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(12/13/04 4:24am)
Just to give you an idea just how much time Willie Nelson spends playing: he's had the same guitar his whole career and, because he never used a pick guard, he flat out wore a hole through it. \nLast Thursday night, the IU Auditorium's audience saw the now-senior citizen and perpetual outlaw of country music play a solid hour-and-a-half concert covering everything "Me and Paul," telling about his early years on the road with drummer Paul, all the way up to the Hoagy Carmichael classic "Georgia On My Mind."\nThe sold-out house led to some interesting coincidences of birthdays and relatives being in the same place and not even knowing it.\n"When he played 'Crazy,' that was the song that really made me go 'awwwwww,'" said Lou Anne Hanson, who works at the IU Career Development Center.\nLou Anne was at the concert Thursday night with friends celebrating her upcoming birthday. She said she really enjoyed the performance, including one of Nelson's oldies. Lou Anne was also impressed with the fact that Nelson is still touring when he is over 70-years-old.\n"I can't believe he's in his 70s playing for two hours straight without sitting down," Lou Anne said. \nPam Sprong went to the show with Lou Anne. Pam works for Residential Programs and Services and owns several of Nelson's albums. She enjoyed Nelson's affection for his audience. She also said her favorite part was at the end of the concert where he came up to the edge of the stage and started shaking hands and giving out autographs.\nPam and Lou Anne were celebrating one birthday. In a strange coincidence, Lou Anne's nephew Ben Hanson, a 22-year-old Bloomington resident who is an avid Nelson fan, was also at the concert celebrating the birthday of one of his friends. The funny thing is this: Neither Lou Anne nor Ben knew the other was at the show until they started talking about it at a Saturday night birthday party for Lou. \nBen said he has always felt a close relationship to Nelson because of the way he feels Nelson portrays such an honest country persona. Ben said he likes traditional country music. And you can't get much more country traditional than a man, who, with Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash, has come to be called one of "The Outlaws" of country music. The reason for that "outlaw" nature comes in that the group got tired of Nashville, Tenn. telling them what they could record and what they couldn't, so they left Nashville., the so-called mecca of country music. Ben says he admires Nelson's commitment to doing his own thing in the ever-increasing trend of a pop country music culture that avoids the hard-core issues that were so much a part of traditional country music. Another thing Ben admires is Nelson's compassion for down-home country. Nelson's dedication to Farm Aid, a group dedicated to keeping family farmers on their land, is an example of Nelson's love for country. \n"It just goes to show how much (Nelson) cares about that way of life and his roots," Ben said.\nAll in all, people who showed up Thursday night to watch what many have called an American country icon perform songs that ranged from classics like "Crazy" and ballads of a troubled past like "Me and Paul," got exactly what they paid for: A great show.
(12/10/04 5:26am)
The IU Auditorium and School of Music joined forces Wednesday night when the IU Singing Hoosiers took the stage with the support of the Wind Ensemble for yet another of IU's traditions -- "The Chimes of Christmas."\nLast night's performance, part of the Singing Hoosiers' 55th season, was marked by many highlights that caused audience applause to start as a low, rustling grumble and grow into a loud roar, which drowned out the brass of Handel's "Messiah."\nTwo things that impressed me the most deal with two aspects of the Singing Hoosiers: their precise choreography and their talented vocals.\nIn one number called "Parade of the Toy Soldiers," a group dressed in white tails with cream and crimson band caps pantomimed what could be interpreted as a bunch of small children celebrating the joy and innocence of the yuletide season. They were tempered by the serious, real-world presence of their commanding officer who shook a finger at them and left them all quaking in their tuxes. The whole act was accompanied by the voices of the Varsity Singers.\nAs a solo comic relief number done atop the lap of Santa Claus, alto Amy Linden, a sophomore, sang "My Simple Wish" telling, rather than asking, Santa she wanted to be rich, famous and powerful. Her vocal ability ranged from something of the low wind-up of a Broadway belter accenting a lyric for laughs to the climactically clean finish.\nIn barbershop quartet-style harmony, juniors Gerold Schroeder and Daniel J. Yarzebinski sang tenor, junior Nick Steele sang baritone and sophomore Matthew Paris Rhodes sang bass in a wonderful rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." It always amazes me when singers in a duet, trio or group are able to stand right next to each other, stick to their part and ignore the other parts to stay in key. I guess it comes down to knowing your music backward and forward.\nI think with the quality chimes I heard last night, it's safe to chime in myself and say "The Chimes of Christmas" was a great way to put everyone in the mood to walk around with their fellow man to wish everyone a "Cool Yule"
(12/09/04 5:47am)
The square-dancing "Bucks and Does" of Nashville, Ind. perk up their ears, and raise their tails when they hear the sound of the music they love. The music starts at 7 p.m. every Wednesday night when Joe De Wees' feet trot around the linoleum floor of the Brown County Historical Society. He and his wife Amelia De Wees are dancing, along with 50 other people, in tandem, with a caller shouting instructions to him and the rest of the dance floor. As he glides across the tile, his black, thick soled shoes have the ease and limberness of Fred Astaire. You can see his 35-plus years of experience clearly.\nBrown County resident Phyllis Ping is the club historian. She said the club was first formed in 1970 and since then, its mission has been to get area residents involved in square dancing. The lessons start in October, and each cycle includes 24 to 26 lessons until May when the new students graduate and become full members of the Bucks and Does club.\nThe older couple usually teaches the new dancers how to square dance, which can be comical for the vets. Joe De Wees said he and Amelia De Wees were there when the current presidents of the square dancing club, Ed and Romelle Schoff, first joined in 1997 after Ed Schoff retired as a science teacher from Lafayette-Jefferson School District. \n"We made fun of how slowly they learned, and then all of a sudden, they took off like a house on fire," said Joe De Wees said. \nHe said picking up square dancing happens pretty fast and a dancer's experience level is not a factor in picking up the moves.\nPicking up a new language is the same as learning a new dance. Learning this language is something that each club member practices each week.\nThat's where George Wiseman enters the conversation by getting everyone on the same page. Wiseman is the club's instructor and he's been driving down to dance every week for more than 25 years. It's his job to teach the students a language they can all use.\nThe phonetics of square dancing consist of where dancers and their partners should stand, or what a Do-Si-Do is, or how to Left Allemande followed by "Load the Boat -- Sink or Float." Sometimes for kicks and giggles at the sight of the already floundering students, Wiseman will make participants dance with sacks on their feet, or wear blindfolds. Though learning the dance is a process, the students who have gone through it before, now called Angels, tutor new students as they begin to master a new form of dance. \n"I've seen practically crippled people do this," Joe De Wees said speaking of Angels and students who Do-Si-Do with false hips and knees.\nThough the Schoffs were a little rusty when they started out, square dancing has been a longtime love for the couple.