Ripples

-Meghan Barwick '15

The Rules

I received this short piece from an anonymous writer a few days ago, and I thought I'd publish it with a few of my own thoughts. Laura and I want the Goblet to be a place where people can share what they know, and how they feel. We wanted this to be a slice of real Lehigh life. The following piece made me think about how difficult it really is to find your place in a sea of people. It's interesting what expectations get confirmed or dismissed when you come to college. The things you think will happen don't and the things you never thought would happen, do. Coming to college is usually the first powerful experience that changes what we think about life. The first time we have to live on own own and figure out what we want to do with our lives, who we want to spend all our time will. In my case, I almost transferred because I could not sift through what I wanted from a school. I am glad I didn't, because my second year provided me much more time to understand that if I wasn't doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, I wouldn't be happy. If I was spending time with people that made me pull my hair out, what was the point? A friend told me a saying that her mother used to tell her, "nothing's worth raising your blood pressure over." And in my personal life I've found myself much happier when I don't follow "the rules". Now, I'm not tell you all to break the law, but we don't always have to do what everyone else is doing, especially if you're not into it. So be free and be who you are! 

-Meghan Barwick '15

I came to college hopeful.

High school had been less than stellar. I never managed to figure out how to be one of those popular kids you see on TV, or which lunch table to sit at. I missed the boat as far as getting invited to parties or drinking. At times it seemed I never even learned how to hold a conversation without being awkward or an asshole. It seemed like everyone but me was following a set of rules, some subtle playbook I hadn't gotten a glance at. But every time I sat alone for a meal or spent another night home and alone, I always had college to look forward to. The promised land! Paradise! College would be where I could be myself, where the scales would be reset and I could find my people. The people I knew had to exist whose behavior I could understand. So I endured. I took the hardest classes I could, studied hard, took my SATs and did my tours. One thing led to another, and I landed at Lehigh. The first day of Freshman year I was so excited. First day of the rest of my life.  I stayed hopeful for a month or so. Then the rules began to appear again. We party every night here. We poison ourselves with everything we can drink smoke or snort. And everyone else seemed to know how to do this, effortlessly. I rechecked my schedule to see if I had missed some sort of class or seminar, and if so when the make up date would be. No such luck. I tried to fake it for a while, I went to the parties, drank whatever beverage happened to be on hand, played one game of ruit after another.  And in the middle of every crowded party I still felt alone.I couldn't understand how to spend entire night throwing balls at cups and have fun, or what the appropriate protocol for hooking up with someone you met within the last hour was. Or what hooking up even meant… Sex? Making out? Going fishing together? No one ever explained, despite the phrase's constant use. When did it become ok to wear pink shorts but not cargo shorts? What is the appropriate type of hat to wear, and how flat should the brim be? When did forcing yourself to vomit every Friday, Saturday and the occasional Thursday become fun? I think its my own fault. I made a mistake somewhere along the line maybe, or I’m just not flexible enough, too stubborn to change my ways. I think I just don’t want to play by these rules. I let myself be ostracized rather than change. I am not a wise man. I wish I had. I wish I could have, I just didn’t know how.Eventually I gave up. Surely there are people here whom I can understand, maybe just one person just as confounded by all of this as I am. I’ve heard legends of such folk, but wherever they are, they’ve hidden well. For now I have plenty of work to do alone, classes to take alone, and meals to eat alone. Welcome to paradise.

-Anonymous 

Life's a Circus

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

“Whenever I play that game two truths and one lie, I always say I grew up in a circus, and everybody says that’s the lie,” said Batjargal “Bachka” Batmunkh ’13, smiling, “but it’s not.” 

Bachka actually did spend most of his childhood—from age four to 12 on-stage with Cirque du Soleil’s “Algeria,” touring around the world and going almost everywhere—with the exception, he said, of any African countries. His favorites include New Zealand and Singapore.

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

He speaks French, Mongolian, and English, and he even understands a little bit of Russian.

Since the age of three, Bachka had been traveling with his mother, who was a coach for acts in the show, and he spent much of his time backstage watching the acrobats perform. One day, he started imitating some of the actions of stage (no acrobatics yet though!), and the creators of the show decided to put him in. When they asked him if he’d like to have a part, “it was the easiest yes ever,” he said.

“The first thing I did was do a quick move and then go off stage,” he said, “I definitely made the crowd go ‘awe’.

There isn’t much you can do that is more fun then being a kid in the midst of an artistic circus act. “Before they opened the house, I would have my costume on and they would give me a big bag of popcorn,” said Bachka.

