Family Weekend

Being the youngest in my family, my parents were understandably hesitant to let me venture out to the East Coast for college. They understood my want to get out of the Midwest, but had a harder time wrapping their minds around why I would want to be so far away from my family. To be fair, though, all three of my sisters did stay in the Midwest for college, and were only a few hours drive away from our house. Knowing that my parents were reluctant to let me leave did make me a little more nervous to come to Lehigh University. What if my parents were right? What if I want to come home, but I can’t catch a quick flight, or it’s too expensive? Question upon question were piling up in my head, but by the time August (and therefore freshman orientation) came around, there was no turning back. Obviously when I got to Lehigh I immediately felt comfortable and knew that this place is where I truly did belong. While I would tell my parents this every time I talked to them (often every day of the week), I felt like they didn’t really understand to what extent this was actually true. I see this as the main reason I was so excited for them to come visit me over Family Weekend.

Hailing all the way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I don’t know too many family members who live within driving distance of Bethlehem, so having my family attend Parent’s Weekend in November meant a lot to me. Yes, I had been home for Pacing Break so it wasn’t as if I needed to see them, but I found myself getting more and more excited to show them my “new” life. Admittedly, I even started making a list of all the places on and off Lehigh’s campus that I wanted to take them. I wanted to prove to my parents that I was happy with my choice of college and that Lehigh and I were a good match. Showing my parents where I have my classes, where I study, and where I hang out a lot seemed more important to me than participating in one of the many tours or programs planned by the University. Arriving on Friday afternoon, my family was given an ample amount of time to tour how we wanted to, both Friday and Saturday. Proudly telling my parents a little bit about each building we passed, I felt a sense of accomplishment for having actually made it this far. It seems silly, but I think every freshman should take a step back, and realize what they have accomplished. We all made it through high school – what is supposed to be one of the most emotional times in a person’s life – and got into a well-respected college that we can be proud to show off. Apparently, family weekend was more than a time to see my parents, but yet another experience to learn something new about myself at Lehigh.

Top 20 lists of 2009

With the decade quickly rolling to a close, dozens of “Top 10” lists are coming out. Whether authored in a magazine, on a blog, or on facebook, these lists are obviously subjective to who is writing them. I looked at multiple lists from different sources, and found diverse rankings everywhere I went. Yes, some places showed the same songs in different spots on the chart, but often times I would find that certain songs didn’t even show up on the different lists. This made me think – why do we insist on making these rankings? If everyone has a different opinion on music anyways, can we as a population get anything out of these lists? What makes people get a thrill out of seeing songs placed in a particular order? Does it make one feel “cool” if they like a song that shows up on the chart? Honestly, I think part of it is that people like having easy and simple things to read. Instead of reading an intelligent article in a magazine, like “The Economist,” they can opt for less confusing dialect that still gives them something to think and converse about. People are also prone to judge everything they see, so by looking into these rankings, people are able to judge the songs, the author, and the magazine in general in simple ways that don’t require too much brainpower. While this is a negative view of the situation, I do think someone needed to put that out there.

It is fun, though, to look through these charts and wonder what kind of person put them together. As I read them, I always think to myself, “This person loves their rock music,” or, “The person who wrote this article is obviously biased towards heavy metal.” In truth, people like to know things about other people, and a good way to get to know someone is by reading articles that state said person’s opinions! We as humans are naturally inquisitive, and are always interested to know more about others, so this “list-making” gets us one step closer to finding out something about one more person in this large world. After all, when you are first getting to know someone, doesn’t music usually come up? In most of my encounters, it does. Not only does it let us have internal discussions, but also these charts bring people together over their music. By mentioning a “Top 10” list, you instantly started what could be an hour-long conversation, delving into why the author picked the songs they did and why. In essence, these lists bring people together – who doesn’t want that?

The Sun Inn

Family Weekend is the time when a student’s family pays too much money to come visit their child. For my parents, this weekend included spending money on the plane tickets from Wisconsin to the Lehigh Valley International Airport, renting a car, a hotel (which is always more expensive over family weekend), nice dinners, and, of course, a shopping trip to load up on food items. Therefore, it is always nice when we run across things to do that cost no money. While walking around North Bethlehem, my dad had been pestering me to go to the Moravian Museum, but since I had already visited that establishment, I did not feel a need to take another tour of it. Strolling down the streets that weren’t Main Street led us to an interesting building. It particularly struck my eye because of the fact that we had just talked about it in my English I class the past week.

