Harford 3C

New Blog

2008-05-13T15:30:00.002-04:00

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The Afterward

2008-05-03T15:57:00.005-04:00

When I started this blog I knew that Harford 3C would not last forever, but I had every intention of keeping this blog going for as long as possible and keeping up with the 3C girls even after the time came for us to separate. But, as I have not even been able to keep up with this blog for the entirety of our time in 3C (due mostly to me losing interest in reality), I have decided to end this blog. I was going to delete it, but the suitemates objected. So, here is one last entry. It's what will probably happen to us all after we leave 3C next week. I'm writing it in the past tense because afterwards are always in the past tense.

After living with English majors for a year, Kendall was tired of the English language all together. She decided to study abroad in Spain for a semester. While studying abroad, Kendall met and fell in love with a man named Pablo, but she refused to date him because he had red hair like hers, and she wanted to be special. She then met another man named Pablo, who had brown hair. He really liked Kendall, but she refused to date him because he had an unusually narrow forehead and it weirded her out. Finally, Kendall met a very attractive blond-haired man. His name was Pablo. Strangely enough, he spoke no Spanish or English, as he had been raised by tangerines. But, Kendall loved this third Pablo (who had nice hair, but not so nice as to be better than hers). They were married at a 24 hour drive-thru wedding chapel by a Spanish speaking man named Raul who they were not entirely sure was qualified to marry people. But, it didn't matter. Kendall and her third Pablo moved to a modestly sized apartment in southern Spain (it strongly resembled the Bat Cave), where they had dance parties every night.

Alisha thought that she had secured a room in WAC's new dorms in which to spend her junior year of college, but when she returned to campus in the fall, the dorms still looked exactly the same as they had looked for many many months. Alisha learned that the construction workers on campus were not actually construction workers, but actors. All this time the loud noises they had been making had only been sound effects. She congratulated the actors on the realism of their noise making, but was distraught to realize that they had not built anything and that she would have to live in a tent in the CAC. That was a tough time for Alisha, but it turned out to all be worth it when she finally achieved universal peace and was put in charge of the whole world.

Laura and Claire stuck together that year after they left 3C, sharing a messy, but quiet room in an all girls dorm. Little did anyone know that they were both leading double lives-- Laura, as a web comic artist, and Claire, as a disco queen. Laura eventually became seriously famous for her artistic skills and exceptional hair. She was invited to display her art all over the world, and became a touring graffiti artist. Claire did not become famous, but she did become very very rich by winning several important disco contests. After one major disco competition, Dominoes hired her as their discoing spokesperson, and Claire never went without pizza again. When she tired of the glamor, she settled down to be a lawyer. Laura too tired of the excitement of being a traveling graffiti artist, and took up writing Biology text books and playing extreme sports.

Erin moved into a suite on the Western Shore with some girls from the basketball team. Erin's new suitemates all dressed alike in matching athletic shorts and t-shirts, and they made fun of Erin for being an awkward, non-athletic English major. Erin wrote an Elm article about being a writer-nerd in a suite full of very tall people. She was the thing that was not like the others-- the Kendall of her Western Shore suite, if you will. Erin started going to basketball games to try to fit in and to be supportive of her suitemates, but she couldn't stop herself from studying the sociology of sports teams. She received honors on the sociological study of Jane Austen's novels she completed for her combined English and Sociology thesis, but she couldn't decide whether she wanted to go to graduate school for Sociology or English. She decided to do both.

Alexis and I moved to an undisclosed off campus location. We refused to tell anyone where we had gone, and, though they wondered, no one ever looked. I planted strawberries and pink Gerbera daisies (which I insisted would grow in neat and orderly rows). Alexis got up very early in the morning to student teach high school math, and we felt like grown ups. I spent the majority of my time writing my thesis on Tom Stoppard and carefully composing short pieces of fiction. Our apartment had no dust, and almost no furniture. We got along nicely, until one day when I tried to fold up Alexis's socks with her in them. She had dealt with having all of her belongings lined up in rows and stacked in piles, with almost falling over every time I tried to square an area rug she was standing on, and even with me alphabetizing her breakfast, but she drew the line at being folded up in her socks.

Since Alexis loved to travel, had always wanted to grow up to be Asian, and was very tall and thin, she moved to Tokyo to become a runway model. In her spare time, she solved several mathematical theorems that had been bothering mathematicians for the past few hundred years, and she wrote an award winning novel about living with someone who vacuums crumbs off of your legs as you're eating bread, has daily asthma attacks during which she gasps, "I'll figure you out some day, Tom Stoppard," just before passing out, occasionally lays on the floor and cries about how she likes the letter B because the top matches the bottom (but she just doesn't like it as a grade because it's not an A), but makes pleasantly refreshing salads.

After Alexis moved to Tokyo, I withdrew from society once and for all, taking up residence in a spacious tree house with wireless internet access, and planting many strawberries, which I ate during the summer. In winter, I hibernated, except on Christmas when I woke up to go sledding and check my e-mail. I befriended a Panda Bear, who I learned how to speak to, and taught him to read over my short stories for me. I also trained him to fetch library books, for which I would give him some peanut butter. I don't know where I got peanut butter. I guess I must have just found it in the woods.

We all had fond memories of that time we lived in Harford 3C and had a wall of rhetoric. Sometimes we missed those times, but we realized we had to move on.

Thesis Proposal, Obsession, Whatever

2008-03-02T19:07:00.005-05:00

I am so incredibly excited about my thesis. Professor Volansky agreed to be my thesis advisor, and I am really truly writing my proposal on Tom Stoppard. I am so psyched to have an advisor and to be writing on Tom Stoppard and just to be writing a thesis (or rather a proposal for one, at this point). I don't think I can express in writing how I feel about this project without overusing the word excited, becoming extremely repetitive, and sounding like an idiot.

I wish I didn't have to do stuff for my classes, so I could just do this. Over Spring Break I'm going to reread the plays I want to write on, read some criticisms on Tom Stoppard that I took out of the library today, and hopefully come up with an argument. I know that I want to write on doubles-- language with double meaning and plays in plays, but I don't know what I want to say about it. I guess I can't say that I think it's really great.

I think that with this thesis, in order for my brain to not explode, I am going to have to think about one thing at a time, just what I have to do next. So, now that I have an advisor and a topic, I need to just think about an argument, which I think might be the very most important part.

I can't believe it's March and these proposals are due in April. I feel like I have so very little time, but I'm trying very hard to stay calm. I think it's helping that I really like Tom Stoppard and I really like research, but I also really do not know what a thesis proposal should look like.

I printed out the thesis proposal guidelines from the website. I think I understand what needs to be included in the proposal, but I can't picture what the structure will look like. I really want to see one. I sent Facebook messages to some people who graduated last year asking them if I can see their thesis proposals. I would really like to see how other people have set theirs up.

All I've been able to find online about thesis proposals is tips for writing them. I was hoping for some sort of template to go from, but I haven't looked that hard for one. I think my time would be better spent gathering sources and forming an argument. Maybe I can ask what a thesis proposal looks like at the Writing Center. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Proposals Looming

2008-02-22T16:50:00.006-05:00

Almost two weeks ago Erin, Alexis, and I received an e-mail about the Senior Capstone Experience (actually, Alexis didn't receive it, but I always check to see who besides me an e-mail has been sent to, so I realized that Alexis was missing from the list, was concerned that she would be uninformed and would not graduate and would have to become a shoe-shiner, and forwarded it to her). I saw the e-mail before Erin because I check my e-mail thirty seven times a day and ran into her room whining, "Erin, Erin, have you checked your e-mail?" Then I laid on her floor looking traumatized while she read the e-mail, and we proceeded to panic together.

Erin and I have been discussing our impending theses all year. The word thesis has frightened me since I was a freshman. All year we have been enormously aware of the April thesis proposal deadline for those of us who will be seniors next year (and who are not taking comps. like Alexis, although we don't blame her because she has a double major with math (I know what you're thinking, and yes she did need that e-mail I forwarded her; it was for comps. too.)). Erin and I have also been quite aware of the fact that we would need topics and advisors before April, and we have been talking about what our topics might be all year.

But actually finding an e-mail in our inboxes meant April is soon. I've been saying that April was soon since we got back from Winter Break. Erin has been denying it, but it's true. April is soon. It takes me a month to write a paper. I can't imagine how long I'll need to write something as important as a thesis proposal. I better start last year.

So, I met with Professor Moncrief who is the chair of our English department, and I said that I really like Tom Stoppard. (It's true. I really like Tom Stoppard.) She said that either she or Professor Cousineau would probably be the best advisor for Tom Stoppard, depending on whether I wanted to focus more on the drama side of things or the modern English literature side. So, because she said I should, I talked to Professor Cousineau (meaning that I have talked to not one but two professors this week, which I generally try to avoid as I am afraid of professors, figures of authority, and grown-ups in general).

