Molweni bahlobo bam! Hello, my friends!
I’m slowly picking up some of the greetings and phrases of isiXhosa, the language/dialect of the Xhosa people in the eastern cape region of South Africa. I am taking the introductory course in Xhosa at Rhodes. It’s really exciting to be learning such a new language that has such an interesting culture behind it. Though I still feel a little out of place using the phrases I have picked up, I hope it will continue to be a valuable learning experience in the classroom to complement my interactions with real people in Grahamstown and on campus. It’s amazing how many people are at least bilingual if not multilingual. Granted, I guess I studied some foreign language in school, but diversity and appreciation of language skills should really be valued and practiced in the United States more, I think. Difference and diversity should be a value, not a burden. I’m also taking courses in Ethnomusicology and Anthropology. The Ethnomusicology has a performance component that could be really cool. We’re going to be learning about different instruments and music styles of people indigenous to the eastern cape area. The lecture part of the course is a little more theory-oriented, but still reasonably interesting. I’m not so sure about Anthropology yet. For a subject area that is so engaged with culture and personal practices and interactions, it is starting off somewhat above reality. Sometimes that is really frustrating about academia. No matter how personal the basis for understanding is, I feel like so much academic writing remains wordy and theoretical and above reality. I’m still not totally convinced, but I suppose it can instigate more of our own engagement with real people and real organizations. I think experience has SO much more educational value than a lot of academic areas (at least in my areas of social science and politics and sociology and whatnot) but hopefully academics serve as a good complement to my interactions with people on campus, in Grahamstown, and volunteering and whatnot.
The marimba ensemble was an awesome “action-not-theory” experience. I showed up, met some really cool people, and then the teacher just showed us our parts and we started jamming. Just pure jamming. It was AMAZING. No reflection, no theoretical explanation, and no too-long articles. Just music. Not that those other things don’t have their place in our lives in other ways on occasion, but it was totally cool to just play. Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.
Everything,
Jeremy
I’m slowly picking up some of the greetings and phrases of isiXhosa, the language/dialect of the Xhosa people in the eastern cape region of South Africa. I am taking the introductory course in Xhosa at Rhodes. It’s really exciting to be learning such a new language that has such an interesting culture behind it. Though I still feel a little out of place using the phrases I have picked up, I hope it will continue to be a valuable learning experience in the classroom to complement my interactions with real people in Grahamstown and on campus. It’s amazing how many people are at least bilingual if not multilingual. Granted, I guess I studied some foreign language in school, but diversity and appreciation of language skills should really be valued and practiced in the United States more, I think. Difference and diversity should be a value, not a burden. I’m also taking courses in Ethnomusicology and Anthropology. The Ethnomusicology has a performance component that could be really cool. We’re going to be learning about different instruments and music styles of people indigenous to the eastern cape area. The lecture part of the course is a little more theory-oriented, but still reasonably interesting. I’m not so sure about Anthropology yet. For a subject area that is so engaged with culture and personal practices and interactions, it is starting off somewhat above reality. Sometimes that is really frustrating about academia. No matter how personal the basis for understanding is, I feel like so much academic writing remains wordy and theoretical and above reality. I’m still not totally convinced, but I suppose it can instigate more of our own engagement with real people and real organizations. I think experience has SO much more educational value than a lot of academic areas (at least in my areas of social science and politics and sociology and whatnot) but hopefully academics serve as a good complement to my interactions with people on campus, in Grahamstown, and volunteering and whatnot.
The marimba ensemble was an awesome “action-not-theory” experience. I showed up, met some really cool people, and then the teacher just showed us our parts and we started jamming. Just pure jamming. It was AMAZING. No reflection, no theoretical explanation, and no too-long articles. Just music. Not that those other things don’t have their place in our lives in other ways on occasion, but it was totally cool to just play. Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.
Everything,
Jeremy
