 and banned him for 8 matches. But the issue had not been settled: the British media were baying for blood. The situation worsened last week when, after finishing his ban, Suarez rather foolishly refused to shake Evra’s hand in a pre-game ceremony. The Liverpool reaction to the incident was one of paranoia and was not very rational or settling (although in fairness the club has a history of being vilified in English media, just check the Sun’s infamous “they pissed on the dead” story after the 1989 Hillsborough stadium collapse). Both Club and player have since awkwardly publicly apologised for the conduct.

Now, it is worth my saying that I do believe Suarez’s conduct to be racist. He himself is not necessarily racist, but the language he used against Evra was (documents from the hearing reveal the two exchanged an “I do not speak to South Americans” and “I do not speak to blacks” after a kicking incident earlier in the match). That much is absolutely clear and he should apologise to Evra. He used it as a psychological impediment of an opponent which, while still detestable, is quite common. The English cricket team could have given him tips on how to whisper derogatory things to opponents during a game. The tabloids could pass him notes on how to blame everything on immigrants and ethnic minorities. He is in one of the most thoroughly racist nations on earth.

It is actually this blatant hypocrisy in the British mainstream that is the most upsetting issue. Op-eds, letters to the editor, public figures and the like all called for Suarez’s head on a stick, or at the very least his deportation back to that filthy little cupboard of Argentina. At first, one might think that the British don’t see their own racism, but that’s not it.

They see in perfectly because they’ve been practicing it for a very long time—with peaks of interest in Victorian times.

So how can it be zero tolerance for racism one day and zero tolerance for other races another? The answer lies in the Suarez example: sacrifices. Every once in a while, when it feels necessary, British racism repents by giving a sacrificial offering to the gods of fairness, equality, and tolerance. In that way Britain can go on viewing itself as a liberal democracy while still practicing racism. So long as the racism is stamped out of Luis Suarez, it can remain in football, in the courts, in the streets, and in the halls of government.

Football is more than just a sport. From its origins in working class English mill towns to the international relations game-show that it is now, from being used in Apartheid boycotts to sparking regional wars, and from being a rehabilitative game to being a tool of development, football has always been political. It really is the beautiful game. So in the future, look beyond the score line.

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CREATIVE WRITING

Stories from Behind the Kitchen Counter With Cara and Lara!

LARA SHIRLEY Once upon a time, there as a little girl who loved to eat. She ate all the time. She ate all day and all night. She ate and she ate and she ate, she ate and she ate and she ate, until out of frustration her parents finally asked her: Why do you eat so much? And she replied, I eat because it is knowledge.

Through eating, I learn about the world.

And indeed she did. Through eating, she learned about the world around her. She learned about exotic lands far away, spices and grains and fruits. She learned about her land, the history of it, the traditions. She learned about the importance of family and the joy of friends. She learned about art, and sophistication. She learned about pleasure. She learned about instinct, and she learned about love. She learned about sadness and about pain. And so she kept eating, and kept learning, until one day she stopped.

At this point she was no longer a little child, but a young woman. Her parents asked her, Why did you stop? And she replied, I have learned enough. I have eaten so much and learned so much so quickly – as much as a person should know in their entire life. It isn’t right to know any more than this. And she did not eat again, or speak again, until the day she died.

ABBY TURNER

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POETRY

We Stand ZOE ANDERSON We stand separated from earth by paved ignorance wondering how to find a sustainable equilibrium as our neighbors speed past our bare feet spewing petroleum on the flowering pathways of or intentions-wilting them before they reach the sun...

Pastoral Poem 2 JACOB WARTELL

Behold the Garden Gate of rusted chicken wire and woodscrap.

Behold the surgical tools hand trowel and scuffle-hoe that lean against it.

One might be tempted To button by button-up stiff jacket and set to delicate work.

Here, left unlatched, is the gate between life and death.

How about that?

A severe and humble honesty hangs aromatic in the yawning orange afternoon.