Professor Cousineau said that the best advisor for Tom Stoppard would be Professor Volansky in the drama department. Am I being shunned by the English department? I wondered. I didn't realize that advisors from other departments were an option. I have long worried that when it came time for theses no one would want to be my advisor. I mean, I'm not really the kind of student that professors like. I never participate in class voluntarily and when asked a question I generally forget how to communicate. Really, now that the time is near, I think there is a good chance that I will not be able to find an advisor.

I haven't had very good luck with academic advisors. Not that I haven't liked them, I just haven't kept any of them for very long. Or they haven't kept me. The same thing happened to me with guidance counselors in middle school and high school. Nearly every one of my guidance counselors retired the year I had them, except for one who went to a different school. It's kind of funny and I know it has nothing to do with me, but it's also kind of annoying.

Professor Moncrief thought that Professor Volansky was a good idea too, so I sent her an e-mail. But I don't really see why she would agree to work with me when she probably has drama majors to advise and also when I had CNW (which is a class freshman have to take) with her and she probably already thinks I'm dumb from that because, like I said, I don't make a very good impression in class. I never say anything smart in class and if I say anything at all it's probably something weird. I don't mean to be so weird, but weird things just come out of my mouth (like frogs). I'm worried.

Erin is worried too. She is trying to do a combine thesis for sociology and English using the book 1984. Apparently, the sociology department is with her on it, but the English department is not. She's having trouble finding an English advisor. I said maybe she could get one from the music department or something.

I am actually really excited about writing my thesis because I like writing research papers, and I hope I get to stick with Tom Stoppard because I think he is probably the smartest person alive. I just need an advisor. And an argument. But I'd feel better if I had an advisor.

Side note: Senior Capstone Experience sounds really weird to me. Capstone makes me think of headstone (maybe because it has the word senior in front of it and old people die a lot), and experience sounds like... actually, I don't know what it sounds like, but it doesn't sound like a test or a paper.

A Future English Major?

2008-02-16T12:15:00.003-05:00

My friend Shelby (one of my best friends from my Adirondack Children's Troupe days) is coming to visit me tomorrow and staying until Tuesday, and I am incredibly excited to see her, for one, but also to show her around. Shelby is a junior in high school, and Washington College is one of the schools she's considering.

My friends have pointed out that I will have graduated by the time Shelby goes here, if this is where she decides to go, and I realize that. I just think Shelby would like it here, and she would make such a good English major.

She says that she wants to major in Drama and possibly minor or double major in English, but, just like I knew Laura wanted to major in English and minor in art and not the other way around (she has declared), I know that Shelby wants to be an English major.

Really, I think people should just save themselves some time and do what I tell them. When my brother Nate and I were in high school, he, for some reason unknown to anyone, decided to take physics.

"Why would you take physics?" I asked, "When you've already met the minimum number of required science classes?"

He said that he was good at science and that it would look good on his transcript.

I said, "You're going to art school. No one is going to care that you've taken physics. When, as a photography major, are you going to ever need physics?"

But he did not listen, and he signed up for physics. I could not understand this, as I would never subject myself to a science class without cause. "What is wrong with him?" I wondered.

Several weeks into his physics class Nate did not like it. He was having trouble, and he didn't like his teacher. "Drop it," I said. "Drop it now. Drop it fast. Drop it before the drop/add deadline."

But he did not listen, the drop/add deadline passed, and he was stuck with physics, which he hated. I said, "I told you to drop physics. I told you not to sign up for it in the first place. But you didn't listen to me. And now you are taking physics for no reason."

Now Nate is in art school taking photography, color theory (apparently, color has a theory), and public speaking. You know what he's not taking? Physics.

That's my point. Physics is a waste of time for artists, and Nate has always so obviously been an artist. Shelby is obviously an English major. She is like us. She belongs here, and that is why I'm excited for her visit.

I plan to fill her sixteen-year-old-head with as many English-majory thoughts as I possibly can. Not that I don't think she should major in drama. She can double major; that's fine. (It makes so much more sense than taking physics.) It's just that she needs to realize how important English is to her.

Ten Reasons This Week Was Awesome

2008-02-07T22:38:00.001-05:00

-Two days of warm weather. I love sunny days. I ran to the gym. Because it was warm enough to wear shorts instead of sweat pants. And I've been wearing skirts all week, and I got to wear my new blue tights that I got at Target for $1.50.

-Pancakes in the dinning hall. Who doesn't love breakfast for dinner?

-I had a dream that someone I had an argument with a long time ago apologized to me, and I feel like I made up with that person even though I actually didn't. Good enough.

-I finished the first draft of a short story about a singing toaster for Advanced Fiction, and there are two exciting things about that. One is that it has been far too long since I've written something ridiculous and the other is that I like writing for classes because then other people have to read it.

-I love purple grapes, and I fell out of my chair laughing because they were just really exciting. Or possibly because I've just been really hyper this week.

-Someone said hi to me unexpectedly.

-I didn’t get called on in Modernist Fiction, and I didn't have to talk about Heart of Darkness (but we still have one day of it left). I know I still have to participate in that class eventually. Maybe when we get to The Great Gatsby. When I read it in high school I didn't realize that the narrator was funny, but I started rereading it, and he is.

-I did get called on in Advanced Fiction on Wednesday and, as usual, I sounded like I had no idea what was going on because I could not remember that particular part of Aspects of the Novel (which I thought was mostly boring anyway because it talks in detail about all these novels I’ve never read). But, I wasn’t that upset because I’ve participated in that class at least three times, and I read my assignment voluntarily on Monday. Voluntarily. No lie.

-I was feeling uncharacteristically brave, so I e-mailed someone from my internship last summer to ask for suggestions for applying for internships for this summer, and she e-mailed me back. So, since that went okay, I think I’m going to e-mail more people.

-I also made a phone call and left my dorm twice to attend public events. In public.

Writers' Theatre!

2008-02-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

I am very excited about Writers' Theatre this semester. Since I only have three classes, I have much more time to dedicate to Writers' Theatre than I did last semester and I feel so much more organized.

I have scheduled not one or two, but three events. When I became president of Writers' Theatre I really wanted to add new events, but, as you know if you've been reading this blog, that did not happen. I was very pleased with the way our fall show turned out, but I was a little disappointed that we didn't do anything new.

Last semester a club member came up with the idea of having a reading for the campus of monologues and dialogs that we had written. I put others in charge of it, but it never happened-- my fault for being too busy to look after the club properly.

So, no more of that. I have scheduled the reading and will be keeping up with what is going on with that. And I have also scheduled-- what I'm really excited about-- a club member written one act.

A club member is writing her own complete one act play that other club members will be performing later in the semester. I think that this is exactly the kind of thing that Writers' Theatre should be encouraging, and it's exactly what I have wanted to do since I became president. I am so excited that someone is interested in writing a one act and putting it on.

I am very optimistic about Writers' Theatre this semester. We had our first meeting this week, and we came up with some really original ideas for the murder mystery. Our script revision talks got off to a really slow start last semester, but I think the end result was good and I think we're going to do basically the same thing this semester (hopefully with a less slow start because we are going to have a lot to get through with three events going on).

Don't tell anyone, but I don't really have anything better to do than drive the members of Writers' Theatre out of their minds with reminders about things. This could be dangerous, as, according to certain suitemates, I am picky. This accusation was made over something I said about an Elm article written by one of my suitemates, but I don't think asking for information to be accurate is being picky.

Anyway, come to our stuff this semester because I think it's going to rock.

Not a Children's Book

2008-02-06T19:25:00.000-05:00

I just remembered that when Erin, Alexis and I went to Walden Books in Dover, Delaware on Sunday we saw Tess of the D'Urbervilles in the children's section, and we were really confused. Since when do children's books contain drunk fathers, implied rape, adultery, and executions? I can't make any sense of this.

I Just Don't Like It

2008-02-04T22:22:00.000-05:00

I had to read Heart of Darkness for Modernist Fiction, and it was really painful. I had no idea what was going on through the whole book and I didn't really want to know because I was also pretty bored.

I got that there is a guy named Marlow who is a sailor. He and some other guys, including the narrator are on a boat that's docked. Or possibly near a boat. Because I think it said that Marlow is the only one of them who is still a sailor. So why would the rest of them be on a boat?

So, this Marlow guy starts telling them a story about this time he went to Africa. I'm pretty sure they don't actually go to Africa. And when he was in Africa it was pretty crazy. There were cannibals who wanted to eat him and some guy died on his shoes and he had to find this guy named Kurtz.

Okay, I think maybe somebody paid him to find this Kurtz guy. Well, I'm pretty sure he's getting paid, and I think the reason he is getting paid is to find him. Possibly, it might have something to do with finding ivory because that's what Kurtz does, I think. I don't know.

So, he finds him, and it sort of seems like they're friends, but Kurtz doesn't want to leave and Marlow is supposed to take him away. So, I think maybe Marlow is holding Kurtz against his will, which seems like it would strain the friendship.

