PSA

Sooooooo, I'm extremely tired. And busy all the time. This blog is interfering with my work/fun so I will only be posting every few days or with special occasions/events. I really like having the long descriptive blogs and I think I will really appreciate them in 5 years but as of now it's too much. Sorry if you were actually interested and whatnot lol.

Telephone

So here's a poem I wrote in seminar on the phones in the Telluride House and I.


That phone really interests me because it is a means of communication. It probably connected to another line within the house and served as an intercom.
Intercommunication.
I too am a communicator. I send and receive language to everything that uses me as an intercom.
Intercommunication. The telephone is broken. I wonder why? It seems like it's been a while since a soul touched the dial. In this way, I am different from the telephone.
I do not require regular use or a maintenance man to ensure that I am operating smoothly. The phone is black. So am I. In this way I am different from the phone. We are both black but I don't think someone would follow the phone around JCPenney suspiciously just because it was wearing a hoodie. Or to choke the breath from the microphone even as it whispers that it can no longer breath and is approaching death.

Both black but different. As for what the phone was for, I don't truly know.
and in that way, the phone and I are very much the same.

4

Sooooooo, let me just start by saying today was a crazy day. It begun normally with breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and seminar. It was after lunch during our free time that life got hectic. Like 12 of us decided to go to downtown Ithaca. We just left without an inkling of a clue where we were going. We took pictures at the Cornell sign, visited the waterfall, got ICEES (I just got ice) (because it's free) and walked around. Well, Ithaca is a very steep hilled terrain. So walking can easily turn from a nice stroll to a constant battle between you and gravity to keep your body up while walking down at like 90 degrees. So we are just walking and strolling for at least 40 miniutes and we happen upon downtown Ithaca. Yayyy. We saw an art store and a Starbucks (more free ice).  It was at Starbucks that I realized how hungry I was from not truly eating lunch earlier. I remembered that I have a $5 gift card to McDonalds that would be great for the occasion. Because it is hot and everyone is tired no one really wants to go with me but two of my friends end up coming.  I always thought there was a McDonalds on every corner. WRONG. We walked for TWO HOURS to get to this Mickie D's. Now that sounds ridiculous, but that's because it is. My friends phone told us the restaurant only took 40 minutes to get there which in our minds was nothing because we had already walked a similar distance and that wasn't so bad and we would see stuff along the way so why not? Why not? Allow me to explain why not. Ahem. The terrain. Going up hill for a mile will take 80 years longer than just a plain mile. Also, no one told us that Elmira Road is like the Pierson Road of Flint. IT DOESNT END. So yea it took us 2 hours, 2 mormon witnesses with poor senses of direction, some frantic white lady at a stop sign who almost sent us outta town, a lot of ice and a broken Siri to get to McDonalds. We kept thinking "Oh it'll be right around the corner....any minute know....I think I see it......it's coming..." No. It was not coming. Not to mention we were all wearing cheap, flat sandals. Can you say "blisters"? Because our feet sure can. When we finally arrived we were pleased to see that the customer service was good. Shout out to Alex from Elmira Road McDonalds for making me feel like the adventure had purpose and that I wasn't absurd for my choice in endeavors. So thanks Alex. The walk back was worse. I was dehydrated and full and exhausted so I was waaayyy behind the other girls. So behind that we had to cross the street separately. As a matter of fact, when we joined up we saw a bus headed straight for where we needed to go. It was across the street at a light and betwixt us was like 4 lanes of fast heavy traffic. The light had just turned green for the right-of-wayers and they hadn't really moved yet so I ran after the bus. My friends called me like nooo but I was already halfway across the street. I kinda hopscotched about it because I wanted them to come with me. Some car started honking REAAAAALLLY loud and i got scared so I ran really fast to the bus. In this sprint, my phone jolted from my bag and crashed to the asphalt. Everything fell apart, my screen busted for the first time (I cried) and some jackass called me a bitch. So I was pretty distraught for like the next hour considering that all went down within like less than 10 seconds. But thank God that we all had 1.50 and the bus literally took us straight home in like 15 minutes. We even beat our other group back to the meeting spot. After that it was just dinner, poetry, nail painting, a presentation and partying. Curfew wasn't until 1:30 so the turn up was real lol. Sadly, the screen of my phone is so acutely cracked that glass keeps coming off on my finger. And on top of allllllllll that, I lost my brand new, 7 dollar, quality, cute headphones. It wasn't the best day but it is what it is ya know.

