First-Year Seminar 2017 – DFA

I think that one of the best ways to make friends and meet new people in college is by joining clubs and activities. At the club fair I saw that Baruch has many various clubs that students can join so that is why last week I decided to go to the Model UN general info meeting in the undergraduate student government office. Model UN (United Nations) is a club where students go to mock United Nations conferences and act as delegates representing a certain country. Before the conferences, students research their country and then when they get their they negotiate potential solutions to real world issues that would be discussed in the actual United Nations. This club teaches you about research, public, speaking, negotiating, and working on a team. There are three conferences that the Model UN team from Baruch goes to and participates in, with one of them being in Canada and the other two in New York. In addition, you can meet other students from colleges all over the world at these conferences. I was interested in going to the Model UN meeting because I am planning on majoring in political science and I want to learn more about current issues and problems that are going on in the world. I find the topics that Model UN focuses on very interesting and am looking forward to exploring more about the United Nations. I hope that by joining Model UN I will be pushed out of my comfort zone and grow as a person while meeting new people that I share similar interests with. I am planning on applying for this club and I am excited to do this as well as other activities during my time at Baruch.

 

On Sunday September 10th I visited the Bernadette Mayer Memory exhibit on 333 Broome St at the Canada Gallery. My English professor assigned us to visit the gallery after we read excerpts of her book Midwinter Day. I personally found the excerpts to be boring with alot of run on sentences so expected the gallery to be uninteresting. When I entered the gallery there was no one there except for the people working upstairs. At the gallery there were two benches and a huge photo album on the wall. There was also a check in station with a handout and a sign in sheet. However when I got there there I was pleasantly surprised with the numbered them was interesting because there didn’t seem to be a particular order to the numbers. way the gallery was organized. I initially expected there to be other rooms with different exhibits however there were was a concrete room filled with snapshots of Bernadette and her family life. There was a loudspeaker in which Bernadette narrated what was happening in the photos. As i sat down on the bench I noticed that many of the pictures were random snapshots of her life. In class we compared the exhibit to Instagram feeds. Visiting the Memory exhibit made me appreciate Midwinter Day more and understand why she decided to take her pictures in that way. The Bernadette Mayer Memory exhibit assisted my first semester at Baruch by showing me that art galleries don’t have to be huge rooms with famous paintings on the walls but something more simple. It also made me more interested in the English course I’m currently taking because the initial classes felt like a typical class in which you submit writing assignments and essays. Overall it was a great first experience during my first semester at Baruch.

A few days ago I went to the Canada Art Gallery with some of my friends from the class, I believe it was Thursday the 14th. A funny story about that actually is that I had gone already about a week beforehand, but I totally forgot to take a selfie… so I went again. I had two different experiences at the gallery, but today we’re talking about the most recent one.
I actually ended up getting there pretty late because my alarm failed me miserably that morning. (I wasn’t the last one there though!) When I got there everybody already left so I called Albaceer, and he told me that they had gone to the festival, but Shanjana was on her way back because she forgot her selfie. After, we both took our selfies and waited for some other people to show up. Joy arrived first. She walked in, said hi, took a selfie, talked with us a little, and then left us… fake! Shortly after these betrayals from our friends,
good ol’ Liam arrived, he took his selfie and then he, Shanjana, and I were on our way to school.
On our journey back to school, we decided to pass through the fair, where Shanjana and Liam got some hot dogs. We then went to Starbucks so that I could get a mocha frappe, of course. Finally we took the train and arrived to class perfectly on time, and with minutes to spare. Also, we forgave our friends for being fake.
-The End

Kayleen Caba 🙂

Last week Thursday I took a trip to the Canada Gallery. The Canada Gallery is an art exhibit located on 333 Broome street. The gallery is currently displaying Bernadette Mayer’s exhibit titled “Memory”. Bernadette is more well known for her written works such as her autobiographic work “A Midwinter Day” and “Poetry State Forest”. The fact that she has an Art Exhibit is really interesting to me. Transitioning from written work to art work isn’t easy for many people, because in my opinion I feel like it appeals to different parts of the mind. So to be able to properly transition and still attract a good amount of attention is quite spectacular.

In the summer of 1971 starting on July 1st, Bernadette used a roll of film everyday to capture whatever interested her. The end result was a collection of over a thousand photos; The photos weren’t of anything special, but they were things that just intrigued and appealed to her. The photos were as simple as the railings of a staircase, and the most interesting photo was one captured of the edge of a cliff. I think what really made the photos so appealing was the use of basic photographic principles like the rule of thirds for example.