I thought, well, wait, maybe Kurtz wants to be there, but then he tries to excape, I think. But he doesn't get to the cannibals, who apparently, he's friends with because Marlow catches up with him.

Then Kurtz gives Marlow some papers to give to some people and then he dies, Kurtz does. So, wait, are they friends? Because he gave him the papers. But then why did he try to escape from him? I don't know.

So Marlow gives the papers to the people, and he still has some papers left that he brings to this woman Kurtz was supposed to marry. And he tells her Kurtz was thinking about her when he died, which he probably wasn't because he had some sort of mistress, and I also think that Marlow left him alone to die.

Okay, okay, it was really boring and I skipped some parts. I just couldn't handle it. So, that's what I got from this book. It sort of reminded me of Lord of the Flies because of the whole jungle thing and also because the boys in that book start going all crazy and I think either Kurtz and Marlow were crazy or the other people in the book thought they were.

It also reminded me of Cat's Cradle because of how the people in that book worship what was that guy's name? Bokonon? just because he told them to, and in this book the cannibals seem to worship Kurtz. It also reminded me of those two books because I didn't like either of those books and I didn't like this book.

I have really got to participate in this class, and I don't know what to say. I don't understand this book at all, and it's hard enough for me to participate when I do understand.

Participation Is The Bane of My Existence

2008-01-31T15:02:00.000-05:00

I got called on.

I don't know if you've heard, but I hate being called on. I think Laura jinxed me because right before class she made a comment about how I had managed to avoid being called on so far in Modernist Fiction, and I marveled over my own stealthiness and thought that maybe no one in that class except for Laura could see me at all.

Then I got called on.

I was trying so hard, like always, to shrink into my surroundings-- chameleonize, if you will, but I got called on anyway and I didn't know what to do. So, like always, I said I didn't know and the world moved on, except for me.

But this professor doesn't actually ask questions. He just calls on people and expects them to say something about the book, and I will never ever ever be able to do that. How am I supposed to know what to say? I can't even come up with answers to questions that I know the answer to when called upon to do so in class. How am I supposed to come up with an answer that I don't even know the question to?

I hate that everyone must think I don't ever do my work when I actually do. I read the book and I read the introduction to the book and I read the articles on the book we were supposed to read. And, when I thought that I had finally achieved true invisibility, it didn't seem to matter, but in retrospect, pink and blue flannel pajama pants seems like a poor fashion choice that is only bound to up my false status as a slacker.

What I can't stand, more than knowing that this is going to hurt my grade, is that I'm not actually a slacker (Today is just pajama day. It's a real day. Look it up.), and I think I might be doomed in this.

Today Is Stupid

2008-01-28T13:58:00.000-05:00

The first stupid thing that happened today is that, despite instincts to the contrary, I woke up, got ready, and went to class. Erin gave me her cold last week (although I imagine that's somehow Alisha's fault), then I had an asthma attack because I find the best way to fight a cold is usually by not breathing, and I spent the entire weekend with my inhaler in my mouth, coughing and grumbling about how my throat and my eyes and my taste buds hurt.

Despite all these things, I went to class because I don't miss classes. I've only missed one class the entire time I've been in college-- (fall semester of Sophomore year. It was, I think the last, or almost the last week of the semester, and I felt like if I made even the slightest movement I would set off some sort of mine inside my head or something and I would definitely be shattered to pieces. But, I went to my second class that day when I felt a little better because I don't skip classes without cause.)

So, I went to my first class today, and my nose was runny and my eyes were itchy and I felt squirmy and uncomfortable and just generally bad and also really really hot because it was, I think, about 200 degrees in there, and I realized that the room was very small and that there were a lot of people in that very small room and that I was not particularly close to the exit and I started to feel dizzy and I realized that I had to get out of class right away and I wondered if I could even move if I tried and I got up and left and I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor for a few seconds or minutes and wondered what I should do, but then I realized that I didn't feel dizzy anymore and I went back to class.

It all happened in one sentence like that too, and I'm not sure if I would say that the second stupid thing today was leaving class or going back.

After class, I went to work, and work was fine. Work was actually a relief. I made my copies and tried to breath normally and left to go to my next class because I don't work very long on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I thought perhaps today was getting better at that point, but then I went to my second class and found out from some other students that we were supposed to write a response on the reading we did for today. I did the reading, but I don't remember hearing about or seeing anywhere that we had to write a response. I looked on Blackboard over the weekend. I didn't see it. So, I thought, "Well, maybe I'm stupid," and that's when I realized that I'm having a very stupid day. A stupid semester, actually, as early as it is.

I want a re-do of this semester. This semester is stupid, and I've already messed it up.

And these tissues are stupid too. They say soft blend, but I think the soft must be blended with something the opposite of soft, making them just regular tissues. That's misleading.

Everything is stupid today.

50,000 Words

2008-01-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

This book I have to read for my fiction workshop -- Aspects of the Novel-- says that a novel has at least 50,000 words. But, I was thinking what if you've writen 49,975 words, and you just don't need that last paragraph? It would be really frustrating if you were one paragraph short of a novel. Laura said she'd just write another paragraph, but what if you don't need it? I'm glad I don't want to write a novel because I think I'd be super obsessed with 50,000 words, and I'd hit word count every other sentence and I'd never get anywhere.

I Don't Know

2008-01-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

Alisha: This towel isn't soaking up the water.

Kendall: That's because it's not a towel, it's a giraffe.

me: I get those two things confused all the time. Like, I get out of the shower, and I'm like man, I got my giraffe confused with my towel again.

Kendall: Yeah, but you'd have a sweet ride back to your room.

We're Back

2008-01-21T18:35:00.000-05:00

Everyone is back in 3C, and I really don't feel like I ever left. Everything is just the same as we left it, except that my closet door, which is prone to swinging open, did so despite the duct tape closer mechanism I installed, smashing my mirror into the wall and breaking it. My closet door doesn't stay shut and my room door doesn't stay open. I swear my room is just a little bit sideways. But, notwithstanding a few shards of glass, it's very nice to be back with the suitemates.

Alexis, Claire and I would have had our first class of the semester together, a poetry class (which I was sort of counting on because I figured after one class with suitemates, I could probably handle the second one on my own), but it was canceled because the professor is out of town. So, my first class was a fiction workshop.

Like I said, I had to go by myself, so, of course, I ended up in the wrong place. I had the correct room written down, I had the correct room number in my head, but I did not have the correct picture of where in the building the room was located in my head. So, I went in and there were two other students, a guy and a girl. I had a feeling I was in the wrong place because I did not recognize them from other English classes. Then, the guy said, "Is this Music Theory?"

I said, "I thought this was Creative Writing."

And the girl said, "I thought this was CNW."

Hmm. I looked at my phone to make sure that I had the correct day and time. I walked into the hall. I looked at my schedule. I looked at the room number. Why can't I match numbers correctly? So, I found the real room. A room in which I recognized nearly every student from other classes, which was certainly a relief. Then I started thinking, I haven't written fiction in a while. I haven't written fiction for a workshop since freshman year. Do I remember how to write fiction? Is it time to panic already? Maybe.

Because I have the first workshop. Which is good in a way because I will totally get out of talking for that first workshop, and once I hear what kinds of things people say about my writing I'll have a better idea of what I'm supposed to say about their writing in the critiques that we have to write about everyone's writing. Because we're not supposed to say what we think is good or bad or what we like or don't like or how we think something can be better, so what are we supposed to say? I really don't have any idea. When I said this to Alexis, she asked if I asked in class, but before I could answer she said, "No, of course you didn't. I forgot who I was talking to." I'm glad we understand each other.

Tomorrow Laura and I have our first day of Modernist Fiction. I didn't know that Laura was in the class until today. I totally thought I was going to have to go alone, which was freaking me out a little bit. But, today I heard Laura tell Claire that she was in Modernist Fiction, and I said, "I'm in Modernist Fiction."

Laura said, "No you're not. You're in Modernist Poetry."

I said, "No, I'm in Modernist Fiction. I know what class I'm in, Laura."

I know what classes I signed up for, Laura. Claire is in Modernist Poetry. Not me. So there.

And I only have three classes this semester, which makes me feel really lame. I mean, it's sort of a relief because last semester was pretty intense, but I feel like I should take a fourth class, like I'm being a huge slacker-loser for not taking a fourth class, but I'm dropping my fourth class because I don't know if you've heard, but I do not participate in classes. Ever really. So, I hate to leave Alexis all alone in a class I said I'd take with her, but I can't take it.

And, it isn't like my other three classes aren't going to be challenging or like I don't have a job and Writers' Theatre, and Laura and I are going to join Alexis as real live Writing Center peer writing consultants this semester (as opposed to interns, like we were last semester). So, I mean, I don't really even have time for a fourth class. I mean, you could say I'm not at all avoiding classes in which I am going to be required to participate because I totally don't have time to take another class anyway. And, as of Thursday morning when I see my advisor I will not have a fourth class.

