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The Goodyear

January 14, 2013 in Reid's Blog by Reid | Permalink

Hello everyone!

Now that we’ve made it to 2013, I can congratulate you on surviving the apocalypse and, if you’re a prospective student, finishing your application to Harvard. I can congratulate myself on a great first semester of sophomore year (it’s helped my GPA a bit) and can now re-cap the months past, as I’ve distanced myself from them in both time and location (although Vermont isn’t that far away and a handful of weeks isn’t really that long). So fasten your seat-belts and prepare yourself for the highlights (and lowlights) of Fall 2012.

1. Going to see Joss Stone was definitely one of the best musical experiences of my entire life. She is a super talented soul singer, for those of you who are unaware; you can check her out here. (Did I mention she was beautiful?) I went with my really close friend, Leah, who shares a similar passion for music (we are in both The Opportunes and The Nostalgics together) and is a senior at the College. I’m hoping to continue performing with her next year, so I’ll let you know how that goes. Also, my awesome dad got me an Epiphone guitar with pickups, which means that I can plug into an amp and have kick-ass singer/songwriter sessions. Watch out, Boston, here I come.

Joss at the House of Blues! (Credit to Leah and her phone)

2. The two retreats, for The Nostalgics and The Opportunes, were super awesome. As much as I love Harvard, it is great to get away from the bustling feel of Cambridge and focus on my friends and music. Second semester will mean a Nostalgics tour in Vermont (actually in a few days, right before the semester begins) and a Spring Break tour with The Opps (wherever I can find…being tour manager is not a simple position and we’re jivin’ for Jamaica), not to mention a retreat for Photo (oops, Multimedia) of the Crimson. I’m so excited!! (Also my photo friend Allie came back from her semester abroad in Cuba, which means we’ll be again reunited come January 28.)

Nostalgics

Opps!

3. Watching “Sweeney Todd” and photographing various events on campus, including the women’s hockey game when they crushed Russia 4-1. I am always amazed by our theater department (yes, we have ~75 student-run productions annually and they are absolutely killer), our arts on campus (check out the OFA for some of the speakers and performers who come by), and our sports (in which I will be participating come spring…wut wut intramural crew). There’s always something happening, and it’s always more interesting than sitting in your room.

4. ~~Twerking~~ Working all year long! The Admissions Office is a great place to work, as a blogger and tour guide, and various other paid jobs are always available (The Crimson!). I don’t know if I can work more next semester, as I want to take more classes, which leads me to…

Secret Insider View into The Crimson Photolounge…I swear it’s work!

5. …Classes! My anthropology class was super good, and I wrote a really interesting paper on the public school lunch program, which is a field in which I could definitely focus. Next semester, I have to take at least 2 anthro classes, as it took me until midway through the semester to decide on my concentration [major]. My awesome tutor (read:advisor) helped me out a ton during the complicated time of narrowing my academic interests, although I didn’t have to try that hard, as joint concentrations are easy to apply for and aren’t too hard to complete. I’ll also be taking a lot of music classes (2 or 3?) and a Gen-Ed to fulfill my graduation requirements. Heeeere we go!

So those were the good, and alongside the bad, they shaped me into someone who is really happy to say that she goes to Harvard. Although my next semester will be shifted away from singing, music will be taking up a lot of my academic life, and I can’t wait to spend more time with the photography board of The Harvard Crimson, our daily newspaper. I also am thinking of joining the design board to expand a little bit more, and will hopefully be doing intramural crew come spring.

In the meantime, I have a lot of interesting spring semester classes that I’m considering, the responsibility of finding a resort to host my a Cappella group, The Harvard Opportunes, and will need to focus a lot on continuing to change my diet and lifestyle to accomodate my acid reflux. Oh, and today I start a 10-day songwriting challenge, which is led by the Optional Wintersession Activities Week (otherwise known as Wintersession, similar to J-term at other schools). It’s going to be really fun, and the first prompt is our favorite Harvard memory, so I’ll keep you all posted on that one!

Time to get back to my phone calls with Jamaica before I pick up my sister this afternoon. Happy 2013, everyone.

Peace

-Reid

Tags: A Cappella, anthropology, art, classes, Extracurriculars, jobs, music, Spring Break

Guest Blog: Finding—and supporting—the artist in all of us

August 6, 2012 in Guest Blogger by Office of Admissions | 3 comments

Thomas Lee is director of the OFA’s visiting artist program, Learning From Performers, and also director of Office of the Arts communications.