In his younger years, Bachka’s father stayed home in Mongolia, but eventually joined the Cirque crew as a coach for acrobats and house troupes.

Though Bachka was the only kid in the show, he made friends with the children of coaches and technicians. “Most of the time I was fooling around backstage,” said Bachka, “my best friends and I would always hang out.”

“I also had a super Nintendo and some of the younger cast members would get in trouble for playing with it, but I was allowed because I was a kid,” he said.

He got into a fair share of trouble as well, growing up backstage. Once him and a friend threw into their air a whole container of confetti that was supposed to be used at ‘snow’ during the show; however the audience soon found out that there was no ‘snow’ left to be used, and the two boys were scolded when they had been discovered.

 [Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

He has also met several celebrities though his stage career, but he only remembers them due to the collection of photos his parents keep—Janet Jackson, Harrison Ford, Whoopi Goldberg. Once he even high fived President Bill Clinton; Bachka only found out the man’s identity after the show from the adults. “I was pen pals with that boy from Spy Kids for a little bit,” he said. 

“One of the most beautiful theaters to perform in,” said Bachka, “was the Royal Albert Hall in London with its old design and terraces for the audience.”

The one this that he missed out on, he said, were the parties. “I wished I was old enough to enjoy them, but I was 10.”

Another thing that wasn’t as great for Bachka during those years was his academic career. In the US, he said, they have a law that if you’re a minor that works, you can only go to school for a certain amount of time and are not allowed to be assigned homework. To supplement this, his parents assigned him their own homework, and his mother continuously taught him reading and writing in Mongolian, since he spent so much time abroad.

“The hardest thing to learn was actually putting on the makeup,” Bachka said, “it took me a really long time to do.”

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

By the time Bachka was 10, he began to work on acrobatics. “I was not a natural for it,” he said with a laugh.

The first trick he did was to hold on to the back of a man who was performing a back flip. “At first it was pretty scary, but then it got fun,” he said. The tricks did get harder, and he watched talented cast members perform amazing tricks everyday.

“I thought the coolest act were the aerial high bars with a net below; it always blew my mind,” he said.

The hardest trick he had to work on was a double back flip pike. In fact, in one show, he over rotated and landed on his head and passed out.

“My parents told me that the crowd was scared because I was obviously the only kid in the show and I wasn’t moving,” said Bachka seriously, “and it must have scared my parents because I stopped doing Cirque about a year later. “

After Cirque, Bachka went back to Mongolia in 7^th grade and attended an international school that continued his exposures to a variety of cultures.  Because he was athletic from his involvement in acrobatics, he continued to get involved with sports in high school.

“I also learned to play drums from the show’s drummer. I sat next to him during sound checks, and he taught me for three years,” said Bachka. He was in a band in high school called “Mohanik” and January of his senior year, they were signed and recorded an album together. He left the band to attend Lehigh, and the band has since recorded more albums, played numerous shows in Mongolia and recorded songs for movie soundtracks.

Bachka’s mother now works as a trainer for young aspiring contortionists, and is able to send them on to large shows. If you wanted to make it as a contortionist in Mongolia, you would have to go to her.

Bachka intends to stay in education, and hopefully work internationally. “I wouldn’t mind being a principal for an international school, travel, and work with kids.”  Ideally, he hopes to makes changes for the youth in Mongolia because the government and education, since the change from communism in 1991, has become corrupted. 

Mr. Imagination's Garden

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

Gregory Warmack (1948-2012), better known as "Mr. Imagination", a Chicago artist, lived in Bethlehem from 2001 to 2008, and contributed many pieces to the town, including the bus stop on 4th Street and "Alferd" (yes, spelled like that!) the Mule, which can be found in the Lehigh University Art Galleries. His artwork can be found in places like the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the House of Blues in Orlando, Las Vegas and Chicago; and the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. His works features the use of mosaic tiles, bottle caps, and other recycled pieces. Below is a collection of photographs from the "Sculpture Garden," which he made along with Professor Norman Girardot, from the Department of Religion Studies. The small meadow isn't kept up by the school, so it has been deteriorating since its creation. Every once and a while, however, different student additions show up to the space, breathing new life into it. 

[Photo by John Brodish '13]

[Photo by Meghan Barwick '15]

[Photo by Meghan Barwick '15]

[Photo by Meghan Barwick '15]

[Photo by Meghan Barwick '15]

[Photo by Meghan Barwick '15]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

[Photo by Hilary Hla '13]

One could take hours to pour over the small details that Warmack has included in his pieces on Lehigh's campus, and it is definitely something that should be on every student's bucket list.

-Meghan Barwick '15