\n"We originally belonged to a square dance club when (Ed) was a student at Purdue in the 1950's," Romelle Schoff said. "When we retired and moved to Brown County we seen in the paper they were giving square dancing lessons and we fell in love with it again."\nShe is passionate about square dancing and goes to the lessons wearing classic square dancing attire. \n"We wear the typical square dancing outfits," Romelle Schoff said. "A lot of girls have gone to wearing the prairie skirt, but we like to emphasize that this should not keep anybody away in case they don't want to wear the typical square dancing outfit."\nRomelle Schoff said she enjoys the people she meets square dancing, but also likes other aspects of her hobby. \n"I like it, because it is good exercise, it is good cardiovascular exercise," she said.\nWhile the De Weeses enjoy dancing largely for its ability to keep them young, another reason why the Schoffs like it is the sense of community it brings on the international scale, they say. Square dancing has increased the number of people Ed Schoff knows inside and outside of the United States by 100-fold, he said. One reason the Schoffs have met so many people is through going to national square dancing conventions every year -- Portland, Ore. is slated to play host in 2005.\nThe sites are chosen in a manner similar to that of the Olympics or political conventions. Between 20,000 to 40,000 from all over the world attend. But while square dancing is an international hobby, its dictionary is written in English. \n"All square dancing in every foreign country is taught in English," Romelle Schoff said. "It is an American dance; no matter what country they are in, they all call in English. So know matter what country I go to I know it will be called in English." \nBetty Richards is a Smithville resident who's been taking the Wednesday night lessons since 1990. She takes the almost hour-long journey down state Route 46 because she likes the quality and the character of people she meets through square dancing, she said. She feels she can trust her fellow square dancing afficionados, and that is what draws her to the activity.\nThe quality of people is something that Joe and Amelia De Wees came to rely on a few years ago when they lost a son. Amelia De Wees said it was a heartbreaking experience, but the couple credits square-dancing friends with helping the De Weeses to get through the situation.\n"We're like a family. If one hurts, we all hurt," she said. "That's the way our square dancing group is."\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon S Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.
(12/09/04 5:30am)
The crooning of country-western star Willie Nelson will fill the IU Auditorium at 8 p.m. tonight when he performs as part of his latest tour.\nThe visit marks Nelson's second time at IU. Director Doug Booher said the IU Auditorium has been looking for a way to get Nelson to come back since his last performance in 2001. The chance came up earlier this fall when a promoter offered Nelson up for the auditorium's taking.\nNelson will also sign his new Christmas CD from 4 to 5 p.m. today at Texas Roadhouse, 110 Franklin Road.\nNelson's publicist Abby Oliver said Nelson is on his third tour bus -- this one called "Honeysuckle Rose III." Oliver said Nelson is living out of his tour bus most of the time. He only stops when it's golf time, Oliver said.\nBorn April 30, 1933, in Abbott, Texas, Nelson and his sister were raised by their paternal grandparents who encouraged both children to play music. He began writing songs in elementary school and played in bands as a teenager. After high school, Nelson served a short stint in the Air Force, but music was a constant pull.\nBy the mid-fifties, he was working as a disk jockey in Ft. Worth, Texas, while continuing to try and make it big in the music business. Along the way he wrote some songs that others made famous -- such as "Crazy" sung by Patsy Cline.\nEarlier this year, Nelson embarked on a warmly received tour of minor league baseball parks with Bob Dylan. He recently played Farm Aid in Seattle, an event he continues to support after co-founding it in 1985. Last year found him enjoying yet another No. 1 single, this time a duet with Toby Keith titled "Beer For My Horses." He also had a second USA Network special became the highest-rated live musical event in the history of cable television. With four Grammy nominations, 2003 proved to be a fruitful award year for Nelson, who also earned a President's Merit Award and a Grammy Legend Award.\nIn order for IU Auditorium shows to be successful, Booher said he must not only find acts which fit the venue's size, but also are something attractive to the IU and Bloomington area communities. \nBooher said despite Nelson being a country-western singer, he fits in well with the college-town audiences Bloomington has to offer.\n"He has significant cross-over appeal," Booher said. "(Nelson) is a tried and true country artist. With this combination, we are able to draw enough audience to make the show a successful one."\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.
(12/08/04 4:37am)
Meeting people isn't a problem for me. I know plenty of them because I'm an extrovert who thrives off the energy I get from other people. If I walk the 20 yards from my office in Ernie Pyle Hall over to the Union to get a cup of coffee, I have to plan on taking at least 30 minutes roundtrip because of all the people on my "Say Hello To" list. I spend every day of the week having lunch with somebody. And whether it's cards or watching the latest Ken Burns film with friends, my nights are pretty full, too. Some of my colleagues even told me yesterday that they want me to write a column next semester called "Brandon Morley Knows Everybody," and then talk about all the stories I've collected from people and how they are representative of larger themes in society. That sums up how easy it is for me to get to know people. But that's "people," in the plural, not "someone" in the singular.\nI say singular because that's who I am. Single. I don't really know why. All the people I work with seem to have significant others. All the people I hang out with seem to have significant others. I'm usually the only one in a group who's single. Don't get me wrong, the single life has its distinct advantages -- I do whatever I want with little regard for what others think. But I've been doing that for a pretty long time. And it surprises me that with the amount of people I socialize with, or the amount of people I meet everyday, or the ease of my ability to socialize, that special someone really hasn't turned up.\nI've dated a couple of people before, sure. Well, at least I think I dated someone. I don't really know for sure. We went on four or five dates. They were usually spent eating and then watching a movie or television back at my place. It gave me a taste of what it was like to have somebody to regularly hang out with, share with, plan with and just have an all-around good time putzing. Then both Saturday night and the phone call came: "Brandon, you're a really great guy. But you're too easy to fall in love with, and I don't want to be trapped always wondering what was behind me."\nLots of people tell me I'm a 50-year-old trapped in the body of a 22-year-old, and that I probably would have been better off living in the era of Truman, House Un-American Activities Committee, Doo-Wop and wearing argyle socks with jeans and a white T-shirt. They're very right. I guess I have an old soul that doesn't fit in so well with the young souls of my contemporaries. \nI think most people view me as someone with an asexual personality and never really think of me as a dating option, and thus never make the overtures I wish they would. Or maybe they do, and once they get to know me, they just want me around the way everybody else seems to -- the lively, entertaining presence capable of addressing the highest to lowest form of humanity. That's a great compliment. \nTo paraphrase a line said by the character John Adams in the musical "1776," "I can romp through cupid's grove with great agility." I am 22, I still have my virility. But I don't feel like romping anymore, and if I were a horse, you could say I've sewed all the oats I can -- or at least all the oats I want -- as a single noun yearning to find plurality.