Author Thomas Merton once wrote, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

“Losing ourselves” is a concept not readily embraced in a community like Harvard, where discipline and structure are prized as key ingredients for success. And yet, there is something fundamental about the urge to create, to express oneself, to get lost within the stanza of a poem, the recitation of a dramatic monologue, the movement of a symphony or a piece of choreography. It’s how we identify ourselves, how we learn who we are by experimenting with forms and genres, making molds and breaking them, finding out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s art making. And the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) is in the business of making art making happen for undergraduates and the entire Harvard community.

At its essence, the OFA champions artists—whether first-year Harvard undergraduates or master innovators. Forty-five regular employees and fifty professional instructors comprise the staff of specialists across arts disciplines. Traditional and contemporary aesthetics are integrated into the teaching of co-curricular courses, as well as in the artistic direction of our music ensembles, exhibitions and guest artist programs. The OFA creates connections among practice, theory, and history. It also strives for state-of-the-art practices in the management of many Harvard arts venues.

Taking classes in dance, ceramics and figure drawing, creating theater, working with professional artists from a range of disciplines, playing in an orchestra, singing in a choir, obtaining funding for arts projects and subsidies for music lessons—all of these are in the OFA’s portfolio, which is waiting for you to open and explore.

What’s striking about the artistic community at Harvard is its diversity and the passion of its participants, many of whom will never go on to careers in the arts. That saxophonist in the jazz band who takes on a solo in a Duke Ellington composition? He’s pre-med. The actor tackling Gertrude in Hamlet? She’s got her sights set on law school. And the young woman working with the master artist in the OFA’s ceramics studio might end up running a major corporation some day.

Of course, Harvard has educated hundreds of accomplished artists over the years. When Tommy Lee Jones ’69 received the Harvard Arts Medal in April in recognition of his acting and directing career, he noted, “My experience here [as a Harvard student] is the best thing that’s happened in my creative life, and the reason for that is not simply what I learned, but that I learned how to learn, and I will be grateful for that as long as I live.”

(And don’t just take Mr. Jones’s word for it—to learn more about the importance of the arts and creativity in the lives of Harvard students, visit the OFA’s Harvard Arts Blog: http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/wordpress/)

Whatever your creative journey, we’re here to help you find your way—and to lose yourself, too.

Students work on a project at the OFA ceramics studio during the annual fall “Clay All Night” event.

Members of the Harvard Jazz Band perform a concert at Sanders Theatre, April 2011.

You can follow the OFA on Facebook at Harvard Arts; and on Twitter, @harvardarts. Visit the OFA’s main headquarters at 74 Mt. Auburn St., Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm, and contact us at ofa@fas.harvard.edu or 617.495.8676.

Tags: art, arts, OFA, Office of the Arts

Week-Cap Re-Cap

April 26, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | 5 comments

Hello!

Here are some photos from my trip!

Mosque in LA

Finals of CUPSI!

Delicious Mexican Food

Streets of LA proper

NYC in the Rain

So yesterday was the last day of classes (ohmigosh). However, I still have class to go to; today we’re watching a play presented by Italian 40 for part of our Italian Acd final, and we have an oral exam on Monday. The only weird part about taking a foreign language is that we meet during Reading Period and have exams during that time instead of in the Final exam period. So, on Friday I’ll have my final French presentation on the topic of writers fighting against oppression, and on Monday I have my oral exam for Italian, and then I am DONE! (My final paper for Expos is also due on Monday…eek, I have to do some research in Harvard’s intimidating library system.)

List of Things…

Besides studying this upcoming weekend, I’ll be participating in Grand Elections for The Crimson (from the other side, as an exec instead of a comper, electing the compers to the board) and playing many gigs with The Nostalgics. YAY. My mom is coming up to hear my band play for the last time this year on Saturday and Sunday, and she’s also going to see my Freshman Seminar’s printmaking art show! It’s in the Adams Art Space, which is really cool, and we’ve been working hard to set this exhibit up, so I’m excited to have her come!

Sneak Peek of Exhibit!