I am worried about the classes that I have though. Alexis asked me if our poetry professor is someone who is going to expect everyone to say something because I had him last semester, and again, before I could say anything she said, "Never mind. You're taking class with him again." Obviously, that is the only answer she needed, but I'm worried about this semester because I think this class is going to be smaller than last semester's class. Non-participants might be a little more noticeable, but I'm probably worried about that class the least.

I'm really worried about that fiction workshop. Okay, I seem to have found a perfectly valid way of keeping myself out of the first workshop discussion, but what about the entire rest of the semester? I can't drop it. For one thing, I cannot take less than three classes, and for another thing, I cannot be a creative writing minor if I do not take creative writing classes. And fiction is my other favorite (playwrighting being my favorite favorite).

But then there is Modernist Fiction, which Alisha has taken, and she told me I'll probably have to participate. And I cannot drop Modernist Fiction (unless I'm picking up Modernist Poetry, which would be a pretty pointless switch to make) because I need it for my major. Gah!

Why do all of these English classes require talking? I just don't know if I can do this, but it would suck to get to junior year and not finish. I really don't know what to do.

Harford 3C: A Virtual Tour

2008-01-17T15:01:00.001-05:00

(As you enter Harford 3C, you'll want to watch out for any shoes that might have been left near the door. They're probably mine.)

Alright, the virtual tour. To your left, you'll notice a small, highly organized bathroom, with everything stashed away either under the sink or in the shower head caddy, except for a few decorative touches, such as Erin's ducky bathmat, several of Erin's many rubber duckies, and my ducky hand towel. Also featuring: Erin's bright purple shower curtain, with additional ducky bathmat and ducky toothbrush holder coming soon.

To your right, you'll see a rather large bathroom featuring cute woven bathmats in front of the sink and shower and many many bottles around the sink area, along with hair brushes, and other clutter that make me glad I don't have to use that bathroom. Extra points for Alisha's purple toothbrush holder.

Also to the right, you'll find the dish sink:

I suppose that this sink exists in case both bathrooms are occupied, but it would be very hard to use this sink to brush your teeth or wash your hands or whatever you might want to use a sink randomly placed in a hallway for because, unless someone has done dishes within the last hour, attempting to locate this sink is futile. This picture features Alisha washing and Claire drying, like the good suitemates they are.

Next up on the right, we have the previously pictured on this site Wall of Rhetoric, followed directly by Erin's room:

And, across the hall from Erin's room we have Alexis's room (now with nice purple rug):

Next to Erin's room, is found my room in all its girliness:

And, across from my room, what really makes 3C 3C, the common room, complete with chair covers we created out of sheets from Target (and other things we happened to have, including Alisha's tapestry with that guy we decided is not Buddha and therefore may be sat upon, Alexis's gold, green, black, and red sarong, and my red beaded sarong ), gold-tulle-from-Walmart-covered walls, a piece of fabric that we got for a dollar and called a valance, my fuzzy red Target rug that sheds everywhere, two matching red fold-up chairs that Alisha and I didn't know we both had, and Laura's homework.

And, the never before seen on this site, far more utilitarian side of the common room where we sometimes do magnetic poetry, but mostly eat.

At any given time in our common room, one might witness:

Erin being emo.

One girl's love for apple sauce.

Ginormous umbrellas.

Excitement.

Confusion in fuzzy pink pajamas (and the consequential strangling of Laura).

Paper revisions (as labeled by Erin).

But, apparently not Claire. I can't find a single picture of Claire in the common room.

And, our tour concludes with Laura and Alisha's room on the left and Kendall and Claire's room on the right.

So, that's 3C, and I'm going back in three days.

Google Rocks

2008-01-16T14:04:00.001-05:00

I really wish I could be a professional googler. If that was a job, I'd be all over it. Because I have serious googling skills. And I wouldn't at all mind being paid to google stuff for people who don't have time to do their own in-depth googling or who do not possess my level of googling ability.

You may doubt that it is possible to be a superior googler-- you think that googling is fairly straight forward, but I imagine that if you are under that impression, you are only the casual or occasional google user. I use google extensively to achieve great feats of information acquisition, and ask it for constant advice in every situation imaginable.

For example, someone named Meag B. has commented on this site several times, which lead me to wonder, who is Meag B.? Obviously, regular-googling Meag B. would be completely useless, as I'm sure there are about a zillion Meag B.s out there. So, I went to the Google Analytics page for this site to see what websites people had accessed this blog from on the days that Meag B. had commented. One of the access sites was del.icio.us.com, and when I searched for Harford 3C on del.icio.us.com I found it listed by none other than Meag B.. I recognized only two of the other blog's on her list: You Know You're a History Major When... and It's Easy Being Green. And that's when I knew that Meag B. was Brenna's sister, as I then realized that not only does Brenna's last name suspiciously begin with the letter B, but that I met her sister Meag once during freshman year. Googling complete.

But, happy googling does not necessarily require a name. Before I started my internship with the Adirondack Theatre Festival I was very nervous and knew that I would feel infinitely better if I could somehow contact one of the other interns, who I imagined would be a comfort simply by being nervous with me. The first thing I had done when I found out that I had the internship was post it online, and I imagined others had done the same. So, I google-blog-searched "internship Adirondack Theatre Festival," and came up with the Live Journal of one of my fellow interns, who I then Facebooked and sent a message to explaining that I would be an intern at the theatre festival with her (but not how I knew that she was going to be an intern there) and requesting that she send me a friend request (because it would be unlike me to send a friend request to someone I don't know, while not at all unlike me to spend hours visiting every site on the net vaguely related to that person). And, luckily, she was not creeped out, and I began the festival with a friend.

So, as you can see, I'm basically an expert googler. I have other examples, but I don't want to scare you, and I google lots of stuff besides people. I ask Google everything, and Google usually tells me. The only information that I have tried desperately to google and have been utterly unsuccessful in locating is what I should do for a career, or at least what I should do for the summer. If Google would tell me that, I'm sure I could find something, but Google won't tell you anything when you don't know what you're looking for, which is incredibly annoying, as that's when it would really be most helpful. I'm not saying that I want Google to make decisions for me, I just wish it would tell me what my options are without so much pleading. But, all it keeps telling me is, "Career? You haven't time for a career. I will consume your life." That is so not cool, Google.

Yeah, being a professional googler would be awesome. I wouldn't ever have to interact with other people, and I could live in a tree house with wireless internet and a tire swing (who wouldn't want that?). But, I seriously need to figure out what I'm doing this summer. I really, really do. The most horrible scenario that I can imagine is having to live at home and cashier at a large chain grocery store. I have done that before, and it was the worst experience of my entire life. I felt nauseated every second I worked there and frequently cried in front of both customers and my manager because I had to stand in a large open area for hours on end greeting people, not to mention that I had to touch all kinds of wet things from the freezer section and loosely packaged meat, which was super gross. None of this probably sounds all that bad to you; I know it certainly doesn't sound bad to my parents who understandably require that I am employed and who have assured me that everyone takes boring, minimum wage jobs when they're in high school and college. But, I don't remember ever feeling bored there, as I was too busy feeling terrified and trying not to puke.

It's not that I mind minimum wage employment. I have a minimum wage job near my school that I've had for nearly two years and that I like very much. I make photo copies, put up bulletin boards, punch holes in things... and no one ever wants to know if vine-ripe tomatoes are on sale or if I can go any faster, but mostly how to spell blue and if they can go to the bathroom. I admittedly get a little flustered when more than, lets say three of these little question askers are near me at once, all "What are you doing? Can I touch your hair? Can you open my milk? Can I have a hug? Can you tie my shoes? Are you watching us at lunch today? (I really hope you are because I know that you have absolutely no control over us and we will all go crazy)," but I find that remaining calm and saying something like, "Go ask your teacher," or "I'm doing my work. You do yours." seems to work. And, if all else fails, I don't know. "I don't know how to spell blue. Go sit down." But, they don't make me particularly nervous because, you know, I'm bigger than them, and really, I mostly make photo copies. And I'm a wicked good photo-copy-maker.

I really see summer as a problem. I don't know who invented it, but I think it's a bad idea. I could get some minimum wage job (making photo copies somewhere?), and I really wouldn't mind as long as I don't have to be around, you know, a lot of grown ups. Maybe five would be okay. I could maybe handle five. Being a cashier was the worst idea ever. But, I really would like another internship (and maybe that's just because my theatre festival internship turned out to be so super cool). I just wish I knew in what.

I think that my ability to figure out what I want an internship in is being interfered with by my small theatre obsession, but I keep reminding myself that, one: I am really not a people person, and two: I am an English major (if you recall). It's just that one of the really great things about my theatre internship (other than the obvious, which is seeing plays, and being near theatre) was that I was never ever home. I was always either working or hanging out with the other interns, and if it hadn't happened that I live closer to the theatre than the housing the other interns were living in, I could have lived with the other interns and I wouldn't have even had to sleep at home. It would be so awesome if I could find an internship where I would not have to be home, but in what? I feel like no matter what I do with my-English-major-self, I will miss theatre (unless I really can become a professional googler).