(12/07/04 5:07am)
"It's funny to think that the machine known as a godsend to women for the early detection of breast cancer was designed by a man. But despite my physical masculinity, it wasn't any more comfortable for me either. I had to contort myself against a radial edge of the machine so we could get a decent picture. The contraption exerted enough pressure to compress my breast flatter than a two-day old Coca-Cola. But with the temporary discomfort came the long-term (relief) of knowing the difference between becoming a cancer statistic, and an over-production of estrogen"
(12/07/04 5:06am)
Justin's* idea of fun never involved going swimming with anyone else. Summer days were never spent shirtless in the sun. Instead, he wore double layers of clothing as camouflage for the medical condition haunting him. He's lived with the condition since puberty: gynecomastia, or the abnormal development of breasts in men.\nThe condition affects a wide variety of men with virtually no restrictions on age. Newborns might develop it from the surge of estrogen entering through the placenta. In preteens and teens, it can result from a temporary hormonal imbalance, or puberty. And in older men, it occurs as age affects the production of testosterone, letting the estrogen catch up.\n"Living in a society where perfection and beauty is celebrated, having breasts is tough to deal with and extremely damaging to one's self-esteem," said Justin, a 23-year-old from Portsmouth, N.H., who has struggled with gynecomastia ever since his teenage years, when his breasts were formed as a result of puberty.\nLike many men, Justin felt gynecomastia was an extremely tough subject to talk about and has spent his life living in silence about it. He said he always knew there was something wrong but didn't know what. His parents were out of the loop because he said they wouldn't understand. And his doctor said the symptoms were part of puberty and that they would go away -- but that wasn't the case.\n"Relationships became difficult since you yearn for someone to be with yet are scared of what they will think during intimacy," Justin said of his struggle with the condition.\nGynecomastia occurs when more estrogen surges through a man's body than testosterone. While obese men can have fatty tissue deposits, it isn't the actual forming of breast tissue by the body, as is the case with gynecomastia.\nJust like a woman, the size of breasts developed due to gynecomastia is unpredictable. A man can walk around with breasts the size of a quarter all the way up to a set that would rival Dolly Parton.\nGynecomastia in this sense is when actual breasts are formed because of rise in the body's estrogen levels.\nDr. Jonathan Stafford, a radiologist with a private practice in Bloomington, said many times the estrogen levels in the male body are out of control due to side effects from some prescription drugs. He gives out a sheet of paper naming many of the prescription drugs to his patients. The drugs include blood pressure pills, anti-depressants, cholesterol drugs and others.\nPrescribed drugs are processed by the liver -- and so is estrogen. When people take these kinds of medications for long periods of time, the liver has to devote so much energy to process those medications that it can't spend as much time breaking down the estrogen the body produces. Without the work of the liver, the estrogen isn't digested, the level rises, and breast tissue begins to form.\nMen notice gynecomastia in a number of ways, but Stafford said they usually detect it themselves because most family doctors just don't think to even check men for the problem. And since routine breast examination isn't part of a man's routine health exam, men probably aren't going to notice anything strange unless the breasts are noticeably larger or they feel a lump. Stafford said at that point, if and when a man goes to his doctor, the doctor usually sends him along for proper diagnosis by mammogram or ultrasound.\nStafford's practice at the Bloomington Breast Center sees anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 patients each year, and of that number only about 500 are diagnostic exams. Of those 500, only 10 to 15 are men, and 100 percent of those men are diagnosed with gynecomastia.\nSo if gynecomastia simply means a man has grown some breast tissue and it was caused by factors altering his estrogen levels, how is it treated?\nIt isn't easy.\nDr. Richard Spark, an endocrinologist at Harvard University, said a plastic surgeon can use liposuction to remove the fatty breast tissue if it's a case of obesity-related gynecomastia. But this procedure often leaves quite a lot of loose tissue hanging from the chest. The only way to treat estrogen-caused gynecomastia and remove the excess breast tissue is to have it removed by a plastic surgeon. Spark said this procedure is considered cosmetic and is not typically covered by medical insurance. Uninsured, the surgery can cost upwards of $3,000.\nWhile gynecomastia seems simply a cosmetic flaw on the surface of the body, the flaws it can leave on someone's self-image are really more serious. Especially in Justin's case.\n"Changes in what you wear is one of the biggest things involved with the condition. You try to hide it as much as you can ... " Justin said. "Swimming and beach days I often skipped out on, saying I couldn't swim."\nStill, no man should ignore the possibility that he, too, could have to take a swim in Justin's suit someday.\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon S Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.\n*Last name withheld to protect the source's privacy.
(11/10/04 4:24am)
A few weeks ago, I went squirrel hunting with my friend Jesse. I've talked about him and his family in this column before. You'll probably remember him best for that time we took a pee in his family cornfield. His family owns a prime stretch of woodlands loaded with 10 times the squirrels of Dunn Meadow. It's about 30 minutes west of Evansville, and that's where we went one Saturday morning. \nWe loaded our gear into his car and drove the rural country roads, sipping black coffee while Jesse gave me the obligatory lesson on how to take my Ithaca 20-gauge shot gun and put a little distance between his neck and shoulders. I've actually been raised around guns my whole life, but let's face it -- the reason I'm still alive comes from the same mystical powers that kept Inspector Clouseau alive.\nWhen we pulled the Jeep Cherokee into a corn field, we got out and started walking over the uneven terrain. Jesse was nice and carried my gun for me. When I'm walking on uneven ground, my arms instinctively raise to shoulder height, and my palms become totally opened as though I'm a tightrope walker for Ringling Brothers. Finally we crept across an open field into the darkened shadows of woods filled with those glorious brown and gray rodential squirrels.\nWe started creeping ever so quietly. Jesse stepped over twigs, across fallen limbs, between noisy patches of leaves, just as sure as David Crockett did when he killed that bear when he was only three. Quiet is the name of the game. The squirrels can't be allowed to hear you coming, to hear you invade their territory, to be allowed to know the threat of their impending doom is creeping continually closer and closer.\nQuiet, however, is a new thing to me. It was hard enough not to talk, let alone go creeping around these big woods with every set of eyes the forest could muster peering at my olive green safari jacket and brown, medium-brimmed fedora. Then there was a tap on my shoulder. I looked at Jesse, and he looked at me. Then he pointed to my left at this tall moss-covered tree that had a live one starting to climb up the side. He handed me my gun, flipped off the safety and whispered, "Shoot it."\nI took careful aim at the cute and fuzzy-fur-covered creature starting to move faster up the side of the tree. I squeezed the trigger.\nJust a second earlier, that four-legged squirrel was still happy as can be climbing to the top of the tree, not knowing that as soon as I exerted enough force to pull back the trigger with my right index finger, there would be a loud boom coinciding with his life force exiting his body at more than 250 miles an hour as a circle six inches in diameter of little pellets found his vital organs.\nIt was almost God-like.\nIndiana is a state filled with outdoorsmen who take pride in their skills at various times of the year, taking their weapons of choice and venturing into the woods as did pioneers in the early days of our nation. Jesse made me one of those outdoorsmen that day and taught me the pleasure that comes at the end of a hunt pitting man against nature.\nIt was a thrill indeed. But as we cleaned one of the squirrels I killed that day, I threw up. And then it dawned on me. There are grocery stores selling chickens that probably taste just as good as those little furry friends running around in Dunn Meadow.