This building is known as the Sun Inn, and gains its popularity through the fact that it is thought to be haunted. A tour of this museum took approximately five minutes, since the tour consisted of basically walking around in a circle on the first floor of the hotel. After reading the paragraph on each of the five stations, and not seeing any mention of ghosts, I meandered over to the front desk to confront the man sitting their about the haunted past of the building I was in. He gladly obliged to give me the low-down on the paranormal activity that had been witnessed where we were standing. According to the man I was talking to, dozens of paranormal groups have come through the Inn, and all have thus far concluded that there are ghosts inhabiting the Sun Inn. One in particular, whose name is William, quite the friendly ghost, and simply sits in the chair he is claimed to have died in a long, long time ago. Actually, all of the ghosts I was told of are relatively friendly, which makes the manager happy to be working there. The story that I liked the best is that the catering companies that work on the upper levels of the hotel for private dinners claim that once they put down silverware or other table-settings and then leave for a minute, when they return, the aforementioned items have been moved! While they have not done studies on this particular topic, it is yet another story that adds to the fun of the Sun Inn.

Halloween at Lehigh

Halloween at Lehigh was a very interesting event. Experiencing this holiday in college is much different than what I encountered back home on the streets of my suburb in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am so used to handing out candy to the children in their fairy and batman outfits, that I wasn’t even sure what to expect here at Lehigh. Little did I know how much I would miss the youthful innocence of being at home for Halloween. As the movie “Mean Girls” states: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” Lehigh is no exception to this statement – nor do I think any other college is. Since when do girls need to feel pretty by dressing in short skirts and skimpy tops? Why can’t everyday clothes do the trick? Could someone do a psychological analysis about this? I’m sure they could, and I’m sure they already have. It just boggles my mind when I think back on the past three nights. Thursday night was relatively tame compared to Friday and Saturday. Since it wasn’t truly Halloween yet, I assumed people assumed that the “sluttiness factor” should be fairly low, and as it got closer to Halloween, they could move up on the scale. This assumption was one hundred percent correct. I truly came to this realization when sitting in the Hawks Nest – Lehigh’s late-night food source – people watching (one of my favorite past-times). As I surveyed the people walking in and out of this establishment, I was shocked to see the amount of skin showing. It was almost as if there was a contest to see how much of your body one could show without being completely nude. Personally, I’m not a fan of such competitions. There is no doubt that I enjoyed my Halloween despite the array of costumes, because there are always the people who do Halloween right and actually dress up – nerds, Mario and Luigi, superman, buzz lightyear, etc. After my first college Halloween, I am now prepared for how many people in today’s world think. It is entertaining to think about how the times have changed since my parents’ first Halloween in college. I can only imagine. All in all, Halloween at Lehigh was a great experience, and now I am prepared for the mindset of college students on this particular holiday.

The Moravian Museum in North Bethlehem

As we walked down the hill towards North Bethlehem, I was looking out trying to place where this museum could be located. I hadn’t been to North Bethlehem since first looking at Lehigh University junior year of high school, so I didn’t know if I should expect something similar to South Bethlehem – not the cleanest of places with some interesting people to go along with it – or to find a completely different world. I think I found the later.

Walking across the bridge, I noticed the cute, tree-lined street that welcomes you to North Bethlehem, and knew this was going to be a good day. While strolling towards the museum, I took in all of the old, historic buildings throughout the community, and how the air felt so much more like a town, as opposed to South Bethlehem, where everything seems kind of hectic to me.

When we finally got to the Moravian Museum, I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. It looked like a house in a little town that was turned into a museum – which happens to be exactly what it is. The museum is what was formerly the “Gemeinhaus,” which means community house. For such a little museum, it sure packed in a lot of information. As we paid for our tickets to go in, the clerk mentioned how the credit card machine wasn’t working, and went on to mention how it really is like back in the “old days” when credit cards weren’t used – how quaint!

The Moravian community was organized on June 25, 1742. The oldest buildings are on West Church Street (where the museum is located). Those marked are: Gemeinhaus, Sisters’ House, Bell Brothers’ house, and the Old Chapel. Almost all of the structures in the Moravian community were made from logs – not stone, so it is easier to define them from other cultures. Most of the earliest residents of the Gemeinhaus came from Germany, and had originally tried to settle in Savannah, Georgia in 1735, but eventually the emigrants came to Pennsylvania. The first building they constructed in the 18^th century was the Gemeinhaus. In every Moravian community, the Gemeinhaus is situated on one side of the town square, and had two doors in front – one for men and one for women. The Gemeinhaus was a school, a place of worship, and a space to live and work.