Man, I want a job watching plays and taking trips to Six Flags and reading Jane Austen and writing short essays. I think I'll be an heiress.

Thinking Positively, Or Idealistically, Or Whatever

2008-01-15T23:36:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking about Alexis's comment on School Is Already Freaking Me Out that she's worried that this semester will turn into last semester (which, I think would mean we'd slipped through some super weird time vortex), and she is entirely correct about last semester being rough. (Have I mentioned that I got two non-"A"s? Not one, but two?)

But, I am being positive about this semester and have decided not to dwell on last semester's tragedies (after this one last time). I am going to stop mourning last semester's GPA and focus on the "A"s I have to get this semester. I am not going to spend two weeks lying on the floor and crying because I got a B minus on a paper because I'm not going to get grades like that (and if I do, I will limit myself to one week of crying-- a week and a half at most, and I will close the door to my room).

I will under no circumstances lie on other people's floors and cry, like that one time I thought I was having a brain aneurism (or diagnose myself with brain aneurisms when I don't actually know what a brain aneurism is).

This all sounds like it has nothing to do with Alexis, but it does because I feel really bad for acting like such a child-with-a-tendency-toward-the- dramatic when I know that other people are in fact having worse semesters than I am and are not acting at all like me. I don't need to add stress to the already stressful lives of my friends.

So, I'm really going to try to stop being such a huge cry baby all the time, but as I've been a huge cry baby for my entire life and will in all likelihood continue to be a huge cry baby, I am at least going to make sure to leave my suitemates out of it. They don't need that.

I know that Alexis was not referring to me in her comment and that what she is worried about has nothing to do with me (I realize that I am not the center of Alexis's life), but, since I can not help her with her incredible workload, I think the least I can do is refrain from distracting her from her work with my fake brain aneurisms and insufficient grades and temper tantrums.

I am going to be twenty one in six and a half weeks, and I plan on becoming super-mature-acting at that time, maybe.

Things I Just Realized About Going Back To School

2008-01-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

Next week I am going to have to start wearing make-up and pants made out of materials other than flannel on a regular basis. I may even have to leave my room or worse, associate with other humans. I'm definitely going to have to remain awake for more than four hours at a time. And during those waking hours I am going to have to do stuff other than surf the internet. Stuff that may require thinking or even footwear. I'll probably never forgive myself for completely wasting this entire vacation. I did not visit any friends. I did not find an internship or any other type of employment for the summer (most likely because I didn't look). I did not write anything (unless you're counting what I've written on this blog). I feel like the laziest person on the planet, and I despise lazy people.

Just Dinner Time

2008-01-14T17:58:00.000-05:00

Daddy (from dark hallway to closed doors): HELLO!

(silence)

me (from my room): Hello?

Daddy: I'm makin' burgers. You guys want rice or potatoes?

Kevin & me (from respective rooms): Don't care.

(silence)

Daddy: Somebody got a coin or something?

(I open my door a crack and shake my head.)

Daddy: Here I got a coin.

(Kevin appears in his doorway armed with a sword drawn)

Daddy: Don't worry. I'm not comin' in.

(Kevin takes the coin from Daddy, balances it on the end of the sword and flips it.)

Kevin: Heads.

me: Is heads rice or potatoes?

Kevin: We didn't decide.

(silence)

Daddy: Do it again. Heads is rice.

(Kevin uses the sword to flip the coin again.)

Kevin: Tails. Potatoes.

(Daddy nods and goes back downstairs.)

Sometimes I doubt whether the things that go on here are terribly normal because the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary to me about this exchange was that someone at my house is cooking. Make burgers? Is that an abbreviation for make a Burger King run? I don't understand. I didn't even know they had rice at Burger King. Isn't rice usually delivered with our General Tso's?

School Is Already Freaking Me Out

2008-01-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

I still have a week to go before the semester starts and I've already been having first day of class dreams. I hate those. I've had the one where I'm late, the one where I miss class all together, the one where I realize I accidentally signed up for math instead of English, the one where there aren't any seats left, the one where the class is full of people from my high school... Last night I had a dream that a professor gave a final on the first day of class, and what did I do? I found a ladder and climbed up into the ceiling. Yes, the ceiling, which seems to go against my usual inclination to melt into a puddle.

I Wouldn't Say It's My Very Most Favorite Musical Out Of Every Musical Ever, But It Might Win For Favorite Trip To Proctors

2008-01-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

I will almost never name a favorite book or song or movie or anything else for that matter because I just have far too many favorites and I cannot decide, but I will say that Monty Python, spontaneous song and/or dance numbers that don't necessarily have anything to do with anything, and fantastically sparkly costumes are somewhere on the list of stuff I find exciting. So, obviously, I love Spamalot. I love when the knights yell, "Hey!" and a woman struts across the stage pulling a cart of hay. I giggle every time there is a play on words because, hey, it's hay. That's hilarious.

I saw Spamalot on Broadway with Alexis and another friend last spring, and I remember that when Tim the Enchanter entered I said something like, "It's Tim! Alexis, it's Tim!" in a sort of loud whisper. And then when Tim said, "There are some who call me...," I was all, "Tim! There are some who call you Tim!" I can't imagine how that's not funny. His name is Tim. Tim the Enchanter. That's like being named Joe the Great or Sam the Conquerer or Bill the Amazing.

Anyway, I saw Spamalot for a second time last night at Proctors in Schenectady, and I was sitting by myself, so I had no one to make any kind of comments to. (I was there with my parents, but we couldn't get seats together.) As the end of the show approached I was about ready to explode with the need to share-- "Tim. His name is Tim." I really thought I was going to explode, but then something did explode (on purpose, but not with the desired effect). With one musical number left, a special effect set off the fire alarm, and I think a lot of the audience thought that the show was supposed to end that way. I mean, it's Monty Python; it's not unbelievable that the show would end that way. The movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail ends with the police arresting everyone.

But, because I don't imagine you're aloud to flash exit signs as part of a show (or if there is no rule against it, that anyone would), and because I have the CD and knew there was one musical number left, and because I have seen the show before and know it doesn't end the way, I suspected that maybe, just maybe they did not mean for the fire alarm to go off. My suspicions were confirmed when there was an announcement that "the explosion of the rabbit mound" set off the fire alarm, and ushers assured everyone that the show would begin again shortly.

Some people actually got up and left, which was inconceivable to me. I mean, one: why would someone stay until almost the very very end of a show and then walk out before the last musical number? and two: how could anyone leave when a voice just told us that "the explosion of the rabbit mound" had caused the fire alarm to go off? How? It was my favorite part of the show. Maybe I'm evil or something, but I love it when stuff like this happens. And, out of all the shows I've been to, I think this is the only time that a fire alarm has ever gone off. I just couldn't believe my luck at being present at the one show (assuming that this isn't a normal occurrence) where the exploding rabbit mound made too much smoke.

Afterwards, my mom asked me if I liked the Broadway production, or the tour better because she hasn't seen it on Broadway. I said, "I really like both of them, but I have different favorite parts. My very most favorite part of the Broadway production was when, during the scene with Prince Herbert, all of the actors started laughing and laughed for a good twenty seconds. And my favorite part of the production we saw at Proctors was when the fire alarm went off." She just sort of looked at me like I was a very strange person.

The Hardest Part Is Trying Not To Sing Along

2008-01-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

I went to see Les Misérables at Cohoes Music Hall last night, and it was fantabulous. The only other time I've seen Les Mis is when Lake George Youtheatre put it on a few (or possibly slightly more than a few) years ago. All I remember about seeing the play in Lake George is that I loved the music and that the power went out half way through the second act (as, during a thunder storm in Lake George, the chances of having power are well... about as good as the chances of not having power). I remember watching the end of the play with the actors holding flashlights, and I felt really bad for them.

So, last night was the first time I saw Les Mis with the lights on for the whole show, and I was incredibly impressed. It was high school students, the same as the first time I saw it, but I can't imagine any adult cast doing a better job. The only thing that went noticeably wrong was when a sort of nob on the top of a gate fell off and rolled across the stage, but things like that are beyond anyone's control and I think have to happen at least once a production.

The chorus sounded great, and I thought the girls who played Cosette and Eponine had particularly good voices. I love the song "On My Own" that Eponine sings. I also really liked Valjean, particularly how he got progressively older throughout the play. And I loved the innkeeper and his wife; they were hilarious, and I especially liked the part where they showed up to Cosette's wedding and they both had super red cheeks and obnoxiously blue eyeshadow and the wife had this hideous bright purple frilly dress.

I was also seriously impressed with the younger kids in the play. The girl who played Young Cosette had such a pretty voice. I noticed in the program that she and the girl who played Young Eponine switch off roles for every other show. At first I was sort of wondering why they would do that, but then I realized that Young Eponine doesn't really do anything, so I guess they are taking turns playing Young Cosette so they both get to sing. I think that was a good idea.