(11/02/04 4:19am)
The IU Police Department said goodbye to one of its own Monday afternoon as a procession of squad cars with red and blue staccato beams reflecting off a damp pavement accentuated the wail of sirens and mourners. Across the street from police headquarters as Badge 24 went out of service for the last time, a line of black came to attention, their tears hitting harder than the rain falling from a gray sky and muddying the grass beneath them.\nIUPD Sgt. Timothy L. Lewis, 49, succumbed to cancer Thursday in Bloomington Hospital after a 10-month-long battle. Lewis, who fellow officers described as one who loved to be where the action was, worked a variety of positions within the department, from patrolman to administrative roles. He retired Oct. 27 as a uniformed sergeant.\nLewis spent eight years working as a sergeant in IUPD's Technical Services Department, where his duties also included working as a public information officer responsible for dealing with the press. His sense of humor was a blend of affectionate cynicism and led to a positive, yet cautious handling of the media.\nEvery summer IUPD runs a 16-week academy allowing IU students interested in a career in law enforcement the chance to earn college credit and become certified police officers. As part of a training exercise during the 2003 summer class, Lewis pepper sprayed an Indiana Daily Student reporter taking part in the academy who was trying to obtain background information on the department for a series of feature stories. \n"I'd always wanted to do that to a reporter, but being asked took all the fun out of it," Lewis later said of the incident.\nIUPD Lt. Jerry Minger worked side by side with Lewis as his supervisor for almost 10 years before Lewis transferred back to uniform during the summer of 2003.\n"Tim took his job seriously to a fault ... I don't think he ever saw himself away from the department," Minger said. "He integrated himself personally with it. It was hard to tell where the department ended and Tim began."\nSunday afternoon friends and family walked between the alabaster walls at Allen Funeral Home atop a red carpet worn away with the footsteps and stained with the tears of mourners come to say goodbye one last time. Those footsteps came from a University vice president, a U.S. Marshall and more than 100 other people. Of those mourners were two of the oncology nurses who took care of Lewis during his many long stints in room 4524 of Bloomington Hospital.\n"He never wanted to ask for anything. He was made happy by the smallest things," said nurse Jennifer Fresch. \nShe and medical tech Jennifer Waters said out of the 30 patients they've watched die, Lewis was the one they said they felt the closest too.\nAt his memorial service Monday at Cleercreek Christian Church, friends, family and coworkers said they struggled to talk about Lewis.\nFriends say Lewis was the type of guy who they knew was cool but didn't know how to praise him because he hid himself so often from others.\n"His praises are going to come where he's at now instead of where we are," said former colleague and Monroe County Commissioner Herb Kilmer.\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon S Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.
(10/27/04 4:18am)
The lights have dimmed and the tubes have been removed in Bloomington Hospital room 4524. The family has gathered. The arrangements have been made. All as Tim lay dying.\nWhen he was diagnosed with cancer last February, he weighed 180 pounds and had a full head of brown hair and matching beard. Today he weighs less than 130 pounds, the hair is gone and the skin has yellowed because his liver has failed, leaving a bowling ball-sized build-up of fluid filling his stomach. The chemo was hell, and the radiation worse. All in the hopes of letting Tim see birthday number 50.\nIn the last week and a half, I've spent most of it with Tim's family in the family lounge across the hall from his room. We've talked and yelled, laughed and cried. Most of it was spent eating and playing cards. I thought that was really strange. While Tim lay in the room he had come to know so well in the previous months, I was playing cards and sharing cold turkey with his wife of 27 years. \nIt's not so much that death hurts. Death is really quite simple. It's the waiting for it to happen, and the waiting for the pain to stop hurting after its happened, that's tough.\nThe family has a long road ahead of it. Tim's parents, Marvin and Vivian, get to watch the wholly unnatural act of losing a child. They're living the nightmare parents shudder to imagine. Tim's brother Tom is losing a brother. Chere is thinking about how she's going to have to live the rest of her life without her soul mate, and then Heather, Haley and Jordan all have to live the rest of their lives reminiscing about memories of their father instead of making new ones.\nBut the truth is, after death, life goes on because the people we loved, who have gone before us, would have wanted it that way, rather than us putting ourselves into a perpetual cycle of remorse and regret. \nI was sitting in an easy chair -- the tears in my eyes as plentiful as the raindrops hitting the plate glass window in front of me -- talking on the phone with a friend. I hadn't really done that much this week because I've spent so much of it being there for the family that I really hadn't taken the time to understand what all of this meant to me. I didn't want to leave the hospital. It's a much better place to feel hopeless, powerless and all the other feelings of impotence that accompany those surrounding a loved one going through the dying process. But the phone conversation sort of spurred me along.\nHard as it was knowing Tim could go at any time, I slugged through the damp and dreary world that awaited me as the two glass doors slid aside and went to class. Right now being there for Tim and his family is by far the most important act of friendship I can do. While most other things this week are on hold because of how important that act is, I'm at least ready to take things off hold when it's time, not simply press the red button and let it flash for an eternity.