Overall the exhibit was very interesting and the audio pairing of it helped give me a deeper understanding of the whole situation.

My first day at Psychology is when I was fortunate enough to encounter a girl named Gal Elimelech. It was through Gal that I was introduced to an absolute club called Hillel. Hillel is more of a Jewish oriented club but everyone is welcomed to join! I came here to look for some amazing experiences and friends. I never realized that a club can be so accepting and exciting. Hillel never lets me down, there’s always something to do. I’ve noticed that whenever I need a place to hang out or become more enriched in my Jewish culture, Hillel is the place to go. They’re always ready to give away and help with anything. From business connections to homework help. Hillel is always ready to help. I’m so grateful to have found a supporting community that I can call my own and am not surprised to find myself here everyday! I simply feel so welcomed to a school that is notorious for having virtually no social life, I found the top 10 percent.

On Thursday September 14, 2017, I went to an art gallery with my classmates. I left at 11:30am and arrived there at 12:30pm. It took me exactly one hour to get there. It was located in Chinatown on a quiet street. The art gallery was very unexpected, yet inspiring. Before arriving, I expected the art gallery to have numerous paintings with several rooms. However, it was simply a room with a wall covered with pictures of her life. Before the images, there are a few benches facing them and speakers on the left and right side of the room. The pictures were divided by her age, telling us a bit of her story. The gallery made me feel very peaceful. It is a very quiet room with speakers playing calm words, so I felt relaxed. Having that in the background, while I observed the photographs taped on the wall, it feels as if you were almost in the picture with Bernadette Mayer. In addition, knowing that Bernadette Mayer is currently 72, and displaying pictures of her life and herself during her teens and twenties, it reminded me to enjoy my moments. It reminded me to take pictures, so I can look back at them when I am 72, but not too many, so I don’t lose the moment. It was a very great experience for me. Continue reading “Blog Post #1(academic)”

On Thursday September 14, a few of my peers and I went to a small art gallery in Chinatown. The only reason why we went is because our English professor required us to. There is a piece on exhibit that is by American poet, writer and visual artist Bernadette Mayer. In English we are looking at her creative nonfiction pieces to help us write a creative nonfiction essay of our own.

When we walked into the exhibit, we saw two benches and a wall full of pictures. We also heard a voice coming from speakers on opposite ends of the room. Since none of us has been to a small art gallery before, we were not aware that we were supposed to grab a pamphlet from the front desk that explains what the piece was about. We eventually figured out that the pictures were snapshots from her life, like an old school Instagram. The voice from the speakers was Mayer reading one of her writing pieces. It was an interesting gallery. My first experience at a small art gallery was a pleasant one.

Going to this art gallery helped me understand what we are supposed to do in English. However, more importantly, going with a group of people from my English class helped us create a bond. Although everyone showed up at different times and we were all over the place, it was really fun. After the gallery, we walked a few blocks over to little Italy and took part in the feast of San Geranno. I believe that if you want to get accustomed to a new place, you have to make new friends. College is no different. Making new friends made the transition between high school and college much easier. Going on this little trip really assisted me in my first semester at Baruch.

 

One day our English teacher told us to go visit this art gallery on 333 Broome street. Before she told us to do so I never visited an art gallery before. I’ve only been to museums on those days when I was younger when either my summer camp, elementary school, or middle school took everyone. Those were the days. Even though we would always get tired of going to the Museum of Natural History every year.

I decided to go to the art museum with my friend from my old school that has been wanting to go to a museum for a while now as well as a girl from a school by my house. They picked me up from work on 57th street and Lexington Ave. From there we took the 6 train to Spring street. At first, I didn’t know the exact address of the gallery. It was either 133 Broome street or 333 Broome street. If the first address we went to was incorrect then I guess we would’ve had to do extra traveling.

Thankfully, the first address we went to was the correct one (333 Broome Street). The doors said “CANADA”. My English teacher tried to tell us that this gallery was suppose to make us feel like we were in Canada. When we walked through the doors all I saw was a white wall and heard a voice talking out of a speaker I couldn’t even see. As we walked further into the art gallery, all we saw was a room with a bunch of regular sized pictures neatly set up. That honestly made me mad because I was thinking an art gallery would’ve been bigger and better than what I saw.

We looked around at the photos on the wall and didn’t know the meaning behind it really. I decided to take pictures to prove that I actually went to the gallery just in case. I guess the gallery was a good background for those.