All Hail the King

Last Friday night I participated in my college's second annual Drag Show, which was put on by our Pride Club (LGBTQ).

Papi Chulo, ready for action

It was, hands down, one of the most fun events I've participated in since starting to work at MCC seven years ago. The only events that come close--and I'm going to say that it's an even three-way tie--are the Alternative Spring Break trips I took in 2009 and 2010.

The students organizing the drag show were out to raise awareness and celebrate the LGBTQ community. And they absolutely succeeded.

They started planning the event in the Fall and it was beautifully organized, with seven "kings" (five female students, me, and the student life coordinator), four amateur/student "queens" (the gutsiest four kids I've met in a while) and two professional drag queens. The MCC dance team also performed, and a half dozen Pride members spoke about serious issues among the LGBT community. The house was packed almost to the brim (our conference center seats 350, and it was nearly there), and they raised almost $2,000 for scholarships and various community support groups.

But, of course, being well organized and early to promote an event also means that crazy people in the community hear about the event early and decide to "protest." The College got almost forty calls and e-mails from people speaking out against the event. Some people were diplomatic, and some people were outright hostile. But none of them actually came out to the event itself, which didn't surprise me one bit. It takes a lot more effort to come to the school and march with a sign (flying your bigotry for all to see) than it does to pick up the phone and anonymously spout homophobic rhetoric. So nuts to them! The show went on and it was fan-flipping-tastic!

Here are some of the backstage photos I took:

Four of my fellow kings--amazing ladies, all of them

Makeup backstage

Backstage gang with Cee-Cee LaRouge, one of our amazing professionals

Nautica Nero, our other professional, ready to wow the crowd

Hugs!

Paola and Nautica

Ivana Deek, practicing her moves

Jack Zero (Brianna), Papi Chulo (me), and Slovick (Shauna)

Don Alejandro romances Paola

Now THAT is a wig.

Caroline (our Drag Mama!) and Jon

Mr. Drag 2013, Jasmine!

The Northwest Herald (the local paper) also had a photographer there to capture more of the behind-the-scenes action, and you can check out the online photo album here.

And the amazing Trevor, best husband in the world, came out to the show and took some videos of our performances. We're still hoping for a full length video (apparently someone was recording the whole show, but it will probably take a while to be ready), so when that's done I'll be sure to share it. In the meantime, here are two snippets.

This first one is Don Alejandro Guerrero Montoya de Venegas (a.k.a. Kaitlyn) with his back-up trumpet player, Papi Chulo.

And this one is me as Papi Chulo with my back-up Kingettes, the best back-up dancers in the world.

I will absolutely be participating in next year's show, and if you're sorry you missed it and want to get a little slice of drag, go to one of Cee-Cee's shows at Hamburger Mary's in Milwaukee or Nautica's shows at the Office Niteclub in Rockford.

Corporate Confections

The other day I was given a poignant example of the canyon sized difference between working in corporate America and working in non-profit education. And it came in the form of pastries.

This was what Trevor had waiting for him on Friday afternoon:

Baked goods and banana pudding, courtesy of Magnolia Bakery (which is trying to wrangle some business from CS Brides)

And this was what I had:

Now, don't get me wrong; I love my job and I really love Country Donuts. But sometimes, I miss that corporate America decadence.

Luckily I have a wonderful husband who shares his treats.

T. brought me home this beautiful and delicious cupcake. This was my reaction.

There is Nothing New to Report

Except that Roo and I had an official snow day last Tuesday (campus was closed--all classes canceled) and we spent the morning eating the delicious breakfast sandwiches that Trevor had picked up for us at the corner deli (Roo, actually, did not have a sandwich, but Trevor and I thoroughly enjoyed ours).

Sandwich

Then, poor Trevor had to go to work, so Roo and I whiled away the time, playing with toys,

This is my squeaky pink dog. Her name is Cliffina

Walking in the snow,

Snow.

Eating macaroni and cheese,

What? You didn't expect that breakfast sandwich to tide me over for the entire day, did you?

And napping. 

There is no picture of us napping.

Otherwise, not much is going on. Hopefully we will do something fun and interesting very soon.

Catch you guys later.

See ya.