(10/08/04 4:39am)
Each year, the Bloomington Playwrights Project holds a national competition for playwrights designed to honor new plays. The Reva Shiner Playwrighting Competition awards its winner a cash prize and the opportunity to have BPP produce the winning play. This year's winner, Jason Grote's "The New Jersey Book of the Dead," opened last night at the BPP, 312 S. Washington St..\nThe show deals with a series of complex, abstract, work place-related issues like unionization, consumerism and technological advances. The play is centered around a call answering company called Singer, Sigman & Associates, where a new computer system called Omnivore is introduced to monitor employee productivity. In this case, Omnivore tracks the length of personal calls made by the employees. \nIn an effort to protect their rights as workers, two employees named Diana and Cass decide to start a union. Diana also winds up in complicated situations throughout the play involving a bad home life and the "unfair" boss, Alvarez. \nThe invasive corporate system is reminiscent of George Orwell's "Big Brother" in his novel "1984." The script begs the question, "Will technology save us, or betray us?"\n"The script is truly unique in its discussion and use of technology, and the comparisons to ancient times through flashbacks of sorts in what Grote calls 'Shamanic Traces,'" said BPP Public Relations Director Rachael Himsel, who is acting in the show. "We are introduced to these characters -- these often very flawed, human characters -- who are living through the times before and after Sept. 11." \nHimsel said the elements of the plot involves the audience in the story line. \n"We follow them as they form a union and as they come to realize what matters most to them," said Himsel. "There is definite resolution in the script, but, at the same time, I always find myself wondering, 'What will they do now?' I think that's another sign of a great story: Even though all the ends have been tied up, we want more."\nFollowing Saturday's performance of the show, the BPP is holding a question and answer session to allow cast and crew members, as well as Grote, to interact with the audience.\nIn addition to the Reva Shiner Award, "Book of the Dead" has garnered other praise from the Playwrights Center of San Francisco's Dramarama in 2002. It was also the 2003 winner of Coe College Playwriting Award in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon S Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu .
(09/30/04 5:16am)
Famed farce writer Ken Ludwig pulled off a wonderful adaptation of 1930s theater with his play "Crazy for You," which played Tuesday and Wednesday at the IU Auditorium. Much like the 1930s theater era he recreated, the heavy spectacle weighed down the air-light plot.\nLudwig's play is an adaptation of the 1930 Gershwin play "Girl Crazy," which Ludwig uses as a vehicle to sum up a period of history in commercial American theater when no one wanted a Berthold Brechtian catharsis when they went to the theater; they wanted to be entertained. The entertainment of choice consisted of spectacle in the form of bright lights, stunning costumes and the synchronized choreography of kick lines.\n"Crazy for You" was written after both of the Gershwins died. Ludwig came along with his version, decided on the songs he wanted to use and then wrote a show around them. When you're watching it, you notice the plot is virtually non-existent and virtually none of the music does anything at all to advance whatever plot exists. Ken Ludwig is a playwright whose talent is evident with hits like "Moon Over Buffalo," and "Lend Me a Tenor," so it's doubtful one could say "Crazy for You" is a bad script. On the contrary, it's a very good script, and it has to be because only something that good could successfully re-create an era filled with so much bad theater.\nI'm going have to recognize the cast for taking such a good script and performing it to its full potential. There was plenty of spectacle with the kick lines, the human cellos and the brightly colored costumes made even more brilliant by working in tandem with the lighting.\nBut while I'm celebrating the reproduction of an era, I'm not celebrating the show. One of the lines sums up my thought best: "In two thousand years, there's only been one resurrection, and it wasn't a theater." \n"Crazy for You" is by no means a resurrection of good theater. The show's first act was slow to move because it was so weighted down by superfluous musical numbers. I felt like the numbers used in the show came from a mold and mildew-ridden trunk recently found that belonged to the Gershwins. I guess that tells you how much THEY would have liked it.\nOnce in a while, a song made sense, but I felt like if someone said, "Hey, that's a nice sandwich you've got there," everyone ran on stage and jumped around singing about muskrats and kangaroos.\nIn short, the IU Auditorium played host to a bad show, but they were instrumental in helping to preserve an important piece of America's theater history and in helping to honor two of its best known musical duos.
(09/29/04 4:13am)
The ability to communicate is the foundation of friendships. But difficulty always seems to exist in friendships between men and women purely because of the way they communicate. \nMen communicate by doing things together. They play sports together, they watch sports together, they drink together. Women communicate by talking about themselves, their families, their problems or whatever else they feel like they want to talk about.\nI've always been very good at forming friendships with women because I'm better at communicating with women than I am with men. I talk about things. I don't do things. My friends tease me and tell me I'm like a little old woman. They tease me because I'll drive 50 in a 55 in the left hand lane with my left turn signal on; because I clip coupons; because I go to bed at 9 p.m. And it probably doesn't help things much that I play Bingo every Wednesday night at the local Shrine Club -- and like it. \nThis form of communication simply comes more naturally to me. And because of this, I've never really had any positive friendships with men my own age. I don't think it's because they don't understand how to communicate on my level, but because they won't. And I think this inability to communicate is directly tied with how men view what masculine communication is, and in turn, what being a man is.\nI think my male contemporaries view the definition of manhood being very closely tied to watching sports, lifting weights and polishing off brewskies like Dom DeLouise does donuts. That just isn't being a man to me. Because I don't fit the typical male mold, most guys my age hesitate to build friendships with me.\nTo me, being a man is finding the courage to give others your strength even though it makes you weak. Being a man is being secure enough to help other people be secure in themselves while it weakens you. Being a man is understanding that you are a man because of who you are, not what you do. \nI first met Tom about a year ago. His 6'4, 200-pound frame makes you think John Wayne would quake in his 10-gallon hat. Tom works out five times a week, watches NASCAR religiously and never shies away from a beer or two at home. \nTom does things with other guys and communicates with other men really well, but he also knows how to step outside the box and communicate in a non-typical male way. He talks. He doesn't push me to work out because he knows it's not my thing, just the same way he knows I'm not interested at all in sports. When we hang out, it's usually by talking over a meal while we joke about how he misses his dog Kodi after his girlfriend took her when she moved out. Then we talk about how I blew another perfectly good first date the night before. Tom is the type of guy who is man enough to step outside his definition of manhood for the sake of helping others become more comfortable with their own. \nBeing a man is finding the courage to give others your strength even though it makes you weak. Being a man is being secure enough to help other people be secure in themselves while it weakens you. Being a man is understanding that you are a man because of who you are, not what you do. \nIn Tom's words, "Just because you don't communicate in a traditional male-bonding sort of way, doesn't mean you can't interact functionally with other males in society. Some people are willing to go outside the box and make a friendship work"
(09/28/04 4:31am)
The IU Auditorium will bring an audience through its limestone edifice at 8 p.m. tonight and Wednesday with Troika Entertainment's national tour of "Crazy for You." \nKen Ludwig, a playwright known for several Broadway farces including "Moon Over Buffalo" and "Lend me a Tenor," took his inspiration for tonight's billing from the 1930 Broadway hit by George and Ira Gershwin called "Girl Crazy." The similarities between the two shows are apparent, but Ludwig's flavor shines in "Crazy for You." \nThe original storyline told of a spoiled New York society brat whose family thought he needed an old fashion dose of the wild west to toughen him up. In Ludwig's version, the lead character, Bobby Child, the son of a wealthy banker, also winds up in Nevada. While there, Child, a wanna-be song-and-dance man that could easily add to Fred Astaire's job security, is supposed to serve a foreclosure notice on a dilapidated theater that now serves as a post office. \nBobby falls in love with the local postmistress named Polly, loses her when his New York fiancée crashes the party and then manages to sort out which of the two he loves the most. \nNew in Ludwig's version of Gershwin's classic is the use of mistaken identity in his plot construction, a device he has used in other shows. In this instance it involves a man named Bella Zangler, a sort of big-name showman loosely based on Florenz Ziegfeld, an impresario who at one time could make or break a career. \nOverall the structure of the show is very similar to its roots in the 1930s. The plot really depends on the whole concept of suspension of disbelief. The music does little or nothing to advance the plot, but it does a whole lot to add to the entertainment value. \nGershwin staples like "Someone to Watch Over Me," "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You" and "They Can't Take that Away from Me" fill Ludwig's two-act play. Much of the orchestra's playlist comes from a variety of places and not just leftovers from "Girl Crazy."\nHarvey G. Cocks has spent the last 60 years working in theater, 30 of which have been on Broadway. He directed "Crazy for You" last summer. \nCocks said that in their time, the music of the Gershwin brothers was a piece of Americana that could speak to New Yorkers, which was important because, in that era, the theater industry was locally supported, not tourist-based as it is now.\n"Much of the music in the show is taken from a hodge-podge of places. One was an old truck filled with sheet music that was recently uncovered. Another place is score written for a movie called "Damsels in Distress,"that was the only film Fred Astaire made without Ginger Rogers," Cocks said. "I think there's better music out there that could have been chosen from, but they're all numbers you can identify with the Gershwin's."\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.