Only members of the Moravian Church were allowed to live and work in Bethlehem before 1845, and until 1762, everything in the community was owned by the church. The residents received goods, clothing, education, childcare, and shelter in exchange for working at jobs that supported the community. For example, from 1742-1762, tradesmen were required to have permission from the church to work at their performed occupation. The social structure for this time is for the Moravian community is known as the choir system. Community members were divided into groups according to age, gender, and marital status. There were eight choirs: little girls, little boys, single sisters, single brothers, married sisters, married brothers, widowed sisters, and widowed brothers. Each choir lived, worked, and worshiped separately from the other choirs. Dress in that day was pretty plain. Many of the women wore a common style of clothing consisting of a plain petticoat or skirt, a bodice, and a Haube or cap, but the ribbons she used to tie her Haube and lace her bodice reflected the choir she belonged to. Little girls wore red ribbons, single sisters wore pink ribbons, married sisters wore blue ribbons, and widowed sisters wore white ribbons. Men’s clothing was pretty much the same as that of men who did not live in Moravian communities, though they usually chose conservative colors.

Since everyone lived together in this community, they all had the same schedule. When walking through the museum, there is one room that imitates the schoolroom, and has the daily schedule form April 28, 1780 posted. The students would rise around 5:30 in the morning, eat breakfast at 6:00am, prepare for class from 6:00-8:00am, have classes with a half-hour of chapel from 8:00-11:45am, have dinner at 11:45, and then resume classes from 1:00-4:00. I grew up in a world much different from the Moravians, so this schedule seems very unpleasant to me. Not only does waking up at five-thirty in the morning every day of the year sound more painful than nails screeching on a chalkboard, but the rest of the day doesn’t sound like too much fun either. Oh, how the times have changed.

After walking around the museum for a while, we decided to check out the local surroundings – see what the rest of North Bethlehem was like. We walked in about a ten-block radius of the museum, and it was nice to see all of the old buildings interspersed with the new shops and restaurants. Apparently we picked the right day to go downtown, because there was a Halloween parade, so the sidewalks were bustling with little children in their costumes, parents chatting, and all-around happiness. A stop inside the Chocolate Lab was the perfect way to end our day in North Bethlehem, getting delicious chocolate for a pretty reasonable price.

This excursion ended up being much more entertaining than I originally thought it would be, because it wasn't just a trip to a museum, it was exploring a place I'd never been before! Even the museum was more interesting than I expected, and it’s nice to know a little bit of the history about the place that I am calling my home for the next four years. I also got to explore North Bethlehem a little bit, which I probably wouldn’t have done had I not gone to the museum in the first place. Knowing that there are good restaurants and a movie theater makes North Bethlehem an enticing place to go for a break from the bubble known as Lehigh University.

Music and Today's Culture

Today’s youth culture is very focused on music. Music provides a source of entertainment and a good way to start a conversation. I can guarantee that any party you attend will have some type of music playing, and the type of music playing will give you a good idea of what type of party it is. For instance, should you hear rap music blasting from a frat house, you can assume a dance party is happening at that moment. If you hear someone playing country music, you can assume it is a more relaxed situation. When thinking of the music categories discussed in the reading, you can easily apply a stereotype to each of them. When I was reading through the passage that started on page 669, I unintentionally pictured someone who I thought would listen to that type of music. I think the stereotypes that people associate with certain types of music actually end up influencing what those musicians actually wear and how they act. After all, isn’t the media all about appealing to their audiences? If an artist notices that their fan base wears skinny jeans and tight v-neck t-shirts, aren’t they more likely to try to appeal to those people by dressing and acting like they do? It is a pretty good marketing trick. Teens are always looking for a group to associate with – a place where they can belong. Since so many bands sound the same, it gives people a lot of “different” things to listen to, while staying in the same genre, and making it seem like they are music connoisseurs.

