Dear Banjar...

Dear Francis/Banjar,
I have really enjoyed this class so far this semester, and it’s hard to believe we’ve been together for almost two months. I feel like, while we are growing as a community and a banjar, it is still hard for me to open up to everyone and voice my opinions to the class, and I don’t think I’m the only one who is struggling with this “surrender” as Francis likes to say. I have especially felt the struggle to contribute in the past few weeks, with all of the stress of midterms mounting in my mind. I have felt so much pressure in all of my classes that it sometimes causes me to clam up and my mind kind of shuts down. Its hard for me to focus sometimes on how my contributions to the banjar are important.
In some ways I do feel like I’ve grown through this class. I have become less concerned with how ridiculous I look and sometimes feel doing the dance moves and stomps we have been learning. I think that for me this is about becoming more comfortable and confident in my body. I think that dance is a realm of this class that I am definitely more comfortable with, even though I'm not necessarily good at it. It's something that is more familiar to me, even if the style is way different than anything I've ever done before. I'm much more confident in a performance or dance setting than a speaking setting, so I'm hoping I can contribute more to the class in that way! For the performance, I’m open to just about anything. I think that it is important to represent several different levels of performance and community. A big group performance would be good to solidify the bonds of our banjar, and would allow for a more intricate interplay between a larger number of people, which always looks cool (I’m thinking of the entrance of the monkeys that we saw in the Ramayana and also the kecak circle with the polyrhythmic chanting).
I think it would also be cool to incorporate solo performances, as well as performances of smaller dance groups, maybe 4 or 5 people? I would like for my final performance to be part of a small group, as I think this is an atmosphere in which I could best contribute to the banjar. Another way in which I will try to give to the banjar will be in completing my blogs and reading in the Ramayana and on Blackboard. It’s easy to push these aside sometimes because they don’t seem as important as my readings for other classes, but I can’t put forth the effort that the community deserves without doing the readings. I don’t want to feel like I’m cheating the banjar out of a more fulfilling experience.