(09/15/04 5:08am)
Alright world, come at me and watch the smack down get slapped on you!"\nThat's the feeling I leave the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation with three mornings a week after I swim for an hour. I like splashing around in the Royer Pool with its 250,000 gallons of chlorine-tinted blue water because its an energizing workout that doesn't make me sweat like I just ran a marathon -- and I don't throw up like I just did, either. Swimming works every muscle in your body without the trauma on the joints and muscles like weightlifting or running.\nMy friend Jesse thought it would be good quality time if we went swimming Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when RecSports opens up Royer Pool for open swimming. I thought it was a pretty good idea.\nSo that was my plan. Go swimming with Jesse three days a week. But as with all of my plans, there was one slight flaw. \nI can't swim. I'm also scared to death of it. Sure, water is fine. I don't mind it. It's good for stuff like bathing and cutting gin. But I'd just never spent a lot of time around it as a kid.\nThe first Monday the two of us went, I was ready for it, though. I had my little goggles, my deck shoes and my Ralph Lauren neon orange bathing suit. Jesse wanted me to just jump in. \nYeah, right. I had so many floaties on, passengers on the Titanic would have been envious.\nBut after a little coaxing I was in the water. Two weeks later, I'm going off the springboards in the diving well happy as a little two-year old with a wading pool the size of Nebraska.\nBut not everybody is lucky enough to have someone like Jesse to be there with me as both a talented instructor, but also someone capable of dealing with the fact that height and water are my main phobias -- or were. I wouldn't let just anybody tell me to "man up" because I was hesitant about falling head first into 15-feet of water.\nFor people who don't have friends like Jesse, there's RecSports.\nDuring both the fall and spring, RecSports -- the fun side of HPER -- offers swimming lessons designed to teach adults who can't swim and who aren't comfortable in the water to make like Michael Phelps and glide.\nThe swimming lessons come in two levels. The first is designed to simply get you comfortable in the water and to teach you how to swim. The second level takes your technique and improves upon it.\nNicole Riley is majoring in recreation and works for RecSports teaching these classes.\nShe spent much of my pool playtime with me last Friday going over the kind of stuff she teaches in the first level. The first thing done is to just get people used to the water by floating on their stomachs. Then with the use of a kickboard, you kick up and down the 25-yard length of the pool a couple of times so you can get the maximum amount of flutter out of the kick. \nI'm still working on the whole concept of breathing under water. You can exhale underwater, by the way. You don't start running into problems until you try to breathe in.\nTo avoid complications, put your face in the water and blow all the air you can as hard as you can out of your schnozz. Pretend you're talking to the fish. Then you put your face to the side so your ear is in the water and breath in while you listen to what the fish say back.\nAll in all, RecSports comes across as a really good way to get over the fear of water and simply say to it: "Alright world, watch the smack down get slapped on you"
(09/02/04 5:00am)
We traversed the French plains to the center of Bohemian life -- gay Paris. \nThe first thing most people envision when they think of Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1889, it is still the tallest structure in Paris and was the tallest in the world until the Empire State Building was constructed. Several times the Parisians just wanted to have the thing torn down -- basically because they just didn't like it. But when Hitler ordered it torn down during the German occupation, in their stereotypical fashion, the French were stubborn and did the exact opposite of what they were told, so the structure is still standing. Since then, the French have decided it is a really good place to shove a radio and television antennae.\nI walked from one end of the Champs-Elysees, beginning from the Place de la Concordé, to the Arc de Triomphe. I had to dodge the Parisian drivers who pretend everywhere is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As I did so, I reflected on the point-of-view of Charles De Gaulle as he walked that same route feigning his liberation of Paris in June of 1944.\nHe was lucky. He only had to deal with being shot at by snipers atop nearby buildings. I had to deal with the traffic.\nDuring our jaunts through 11 countries, I often decided I had had enough of the group thing, so I took advantage of the European affection for good public transport. I remained behind in Munich to do a couple of walking tours throughout the city, which was largely rebuilt after the Allied bombings. I left six hours behind the rest of the group. I then hopped a train and made it to our next stop in Austria (again) four hours ahead of the rest of the group.\nThe train reflects the large emphasis the Europeans place on public transportation. Without trains and buses, walking anywhere in Europe would be similar to crossing 10th and Jordan during the school year -- all the time. Parisian traffic is at a usual standstill. Most commuters prefer the maneuverability of motorcycles, motor scooters and bicycles. Unless you live in the suburbs of metro French cities, you really don't want a car. People can usually afford them, just not the hassle that comes with them.\nAnother major city we visited was a city of Catholicism: Rome.\nI spent one day writing and lunching smack in the middle of St. Peter's Square. I sat in the heart of the open arms of the church founded on the rock where Peter built it. But before I strolled through the Vatican, I went on a guided tour through ancient Rome and saw the Coliseum with its 80 gates leading to a stadium capable of seating more than 70,000 people. Indicative of Roman fortitude, the structure took only eight years to build. Compare this with the more than 200 years the French spent building Notre Dame.\nAfter Rome came Vienna. My first night there I saw Mozart play live.\nWell, it wasn't him exactly (That would have been a hell of a lot better story than this one.)\nThe 20-piece orchestra played the "Marriage of Figaro" with a skill and precision you would expect only from a group playing a Viennese opera house built for Emperor Franz Joseph. They were so good at their craft, people there don't steal the symphony's instruments to stop them from playing the way they do here at IU.\nThroughout my journey, I learned one thing: The world is a classroom. And a much nicer one than those in the sickened limestone buildings we all seem to spend so much time rushing to, cooped up in or getting away from. College is good. It's a silver bullet. But that's college. You get your education through the world around you.\nEvery college kid needs that education.\nYou get a real education by taking a few minutes to stop by a place like Sunshine Travel on East Third Street and say: "There's a place called Europe that I long to see"
(09/01/04 5:09am)
