<p>Well, we seem to be in a particular sweet spot with my kids (theyre hardly kids anymore!!!), so I thought it time to take stock and give thanks (and update folks).</p>
<p>Without our or her knowledge, my younger one - the definitely NOT Smithie -(now 16) was nominated as a finalist for the Countys Council on Cultural Diversity and Human Rights annual youth award. We found out about it when they called her for an interview (with all 7 Council members), and they kept her for an hour. And now she has been named the winner, mostly (we think) for her work with the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, but also for the fundraising work she has done through her piano recitals for the Israeli-Palestinian Families of the Bereaved Forum for Peace, the African Great Lakes Initiative (<a href="http://www.aglionline.org)%5B/url%5D">www.aglionline.org)</a>, and the Atfaluna School for Deaf Children in Gaza ( <a href="http://www.atfaluna.net%5B/url%5D">www.atfaluna.net</a> ). So Monday they hold a reception for her, all her friends and family get to attend, and she gets to make a little speech. Then she has a TV interview scheduled for the following week. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, yesterday we found out that she won one of those AFS Arabic Language Study Institute Scholarships for seven weeks all-expenses paid for intensive language study in Cairo. Frankly, this one didnt surprise me while she is not a particularly strong student academically, I told her from day one that if they found 25 other applications out of the 200 submitted that were stronger than hers, they certainly deserved to go! Well, they didnt. </p>
<p>However, it is not yet certain she can go. This weekend she qualified for and competes at the gymnastics national championships (Level 9), and we have no idea whether there are college recruiters who will come knocking, so we are all holding our breath. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, my older one (Smithie) is still in Italy. She spent her spring break at standing room at the Vienna Opera, to see Parsifal (all five hours of it). Instead of spending 39 Euros for a seat, she spent 3 to stand, and then 40 Euros for a pair of standing shoes. (I warned her that if she got a seat, shed likely fall asleep.) Went back two nights later to see Thomas Hampson in Simon Boccanegra, and now has the shoes to remember them by.</p>
<p>She has been awarded a paid research fellowship for next year. Smith has these Kahn Fellowships, whereby all project Fellows meet together weekly for a colloquium gathering and meal a process of social and intellectual interaction that represents the core of the project. It is here that Fellows develop their research and discuss one anothers work-in-progress from the perspective of her/his own particular interests. In addition to these discussions, Fellows are encouraged to invite outside scholars and experts to participate in the research colloquium and to offer public events that are open to the academic community and the public. </p>
<p>Her project, which has 7 students (I think) and multiple faculty is on Undergrounds and Underworlds:</p>
<p>"In the Underworlds of mythology, ritual, and poetry, and in Undergrounds of subterranean space (sewers, subways, cellars) and oppositional or avant-garde movements, things occur that are interesting and important. Both Underworlds and Undergrounds have existed for thousands of years in religious mythologies, in literary narratives and folk tales, and in political cultures, as well as in the interpretation and use of subterranean spaces, both natural and built. The creation of Underworlds into which characters descend and the use of Undergrounds in which revolutions are hatched have held meaning across wide spans of geographical and cultural space, and in every historical period. Some might look to Odysseus invoking the shade of the prophet Tiresias from the Underworld at the inaugural moment of the European literary tradition, while others see groups devoted to subversive ideas finding refuge in the catacombs under Rome in the first century BC; while still others pursue Gilgamesh into an Underworld, or trace Mao Tse-tung to caves in the mountains of China, where he harbors his revolutionary forces; or follows the Underground Railroad leading slaves to freedom; or examines Bohemia as a distinctive kind of creative space; or investigates the effects "blogging" on mainstream politics and journalism. The substantive areas of research that might be pursued within this framework are almost unlimited, and the organizers hope to bring together scholars from the broadest range of fields to pose a wide array of questions about that which goes on under the surfaces, in undergrounds and underworlds. Why have such spaces exerted such power over our imaginations? What are the material and symbolic functions of underground spaces, in urban development, in economic organization, and in social relationships? How does the presence of an underground shape how we inhabit and experience space above ground, whether physical or conceptual? To what extent might such spaces liberate us from the rules and constraints of the dominant and normative order above ground? Indeed, how have undergrounds and underworlds, as places and as metaphors, formed, deformed, and transformed the world we inhabit? The organizers view this project as enabling the broadest possible intellectual engagement, and so as long as the eyes of scholars are focused downward, under the surface, toward undergrounds and underworlds, a rich variety of perspectives, methodologies, and areas of research interest are encouraged."</p>
<p>She is the musicologist attached to the project. Kahn Fellowships require a real commitment to scholarship, and that means developing research questions closely related to one of the yearlong projects, and spending the Fellowship year conducting the actual research. Student Fellows will be expected to read five or six of the key works in the field of their topic over the course of the summer preceding the project year and to develop at least three significant research questions, one of which will be pursued during the Fellowship year.</p>
<p>We thought shed be coming home sooner, but she has now been awarded an additional traveling fellowship to pursue another research project the development of laude 15th Century Italian vernacular songs, kind of the bridge between early church music and later opera. She told me shed spend much of the extra time going through the bureaucracy to get herself into little church and town libraries in central Italy to look at old music manuscripts. Meanwhile, she leaves for Sicily tomorrow for 5 days (dont know exactly for what.)</p>
<p>If all goes well, there will be a two-week period where we are all HOME! My wife (whose treatment seems to be going well, and she feels reasonably well between treatments), is planning to take us all to a baseball game (my older one has never been, except to work one of the refreshment stands to raise funds for the younger ones gymnastics club.) And we will even take a GROUP picture! Never know when the opportunity for that is ever going to happen again.</p>
<p>Time flaps her wings. Sometimes she gets the temperature just right. Like an Olympia spring (which is gorgeous!) we have to enjoy while we can.</p>
<p>So its time to give thanks.</p>