Love, your favorite sporadic teenager,
Cam L.B

3

Sooooooo, today started pretty cool. I had another bagel for breakfast. I also made a mocha from coffee, hot chocolate mix, ice and creamer. It was bomb. Our seminar too, was bomb. Today the discussion was mostly based on the reading from Just Above My Head but we also touched on subconsciousness, speech-act, emotional outlets, amphabrachs, nostalgia, apostrophes (not the punctuation), fraternity and substance abuse. The discussion seemed to fly faster than yesterdays but that might have been a result of my mocha. Our lunch was BBQ chicken and some other stuff. I didn't really care for the sides but the chicken and fruit were great. Dinner was similar with chinese food. I think it was a little too good for me lol. I'm so used to hypertension ridden american cuisine that I couldn't truly appreciate this genuine Chinese food. I tried tofu. I didn't like the consistency so I wont be doing that again. After lunch all of TASS went to hang around campus and sight see. We went to the Cornell Store (prices were through the roof) and Starbucks, art galleries, churches, and we almost went back to the house but a few of us wanted to hit College Town because we had so much time left. We went to another merch store (prices were through the roof), Dunkin Donuts, 7-11, the waterfall and some bagel place. It was a lot of fun and I'm happy I went. I ended up buying some snacks for my room and a small gift for my squad back home. I also got myself a cheap (but nice) Cornell pen to take notes with. We took quite a few pictures. Because we spent "extra time out" we really had to hit the books hard when we got back. Today's assignment was 112 pages of a novel with notes. I got probably a solid 80 done in one sitting. I will leave it up to your imagination how the rest went. After dinner and work and what not we had our community forum where we meet as a house and discuss how we feel and both our positive and negative experiences. Today's was fun and light-hearted and we even went around and shared some of our favorite things in life. In our chill time I have been picking up ping pong and I'm actually getting good at it. It's really fun to me and I have a hard time stopping just because I'm competitive. We kinda partied downstairs until curfew and played ping pong, pol, twister and just danced to close out the day. But if you wanna know something that really scared me....listen at this. I was walking upstairs from the basement and it was dark. Keep in mind this house is over a hundred years old and has many dark areas and open doors and whatnot. I had shoved my phone and speaker (both were on) into my purse and headed up stairs. As I'm walking out of nowhere I hear BUM BUM BUM BUMBUM BUM BUM OOOUUUUU. It's Kanye West's Jesus Walks blasting from my lower body (actually my purse) and I get scared so I started sprinting in the dark around the foyer to get up the stairs (the closest well lit area). I dang near spilled my water. And my stool. By the time I realized it was only the mighty Yeezus I was near my group (who were very confused on why I was out of breath and frantic). But yea that wasn't even funny, like I'm still recovering. And people keep mentioning ghosts like its funny but I swear, if they keep it up I'm gonna need an escort everywhere for the next 5 weeks because I don't do dead. Dead aint for me. Dead needs to stay where its at- dead. But you know I got Jesus with me and he did not give me the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So it's all gonna be fine.