The little boy who played Gavroche was adorable. He looked about eight years old, but apparently he's more like eleven or twelve. He just looked so little and so cute, but he could sing besides that. And when he got shot he did such a good job dropping dead that I swear it crossed my mind that they actually shot him. The battle scene was wicked cool.

The only character I didn't particularly love was Fantine. She sounded good most of the time, but, well, I'm not sure if it's okay to say this about a high-schooler, but I thought that she sounded like a goat when she sang "I Dreamed a Dream," and in her death scene when she sort of let out a cough and fell to the floor I had to hold back inappropriately timed giggles. It was a funny death.

Overall, though, I thought the play was terrific. I had never been to Cohoes Music Hall before, and I now feel like I've been missing something essential to my life. The whole stage turns. Awesome? Yes. Not the mention that the building is from 1874 and absolutely gorgeous.

I went to the show with my aunt, uncle, and grandmother, and my grandma was complaining about all of the stairs in the building (even though we took the elevator), and my uncle was talking about how it's impracticable for the theatre to only hold about five or six hundred people (we guessed). But I like the size and I like the theatre. I just feel so far away from the play in big theatres, like I might as well be watching a movie.

Anyway, the show is still going on tonight and tomorrow night, and if I were you, I would go. Well, that's not true, if I were me (which I am), I would go (which I did). I don't know how you'll like it, but if you're going to like Les Mis (you aren't upset that you actually have to pay attention to the play to follow the plot or let down that it's sad, when in your experience musicals are not sad) and you don't mind that the building has stares, I think you'll like this one.

I've Never Heard Of You Before

2008-01-11T11:45:00.000-05:00

I just received a Facebook friend request from, well, um, I'm not sure exactly what to say. But, here:

Personal Info
Activities: not alot
Interests: fun stuff
Favorite Music: everything
Favorite TV Shows:seinfeld
Favorite Movies: 300, 30 days of night, hills have eyes, horro movies ect
Favorite Books: books egh no thanks
Favorite Quotes: never go pee after cleaning your tires with wintergreen

He is also a member of the little known church of "god lol," and he works as a "concrete worker person thingy." Hmm, a person thingy. Not a person, but a person thingy.

The only link I can find between us is that he is dating a girl who lives down the street from me, which I find to be so very very sad. I don't know her well, but she always seemed to have brain cells. And, is this guy sending friend requests to all of her Facebook friends? That's super creepy. Or does he think I'm someone else? A friend of his girl friend's who he met once who had a name that rhymed with mine or something? I can't imagine.

Sorry, person thingy, but I'm going to have to decline.

Top Ten Reasons I Have Got To Get Back To School

2008-01-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

10. I have exhausted Crossgates Mall. Is there any other point to Albany?
9. The windows are starting to freak me out. I think I've been spending too much time alone.
8. I have got to get back on some sort of a schedule.
7. Upstate New York is slushy. It was snowy (about three or four feet of snowy), and then we had an incredibly random January rain shower. And now the snow is all patchy and dirty. Gross.
6. I sort of miss going to class.
5. My mom's aunt is trying to set me up with her granddaughter's husband's brother, who she described to me as "quiet, like you."
4. Fast Food. My mom stops on her way home from work nearly every day. And I cannot continue eating like this. I'll get cellulite, and I don't even know what that is.
3. Certain people who beg me to attend Catholic mass and then try to make me feel guilty when I decline. I don't feel bad; I just think you're annoying.
2. I'm tired of hearing about how I am the only person over the age of sixteen in the entire world who does not have (or is at least in the process of obtaining) a driver's license. You think I'm being stubborn, unreasonable, impracticable, irrational... I am positive that my attempting to operate a motor vehicle will lead to certain and instant death.
1. I seriously miss the suitemates.

Not Pretending To Understand

2008-01-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

I finally finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray a few days ago (which only took an embarrassingly lengthy three weeks), and I have to say that I'm not completely in love with the book. It seemed sort of predictable to me, which you could attribute to my already knowing the ending, but I don't. I mean, obviously, James Vane was not going to survive the book, although I don't think I could have foreseen the particular manner of his execution (which I thought was a really weird way for him to go, by the way). And, I can't say that I knew anything was going to happen to Basil, but it wasn't really surprising. I don't know; I just never felt bad for Dorian. I think I would have been more into the book if I had liked him at all. I'm not saying that I didn't like the book, but I'm not obsessed with it.

For my next read I chose Rock 'n' Roll, admittedly because after all of the wordiness of Dorian Gray and the immense amount of time it took me to finish the book I needed to read something that I could breeze through in a couple hours. Okay, "breeze through" isn't exactly right. Tom Stoppard is never a breeze, but as it's meant to be performed in a reasonable amount of time and is dialog instead of paragraphs, it didn't take long to read. How many years it will take to fully understand, I don't know. I doubt if I will ever understand completely.

I've read some of Tom Stoppard's plays (Arcadia, The Real Inspector Hound, The Real Thing... to name a few favorites) and thought, "This is the most intelligently funny thing I've ever read." And, I've read others (mostly Travesties and now Rock 'n' Roll) and thought, "What just happened?" I think that I understood just barely enough of Travesties to know that I did not understand. Luckily, as the one thing that I had read by Oscar Wild before recently, I understood the parallels to The Importance of Being Ernest. Other than that there was James Joyce, an author I haven't read, Dadaism, which I know has something to do with art that's not art and is German, and Lennin, who I know was Russian and had something to do with politics. And I realized that I understood very little of the play. It just references too many things I don't know anything about, and I sort of wonder who does understand it. Is there a one person who understands all of these things all at once?

Well, I had a similar feeling when I read Rock 'n' Roll, although I don't think it confused me quite as much as Travesties, and I think I actually learned some things about communism. But, I often didn't understand what was going on or what anyone was talking about. I know very little about politics, currently or historically, and much of the play was lost to me. I also don't know anything about Czechoslovakia and wouldn't be able to tell you where in the world it's near, except that a friend of mine visited Prague a few weeks ago and I google-mapped it.

That being said, what I'm about to say is probably going to sound stupid, but I really enjoyed the play. You might wonder how one can enjoy a play that one did not understand, and one would tell you that the words sound pretty, or at least, I would tell you that. I suppose most people who like Tom Stoppard like him for his intellect because they understand what he is talking about, and I probably don't have any business saying that I like his plays because that falsely implies that I understand them.

I'm not trying to pretend that I understand anything I don't understand, but I just can't stop reading Tom Stoppard. And, I'm not completely stupid; at times, I followed conversations for pages and pages before once again getting lost. My favorite part of the play is the middle, the end of the first act and the beginning of the second act. That's when all of the stuff happens, like death and broken records and everything. That's also when Alice starts to be in the play more, and I think that she is my favorite character. She's sarcastic and smart and I just love the way English people talk. If I was super rich, I'd hire an English person to follow me around and say English-sounding expressions in a pretty English accent at appropriate times. That would be awesome.

Guest Entry: Evil Borders by Erin

2008-01-08T13:12:00.000-05:00

In order to ensure maximum Christmas present opening pleasure, my grandmother hands out increments of $50 to each grandchild prior to Christmas and lets them run wild with it. After a brief shopping extravaganza, the gifts are wrapped and delivered to her home for celebrations. It's the I-know-what-I'm-getting-and-you-know-I-know-

but-let's-act-surprised Christmas technique.

Naturally, I scooted myself over to the local branch of Borders and prepared to go into ecstasies over the possibilities of adding more books I don't have time to read to my collection. I immediately sought out the Literature section of the store, and gaped at the sad display.

For one, even having a literature section is really very embarrassing for the other books. Secondly, having a literature section that occupies only about 1/60^th of the store space is really very sad.

I felt bad for the other books, I wanted to cuddle them and tell them they were worthy too.

On top of all that, however, the literature section was woefully incomplete. I actually had to stretch to find books to fill up my $50. I almost went to a CD store. I could only find about two of the books on my exhaustive Amazon wish list.

I scoured the entire store for a copy of The Satanic Verses by Rushdie, and I even ventured into the religious aisle. I found an old women gleefully scooping out Christian Self-Improvement books by random, but nothing of actual merit.

I almost resorted to childhood and wandered towards the young adult section in search of something lovely and magical, but remembered I still had to finish Alice in Wonderland.

I finally managed to spend my $50, but it was harder than I expected. I did have to resort to the children's section a little bit (but the His Dark Materials series is so worth it).

At the end of my trip, however, I vowed revenge on Borders Express. Next time, I'm driving myself the extra distance to a real Borders.