Doing things you've never done before is really important, especially during the college years. It's only now, in my senior year at IU, when it may be too late, that I've finally learned that trying new things and not being afraid to push myself is a really good way to enjoy life.\nFor you freshmen who just arrived in Bloomington, let me tell you about southern Indiana culture. \nSouthern Indiana is the place where the bad high school football teams are just as loved as the good ones; everyone has a favorite ball cap that hasn't been washed much, but it isn't ever worn backward; and every son has his own shotgun. Friendliness is the name of the game, and playfulness is even more important. \nA few weeks ago, a friend of mine, Heidi, drove me to her family's home in Evansville right on the Indiana-Kentucky border. I didn't really want to go at first because car trips aren't really something I'm good at, but whenever we go somewhere, Heidi always brings along games and puzzles and things for me to work on so I don't get bored. The three-hour trip was a breeze.\nHeidi drove back because she had to get dilated -- at the eye doctor's, that is. So once we got there, we met up with her 19-year-old brother, Jesse, who started as an IU freshman last week. While Heidi went off and did her thing at the doctor, I rolled with Jesse. \nAnd then began the most fun I had all summer.\nWe putzed around Evansville in his pick-up truck, complete with Yosemite Sam mud flaps; and listened to a few CDs. He took me to a nearby grocery store called Schnucks where he bought some flowers that I turned into an arrangement for this girl he'd taken a liking to. And that's when I realized just how far south we were.\nAs we left the grocery, one of the clerks said "Y'all come back now, ya' hear." \nI thought that was pretty cool, because before now, I'd only ever heard that on the Beverly Hillbillies.\nWe dropped the flowers off at the house of this lady friend of his, and then we headed back to the homestead. \nDriving back to his homestead with its goats, cats, dogs and trees upon trees interspersed with cornfields upon cornfields that run right up to their backyard, we were hollering out the windows of his Chevy going "whoo-hooo" at the cars and semis we passed. We even spat out the windows. It was so cool. \nAnd then we did something I'd never dreamed of doing before. We took a pee in a cornfield.\nI'd never done any of this before, and I was euphoric as Heidi and I drove back to Bloomington later that night. I was euphoric because I let myself open up to exploring a whole new culture foreign to anything else I'd ever done before. I'm from the city. There aren't all that many cornfields in cities. \nI think what I would like all you freshmen to take away from reading this is to realize that habits, routines and sticking with the safe bet may be just that -- a safe bet. \nBut safe bets rarely lead to growing and better appreciation of a lot of different things.\nYou know, it's funny. This summer I traveled all over Western Europe -- the thing I remember the most fondly is standing next to Jesse and peeing in the family cornfield.
(08/30/04 5:06am)
In 2000, I spent two weeks touring England and Scotland and fell in love with the adventure travel creates. I'd always wanted to go back to Europe and see more. The opportunity to travel to Europe came alive my sophomore year at IU. I'd researched the variety of programs the Office of Overseas Study had to offer where you could study in the land by which you've always been fascinated and get college credit at the same time. \nOn two different occasions, I made it through the application process for programs in England. On two different occasions, for one reason or another, I wound up not going. In mid-March of 2004, I had a very interesting conversation with myself. \n"You know Brandon, you'd really like to get abroad again, wouldn't you?"\n"Yes, I would. But what does traveling have to do with getting broads?"\n"It doesn't, stupid, now pay attention."\n"This whole thing with you wanting to study overseas."\n"Yeah."\n"You don't like studying much, do you?"\n"No, not so you'd notice."\n"And you don't really even much like school, either."\n"You know, I think you might be on to something there."\n"Instead of trying this study abroad thing, why don't you just go?"\n"Wait … you mean just get up and go. Like … I know … like go on a tour of Europe?"\n"Exactly."\n"Why didn't I think of that?"\n"You did, that's why we had this conversation, isn't it?"\n"Good point."\nI picked up the phone and called Edwynna Nolan at Sunshine Travel on East Third Street, and that's all it took. Before the phone call was over, I was booked on a 30-day tour of Western Europe that covered every country that didn't speak Spanish or was never Communist Bloc.\nThe tour company is a little gem from New Zealand called Contiki that specializes in budget travel for people between the ages of 18 to 35. The whole concept is designed to give people who want to drink Peroni, but can only afford PBR. This is the deal I got, and I want you to pay really close attention to it: all meals, all accommodations and all ground transportation for 30 days for -- drum roll please -- $2,300. That's right. It's a chance to see the world, experience it in a way you'd never thought possible, and all for a really good price that someone in the 18 to 35 age range can afford to pay for. \nThe whole set-up is designed to give people the ultimate sampler platter of travel where you get a little of everything and then decide what you might like on the main course. \nFor instance, I loved the time I had in Lucerne, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria. But I wasn't so crazy about the smelly, fetid, humid canals of Venice, Italy, nor the laid-backish time the Greek Islands work on. \nBy the way, Red Lobster, it ain't the only place you can get crabs.\nIt's a budget travel though, so you have to really weigh the good and the bad. Maybe I had to leave my underwear in the hot washer a little longer than I'd liked, but how many people can say they've walked the streets Hitler walked in Munich, see the chapel Michelangelo made famous, the town the Ponzi's ruled, the Arc d' Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower? And all for $2,300?\nMany of the trips Contiki runs through Europe depart from London, so as a U.S. college student, one really only needs to pay for the plane ticket to get to the departure point. But airfare isn't as tremendously expensive as you might think. Also through Edwynna, I got a really good deal on my airfare.\nI bought a direct ticket for round-trip from O'Hare to Heathrow for $300. But I'll admit, riding with all the chickens and elephants on Air-India flight 120 wasn't as cool as I thought.\nI'm still trying to figure out which one of the Wright Brothers they bought the plane off of.\nBut once I made it to London, the fun began as soon as we headed for Dover, England, and the English Channel. During the 90-minute ferry crossing to the sandy shores of the Pas-de-Calais, France, beginning at the white, chalky cliffs of Dover, I sat in the saloon getting to know several of my fellow travelers. This was the first leg of a 29-day blitzkrieg across Western Europe with a hodgepodge of fellow adventurers. It seemed I was the only American. The Australians, by the way, said they had never met an American before. They said I wasn't what they expected. The others consisted of one Canadian and four Indians -- as in the former British colony and everyone else was either English or Australian, aside from a South African who smoked an endless stream of Marlboro Reds. I prefer Pall Malls, myself.