BeholdThe compost pile’s sweet acceptance, harvest basket, ball jar of parasite specimen for investigation, compost tea and herbal tea to fortify those to come and dwell within this body.

Composed of self-same elements, the clay oven, it bakes our field loaves and disinfects the bedclothes of sick.

And Brother Stu, with his gentle bedside manner, grins and groans, “Farmers and doctors wash hands up to their elbows.”

A cultivated understanding of bodies among bodies is never much more than prayers and salutations to help the herbs grow.

Behold, disease and decomposition as they reveal our finer essences and fertilize the ground for growth.

The bucket is full of wilted things, the barrow; of prosthetic stakes and patient observation.

All nourishment is medicine is self.

Breath cycles among people and plants.

Breath cycles among soil and its tonic possibilities in this, our body.

It never leaves.

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Untitled SPEC The day I scraped you Off the bottom of my shoe Had a name like Wednesday.

Or Sunday.

Or one of the Gregorian names Which echoed like granite When you spoke it In the empty church Of our crossed legs.

The day I scraped you Off the bottom of my shoe My last three fingers went numb And made a fist in my pocket Like clenched teeth.

The lizard skin tightening Across my bone wire cage.

The day I scraped you Off the bottom of my shoe Felt a lot like laying in itchy grass With no one but the impatient heat to trust.

The day I scraped you Off the bottom of my shoe Two things hung like Crooked picture frames Deep down near the floor Of my bottom feeding mind.

The day I scraped you Off the bottom of my shoe I learned to wish words were spelled backwards So when I said them They could untie themselves From my tongue So you didn’t have to.

The day I scraped you Off the bottom of the shoe Was the day I learned Sometimes I have to walk crooked To see straight.

Requiem, Effingham Road NATHAN THANKI The house is sold —four hundred and fifteen thousand— and so goes forty years of assimilation.

I was told, by my father and his brother, of the day it was bought.

What was the name of that Irishwoman?

You can sell a house in a week in London, it’s the demand, Can’t build ‘em fast enough.

Given eight weeks, and it’s out of our hands.

All the houses on the ladder used to have servants —servant rooms, servant doors, servant bells.

And for forty years a Guju family had this one; an institution of horrific carpets and the smells of rotli and dalh bhat, as Thatcher through Cameron robbed the poor to feed the fat.

JULIA DESANTIS

Where will I get the tube if not Turnpike Lane?

What bus if not the N29?

But how could I ever miss Wood Green, How on earth could I call it ‘mine’?

The same is true of London.

The same is true of anything, anytime.

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Things That Bother Me KATJA FLÜKIGER I hate the shiny airport chairs.

More, I dread them.

What were people thinking?

There is no way one could sit comfortably on these things.

But other than that I’m not bothered easily except maybe by a few things like: people shining in my face with a torch the dying plants on my grandmothers’ porch the cold the heat goat meat when technology does not work the way I want the word ‘jaunt’ my cheek-pinching aunt saying goodbyes black flies pugs ugly mugs vampires flat tires ghosts burnt toast being tired not being hired smalltalk people trying to imitate the moonwalk getting punched in my face being last in a race races braces wearing my glasses not seeing anything the overhead lights in new housing when it rains after it snowed forgetting my password forgetting how to solve the Rubik’s cube empty toothpaste tube big cars wars fake snow tight speedo removing make-up cleaning up wake up warm up work out sauerkraut brussel-sprout

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losing bobby pins carved pumpkins burnt caramel the Bible a floury apple people being sarcastic in messages nail breakages brushing my hair polluted air having a cold managing a household nausea Windows Vista tourists dentists mullets paper cuts forms norms the new Twilight Shaun White the magic conch shell in Spongebob when things fall behind my bed when skinny people say they are fat kids on aero-planes kids on trains chemistry tapestry the girl who killed my hamster failure Mac’s wheel of doom an occupied bathroom when people say no to everything offered to them just because they are too polite my height chocolate with almond the Great Spoon Island when pens get lost when pens don’t work when people borrow my pens when people break my pens however I LOVE airports and pens

BRONWYN CLEMENT

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La Ville De Québec A weekend of French immersion at the largest winter carnival in the world!

