"The Vagina Monologues" at UNCG

Last weekend I had the privilege of participating, for the second consecutive year, in the UNCG Womens and Gender Studies Department sponsored performance of The Vagina Monologues.

This play, by Eve Ensler, is based on a series of interviews with women about - you guessed it - vaginas. The play is designed to confront the audience with various difficult issues surrounding women's bodies and sexuality. By turns hilarious, shocking, tragic, and titillating, the play has become part of an annual "V-Day" event for many colleges and communities, serving as the focus for fund-raising and consciousness-raising to fight sexual violence against women. To help keep these performances both fresh and relevant, Ensler writes a new "spotlight" segment each year to highlight current issues. Last year, for instance, she focused on the plight of New Orleans after Katrina.

This year's edition, directed by Kaleigh Malloy with the assistance of Noelle Avina, was performed last Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 2:00 and 7:30 by a talented and beautiful cast of UNCG students, staff, and faculty. Kaleigh chose to include two spotlight monologues: "Hey Miss Pat," a different one about New Orleans, and "Baptism," which confronts child rape in the Congo war. The shows went well -- except for the fire alarm going off in the middle of the Saturday afternoon run. Very disruptive. One of the most emotional pieces was interrupted, and the girl doing it was so stressed by being jerked out of character to leave the building, mill around aimlessly for ten minutes, and then resume where she had left off, that she dissolved into tears on completing her scene.

Attendance was quite respectable at all three shows, even the Saturday afternoon run that I had been a bit worried about. The audience was enthusiastic - the Saturday night crowd was definitely more responsive, laughing longer and more often at the funny bits. And we got a very nice write-up in the student paper The Carolinian.

I did the monologue about birth, "I was there in the room," as a dialogue with Noelle. It actually worked quite well as a dialogue. We imagined ourselves as mother and sister of the woman giving birth; we were in the hospital waiting room discussing the incredible event we had just witnessed. When our director saw me knitting at rehearsals she decided my character should knit. This was rather cool; however I was not very productive while in character because I was concentrating on my lines. For some reason actors in this play do not have to memorize their lines but read them from the script instead. I did memorize - for my own comfort level - but followed along in the script as backup.

Turning a monologue into a dialogue was one of Kaleigh's several directorial innovations. She also added a free-form movement piece as an introduction and used music to highlight transitions between monologues. Finally, instead of following the traditional red, pink, and black color scheme, performers were asked to choose costumes based on purple, brown, and dark blue and green. That's about as far away as you can get from red, pink, and black! I found it refreshing once I got over the shock.

Yes, the Vagina Monologues have come and gone. (Here I have to confess that all last week, I really wanted to go around saying "the vaginas are coming, the vaginas are coming." But that would have been unprofessional.)

Jenny's Winter Vacation in Germany

As most of you know, I visited Germany this January. Well, it was very cold and snowy, but absolutely wonderful and so I would like to share a little bit of the adventure with Jackson Leaks. Most of the time was spent in Berlin with family, of course, but I also rode the train through the former communist East Germany all the way to the north of Germany to visit the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, where my sister fortunately has a vacation house. This turned out to be the highlight of my vacation and is thus the topic for this post. The Baltic Sea is almost an inland sea, bordered by Sweden and Finland, etc., and thus much quieter than the Atlantic. The water at the edge of the shore therefore lapped gently over the firestones found there. The firestones arose from the chalks at the cliffs of Rügen, which were produced from the glaciers of the ice age covering the area for thousands of years. During our hike the sea was partially frozen and wild swans were swimming in the shallows along with some little black ducks. Behind the sandy beach tall reeds were growing, from which the locals make wonderful roofs for their houses. They are flammable, however, and during New Years Eve some fireworks went astray and one house actually burned up! Beyond the reeds there are steep cliffs in places and my sister Jutta and I hiked up a very tall cliff, from where the view was truly astonishing. The weather was grey and misty and on the beach there suddenly appeared two moving shadows in the distance. As they came closer they revealed themselves distinctly as a man with a horse. To our delight he was very sociable and told us all about his horse and his life on the island, many years of which were spent under communist rule. The horse's name is Janek and he is half Haflinger and half Norwegian. He was a very beautiful and gentle horse and the man, whose name is Siegfried Grutzmacher, helped each of us in turn onto it's bare back. Siegfried and I shared a cigarette and I almost fell in love. But then he and Janek slowly disappeared into the mist as mysteriously as they had appeared. It seemed like a dream, but I have pictures to prove it. All in all the sheer natural winter beauty of this island is a scene I will never forget. Although we did not actually visit the part with the chalk cliffs, you can catch a glimpse of this part by googling David Caspar Friedrich's "The Chalk Cliffs" of Rügen, a famous romantic painting. Other than that you'll have to make do with the few pictures attached below. Even so, you'll want to consider this island as your next vacation spot. If so, just let me know, as my sister's neighbor rents out some awesome apartments in a reed roof house near the beach!