(07/15/04 2:02am)
During the 90-minute ferry crossing beginning at the white, chalky cliffs of Dover, England, to the sandy shores of the Pas-de-Calais, France, I sat in the saloon getting to know several of my fellow travelers. This was the first leg of a 29-day blitzkrieg across Western Europe with a hodgepodge of fellow adventurers. It seemed I was the only American. The others consisted of one Canadian and four Indians -- as in the former British colony, not the ones who bumped off Custer -- and everyone else was either English or Australian, aside from a South African, who smoked an endless stream of Marlboro Reds. I prefer Pall Malls, myself.\nWe then traversed the French plains to the center of Bohemian life -- gay Paris. \nThe first thing most people envision when they think of Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1889, it is still the tallest structure in Paris and was the tallest in the world until the Empire State Building was constructed. Several times the Parisians just wanted to have the thing torn down, basically because they just didn't like it. But during the German occupation, Hitler ordered it torn down. True to the stereotypical French personality, nobody tells them what to do, so the structure is still standing. Besides, the French also decided it was a really good place to shove a radio and television antennae.\nI walked from one end of the Champs-Elysees, beginning from the Place de la Concordé, to the Arch de Triomphe. I had to dodge the Parisian drivers who pretend everywhere is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As I did so, I reflected on the point-of-view of Charles DeGaulle as he walked that same route feigning his liberation of Paris in June of 1944.\nHe was lucky. He just got shot at by snipers atop nearby buildings. I had to deal with the traffic.\nDuring our jaunts through 11 countries, I often decided I had had enough of the group thing, so I took advantage of the European affectation for good public transport. I remained behind in Munich to do a couple of walking tours throughout the city, which was largely rebuilt after the Allied bombings. I left six hours behind the rest of the group. I then hopped a train and made it to our next stop in Austria (again) four hours ahead of the rest of the group.\nThe train reflects the large emphasis the Europeans place on public transport. If they didn't, the area would be a scene similar to crossing 10th and Jordan during the school year -- all the time. \nParisian traffic is at a usual standstill. Most commuters prefer the maneuverability of motorcycles, motor scooters and bicycles. Unless you live in the suburbs of metro French cities, you really don't want a car. People can usually afford them, just not the hassle that comes with them.\nAnother major city we visited was a city of Catholicism. Rome.\nI spent one day writing and lunching, sitting smack in the middle of Saint Peter's Square. I sat in the heart of the open arms of the church founded on the rock where Peter built it. But before I strolled through the Vatican, I went on a guided tour through ancient Rome and saw the Coliseum with its 80 gates leading to a stadium capable of seating more than 70,000 people.seating capacity of over 70,000 people. Indicative of Roman fortitude, the structure took only eight years to build. Compare this with the more than 200 years the French spent building Notre Dame.\nAfter Rome came Vienna. My first night there I saw Mozart play live.\nWell -- it wasn't him. \nThat would have been a hell of a lot better story than this one.\nThe 20-piece orchestra played the "Marriage of Figaro" with a skill and precision you would expect only from a group playing a Viennese opera house built for Emperor Franz Joseph. They were so good at their craft people there don't steal the symphony's instruments to stop them from playing the way they do here at IU.\nThroughout my journey, I learned one thing: The world is a classroom. And a much nicer one than those in the sickened limestone buildings we all seem to spend so much time rushing to, cooped up in or getting away from. College is good. It's a silver bullet. But that's college. You get your education through the world around you.\nEvery college kid needs that education.\nYou get a real education by taking a few minutes to stop by a place like Sunshine Travel on East Third Street and say: "There's a place called Europe that I long to see"
(04/19/04 5:01am)
Nathan Gilbert is an IU junior majoring in folklore who spent the fall semester in a study abroad program in Bulgaria.\nWith so many study abroad options available, Bulgaria is not a common choice, according to the IU Overseas Study Program, which refers to it as a "non-traditional destination."\nStill, IU Overseas Study Program Coordinator Paige Wetie said such off-beat locations offer worthwhile experiences. \n"Students who study in a non-traditional locations have a truly unique experience, one that most of their peers who study in developed Western nations will not be able to experience. Study abroad experiences in Bulgaria or Peru, or Thailand are truly unique," Wetie said. "Those students who study in developing nations experience life as the majority of the world population does, and they get a unique view into the struggle and joys of life in the developing world."\nGilbert traveled to Bulgaria three years ago for a few weeks and became fascinated with the many aspects of life there, including the people, culture, music and country, he said.\nWhen many Americans hear the name Bulgaria, they conjure up images of iron-fisted dictators, May Day parades and long lines at state-run grocery stores waiting for low-quality food. \nGilbert said when he talks about his studying in Bulgaria, the response always runs along the lines of, "That's in South America, isn't it?"\nBulgaria is a country of which most Americans have heard; they just don't know much about it, Gilbert said.\n"Bulgaria is actually a very beautiful country with incredible countryside, including a spectacular mountain range," he said. "I didn't know much about Bulgaria before I went, except that they have a very rich culture and history."\nThat rich history comes in many forms, including the influences of other nation-states like the Soviets and the once powerful Ottoman Empire and their cultures, Gilbert said.\nThe International Student Exchange Program is the world's largest organization working with post-secondary learning institutions to provide foreign learning opportunities for students. According to the Bulgaria country handbook on its Web site, notwithstanding the periodically rough economy, Bulgaria continually ranks among the highest in the world in science and math test scores.\nGilbert spent his semester studying music, Russian language, anthropology and the history of Bulgaria. He said he enjoyed the studying and noticed the typical observation of students from places outside the U.S.: that the students in Bulgaria took their education quite a bit more seriously than those in the U.S.\nNot only did Gilbert say he grew academically, but also did most of his learning outside of the classroom, absorbing the culture and lifestyle in a nation erratic water pressure and often day-late import of newspapers.\nGilbert said for him, a normal day in Bulgaria would probably consist of going to class, spending some time in the library, going out to a cafe for coffee and cognac and just sitting with friends and talking for hours. In the evening, he said he often went out for a nice dinner and a beer and spent some hours dancing in discotechs he described as "wonderful."\n"After living abroad, especially in a country like Bulgaria, I definitely feel like I've grown as a person," Gilbert said. "My mind is more open to foreign ideas. My friend once told me I have an 'international consciousness.' I like this idea. It is important for people to open up their views and appreciate other ways of life."\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.