I’ve been reallllll busy these past few days trying to catch up on the work I missed last week, but soon it will be done and I’ll be missing it all, so I’m savoring it, I guess. I’m going to stick around until June 1st, and my dorm crew work doesn’t even start until May 13, so I have an entire two weeks to do absolutely WHATEVER I want! I am looking forward to exploring Boston, Cambridge, and other places around the area. Perhaps I will bike to Walden Pond, or better yet, take the train to Appleton Farm, my favorite place in Massachusetts. (Seriously, it is so gorgeous.) I will also be packing up all of my stuff and moving it into storage in Currier, where it will stay until next fall when I move into my new room! (Crossing my fingers for a single.) I’ll be far, far away in Paris…it’s becoming so real, I bought my ticket last week and this week we have an orientation meeting to figure out logistics! Harvard is great; even if you hate everything about it for some weird reason, you can’t deny the amount of resources that abound from the university (:

I don’t have much else to write about. If any of you have questions, feel free to comment and I’ll cover them next week! Congrats on accepted students, and choose Harvard … you will not regret it.

peace

-reid

Tags: art, Extracurriculars, finals, freshmen, study abroad

Shopping Part Two!

January 26, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | 2 comments

Ciao a tutti!

Shopping week for second semester is almost over, with Study Cards (an official list of the courses you’re taking) being due tomorrow. Luckily, I’ve figured out my semester. I’ll be taking Intensive Italian (Italian Acd), Advanced French Grammar II (French 50), Expository Writing 20 (Expos), and a Freshman Seminar called “Pressing the Page: Making Art With Letters, Paper & Ink.” I’m very excited about this semester, especially for my seminar and Italian. They’ve been amazing so far, with Italian flying by every day and my printmaking seminar seeming too short, though it’s two hours on M/W! So far I’ve made calling cards and monogrammed notecards. Check out my first creation thus far!

I <3 Art

Anyways, get ready for a lot more artsy stuff this semester, to add to my arts list from a previous post. Seriously, this is a Liberal Arts college and my goal is to find out why.

Though all Freshmen do not have to take seminars and two languages (well, there is a language requirement, but I definitely loaded up on Romance Languages), everybody who graduates from Harvard College must take Expository Writing. Shaun talks about it from the other side of the bridge, having taken it already, but I have yet to experience this wonderful essay course. Actually, most people don’t like it, but I really love writing, and all the courses I’ve signed up for have high Q ratings (which means they’re good) and are in very close proximity to my dorm! Sweet graphic here:

Wow, Check it out! Canaday has the best location for all things Freshmen.

Anyways, these are the Expos courses I’ve sectioned for. A lot of them haven’t been offered yet, and are brand new, so I thought I’d give them a chance, even though it is risky. Imagining Animals does sound pretty interesting, though.

Location, Location, Location. (Okay, and time/subject.)

If I get sectioned into a M/W 11:00-12:00 time slot, I’ll be having bagged lunch twice a week for the next semester! Good thing Harvard offers them for all students, all the time. Also, our dining services have become quite interesting, with HUDS reintroducing the Korean Barbecue night. Let me tell you, that Kimchi was spicy! After I enjoyed my Korean dinner today with my roommate, I met a few of my bandmates and headed up to the SOCH for our first practice of the second semester. We’re playing a few songs and a lot of transition material at Harvard Thinks Big, which is a very popular set of mini-lectures hosted in Sanders Theater. Last year’s information can be found here. It was awesome seeing everyone again, even though the rehearsal was short and the walk to the quad was a bit chilly. If you’ve forgotten about my band, check out this link! Being part of my amazing mini-community was definitely the best part of my first semester, because it helped me to transition into college life much more smoothly.

Whee!!! Random Picture of Cambridge!

Another super awesome thing in my life right now continues to be The Crimson! I realized that last semester was a ton of fun, and I had the best time taking photos of sports and arts, specifically for the Fifteen Minutes magazine. Over break, I took a lot of photos, and they have definitely improved, to the point where I am proud of my photography skills. Soon I will be monitoring compers as a Junior Editor, chillin’ with them as they experience that which I’ve just done. Tomorrow, I’m covering the Harvard-Yale hockey game, and my family is coming up to watch with me. I am also “schmoozing” with some peeps (editors/my superiors/great people) in order to be (hopefully) elected Arts Photo Exec. That basically means a lot of mini meetings in order to hold a higher position than my current status. I’ll update you when I hear back, but for now, cross your fingers for me!

Arts and Sports mixed together!

