Overbooked and overbusy

Lindsey Treffry | blot
 
Meredith Metsker is a journalism major. A pep band and marching band member. An acapella-playing KUOI DJ. An editor and member of the Sigma Alpha Iota women’s musical fraternity. A 20-hour minimum, part-time education reporter at The Moscow-Pullman Daily News. She does yoga twice a week and goes to the gym a bit more. Currently on a co-ed basketball team, she plays intramural sports when she can.

Hayden Crosby | Blot
Busy-bee Meredith Metsker DJs
in the KUOI radio station studio.

“Sometimes, I regret that I fill up so much of my time,” Metsker said.

Her part-time job takes up most of her schedule, since the amount of tasks for a reporter constantly fluctuates.

“I like the busy life, I guess,” she said.

Sadie Grossbaum knows the story.

The outdoor recreation leadership major and psychology minor also serves as an ASUI Senator, a member of the Alcohol Task Force, an Outdoor Program staffer, a Free Thought Moscow member, and she dances her Wednesday nights away with the UI Swing Dance Club.

When Grossbaum made the switch from biochemisty to recreational leadership, it wasn’t to lighten her schedule.

“When I told (biochemistry students) I was changing my major, they said ‘So you’re giving up?’” she said. “I had a 4.0.”

Recreation is what Grossbaum likes.

“Since I’ve been in Moscow this semester, I haven’t spent a single weekend in Moscow,” the skier and hiker said.

But there are downsides to such a busy schedule.

Grossbaum noticed a decline in her personal health.

“I don’t have time to go to the gym,” she said. “I don’t have time for basic human needs. Sleep doesn’t come often.”

This year, Metsker finally realized she had overbooked her schedule.

“I have no time to take care of myself,” Metsker said. “I had to bail out on people … I hate being a flaky person.”

UI Psychologist and Professor Sharon Fritz said there are consequences to an overbooked schedule, including lack of sleep or poor eating habits that can lead to irritability or tensions in relationships. 

“Not taking care of yourself, not eating right, sleeping right, not engaging in physical activity — accumulatively, that will catch up with you,” Fritz said.

Stress can cause gastrointestinal problems, upset stomachs, back aches or headaches, she said.
“You’re worrying a lot, have racing thoughts, not being able to quiet the mind or turn it off emotionally,” Fritz said.

This matters now, Fritz said, because busy students are potentially establishing life-long patterns, just as she has in her life.

In college, Fritz wanted to do well academically. She had a part-time job, she volunteered, held internships, had a boyfriend, was part of sport clubs and wanted to get all As — 99s to be specific. Flash forward to last month and Fritz admitted to taking on more projects than she should have. 

“If we are busy now, the chances are we will be busy in the future,” she said. 

Being overloaded is something busy-bee Grossbaum notices in others, too.

“People should give 100 percent to one thing instead of 10 percent to 10 things,” she said. “Some people are so good at so many things.”

But, she said, the quality of work often suffers.

So if now is the time to adjust schedules, how can busy students learn to cut back?

“It’s easier to say ‘no’ if you understand what your priorities and goals are,” Fritz said. “It’s not saying ‘no,’ it’s saying ‘Yes’ to your priorities.” 

She suggests role-playing. Say “no.” Think of reasons ahead of time to say “no.” 

“I’d love to do that, but now isn’t a good time for me,” she said, for example.

If students juggle too much, they can’t do a good job, and that impacts how students see themselves, Fritz said. 

There is another side of the spectrum, though — lazy students. Students who say “no” to everything. Students who are barely involved in school itself.

“People who are involved in a club activity do better academically,” Grossbaum said. 

Fritz compares it to a bell curve.

“Too much stress interferes with our performance. But the same is true if we’re not stressed enough or not busy enough,” she said. “It’s hard for students to manage that. It changes every semester.”

With changing credit loads, classes and outside activities, each semester brings a different level of stress. Fritz emphasizes balance. 

“Being stressed enhances happiness, motivation and overall success,” she said, as opposed to a lack thereof.

Grossbaum said her outside activities and involvement in ASUI give her a sense of community that less-busy students may be missing out on.

“If you don’t have that, it can be detrimental to your academics,” she said.

And although Metsker is booked clear through her May graduation, she enjoys everything she does.

“Music is my stress relief, and KUOI goes along with that,” she said. “Music may not be applicable to my career as a journalist, but being able to juggle all these activities is invaluable.”

As seen in April issue of Blot Magazine.

