Week 6 – Saturday
Ahh these past few days have shown Olympia weather at its best; darkened skies with thunderstorms one minute, and the next blue skies with big fluffy white clouds. Around 8 pm this past Thursday I went downtown to Ben Moore’s, a place on 4th to have French conversation group with my French faculty and a few people from our class. We’ve organized it with the owners so that people under 21 can get in (Ben Moore’s is a bar at night) as long as we’re in the back restaurant booths and not in the bar area. Which is pretty awesome because otherwise we’d have to find (and probably pay to rent) a space to practice our french.
While we were all talking a classmate of mine (who I had also taken a ballet class with last quarter) mentioned she was going to the Eagle’s Ballroom (a studio space near the East side of Olympia) for swing dancing on Tuesday. And she invited me as one of her guests! I’m so excited! There’s a woman there who teaches Swing Dancing from 7 -7:30pm every Tuesday for $5 and then the student can stay for a swing dance party afterward, from about 7:30-8. I’ve already convinced about three other people to come, so I hope we all have a lot of fun.
Earlier on Thursday our class went to one of my faculty’s house for seminar and Salon. A Salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation. Salons are commonly associated with French literary and philosophical intellectual gatherings of the 17th century and 18th century, are important to my class (Dark Romantics) because we are studying the Romantic period in Europe focusing on the art, literature and philosophy of that time. We all carpooled to her house (which her husband designed) and held seminar on Nerval’s Aurelia, while eating the delicious scones and various other pastries our faculty had made for us. After seminar, in keeping with the tradition of Salon, various members of the class read poetry by Nerval, Baudelaire and Nietzsche, and some even read poems in French before reading the English translation. I think it was definitely my favorite seminar experience, and really helped me to understand the mind-set of the Romantic era Salons; I’m planning on going to another Salon that’s held by one of my classmates as often as I can, to repeat the experience.
It always amazes me how much of a community Olympia is, from the very accommodating owners of Ben Moore’s who are giving us a place to practice our French, to the plethora of activities that are organized and run by people in Olympia, and are provided to the community for so cheap! And I was really impressed by everyone in my class and how enthusiastic they’ve been immersing themselves in the Romantic era in order to better understand it.
P.S. Today it my brother’s birthday, he’s sixteen! I’m not going to lie; he’s pretty awesome.
P.P.S. I found this (Synchronized Cycling) while trolling the Internet- I wonder if we could organize something like this in Olympia?
Halloween
I hope y’all had a great Halloween. I know I did! After spending the last couple of days putting together a college-budget costume for me and mon petit-ami Adam (we went as Max and a Wild Thing- specifically Carol) I met up with Shirley to get do last minute stuff, plus hair and make-up.
We all went downtown to the Capitol Theater for NIGHT OF THE LIVING TRIBUTE BANDS, a pretty spectacular throw-down, the likes of which included The B52s, Judas Priest (who rode a motorcycle on stage), The Runaways (my personal favorite by far), the Yardbirds and Faces. It was a lot of fun to go to the Capitol Theater (which usually functions as a movie theater) and dance up in the front of the stage.
Outside the Capitol Theater around 10:30pm Thrill the World, performed Thriller on the blocked off streets around the theater. Right before they started performing there were a bunch of people just hanging out on the street, it was really cool since everyone was dressed up in their costumes. Overall it was a pretty awesome Halloween, especially the Raspberry Chocolate Vegan cupcake from Sizizis Café.
Here’s a link to the Capitol Theater if any of you are interested: www.olympiafilmsociety.org
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