Love, your favorite sporadic teenager,
Cam L.B

1 and 2

Sooooooo, I arrived yesterday evening around 7 pm (2 hours late) at the Telluride House at Cornell University. I met my factota Becca, first and she helped me with my things. I immediately noticed her large Africa shaped earrings, I wanted to ask where she got them but there were more important matters afoot. My family came up to the third floor (so many stairs) and kinda watched me unpack. It was probably the most awkward encounter i have ever endured. They just kinda stated the obvious and looked around. Everyone was very tired and kind of unsure of what to do next. I tried to boost morale by moving quickly and with excitement as well as by talking about how great everything was going to be but nothing seemed to relieve the tension. I ended up going to take my own personal tour of the house by myself that night because I got hungry. I learned that the kitchen is open. Anyone can come in anytime to get something out of the leftovers fridge or a cabinet. There's also a ice machine and PURIFIED water. That's huge to me considering just last summer I stayed 2 weeks at an institution whose water tasted of copper and other minerals. And the food.......shut-the-front-door good! Everything handmade from scratch by two really cool guys. I was in there for water and I saw him actually peeling and cutting the potatoes for mashed potatoes. We have healthy and nutritionally valuable meals. Like today, for dinner I had pork chops, mac and cheese, steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes and brownies. There is always juice, water, chips and fruit available at any time as well. There is also a refrigerator for people who go and buy their own stuff they want to keep in the house. I had kitchen duty today after lunch and was alright. We just put away food, dishes and sweep and what not. Basic maintenance. Speaking of lunch, we had some chicken fried rice and to my surprise it was more than good it was majestic. Of course you can't replace American Chinese cuisine but this stuff was homemade AND good so kudos. This morning I had my first seminar and it was just so great. It was nothing like a typical classroom setting. We all sat in a circle in a room open and lighted by the outside. We have two professors; one a professor from Ethiopia and the other a poet-timetraveler-activist-feminist-trap queen- award winning author-professor. (Yes, she called herself a trap queen....it was hilarious). The first assignment was to choose an aspect of the house we like and write 4 sentences on it. Then for 10 minutes we used those 4 sentences to write randomly. I wrote about these old broken black phones that are in most of our rooms. My writing turned poetic very quickly which turned out to be a great thing for discussion. Everyone shared their randomness and then we began our material. We touched on topics like culture appropriation, space for failure, perspective, code switching, poetry, Thomas Jefferson, iambic pentameter, patterns in black girls names, arts & crafts, critical white gaze, and soooo much more. We really just had one big conversation and learned from each others experiences and opinions. I can confidently say I learned more about the world in that one 3 hour seminar than one week in history class at school. Many of my fellow TASSers agreed. We took a tour of the campus. It was hot. The view is beautiful and the opulence of the campus' architecture cannot even be put into words. The landscape is like all hills therefore my legs ache. We got our Cornell ID's (I took a good picture) and took group pics. We also read book one of James Baldwin's Just Above My Head. I have never been around teens so driven to learn and get things done. They wanted to read ahead have group discussions and read together and everything. At the end of today we met as a group and watched the video K.I.N.G by Astro. It was about ignorance in the African-American community. That turned into a discussion about black hair, culture appropriation, activism, stereotypes, grey areas (open intervals), music, individuality and celebrity influences on behavior. Now I'm with my roomie, near asleep, waiting for the shower to open so I can write/read myself to sleep in comfort.   So I had a great first day in the regards that dinner was bomb, the seminar (and the professors) rock, the other TASSers are unlike any other rising juniors I have ever met and my roommate is cool. I will try to keep this up and post at least every other day but mannnnn....lol, we'll see.

Love, your favorite sporadic teenager,
Cam L.B

Mid-day Excitement about My Trip

TASS starts in 21 days, 9 hours and 41 minutes in counting! I am soooo excited. For those who do not know I will be attending a 6 week residential summer seminar at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (TASS). The focus of my particular seminar is African-American art, literature and what not. Here's a excerpt from the brochure.
"This course will examine contemporary African American creative arts and critical thought. We will consider a variety of genres including poetry, fiction, memoir, and visual art to examine African American life. Among the thematic questions we will ask in the course are: How are African Americans defining themselves and shaping our contemporary world? What is the changing meaning of race in contemporary American life and culture? How does race intersect with other markers of identity like gender, sexuality, and class in defining African American identity? We will explore the close relationship between form and content, aesthetics and politics, the individual and the collective, and other generative dyads that inform African American arts and letters. "
Anyways, I have begun shopping and preparing for my departure and I cannot wait to go. I know this will be a great experience. And if anyone just wants to donate to my pocket change it would be much much appreciated!

http://www.tellurideassociation.org/programs/high_school_students/tass/tass_program_locations.html