The first day of 2011

January 1, 2011

Student perspectives:

Happy New Year!!! For me, 2010 ended having a blast. The sightseeing and tours are amazing…picture count: 527; I’m kind of obsessed. But the hours we spend in transit, on our big yellow bus, have been the best. Bus rides mostly revolve around who can take the most embarrassing pictures of the most people – sleeping with their mouths wide open or just generally, embarrassing. Garrett Ayers and Mrs. Dunne are leading champions. There’s dancing, in our seats with seatbelts, of course. Kelli Wessinger and I have perfected dorky dance moves, including the hand jive from Grease, to all of our favorite 7^th grade hits, Kid Cudi, and Justin Beiber. I film everyone’s best impressions: Kyle Grant’s Gollum, Joseph McDougall’s Joker, Kelli’s Shrek, but I’ve yet to get George Foster’s Harey Carey. And then, there’s the singing. We sing in cathedrals and chapels, but also in the street, while walking, to each other, and on the bus. Our favorite is to replace words in our concert pieces with Shand Owens’ name. For example: “Shand, go where I Shand thee. How shall, how shall I Shand thee? I’m gonna Shand three one by Shand…” it continues. Shand pretends he hates it. My roommate Bailey Dukes alternates between scolding my immaturity and calling me Mom. We are having a great time. It may be drowned out sometimes by our complaining about wearing a fourth layer of pants, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

P.S. Hi Mom and Dad! Mac and Jack! Xoxo

-       Sarah Felmly

Americans live in a culture of specificity.  Our pragmatism fuels our desire to become “focused,” often resulting in an increasingly narrow framework in which to view the world.  One of the reasons I love working at Hammond is precisely the rejection of this type of thinking…….these types of limits.

I am currently in Poland, watching 13 of my football players (and 32 other very talented students) perform much like they did in the fall. Trade the pads for a tuxedo, a play for a song, and a field for a cathedral and you will find a similar pursuit of an aesthetic (yes football can be art….at least in my mind.)  However, the perspective is much different……and that is such a great thing.

Select tours not only offer our students a chance to broaden their many skills, but also to broaden their view of their country, school, and self.  Travel is such a healthy and humbling experience.  One of the most rewarding parts of being on this trip is to watch our young performers learn from other cultures.  I see them becoming more introspective as they weigh their world versus another.

I have so much respect for the diversity of talents in our students and their courage to follow more than one of them.  It’s a breath of fresh air in a culture where we are so often defined by what we do as opposed to who we are. 

Erik Kimrey

What can I say about a trip that has allowed us to see the beauty of cathedrals in Vienna and Krakow as well as the austere numbing chill (both literal and figurative) of Auschwitz.  These students have been amazing; they have represented themselves well at every opportunity.  Their quiet awe and respect in cathedrals has been impressive.  Most impressive however has been their reverence at Auschwitz.  When they sang at the Memorial, it was truly a song of prayer and deep emotion.  As their chaperone, their teacher, their dean I was immensely proud.

Not only has this trip allowed them the fabulous opportunity to see history come alive, but also as a group they have shown tolerance of each other, interest in other cultures, and a willingness to try new foods and experiences.  When we “tuck them in at night” they are always quick to share one more story from the day, a bit of excitement about the day ahead, and thanks for all they have.

I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to see what I have seen, share with these great kids what we have shared, and experience the talents of these singers. 

Happy New Year to all!

Kathy Dunne 

It has been about twenty four hours since we walked through the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and I am still searching for some sort of understanding, some adjective, some way to wrap my head around what I saw, what I heard, and what I know happened in that place. I spent the morning drive to the town of Auschwitz with my stomach in knots, not knowing how to prepare myself for what I was about to see. The first thing I noticed while walking through the gate was shocking: it looked pretty. The brick buildings lined up in an orderly pattern seemed quaint, the bare trees casting patterns on the ground seemed ornate, and the snow blanketing the entire scene seemed undisturbed and peaceful. And that is when I fully realized the true essence of the Holocaust: the utterly disturbing perversion of such a beautiful place in order to perform unthinkable actions on a beautiful people. The thought of the horrifically obvious contrast between the beautiful and the horrendous remained with me throughout the tour. The tour itself was one of the hardest things I have ever done. There were some experiences, like observing the impossible size of salvaged baby clothes, staring into the eyes of emaciated prisoners, and especially seeing piles upon piles of human hair that looked so frighteningly like my own, that truly made me feel as though I would not be able to finish the tour. The emotion I felt when we approached the gas chamber, though, was nothing other than fear. After seeing all that I had seen already, torture chambers, punishment rooms, the “Wall of Death,” I did not feel that I would be able to enter the place where the most horrific of all of the Nazi actions occurred. I found myself living the experience of the prisoners in my mind. When Eva said, “Here the prisoners were lined up,” I saw projections of people from my mind in a line, holding their children, shivering in clothes far less warm than my own, and comforting one another that it would all be better soon. When Eva said, “Here they were told to undress in order to take a shower,” I watched as these people reassured each other that they would take a shower and then return to the barracks as they undressed. But when Eva said, “And here is where they were brought in, locked in, and gassed with Cyclone B,” I had to shut off my mind. I could not bear to see that happening, even in my mind. That was when I was able to see, though, that although my mind was an enemy that could be easily stopped, the true enemy was unstoppable to the helpless people that had stood in that very room for the last time. The experience was completely overwhelming, and none of the images have left my mind for a second since we left. The image that keeps reappearing though, is an image of hope. It is the image from the memorial at Birkenau that says, “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe.” That trip changed me, it devastated me, it disturbed me, but it gave me hope for the future of humanity, and it inspired me to never forget.

Kathryn Reddic