College Sticks

In October Trevor had an unofficial reunion of his Columbia College pals. The weekend coincided with the Expo Chicago art fair, and friends came in from New York, North Carolina, and Alaska. And, of course, Chicago.

Our friend Adam, who lives in Fairbanks, came in on Friday and stayed with us for the weekend, and on Saturday we started the day at Navy Pier for the art fair.

We saw some pretty good stuff, though not everything wanted to be touched as much as this thing did

T and Adam walking and talking

On the #66

After we were arted out, we went to Martha and Jeremy's place, where the actual reunion festivities were going down. We had a barbecue, a bonfire, and lots of good art and non-art related conversation.

Some of the gang in the backyard: T taking the picture, Jason, Kyle, Jen, and Adam at the grill

What's up?

Me and Kate

Jeremy and Martha at the bonfire, where we spent the best parts of the night (which included a thirty minute stint of us trying to guess the punchlines to Kate's jokes [some dirty, some not]). I laughed until my stomach hurt.

Kate and Adam doing...yoga?

Now, we had a great weekend and Trevor was able to catch up with people he doesn't get to see that often. They talked and laughed about their time at Columbia, and told hilarious stories about each other and some of their friends who couldn't make it for the weekend. But what really hit home for me was how much of an impact their college years had on them.

Most everyone in their crowd is doing something related to photography or design. They've all continued to be creative people in many aspects of their lives (although Kyle doesn't formally shoot, he's a husband, the father of two girls, and he's doing social outreach, so he's a whole different kind of creative). Watching and listening to them was inspiring and hopeful. They'd bonded as friends and as artistic peers, and the work they made and learned about during school has stuck with them.

The college where I teach has a dramatically different environment than Columbia's, and the students I teach in my gen. ed. composition classes will never quite have the bond that other classes--those within a student's major--would have. But sometimes I get an inkling that my class has stuck with my students. That comes more frequently in my creative writing students--in July I wrote a post about a painting one of my spring creative writing students gave to me, and this past Friday I received an e-mail from a student in that same class who wanted to update me with pictures of her new baby (she was pregnant during our class) and thank me for helping her and pushing her writing.

But today I got an e-mail from a student I'd had last spring in a composition 2 class. That class focuses around source-based writing and I have my students read Columbine by Dave Cullen, which is a thoroughly researched, wonderfully written, but horrifying book about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. And my student, who is a soldier now stationed in Afghanistan, was, on his off time (I can't imagine what "off time" consists of in Afghanistan, but it's certainly different from my off time, sitting on the couch watching The Ring and drinking hot chocolate), browsing through the news and came across an article about the new book Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon. The article focuses on an interview Solomon had with Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine H.S. shooters, and my student saw it, remembered our class, and "just thought [he] would share."

Now, is this the same as inspiring a conversation of ten former students as they sit around a bonfire, ten years after graduation, waxing nostalgic and artistic? No. But it's what I've got and it made me pretty happy.

VWrite!

During our last post I mentioned that I was going to be a part of a mentoring program through Open Books, a non-profit literacy center here in Chicago. Well, on August 29, I drove down to south side Gage Park High School for a meet-and-greet with the junior class that our group is mentoring. And I got to meet my mentee, a very cool girl named Angelica. There were tons of pictures from that night, so check them out on the Open Books Flickr page.

Angelica (who, I am thrilled to report, is excited about our blog and will be writing an Archipelago guest blogger very soon) is pretty snap-tastic. Here are some of the things I learned about her:

• She's lived in Puerto Rico and Florida as well as in Chicago
• She's in the drama club and might want to study theater in college
• She loves to read manga and watch anime
• She has made many a hair-dying experiment
• Her family owns a restaurant in Humboldt Park

There's so much more, but I'm going to wait for her to talk about herself for herself.

Because of the Chicago Teachers Union strike, CPS has been out of school, so that means that Angelica and her classmates have been a bit at loose ends. She's been hanging out with her friends a lot, but I invited her to come to my school with me last Friday to give her something fun to do (and by something "fun" I mean road tripping out to McHenry County and hanging out in my English class. She was overwhelmed with fun. Seriously. Flabbergasted by Fun.)