Getting lost in foreign countries?

Always good to have a map.

There is just so much one can do with good ol’ maple syrup. Pour it on the snow, watch it freeze, roll it up, and make your own sugary sweet maple popsicle.

In Quebec there are only two seasons: winter and the month of July. If you lived in that kind of cold all year long, you’d dress the same.

Sipping mulled wine out of icecube glasses, what could be classier than that?

Where else does one find snow sculptures of giant roses?

Need I comment? This is Graham.

Riding a horse. An ice horse.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS & EVENTS

Events SOMALI REFUGEE DISCUSSION

Friday, February 17 at 4:10 to 5:30 Editors of Somalis in Maine and two community members talk about the Lewiston Somali community.

McCormick. amuscat@coa.edu.

PLACING THE MARK | MARKING THE PLACE

Friday, February 17, at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m.

Two showings of a short documentary pilot on our own Nancy Andrews and four other Maine artists, followed by discussions. Made by COA students with David Camlin. McCormick.

A NATIONAL STRATEGIC NARRRATIVE

Monday, February 20 at 4 p.m.

Capt. Wayne Porter, co-author of a riveting article on US defense strategy reflects on his ideas. Gates. Jamie McKown 207-801-5718; jmckown@coa.edu.

HOW AMAZONIAN CHILDREN ASSIST THE FOREST

Tuesday, February 21, from 4:10-5:30 p.m.

Constanza Ocampo-Raeder talks about the Peruvian Amazon for the Human Ecology Forum. McCormick. John Visvader at 207-801-5715, or jav@coa.edu.

BIRD WALK

THE FUTURE OF AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES

Wednesday, February 22 at 4 p.m.

Do Our Cultural Beliefs Matter? asks Martha Crump, PhD, noted amphibian researcher and author of numerous books for general audiences and scholars. A special Human Ecology Forum. McCormick. Steve Ressel at sressel@coa.edu,207-801-5723.

DONATION MARKET

Wednesday, February 22 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Bring unneeded clothes and goods to redistribute to those who might need. No plastic bags, please. Deering Common. Ana Puhac at apuhac@coa.edu.

OUR TOWN

Friday and Saturday, February 24 and 25 at 7:30, Feb. 26 at 2 p.m.

Thornton Wilder’s classic play, directed by Gina Sabatini. Yet another in COA’s recent series of great theater productions. Donations.

TELLING STORIES IN MIXED MONOTYPE

Saturday, February 25 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Alumna Dina Petrillo offers a printmaking workshop with Dru Colbert in. $25. Information: dnpetrillo@gwi.net or 338-8000. Registration: Gabriela Niejadlik:gniejadlik@coa.edu.

Wednesday, February 22 from 1 to 2 p.m.

Anna Stunkel ’13 knows COA birds and where they hang out. Dress for the weather, bring binoculars if possible. Dorr. astunkel@coa.edu; 288-5395.

Exhibits DORR MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

BIOLOGY THROUGH THE LENS

Through March 10 Creative natural history photography.

THE FACES OF MIGRATION

Through March 10 Illustrations of birds on Great Duck Island

by Jordan Chalfant ‘12 and Anna Stunkel ‘13.

Donation.

Also dioramas of local animals, tidepool creatures, sounds of the wild and gift shop.

Donations suggested. 288-5395, www.coa.edu/dorr.

“TWISTING IN THE QUINCE” DINA PETRILLO

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DONATION MARKET:

remember that dress?

SPREADING THE SPIRIT OF GIVING

those shoes...

e s l e e n o some NEEDS all final donations u o y t a h go to charity w don’t use e r o m t ’ y n n a desk lamp a ave n i you h them d e s u ile a wh

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Wednesday you might even find something Febuary 22Nd you like for January 25th, 2012 yourself!

4 to 6 pm Somebody College of the Atlantic else can love Mr. Teddy Deering Common info: sustainabledesign@coa.edu