KRUMP kreations: Dance style makes its way from inner-city streets to UI Jazz Fest workshop

Lindsey Treffry | The Argonaut

For Christa Davis, KRUMP started three springs back at a national conference in San Diego, Calif. But for Thomas Johnson, aka Tommy the Clown, it began more than 20 years ago.

Davis, a University of Idaho doctoral student studying Physical Education Pedagogy with a dance emphasis, teaches UI classes, such as children’s dance, to pre-service teachers. When she attended the national conference three years ago, she spent half a day with Tommy and his crew in order to learn more about “krumping” or KRUMP, which stands for Kingdom Rejoicing Uplifting Mighty Praise.
Tommy the Clown created KRUMP.

“He was born in the inner-city,” Davis said.

One day in his early teens, he visited a cousin in inner-city Los Angeles. His cousin was doing a drug deal and Tommy decided to join in and conduct a drug deal, too.

“He made lots of money,” Davis said. “It became his vocational vision.”

In a few years, he moved to Los Angeles, set up his own space as a drug dealer and eventually got caught. He spent five years in prison.

“He had a lot of time to think,” Davis said. “He thought he needed to do something positive that was not destructive.”

Once released, he found a job as a typist clerk. One of his co-workers asked if he’d be a clown for her daughter’s birthday. He had no idea how to be a clown, Davis said, but he bought a rainbow-colored afro-wig and thought, “I can do hip-hop dance, so I’ll be a hip-hop clown.”

“The kids loved him,” Davis said.

From there, he decided his “clown dance” was the positive thing he was looking for.
“So he used what he knew as a drug dealer and translated it into dance,” Davis said.

Tommy rainbow-painted a van, played music through loud speakers and danced in the streets.

Children were attracted to the music and dancing, and eventually requested to perform at birthday parties with him. So, he developed an academy for KRUMP.

“The kids could dance as long as they were gang-free, drug-free and doing well in school,” Davis said.

KRUMP took on new forms and morphed into its own style. It was a way for dancers to release what they were feeling, whether it was happy, frustrated, mad or sad.

“KRUMP is unique,” she said. “It’s initiation-motivated movement.”

She said your first step leads to your second. For example, if your chest pops forward, your foot will step forward.

Tommy’s academy was full, as was his crew, and other crews began to break off.
“And from there, it exploded,” Davis said.

Some crews, sometimes gang-like, leaned toward more sexual or violent dances, but Tommy and others stayed true to his dance.

And so will Davis as she leads two KRUMP workshops as part of the 2013 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

“Krumping allows people to be healthy emotionally, based on how they’re moving,” she said. “There are no mistakes and you don’t have to be perfect.”

Davis will give a brief history of KRUMP and lead two krumping combinations. She said there may be a chance for a KRUMP battle or an improvisational session.

As seen in Feb. 19 issue of The Argonaut.

Hope after the storm

Lindsey Treffry | blot

It’s on bumpers, buttons and stickers. It hangs from buildings and businesses, and is displayed in the University of Idaho Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender office. The rainbow flag is even tattooed on Julia Keleher’s arm.

Keleher, the UI LGBT Office and Programs Coordinator, got the tattoo at 19. 

“Our LGBT community back in the ‘70s … had the idea of pride,” she said. “It’s all about pride. It’s being proud of who you are.”

In 1978, the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade commissioned artist Gilbert Baker to design a new symbol for its marches. Baker taught himself to sew and began crafting the banner. 

“The rainbow is a part of nature and you have to be in the right place to see it,” Baker told a CBS Chicago reporter in June 2012. “It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see that really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors ... all the genders, races and ages.”

Paige Davies, the AmeriCorps women’s mentoring, service learning and volunteer coordinator, said Baker probably chose rainbow colors because they are obnoxious.

“It’s in your face. There’s no hiding it,” she said. 

Davies’ interpretation has changed throughout the years.

“To me, now it’s annoying,” Davies said. “Everything has to be rainbow-colored.”

But Davies said the loud colors led her to Inland Oasis, a volunteer organization that serves LGBT communities.

“The logo had rainbow flag colors. Now it says ‘open, accepting, affirming,’ but it used to only have the rainbow,” Davies said. “I knew, then, that that was a place I could go. It was reassuring.”

She said it was just as reassuring to see rainbow flag stickers in UI professors’ offices — part of the UI Safe Zone project.

“They didn’t have to tell me that it was OK to be gay,” she said. “I just knew.”