Guest Entry: Winter Break by Laura

2008-01-08T09:37:00.000-05:00

A week or so into my winter holiday, I realized that I had done absolutely nothing beyond existing (proof: I was eating, breathing, taking up space, and occasionally debating the proper terminology for the de-evolved zombies in I Am Legend.) All I did was watch TV and play online games. Actually, I’ve become proficient in a number of MSN games, such as Slingo, Chicken Invaders II, and my favorite: Peggle. Such computer skills may be impressive for a high score board, but there isn’t much room for conversation. Sample:

Family member: “So what have you been doing during your month off?”

Me: “Playing Chicken Invaders II on MSN games. I basically shoot at flying chickens, who shoot eggs at me, then turn into chicken legs, which I pick up for 20 points apiece. In outer space.”

Family member: “And how much money are you paying for your private school education?”

Thus, I decided to do something noteworthy and meaningful (Self-improvement, as I call it). This can include physical, mental, or habitual enrichment. I took a stab at current affairs, but watching the news didn’t work out. I don’t care how the presidential candidates take their coffee, regardless of how slow the C-freaking-NN news day is. The TV has since been re-autotuned to Scrubs and The Office.

At this point I remembered that I am an English major (yes, I have officially declared, thank you for noticing), and should be reading, writing, or analyzing. Wanting to write, I pulled out my diary, and complained about having nothing to write.

So I began to examine the dozen novels I borrowed from the school library, having fully intended to read each, in addition to the books already sitting on my shelf at home. I’d lost a bit of time, but there was still much more before vacation ended. It’s only when it took a full week-and-a-half to finish Catch-22 that I began to worry.

But then I noticed something rather exciting: Catch-22 is a gigantic beast compared to everything else I brought home. Thus, I zipped through two plays and two short novels in three days.

Mind you, these are the days I was in a car for too long, or just didn’t get out of bed, but it’s still an accomplishment. I’ve got a huge head-start on next semester’s reading lists, I know why a green light is so significant to The Great Gatsby, and I know that Hillary Clinton likes her coffee with OR without cream.

And I still have a week-plus to go.

Only Here

2008-01-06T18:46:00.002-05:00

I noticed something peculiar as I descended the stairs to the living room today; my brother Kevin was in there. Now, I'm not saying that Kevin is peculiar (or that he's not), but it is highly unusual for him to leave his bedroom/arsenal. We occasionally catch glimpses of him flying down the stairs and into the basement, where he can throw knives at the walls more freely, or raiding the pantry for supplies. We generally know that he still exists only because of the sound of his stereo blasting Japanese pop music through the ceiling. I was understandably surprised to see him on the main floor of the house. (Actually, I haven't been so confused since the day I woke up to find that Kevin had removed all of the doorknobs in the house to clean underneath them.) I didn't want to scare him off, so I said something nice. I said, "Nice guillotine."

Kevin: Thanks.

me: Where did it come from?

Kevin: Built it in the garage.

me (searching the room for our cats): Why's the head hole so low?

Kevin: It's only four foot tall.

Mommy (unmoved by the guillotine in the living room): Four feet tall.

me: Is it dangerous?

(Kevin points to a piece of masking tape on the guillotine: "Don't put fingers here.")

me: Oh... Well, what's it for?

Kevin (with a tone of "duh"): Beheading.

Mommy: It's for school. Global History. They're doing the French Revolution.

me: Did you have to write a paper or something?

Kevin: No.

me: You just had to build a guillotine?

Kevin: No.

me: Well, is it a project?

Kevin: No.

me: Is it extra credit?

Kevin: No.

me: Kevin, there's a four foot guillotine in the living room.

Kevin (laughing with excitement): Yup.

me: What are you going to do with it?

Kevin: Bring it to school.

me: Your school has sentries. You can't just walk in the front door with a four foot guillotine.

(Kevin laughs again.)

me: Does your teacher know you're bringing in a guillotine?

Kevin: Yup.

me: Does she know how big it is?

Kevin: Yup.

me: Are you sure they're going to let you bring it in the building?

Kevin: The teacher's already got one.

me: Then why does she need another one?

Kevin: Hers is broken. Blade sticks coming down. Made her a new one.

me: She wore the old one out?

Kevin: Teaches tenth graders.

Dorian Gray Is A Big Jerk-face

2008-01-03T14:03:00.000-05:00

In the beginning, I found Dorian Gray to be mildly annoying. Everybody tells him how pretty he is, and he realizes, "You're right! I am very pretty!" And, I thought, "Oh, you stupid, uninteresting little man, I can't believe you're the main character."

Then he falls in love with Sibyl Vane, and I thought, "Well, that's sort of cute. I still don't really like you, but you're pretty and she's pretty and her last name's Vane and you're obviously vain." And I sort of liked Sibyl. Maybe she isn't very smart; she's obviously completely taken in by Dorian's attention. But, she's quite young. And she seems sort of sweet when she's with her brother. I mean, the brother is obviously right that she needs someone to look out for her because she's a tiny bit clueless, but I don't want her to get hurt.

Then Dorian turns into a big jerk-face and doesn't want her anymore because he realizes she's just some little girl and not the Shakespearian characters she plays on stage. Duh, Dorian. And then everything gets all messed up. Sibyl kills herself, which is pretty immature of her, but still upsetting because I did kind of like her. And it's all Dorian fault for being a jerk-face. I really don't care that Dorian starts acting all weird and hides his painting in a room no one goes in and gets all paranoid about servants blackmailing him because I don't like him. I think he deserves it for being such a jerk-face.

I really want Sibyl's brother to come back and kill Dorian. Obviously, that can't happen yet, as Dorian is the main character, but that is how I would expect the book to end, if I didn't know that Dorian stabs the painting. But, I'm still expecting something from Sibyl's brother; he made his threat so clear. I would be incredibly disappointed if nothing happened with him. Maybe he'll come to kill Dorian, but Dorian will kill him instead. Dorian would do that. Jerk. I know the mom and the brother don't know who Dorian is, but I'm not terribly worried about that; they'll find out somehow.

It's not that I want the brother to die. Actually, he might be the only character in the whole book who I don't have a problem with. I don't like the mom because she seems controlling, yet inattentive, if that's possible. And Lord Henry is just cynical. And Basil is... I keep thinking an herb, but I don't think that describes him to you. He's sort of wishy washy. I just really don't want to hang out with any of these people, but if I had to pick one, I think the brother is the least undesirable. It's just that I feel like he's going to die. Maybe I'm wrong.

Really, all I know about this story is that the picture ages instead of Dorian and that he stabs it in the end. I know I said that I might have read an illustrated version of the book as a kid, and I think I did; I used to love Great Illustrated Classics, but I don't remember them very well. And, I suspect that, if I did read The Picture of Dorian Grey, that version skipped a few things.

I feel like it is taking me forever to read this book, and I want to know what happens. I just haven't found any time to read. I know that's ridiculous because I've had all the time in the world, but things keep coming up. I had to go visit relatives in Connecticut for a few days, and my mom was home from work for a bit. I tried to read despite the fact that there were people around and TVs turned on, but I ended up getting distracted.

I have completely waisted the few days I've had to myself. I'm either too tired to read, for some unknown reason, as I've been doing a more than sufficient amount of sleeping, or I'm too jumpy to do anything, which doesn't make sense either, as I have absolutely nothing to be nervous about at the moment. But, I end up finding some stupid use for myself, like alphabetizing all of the DVDs in the living room, which I only took out to dust because I really don't think my family dusts the DVDs when I'm not here, but I couldn't put them back in the chaos I found them in.

There is far too much chaos here for reading. My mom was going to wash four of the six place mats on the kitchen table because no one used the other two, but then the four she washed would have been cleaner than the two she didn't wash, and that's just chaotic. Mommy said that I am the reason she started using place mats to begin with because I'm so melodramatic and get so upset when the table cloth gets dirty. Arguments and chaos. I can't stand it.

As soon as I finish this book I am going to make myself a schedule to ensure that I have enough time to read Rock 'N' Roll and The Coast of Utopia before school starts again. I like having free time to read, or I at least like the idea of having free time, but I miss school very much. I need a schedule so I'll stop wasting time.

Without A Plan

2007-12-30T12:50:00.001-05:00

I am a planner. I need to have a plan. In my last post (which was supposed to be this post, but didn't turn out that way), I talked about how I need to know information to be prepared for things and just in general. I need details, and when I ask someone like my brother Nate, who has no use for or memory of details, a question like "how's school?" and get an answer like "pretty good," it's frustrating because that answer doesn't mean anything.

I don't really do anything without a plan. If I'm going to a Six Flags that I haven't been to before, I'm going to look up what rides they have and decide what I'm going on before I get there. When I was a junior in high school, I knew that I was going to go to Washington College to major in English and minor in creative writing. I didn't even bother applying anywhere else because not getting in wasn't part of my plan. When I was a freshman in college, I looked at the distribution requirements and my major and minor requirements and planned all of the courses that I would take for my entire college career, leaving myself the option of replacing certain classes with special topic classes, should one of interest come up. Each semester, when I get the syllabi for my classes, I make an essay calendar, giving myself at least two weeks to work on each paper. I am beyond organized.