Well, we did have a terrific time. The trip out there was great. We ate donuts and listened to Angelica's iPod, which is full of hip young-people-music that she had to constantly explain to me (very patiently, I may add). I now have a very long playlist to investigate. She was, no surprise, also great in my class. She talked to some of my students about the assignment they were turning in, and she got to ask them what they thought of the school. She listened and watched the students do their group MLA documentation presentations (and if that's not raw excitement, I don't know what is), and then while they took a quiz she started to read the book our class is reading, Columbine by Dave Cullen. In fact, she got through more than fifty pages of it in about an hour. She is obviously a bookworm, which is just one of the reasons I like her so much.

After my class was over I took her on a campus tour, but I completely forgot to take any pictures, which really stinks because we went to the green house, the auto lab, the book store, the library, and about ten more places that would have been great photo-ops. So, close your eyes and picture her there.

I did remember, though, to snap a picture of her after we ate some lunch in downtown Crystal Lake. I think she was kind of in awe of what was considered a "down town." And I mean that she thought it was quaint and adorable and she could fit it in her pocket.

Angelica in front of the clock in downtown CL

This week, the Gage Park kids are still out of school (though here's hoping to classes resuming mid-week!), and I'm hoping to talk or e-mail with Angelica soon to make more plans. We've got to schedule a visit to Columbia College in the city and we've got to talk about the book we're reading together, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. In fact, if we have time this semester, we're going to read all three of the books from Clare's Mortal Instruments series.

But for now, you can look through the Flickr pictures and look forward to a post from guest author, student extraordinaire, and possible future theater producer, Angelica!

Back to School

It's already week three of the Fall 2012 semester (holy cow!) and I'm mostly in the swing of things; although my body is still waffling between a bright, shiny, energetic morning wake-up two minutes before my 5:15 a.m. alarm, and a soggy, sleepy wake-up, where my body resists and acts like a wet sack of flour until 8:30 a.m. when I'm dragging myself off the train to make the last couple of miles trek to campus.

Last week we had a student organization fair and I was there to recruit new members for our creative writing club, Writer's Block. Our wonderful group has been around for about four years, but last May, most of the steady members either transferred to four-year colleges or graduated. So although we're almost starting from scratch, I'm happy to say that we've got an excellent and promising new crew of about eight students. Here are some pictures from the organization fair where I tried to entice them with candy and an adorable stuffed penguin:

Dr. Thomas with some of the Dance Team gals--they remind me of when I was a high school cheerleader, so I had to include them (Photo Courtesy of MCC and the Office of Marketing and Public Relations)

Me and Donna, my former student/current Writer's Block member & club Secretary/OMPR writer (Photo Courtesy of MCC and the Office of Marketing and Public Relations)

Frank, my former student and president of the Drama Club (Photo Courtesy of MCC and the Office of Marketing and Public Relations)

So, that's the start of the year. Currently, all of my students are terrific and they seem to still like me (or at least they are still laughing at my awful jokes [although they haven't gotten any formal grades yet, so their attitudes might still change...]).

I've also started mentoring a terrific high school student through the Open Books VWrite mentorship program, so stay tuned for more on that. And happy September!

Summer Cold

The end of my summer semester has brought me a lovely little summer cold. I think my body held it off until I was finished teaching my class and had a couple of days without any grading to do so I could just lay about the house, a sneezy, lumpy mess. My students still need to take their final placement test next week (three of them took it after class Thursday and passed with absolutely no problem [yahoo!]), but our official class meetings are over. Here are my fantastic stus:

These are nine of the hardest working students I've ever taught

So next week I'll be on campus, organizing my god-awful mess of a desk and waiting for the remaining six students to come in and tell me how they did on the test. They need to score a 6 but I told anyone who scored a 7 (the highest possible score) that I'd buy them a soda (I already bought a Dr. Pepper for Ali, lower right, blue shirt)

Next week also brings the end of my summer's session of volunteering with Open Books, the fantastic literacy organization I've volunteered for the past two years. Since May, I've been helping out in the office with typing students' stories and poems, putting together maps for a flyering campaign, and doing some data entry. I've really enjoyed going there, just for a couple of hours a day twice a week, because not only is the cause worthy, the people wonderful, the work quiet, soothing, and tidy, and the most common water cooler gossip about what books are on everyone's nightstands, but I am also forced to walk past the amazing Open Books book store on my way to the office and spot something I need (want) to buy. Here are my two most recent purchases:

 Three weeks ago, in addition to helping out in the office, I started the Buddies program, which is a program that assigns big buddies (me) with little buddies (the two lovely ladies below) to be reading partners.