I-Day 2009

Earlier this month I had the privilege to attend the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. People came out en masse for this celebration, making it an interesting weekend to be in DC. While I had originally planned to drive from Greensboro and leave my car at a lot in Arlington, the "powers that be" intervened and I ended up flying! After seeing the traffic reports, I'm glad that things turned out that way. I've visited the district on the 4th of July, which usually draws about 500,000 tourists from what I understand. However, a number of sources reported four times this number of people - around 2 million - attended Obama's inauguration and the related events. Fortunately, I have a number of friends in the area, so lodging was not a problem. We had to do a fair bit of walking, however, as the subway was packed. And I won't even talk about the taxi situation!


Festivities for my weekend included a concert on the Mall, an inaugural ball, and the official ceremonies on Tuesday. The concert was free, but so many people showed up that it was hard to get anywhere near the performers (located at the Lincoln Memorial). Still, thanks to the jumbo-tron televisions positioned on the Mall, we could hear and see just fine from our spot under the Washington Monument. On Monday night we attended the New Mexico State Society Ball at the National Museum of the American Indian. Though walking two-and-a-half miles in a full suit through freezing weather wasn't my idea of fun, the food, drinks, and music made it well worth the hike! The rest of our free time was spent visiting some museums and doing a little shopping. We didn't have official tickets to the inauguration on Tuesday, but once again the jumbo-trons were present. Under the shadow of the Washington Monument once again, we watched President Obama take the oath of office. While we may not have been very close to the podium, it was still a once in a life time experience. Politics aside, you got a special feeling - standing in a cheering crowd of millions of people, realizing you were watching history being made.


Visiting the district is always a delight, and this trip was no exception. While I could certainly deal with being able to taxi or metro places (not to mention eat at just about any restaurant), I was willing to make those concessions for this event. One thing we all noted was the positive attitude of everyone present. Throughout the weekend, National Guardsmen were posted on just about every street corner. However, it certainly didn't feel like a state of military lock-down as one might have expected. Rather, instead of being tense, everyone just seemed to want to come together and have fun. That's saying a lot - especially for that many people in a city like DC.

(Photos by Dean Rhoades)

Clouds over Jackson

I sent this image to the meteorologist at a local radio station who suggested that this was probably a high pressure ridge that found a low pressure "hole".

--Image captured January 7, 2009 at 5:17pm

Holiday party pics

The Holiday Party was certainly a success. Take a look at Irma's Flickr for more photos.

Have a happy holiday season! See you in the New Year!!!

Holiday Party Thank You's!

From Cheryl and Brown:
As we all sit in our cubicles struggling to stay awake after a great meal, we just wanted to say thanks to some people that really made today happen.

To the cleaning/setup crews, the folks that took pictures, and those who were just plain all around helpful:
Susan Wiesner
Anne Marie Taber
Mac Nelson
Pat Kelly
Erica Rau
Christine Fischer
Darinlee Needham
Vanessa Apple
Marcie Burton
Katherine Nunnally
Mary Jane Conger
Melvina Ray Davis
Dean Rhoades
Hannah Winkler
Jennifer Mincey

Thanks to the people that signed up to bring desserts:
Marcie
Mary Jane
Beth Filar Williams
Cathy Griffith
David Guion
Stefani Hobbick
Fairey Horton
Melvina
Amy Smith
Rachel Stinehelfer
Susan W.
Hannah Winkler
Cindy Zaruba
Sha Li Zhang
And special thanks to Rosann, Mike C., Karen, and Robin who were able to make this party work in spite of a tight budget. We had a great time, and we hope you did too.

From Kathy Crowe:
A big thanks to Brown & Cheryl and the Social Committee for pulling all this together in grand style!

Look Out Below!

For the duration of the Main Elevator portion of the renovation project, those of us on the second and third floors of the Main Building are asked to be considerate of the housekeeping staff by taking any large amounts of recyclables downstairs ourselves.

What is a "large amount"? Are you getting rid of phone books? Outdated paperback manuals? Clearing out that horde of plastic bottles/microwave meal boxes/soup cans? Got a bag of newsprint used as packing material? Did you order supplies or books & have boxes? Well, all of that is large.

Here's what to do: Take your commingled and cardboard recyclables down the front stairs [College Avenue entrance] to the designated areas in the basement. It is THAT SIMPLE. Keep reading for more specific information regarding what goes in a commingled bin and what to do with the cardboard.

CARDBOARD

For those individuals and departments that take the time to break down your boxes and take them to the cardboard bin outside the Mail Room - please continue to do so. Your efforts are deeply appreciated by the housekeeping staff.

For others - there is a designated area at the base of the front stairs [College Avenue entrance]. Please break down all boxes, even the teeny-tiny ones.

Susan Hendrickson is interested in any small-to-medium sized boxes for ILL packages. Please contact her directly.

COMMINGLED BIN

The following items are allowed in the commingled bins:
Paper:
Magazines,
Newspaper
Soft-back books
Phone books
neon colored paper
Glass:
Green
Brown
Clear
Aluminum:
Soda Cans
Cardboard
[please break down and put in designated area]
Plastic:
#1 Bottles
#2 Bottles
Steel:
Tin Cans
Aerosol Cans
Chipboard
(cereal boxes, etc.)

Thank you!