“After going through something where you see your child almost die and then come back through it and just going through the day-to-day stuff, (you) really, really truly (understand) what’s important in life,” Stacy Voisinet said about her son Jacob, right. Thomas, 2, left, and Jacob, 3, sit and watch TV after eating breakfast. When Jacob was born in 2004 he was a healthy and lively baby until he came down with fever-like symptoms at 18 months. He was diagnosed in December 2005 with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH, an immune system deficiency. In September 2006 he was treated with a bone marrow transplant. Currently, Jacob’s immune system is equivalent to a newborn baby’s and his transplant is considered a cure. The Voisinets are dealing with his post-transplant complications under a 24-hour medication schedule.
More Living City
Russell Street
Shown left to right: Mt. Pleasant resident Derek Yerke and Lansing residents Nic Huffman, Alex Kwiecinski and Jason Yerke take a break from longboarding April 2 to talk at the top of Russell Street in Grand Ledge. Kwiecinski and Huffman are two of the founding members of Go Green Longboarding, a Lansing-based crew of longboarders.
Shootin' hoops
Holt resident Carlie Cook, 16, center, guards packaging senior Steve Goller during an April 2 wheelchair basketball kinesiology course. Cook plays on a junior wheelchair basketball team and often comes to Jerry Sarasin’s class to practice. Sarasin, who plays on National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s Michigan Thunderbirds team, hopes to start an official wheelchair team at MSU. There are no scholarships offered to wheelchair athletes in Michigan. Most of the students in Sarasin’s class are able-bodied. Sarasin said he believes the students gain a greater appreciation for life and a better understanding of the life of disabled people by playing wheelchair basketball.
Abled athlete
Before scrimmaging in his indoor soccer kinesiology class, international relations, social relations and policy, and education senior Piotr Pasik, who has spastic Cerebral Palsy and psychology graduate student Michael Crawford pass back and forth outside of the field at Demonstration Hall to warm up while the rest of the class does group drills. Pasik has been playing soccer for seven years and has developed a passion for everything soccer.
Interpretive
This three-part project looks at the emotional connection that dancers of different styles have with their art. Though the types of dance are different, the dancers experience similar emotions evoked by the movements.
For the rest of this project, see Expression through movement
The Coven
The Grove of Earthly Echoes, an eclectic pagan coven joins hands to create a circle which makes an energy barrier for their protection during the ritual of Ostara Saturday evening at 5128 W. St. Joe Highway in Lansing. The ritual is done in order to celebrate the vernal equinox and the coming of spring. “It’s about everything growing fresh; new beginnings,” Nicole Leland, a Lansing resident and group member explained. “This is about rejoicing with the people you care about. Besides my blood family, they are the closest people in my life.”
Dolled up
MSU communication analyst Mary Beth LaForgia examines a doll Sunday afternoon at the Lansing, Michigan Doll Show at Holiday Inn Lansing Conference Center, 7501 W. Saginaw Highway. Collectors and dealers traveled from four states to the show. Some came searching for that one rare doll and others for a childhood doll to reminisce. “It’s just about doing what makes you happy,” doll collector Arline Winn-Nash said. “Find what makes you happy and even if it leaves you dirt poor, you’re still happy.”
Any Shape You Want
Studio art graduate student and ceramic sculptor Lisa Truax, above, shapes a block of clay to be used in a larger installation piece made up of several clay blocks. “My work is about the environment and humans, and their instinctual connection to nature,” Truax said. The use of clay as art can extend past functional pottery and decorative tiles — it can create sculptures, too. In the basement of Kresge Art Center, MSU graduate students are representing their art by creating ceramic installations made of many different uses of clay.
Adrenal Ambush
“It’s probably going to be about the biggest rush you can imagine,” says animal science senior and MSU Rodeo Club member Adam Peters, left, as he puts on his chaps with zoology sophomore Max Pfund. As a child, Peters had always enjoyed the rodeo, but only from the stands. He later practiced on mechanical and “beginner” bulls. He rode for the first time during Spartan Stampede at the MSU Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education on Feb. 15. Many expressed explicit concern about the risks involved with bull riding, especially since it was Peters’ first time.