{"id":1680,"date":"2011-11-15T10:55:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T15:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2011-11-15T15:34:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T20:34:48","slug":"filled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/2011\/11\/15\/filled\/","title":{"rendered":"Fill Me Up, Buttercup"},"content":{"rendered":"

November is probably the most crowded month for Harvard kids.\u00a0 We start referring to our iCals with growing frequency, trying to fit every single activity (including eating and sleeping) into a 24-hour matrix that feels far too small.\u00a0 I mean, Free Time is never a readily available commodity on campus, but it goes completely out of stock in November.\u00a0 The shelves of Free Time are empty, and the Free Time vendors just shrug their shoulders and say, \u201cCome back next month, and we might have more in stock.\u201d \u00a0So I\u2019ve learned that sometimes, during the most crammed weeks of the semester, you’ve gotta steal your Free Time \u2013 seize any hours of freedom that you can find!<\/p>\n

In that spirit, I rode the T into Boston on Thursday night, to see the Blue Scholars<\/a> perform at the Paradise Rock Club<\/a>.\u00a0 The Blue Scholars are a dynamic musical duo from Seattle, makin’ smart folk hip-hop since 2002.\u00a0 Sabzi is an Iranian DJ\/producer, and Geologic is a Filipino rapper \u2013 and together, the dudes are pure magic.\u00a0 The Blue Scholars use their music to treat relevant societal\/generational issues, and I admire the intentionality manifest in their art.\u00a0 Here\u2019s one of my favorite songs by them, Cinemetropolis, the title track from their new LP:<\/p>\n

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I was lucky enough to attend another<\/em> nourishing event this weekend (one that filled my tummy and my heart).\u00a0 On Saturday, the Harvard African Students Association held its annual Fall Feast<\/strong><\/a>, which is always one of the best events of the semester.\u00a0 Students and groups of various African affiliations lend their time and talents to recreate classic dishes from their home countries.\u00a0 \u00a0The array was stunning \u2013 jollof rice, stews, curries, shawarma, corn-mush, chicken, samosas, plantains \u2013 and by the time we got halfway down the line, our plates were spilling over with African delicacies.\u00a0 We had to go finish our first plates before we could sample the second half of the buffet.\u00a0 It was a true celebration, and everyone jokingly heralded their hometown food as \u201cthe winning dish.\u201d\u00a0 All the proceeds from the event went to buy food for Somali refugee camps, so they were selling these sweet T-shirts:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I felt kind of weird buying a shirt that said \u201cFight the Famine\u201d while surrounded by such bounty.\u00a0 But I think that\u2019s the strange tension that many of us live with, especially as Americans.\u00a0 We should still enjoy and appreciate things like parties and good food, knowing that they\u2019re undeserved riches; but at the same time, we gotta stay keenly aware of the areas of great need that are sometimes starkly juxtaposed to our own comfortable situations.\u00a0 It\u2019s a complicated dynamic, and one that I haven\u2019t totally come to terms with yet.\u00a0 I could only be grateful for my blessings while I chowed down on hometown chapatis for the second time this month. <\/em>\u00a0In honor of that unlikely statistic, here\u2019s the official Chapati song by the Kenyan artist Man Ingwe:<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November is probably the most crowded month for Harvard kids.\u00a0 We start referring to our iCals with growing frequency, trying to fit every single activity (including eating and sleeping) into a 24-hour matrix that feels far too small.\u00a0 I mean, Free Time is never a readily available commodity on campus, but it goes completely out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4468,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[429,55707,412,55708,36,211,3252,39],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-blue-scholars","tag-boston","tag-chapatis","tag-food","tag-international","tag-kenya","tag-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":77,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}