Katie Noble, UI Women’s Center administrative assistant, said the flag represents a unity of all differences in the community.

“Before coming out, you’re hiding who you are. But with the flag, you’re not gonna hide from that anymore,” Noble said. “The flag is so vibrant and solid.”

And each vibrant color has a meaning.

Red means life. Orange, healing. Yellow, sunlight. Green, nature. Blue, harmony. And purple for spirit. 

The flag once had pink for sex, and turquoise for art or magic, but the colors were later dropped to simplify production.

“The flag is our connection to our history,” Keleher said. “There are symbols (like the flag) and it’s important in understanding where (they) come from.”

Noble said interpretations aren’t always positive.

“For those who are not supportive (of the LGBT community), they’re like ‘Oh, there’s another rainbow flag,’” she said. “There are two sides of it.”

Davies said she might understand why the rainbow was chosen.

“It’s happy, rich and full of life-colors,” she said. “It’s the hope after the storm.”

As seen in February issue of Blot Magazine.

Surviving death

Lindsey Treffry | blot

Everybody dies.

“Death sucks no matter what,” University of Idaho student Britnee Packwood said. “Death is the worst thing that is on this planet.”

Amrah Canul | Blot

Packwood knows death up close. She has since May 16, 2011.

“My dad was 61 when he passed away,” she said. “We knew we were gonna lose him earlier than a lot of other kids.”

Packwood was in eighth grade the first time her dad went to the hospital for a heart attack. Doctors estimated he had two years to live. The attack was followed by years of heart complications, more heart attacks and congestive heart failure. Her dad even had an attack in the left anterior descending artery, known as the Widow Maker.

Sharon Fritz, a licensed psychologist and professor, works at the UI Counseling Center and helps students deal with grief.

“At my age, you’re expecting to see friends sick and grandparents dying,” Fritz said. “You don’t expect it in the 18 to 25 group range, but I see it a lot. In my caseload, at least half a dozen a semester.”

Nationally, personal experience facing death is not uncommon among young people. According to National College Health Assessment surveys gathered in Fall 2011, 15.5 percent of students had experienced the death of a family member or friend. At UI, 15.8 percent of students have experienced the same.

In spring 2011, Packwood’s parents took a trip to Houston. One day, her dad wasn’t feeling well and called her from the hotel.

“I had probably had the weirdest conversation I had ever had with my father,” Packwood said.

Out of nowhere, he asked what she was going to do if they weren’t on the same “time zone clock” anymore.

“Who are we going to call all the time? … No matter who you are, where you are or what you’re doing, I’m always going to be with you,” he told her.

She didn’t think much of it.

“I thought he was doing his whole Dad thing,” Packwood said. “When they got back from Lewiston the next day, I called my mom to ask if their flight went OK. I heard him in the background. He said, ‘No I talked to her yesterday. Just make sure she knows I love her.’”

It was only a couple of hours later that her parents were in an ambulance to the hospital — for the last time. Packwood and her sister later followed.

“We said goodbye, kissed our dad and left,” she said.

Soon after, he passed.

The sisters had last heard that their dad was feeling better. Packwood’s mom returned home to bring them the news.

“We all come in the living room. And all she can say is ‘He’s gone,’” Packwood said. “She is blubbering. My sister starts screaming and bawling her eyes out. And I’m standing there holding a grown woman and a junior in high school in my arms and having them cry on my shoulder. I’m emotionless. I don’t know what to do. I’m more concerned with them instead of myself at the time.”

Fritz said the grieving process is complicated when a person knows they are dying and the end comes suddenly.

“People deal with it different ways when it comes,” Fritz said. “When it is sudden, they either didn’t have a chance to prepare for it or understand it. (It’s a sense of) lack of preparedness.”

In cases like Packwood’s, Fritz said the stages of grief are dragged out more.

“There is a sense of shock.” Fritz said. “It may take a longer time (to grieve). The peaks and valleys are more intense … more ebbs and flows.”

Packwood said knowing he would die soon was worse.

“To lose someone suddenly is awful. It’s terrible,” Packwood said. “But to have to see somebody in a prolonged state of deterioration and just losing it, I think it’s worse. A little piece of your soul gets eaten away, knowing there is nothing you can do.”

She helped her mom make phone calls to family members, and the next morning departed for a UI Conservation Social Sciences field studies trip.

In the Mammoth area of Yellowstone National Park, Packwood spotted a moose.