The weather has been uncannily warm as of late, which definitely freaks me out a little bit; climate change is upon us, and it’s been pretty evident here in Cambridge. Hopefully it cools down, so I can use the really great skating rink on the Science Center lawn. (What? Harvard has a free skating rink? Why yes, we do.) Most of the time though, I’m inside, doing my homework so that I don’t get behind. I definitely don’t want to make that mistake again, because it creates a lot of unnecessary stress. I’ve been doing a bit of walking recently, because I’m auditioning through Common Casting for Legally Blonde and Hair (the musical), and I have to hike up to the Aggassiz Theater (also home of the visitor center), Loeb Theater, and Farkas Theater. I really missed auditioning, so this process has been a blast! But I should get back to the pile of work on my desk….

Busy busy

Okay! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my post, and for those applying to Harvard, these next few months might be a little worrisome, but try to keep the admissions process in the back of your head and enjoy your last part of high school. You’ll end up wherever you need to be.

Signing off

-Reid

Tags: Academics, admission, art, canaday, courses, Crimson, expository writing, Extracurriculars, foreign, freshmen, romance languages, Shopping Week, sports, theater

JFK –> LAX

January 12, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | 2 comments

It’s been a while since I’ve updated everyone on my life. The 30th, I was in New Hampshire with my family, doing a little snowshoeing and reuniting with my crazy relatives. The 5th, I was flying from JFK to LAX, happily squished between an old Italian man and a snoring jetsetter. Now that I’ve been in the land of sunshine for a week, I suppose it’s time to write an entry!

Christmas was, of course, excellent. I received a UKULELE from my stepdad and my mom, which was awesome, and a lovely plane ticket to Los Angeles from my father. (Awesome again? Yes.) After the celebrations, I said goodbye to my mom, little sister, stepdad, dog, and cat and headed off to NYC with my other sister to visit our father. (Enough family for ya?) The ride was smooth, and we arrived in Connecticut in time for dinner with my grandmother. It was great to see the other side of my family, and although I missed Vermont’s snow, I was excited to get into the city for a few days. Here’s my “travel guide.”

NYC in 36ish Hours

Dining:

Penang: My sister and I went to lunch here with her Oberlin field hockey teammates. Start with the Roti Canai as an appetizer, have the spicy shrimp noodles for a main course, and obviously go somewhere else for pastries.)
Sugar Cafe: This is where you should get dessert. If you like fudgey brownies, this is the place to go. It’s a skinny cafe, much longer than it is wide, and provides the perfect munching atmosphere. Or, take the sweets to go and hop on the subway.
Pinkberry: JUST KIDDING, don’t go here. If you go to any chain in NYC, shame on you. There are tons of places (that I obviously didn’t have time to go to) which are delicious and more fun than any froyo chain could ever hope to be.

Lodging:

Stay with your grandparents in Connecticut. If you don’t have any grandparents who live there, find someone else’s.

Activities:

Photography: New York City is full of tourists, and what better way to blend in than to tote your Nikon along? You may come home with such pictures as this:

ooohsparklez

Go Shopping: see above.
Participate in an Occupy Wallstreet protest: Although I have many friends who are anti-occupy anything, I’m not. My sister and I ended up in Grand Central with about 100 other people, and we documented/protested the National Defense Authorization Act. (Look it up. You may wish to protest after reading what it is.)

Visit Rudy’s Guitar Center: If you’re at all interested in guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, etc, this is the place to be. Also, John Mayer was playing guitars in the uptown location for theentire day…the day before I visited. I’ll be back, though, because I left my guitar to be humidified, as it has totally dried up in Canaday this semester.

COOL. So NYC was awesome, per usual, but on the fifth I started a new adventure in the City of Angels. Read on for the exciting bit.

I’ve been here for a whole week, visiting my GREAT friend Georgie, and staying in her house in the urban sprawl. I cannot think of a city more physically different than New York– it goes on forever, buildings are generally low (except for in downtown), it’s always fair weather (as opposed to the extremes of NYC), everyone drives, and there’s not really a subway system (earthquakes, you know). However, the fashionistas, musicians, actors, and the like can be found comfortably (or uncomfortably) residing in either city; they’re known for similar arts. Needless to say, I love LA and NYC equally, but this weather is the perfect break from the cold. (Yeah, it’s 73 and sunny right now.) Here’s a photo-essay of the highlights of my trip, including captions.