Jayplay Inside COLLINS BECOMES THE LEADER SELF, TEAM KNEW HE COULD BE After overcoming injury, the veteran guard guides a young team. SPORTS | 1B THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20,2008 WWW.KANSAN.COM e job Mike mid- e last theuting player field st. VOLUME 120 ISSUE 67 INTERNATIONAL Team of 4 to work at Tibetan school BY BRANDY ENTSMINGER bentsminger@kansan.com Mayul Multi-Disciplinary Technical School in Qinghai, China, is working to preserve Tibetan culture and teach financial independence. A team of four people from the University of Kansas will spend next summer in China, helping to get a new technical school started. The team members will survey local culture and conduct research in the area. Their plan is to develop an art curriculum in the school, which is sponsored by the Mayul Gesar Foundation. They will return the summer of 2010 to continue their work. Eric Rath, associate professor of history, will go on the trip. He said he wanted to expand the curriculum at the school to include things such as machine maintenance and other occupations that will help students make a living. The Tibetan school is located in one of the poorest regions of China and will serve a traditionally nomadic Tibetan population. "I think we're going to be able to create some things that we haven't even imagined yet," Rath said. While the team members are working at the school, they will choose five Mayul teachers or students to attend the University of Kansas in 2010. In preparation for the trip, the team members will share research on Tibetan SEE TIBET ON PAGE 4A STUDENT SENATE Plans for pool at Rec Center take shape Student Senate began showing blueprints to student groups last week for a possible aquatics center addition to the Student Recreation Fitness Center. Senate received three possible designs for the pool and is conducting focus groups to gage what students want. FULL STORY PAGE 3A SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM Graduate wins second Hearst award Writing award-winning stories is becoming a norm for Thor Nystrom, 2008 graduate. His story, "To Hell and Back," placed second in the 49th-annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program. Living and Laughing Darren Kennedy, Overland Park senior, drew this self-portrait earlier this year. His leukemia relapsed in August. KU senior refuses to let leukemia and a stem cell transplant crush his positive state of mind. FULL STORY PAGE 8A BY MARK DENT mdent@kansan.com A white surgical mask covers Darren Kennedy's nose and mouth. You notice this right away when he opens the door at his Missouri Street duplex on a late September day. He needs the mask. His lungs can't handle the air, which becomes obvious when you see the breathing machine connected to his arm by a tube and slung over his shoulder like a small backpack. He's had that since his right lung collapsed. "I only have nine more days with it," he says cheerfully, pointing to the machine. Bacteria got into the lung somehow, maybe from this crusty old house, and boom, the lung collapsed. These things happen when your immune system is down. And his has been down since Aug. 7. His mother, Fe, moves about the house, washing dishes and packing clothes. Two days later, in early October, Darren and his parents drove It was on that day Darren, an Overland Park senior, learned his leukemia had returned. After two years of maintenance chemotherapy, he had only two months left before hed stop treatment, and he relapsed. to Boston, where he is now, in isolation, recovering from a stem cell transplant. Doctors told Darren that patients his age who have relapsed have a 10 percent survival rate. On this September day, his words coming from behind the mask are slow and slurred because the collapsed lung keeps his breaths swift and short. But the charisma comes through clearly. "Hey, I'm Darren, and I've got a lot of shit wrong with me" he iokes. You Think You Can Dance" and recites lines from "Chappelle's Show." He took his race, half-black and half-Filipino, which could have been an obstacle for someone growing up in Johnson County, gave it its own cool name, "Blasian," and never let it affect anything he did. Why not joke? He always makes fun of the wannabe dancers in "So He'll admit he's a little goofy. But that happens after years of watching Soul Train and sci-fi, listening and dancing to obscure funk music (ever heard of "Oh Sheila"?) and reading comics and graphic novels. Why not approach isolation in good humor? An industrial designer, he has time to work on art projects. Maybe he'll do some comic book illustrations or portraits of himself and friends like need it," he says. "I'm going to be a bubble boy for like a month," he says. "He knows there's a chance he could die. But he says, 'You know, I'm not dead yet.'" Why would he complain about not being able to fully walk for a while? He used to run everywhere. Wanted to be a college runner. But leukemia took that dream away. A cane for a few days didn't make a difference. "I had to go back to school with a cane, but I got a handicapped pass. I used that baby for a week after I didn't MARY DINGES. Nurse. he's done in the past. Mary Dinges, a nurse at the University of Kansas Medical Center, has seen patients who sit around and wait for the doctors to do all the work and patients who don't follow directions. She's seen patients who do everything right, and then she's seen Darren. The college kid who had so much taken away yet stretches and rides a stationary bike at 5 a.m., because he knows it's good for his body, who comforts him when they thought they would need to comfort him, and who got off the table and danced after getting a biopsy because one of his nurses was curious about popping and locking. "He knows there's a chance he could die," Dinges said. "But he says, 'You know, I'm not dead yet.' --- The air conditioner is off inside the duplex, and sweat stains dampen the sweatshirt on Darren's body. It's gray, just like his sweatpants. A Kansas Track and Field logo is emblazoned on both. Darren always wanted to run track and cross country here. The problem was Darren didn't feel well. Hadn't since June. He struggled through most of his workouts and ended each run with the mindset that when he made it to Lawrence and ran in a group, he'd feel much better. Three years ago, as a freshman, he met up with coach Stanley Redwine and the KU runners in early August ready to forget about the summer. This was his shot to become a walk-on, to realize his dream. He didn't. Darren always lagged. The established runners set the pace, and held bound along for one mile, two miles, three miles, and then he couldn't take it. He didn't feel tired. He wasn't out of breath. His legs didn't ache. He just couldn't keep up. Then-KU runner Paul Heferon SEEDARREN ON PAGE4A index Classifieds. 3B Upinion. 7A Crossword. 6A Sports. 1B Horoscopes. 6A Sudoku. 6A All contents, unless stated otherwise; © 2008 The University Daily Kansan AL-QAIDA LEADER REACTS TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA Ayman al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in an online video message Wednesday. POLITICS | 5A weather TODAY 41 20 Partly cloudy FRIDAY 39 27 Mostly sunny ( ) SATURDAY 5034 Partly cloudy weather.com