Sometimes, though, people use music as a refuge from the dramas of everyday life. They can escape to a place where screaming and beating on drums is an okay thing to do. Where sorrowful lyrics are scribbled down while the lyricist is going through a painful time. The listeners hear the agony in the voice of the singer and think that maybe somebody else does know what they are going through. Maybe somebody else does understand them. If someone can feel this type of connection to a certain type of music, of course they are going to back that genre or a certain artist. This is how the ball gets rolling for certain musicians – they acquire a small, dedicated group listening to your music (all of whom are very similar types of people) and the word spreads among that crowd, and voila, you have a fan-base. This, in turn, leads to people buying your music and therefore you have financial backing. Although, yes, it’s easier said then done, it has obviously worked for quite a few people. Today, there are so many bands that started by playing in their garage, and some local kids started hanging around and listening to their stuff, and then all of the sudden they have the idea to get bigger, play real gigs, and they have a chance to hit it off.

This issue of music also deals with how the idea of the “American dream” has changed over the years. Today, people consider the American dream to be making it big, as opposed to the old idea of settling down, getting a successful job, and starting a family. In order to fulfill the American dream in some people’s eyes, you need to be a rock-star; live like the big celebrities, own a fancy car, a huge mansion, and have an episode on MTV Cribs. One of the problems with this, though, is that many people think they can attain this goal, when in reality only a handful will ever make it that far up the social/ economic ladder. This leads today’s youth garage bands to have unrealistic ideas of how far they can go with their talents. You can be an extremely talented guitarist, but you are most likely competing with hundreds of thousands of other people just like you, who have just as much drive and will to make it big. Reality check: good luck making it big if there are more people than you can think of striving for the same thing. So many people put their heart and soul into music, and only end up hurt in the end, because they wasted years of their lives trying to “make it big” until they end up middle-aged with no future.

Music is a huge part of today’s culture, but has it gotten too big? Do people put too much emphasis on their love for music? Have we taken it too far? These are all questions that I do not have the answer to, but that we can all speculate about. Frankly, I think right now we are okay, but the second more kids start trying to make it big in the music industry rather than go to college is the day I take a whole new stance to the music culture. I cannot justify listening to music instead of studying. Since I believe that education is one of the most important things a teenager can do to improve their standing in life, I find it hard to justify people staying in their band instead of going to college because they think they have a chance of making. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but maybe people need a reality check. Of course I’m not saying don’t listen to music (since I do all the time), it’s just that people have to realize that music isn’t everything, and that life will continue, even when the jam session stops.

Obama's Speech to America's Youth

While reading the transcript of President Obama’s speech to the students of America, I figured it would be an interesting topic to write a blog post on. In this speech, President Obama called for children of all ages to try their best to accomplish their goals, not be afraid to ask for help when they need it, and not let their failures or challenges define them but to teach them. Simply put, this seems like a pretty good message to send out; but it’s in the intricacies of speech that I find some problems. First of all, he talks about “turning around schools that aren’t working.” Well, frankly, the government needs to get a move on this. In my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public School system is horrible. The kids have no incentive to stay in school, so they don’t. The dropout rate is incredibly high, and I would like to know what President Obama is going to do about this. I enjoy listening to his messages of hope, but I want to hear what his actions are going to be. Also, while I obviously think this is a good message to be sending to America’s youth, I’m concerned that he doesn’t have enough push behind his points. Why did President Obama choose to bail out the American car companies instead of the colleges who are being forced to cut back programs because of their financial deficit? Yes, the banks and car companies did need to be bailed out, but if Obama is implying that it all starts with the children of our nation, shouldn’t we have started bailing them (and therefore the schools) out first? I do appreciate his effort to motive the students though, and President Obama is no stranger to messages of hope, but I do think he needs to act on these words. The ideas he is putting into our heads are great, but if they are not going to be carried out, what’s the point? If schools don’t have enough money to buy books, computers, and general school supplies that they need in order to teach, how are we supposed to motivate the students? How are we supposed to keep kids in school if there is nothing there besides people? Frankly, that puts a lot of pressure on the teachers. I have a lot of faith in teachers, but that may be asking a bit too much. It may be true though that we need to reach our youth with messages hope to get them to feel invested in and responsible for their/our future. After all, my generation will be taking over soon, so we better be prepared. All in all, if anyone were going to give this speech, I am glad it was Obama. He is a particularly good role model for working your way up through education. He worked very hard throughout his life to get where he is today, so why shouldn’t he try to motivate others? President Obama is easily able to relate his story to others, which helps his position. I am not so sure so many people would listen to what he says if he were not such a charismatic speaker, and so open about his childhood, but that is part of the reason he was elected to the presidency. Now let’s just see if we can get some action out of those pretty words.