“I just sat on a rock next to it,” she said. “... I looked up and I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna be OK. Things are gonna be fine.’ Maybe that was my moment of acceptance.”

The trip ended, she returned home and helped her mom with funeral home planning, transferring the body and figuring out funeral expenses.

“The weirdest thing for me was he was near his chair,” she said. “But he was in a really tiny box next to his chair. I thought, ‘So this is what’s left — a tiny little box of ashes.’”

Those ashes, later sealed in a vault, were surrounded by heirlooms that Packwood and her sister placed inside.

“There was a little wooden box in a bag and the bag wasn’t closed all the way,” she said. “I’m like putting stuff in there. I move the bag, and it’s closed but it wasn’t closed (all the way). I was like, ‘I have my father on my hands.’ I laughed. It was the first time I had truly laughed in such a long time … My sister and I were gut rolling.”

Packwood said returning to UI solidified her belief that her dad wanted the family to keep living.
“That was really when I accepted what it was for what it was,” she said. 

They buried him in a family plot in Montana, where Packwood was raised and where her parents met.

“And if there is a cool part to this, I’m pretty certain about this — at the exact time (of my dad’s death), the chime went off that a baby was born,” Packwood said. “My mom said ‘I didn’t have the heart to go down there, but if it’s a boy — oofh, those parents are going to need some help.’”

Packwood said the death of her father has opened her eyes and pushed her to live more.

“Don’t forget that there is always someone who has a shoulder,” she said. “Don’t forget that you need to do what you need to do for yourself and don’t forget to live. If you have to take a month to just let it all out, go for it. But go back to work. Go back to school. Go back to having girls’ night. Whatever it is. Normalcy, at first, (will) feel weird but it’ll get better.”

Fritz agreed.

“We tell our students to solicit support,” she said. “Death makes you depressed and you want to pull away. But you have to tell your friends, ‘I need you to call me, I need you to take me out.’”
Packwood said there isn’t an easy way to deal with death.

“It’s death. It happens,” she said. “You can’t revel in it and you can’t live in it … you can’t stay there forever. You gotta move on.” 

As seen in December 2012 issue of blot magazine.

Christian author goes undercover to understand homosexuality

Lindsey Treffry | SpokaneFAVS

Timothy Kurek used to think being gay was the ultimate sin. Raised in Tennessee, he attended a Southern Baptist church, was home schooled most of his childhood and went to a private Christian school where his fellow church members were teachers or administrators. He was taught that gay was like the scarlet “S” — the sin of all sins.

“After all, God destroyed two cities over it,” he said.

Kurek was a self-proclaimed bully. The same kind of bully, he said, you read about in the news when a kid commits suicide for being gay.

Then, a friend came out to him one night during karaoke.

To view the complete story, visit SpokaneFAVS.com.

Touring St. John’s Cathedral

Lindsey Treffry | SpokaneFAVS

A British voice echoes through a cathedral nave made of stone and mortar, topped with solid California redwood. The source of the voice is a lean, white haired man, pointing to a south window. He slides his glasses towards the bridge of his nose, describing every detail and color the stained glass creates. This window, he says, depicts the Book of Revelation.

Lindsey Treffry | SpokaneFAVS

Michel Campbell is one of a dozen volunteer tour guides for The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist which overlooks Spokane’s South Hill.

St. John’s was designed by architect Harold Whitehouse and built by Fred Phair in 1925. Additions to the church were made by Henry George and Sons in 1948 and Sceva Construction of Spokane in 1960. Whitehouse followed the suggestions of Bishop Edward Makin Cross and created a cathedral in early English Gothic style.

“This cathedral compares very favorably with all the Gothic churches of the period that I’ve been in,” Campbell says.

To read the complete story, visit SpokaneFAVS.com.

Diet and religion come together at vegetarian outlet

Lindsey Treffry | SpokaneFAVS.com

Lindsey Treffry | SpokaneFAVS

The shelves of Bibles next to aisles of activated charcoal powder, cashew cream, agar agar sea vegetable flakes, Minit-meat and vegan gelatin may seem unrelated. But at the Adventist Book Center and Vegetarian Food Outlet, the diet lifestyles of Seventh-day Adventists closely relate to the religion — and have since the church’s inception in the mid-1800s.

Seventh-day Adventist John Harvey Kellogg, famous for his development of breakfast cereals at the turn of the century, was a health pioneer in manufacturing vegetarian products like Worthington, Loma Linda and Morningstar Farms, which still remain today.

To view the full story visit SpokaneFAVS.com.