My little buddies

I helped with this program last summer and fall, too, and I hope to keep doing it each summer for the future. It's so much fun to hang out and read with kids who are excited about books and reading.

Me and my buddy Ajani

I'll make sure to take a picture of the whole group when we meet for our last day next week.

To cap off this week, we went to Greg & Paula's house for a bbq to celebrate Bosco turning 2 years old. It's kind of nuts that he's already this old (remember when he was this small?) Look at him now!

Hi, Grandma!

Bo and Cousin Jack (and Jack with his eye on that cake...)

Oh, I'm just reading my new book. Ain't no thang.

And now it's the weekend! Trevor is riding the bike out to Elk Grove with his friend Sarah while I continue to sink into the couch and use up our household supply of Kleenex. I might scrape myself together to leave the house later, but in the meantime, a nap sounds good.

Spring Means...

...new jobs!

Last month Trevor started his new job as photo editor for the Modern Luxury publishing company, which publishes, most notably around town, Chicago Social (or CS as it's know to the cool kids) magazine. Trevor's working on four of the magazines: Manhattan, Washington D.C., Miami, and Hawaii, in addition to some of the special "brides" books each of those cities do each year. As soon as he knew which books he was working on I said, "so you'll get to travel to these wonderful cities, right? Right?!" And he said, "No. All of my work can be done through the Internet." And I said, "booooooooo."

But, this is very exciting. As he put it, he's worked in studio photography, fine photography, and now editorial photography. It's a great move for him and we're really excited about it. Plus, he gets a full hour for lunch! And the fact that we're so excited about that says maybe a little too much.

...a mini-vacation, courtesy of Greg and Paula Bork!

For Christmas, 2011, Greg and Paula got us a ridiculously wonderful gift of a weekend away at the American Club in Kohler, WI. We finally used it this month and went away the weekend after Trevor's birthday (April 12, in case you don't already have it on your calendars). When I made the reservation I told them that it was his birthday, so there was champagne waiting for us in the room when we checked in, and everywhere we went people wished him a happy birthday. He was both embarrassed and pleased.

We didn't do much on Friday night except check in and eat some dinner.

Friday night we ate dinner at the Horse & Plow

The hallway to our room

On Saturday we had a lovely breakfast in the Wisconsin Room

 
and then drove to Sheboygan to check out the John Michael Kohler Arts Center for a dose of culture.

I didn't see the sign about not taking pictures: the security guard made me delete all of them. I only pretended to delete this one.

Trevor snuck this one to avenge my honor. Silly security guard.

And he couldn't resist taking this one. Another T. Power

After the arts center we popped over to beach and pier in Sheboygan to enjoy a bit of the lake.

The birthday boy

We headed back to the American Club to get ready for our spa day, which included amazingly soft robes, a whirlpool, all the almonds and yogurt-covered raisins, lemon water, and tea we could consume, and a couples massage. Oooh, yeah, baby. That's luxury.

There were no pictures taken.

That evening we had a nice dinner and then drinks at the hotel's library. Fantastic.

On Sunday morning before heading out we visited the Kohler Design Center to check out the stunning kitchen and bathroom designs and, of course, the wall of toilets.

...the end of the semester!

This semester my students have been up to some cool things, so I thought I'd share some with you before the semester ends.

My creative writing students got to hang out in MCC's Black Box Theatre while they worked on their 10-minute plays

Here are two little videos from the day my learning community students watched our ceramics instructor firing raku ceramics. They're doing their own projects this week (and writing about them), so they got to see the process first.

This is what the pieces started as:

And this is what they looked like when they were fired:

Cool, huh?

So, that's our spring update. Two more weeks of classes and finals week. And then. Nothingness. For two whole weeks before summer school. Nothingness. Fantastic.