So, why don't I have a plan now? I feel lost and unfocused without a plan. I need a direction. I've tried to form a plan. My plan at this time last year was to find a summer internship that would help me make a plan. That seemed like a pretty good plan, but I didn't know what I wanted to find an internship in, and it's hard to find anything when you don't know what you're looking for. I went on some of the internship database sites and looked around, but I just didn't know what I was expecting to find. I realized that I didn't really know what English majors do. I mean, I knew they did stuff with magazines and news papers and publishing and none of that sounded interesting to me. When I got back from Winter Break last year, I went to the Career Center to find out what other options I had, but I really didn't find out anything I didn't already know.

The Career Center person told me some websites that I should go on (websites I had already been to). And, I wondered what the use of the Career Center was if they were just going to tell me to go on the internet, which I could have thought of on my own. It didn't change the fact that I didn't know what kind of an internship I was looking for. The kinds of things that the person at the Career Center said that I should look for were the exact kinds of things that I said I didn't want to do, and I was back where I started. With no plan. So, I thought, "Okay, I like being an English major, I like writing, but all of this stuff that has to do with writing sounds boring. What do I like to do besides write?" And I thought, "Theatre. Theatre is not boring."

I had done theatre. I knew about theatre, sort of. I was in Adirondack Children's Troupe and Adirondack Touring Theatre. I was in the cast and on the crew and I painted sets and I did make-up, and I felt pretty justified in applying for a theatre-related internship. I mean, I had been treasurer and vice president of Writers' Theatre before I took over as president this year, and we do something sort of like theatre.

So, I applied and was accepted for an internship with the Adirondack Theatre Festival. And, I thought, "This is very useful: I will get to see all of the plays for free, I will learn about theatre, and I can use this to advance my career because... because, okay, I'm sort of a writer, I write things anyway, so why couldn't I write plays? I wrote a play for playwrighting class, and I've written skits for Writers' Theatre, and I've even written other plays just because I felt like it, and I like writing plays just as much, if not more than writing short stories or essays." And that is all it took for me to rationalize that spending a summer at a theatre festival was a useful thing to do as an English major.

I'm not saying I'm not glad I spent last summer at the theatre festival. I loved being the props intern. I did art projects and painted things, toured the Salvation Army Stores of the Capital Region, and nearly got squished to death by a large couch on a twisty staircase. It was sort of like we were explorers on an adventure, only instead of looking for rare species of exotic animals we were looking for dressers and stuff. I was also on run crew for two shows, and I got to be an offstage voice, make scrambled eggs, and stand on stage holding a light while wearing a plastic space helmet that smelled like duct tape.

I just loved everything, except maybe for things related to the building and striking of sets (which I don't think I had to do as much of as the other interns because I was usually out prop shopping with Patrice, who was in charge of props). I told my fellow intern and new friend Kate that the theatre should just have one set that all of the plays could use, instead of all of the putting up and taking down. I said it could have different level platforms and a slide. Kate said, "That sounds like a playground," and I realized that what I was thinking of actually was a playground. Kate said that I was confusing my desire for there to be a playground near the theatre with my dislike for building and striking sets, and I said, "No, I'm combining them."

As much as I enjoyed the theatre festival and appreciate the experience, I have to question my reasoning for applying to work there. Could I really be a playwright? I sort of doubt it. You can't just be a playwright. I thought, "Maybe I'll go to graduate school for playwrighting. Maybe Columbia." The costumer for the last play of the theatre festival teaches at Columbia, and she gave me her card, which was, of course, very kind of her. But, I have not e-mailed her. I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to e-mail her about, and besides, I don't know what I was thinking; I'm not smart enough to go to Columbia. Which leaves me, once again, without a plan.

It is the time of year when I start to worry about summer (more than I worry about it the rest of the year), and I feel like I'm exactly where I was last year. I need to get some sort of an internship, and I need to keep in mind that I am an English major. An English major. As much as I'd like to apply for another internship with ATF and do props again, I must keep in mind that I still want to write or at least edit or something. What I need now is a plan. If only someone would give me one. I wish someone would just e-mail me and say, "Here is a plan. Here is exactly what you will like and will be good at and what you should do to make it happen." But usually people who just hand you information you didn't ask for want you to become a Mormon or join their cult of people who worship street lamps as tiny suns.

Information

2007-12-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

I long ago realized that I am my family's personal travel agent. I find and book the cheapest flights for trips that I'm not going on. I make hotel reservations for other people. On family vacations, I'm the one who just happens to have directions and a map. And, when at home, it's highly likely that I have a Glens Falls Transit bus schedule in my purse.

I need to know what's going on, especially when it's not my business. If we've met, I've googled you. If I found anything remotely interesting, I've probably googled you more than once. But, I find that just plain googling someone usually only turns up tidbits about their career (which can be interesting), while Google Blog Search comes up with what people who know the person say about him or her (which I think is far better). And if the person has a blog, great! I will probably read it from beginning to end.

I don't know why I care about other people's lives at all, but the information seems necessary to me. And, I firmly believe that other people's lives are my business. I'm nosy and possibly some sort of creepy internet stalker. It's just that sometimes I feel like I know more than I'm supposed to, and I'm compelled to pretend that I don't know things when I actually do.

For example, my old voice teacher recently passed away, and all of her former students were invited to sing at the service. I called the number in the news paper and found out what we were singing, so that I could practice it. I still have all of my sheet music alphabetized in a binder, and I have the cassette tapes that I recorded my lessons on so that I could practice with accompaniment. I dug out the music and the tape and practiced the soprano part, which I was surprised that I basically remembered. I was a little worried that I had never done the song with the other parts before, and I tried to bang them out on my little keyboard, although I am a terrible one fingered keyboardist.

I rode to the service with some other voice students who I had gone to high school with, and when we were in the car on the way over no one seemed to know what we were singing. They remembered that the name of the song had something to do with music, but they couldn't remember what the song was. One girl said she planned to lip sync, and I guess the others planned to sight read. And I just couldn't believe that they wouldn't bother to remember what song we were singing at our old voice teacher's memorial service. I started voice with Judy when I was in seventh grade and continued until her sickness forced her to retire in the middle of my senior year. Many of them had taken since they were younger than that.

But I couldn't tell them that I not only knew what the song was (would not have gotten in the car without finding out), but knew my part. That would have made me look, I don't know, over-informed? So, I let them wonder and figured I'd look like an excellent sight reader. And on the way back from the service (with a different group of people), I didn't volunteer any information when the people I was with wondered where Judy studied music because that was in the obituary, which I thought they should have read.

Some things seem so basic and essential to me that I'm surprised to realize that other people just don't care or are too lazy to find out. I don't know if it's something that's wrong with me or with them.

Presents!

2007-12-26T12:37:00.000-05:00

I know that it's supposed to be better to give than to receive and everything, and I like giving alright. I like shopping for my family, picking out their presents, watching them open them. And I feel bad about it, or at least I feel like I should feel bad about it, but I am hopelessly materialistic. I love stuff. Behold, my stuff:

I tried to decide what from this pile is the most literary, the nerdiest, the most spectacularly spectacular, but I couldn't. Each item in this stack screams English-nerd, and I am equally devoted to them all.

I only received one thing that is, well, whatever the opposite of being writer-nerdy is.

Oh dear, Uncle Jackie. This pinches a bit. Well, thanks for the sentiment, and, of course, the money.

We have had three Christmases so far. The first was the day before Christmas Eve with Uncle Steve, Aunt Chris, and cousins Alicia and Tim. They gave my brothers and I each a generous gift card, and I have already used part of mine to purchase these boots (which were on sale for nearly a third of their original price).

(I didn't mean to go shopping today. We set out for a few quick errands: Kevin needed a haircut, I needed to refill a couple prescriptions, and somehow shopping happened. The mall called me. It said, "After Christmas sales abound. Come, and buy shoes.")

We also opened presents from Grandma at our first Christmas, so that she could give them to us before she left for Tennessee to spend Christmas with Uncle David, Aunt Janice, etc. Grandma gave me The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (the book and the movie), and the above pictured tower of nerdiness was born.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was the first play I ever read by Tom Stoppard, but somehow I've lived this long without owning it. I believe this is because I didn't really become obsessed with Tom Stoppard until I read Arcadia, but I admit that not owning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is a travesty (lame pun intended) and I am glad that this is now remedied. Also, I have not seen the movie, so I was, I don't know, excited beyond belief?

I was also ridiculously excited about The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. The only thing I've read by Oscar Wilde is The Importance of Being Earnest, which I thought was very clever and quite funny, to give a uselessly vague appraisal, my point being that I am anxious to read more. I recently looked over a paper that a friend wrote on The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I think I also might have read a dumbed down, illustrated version of the book as a little kid, so I'm reading Dorian Gray before anything else. It's also first in the book.

I've only read the first chapter so far, and it seems a bit preachy (although that might not be the right word). It has a whole lot of "the meaning of art is..." before it gets to the story. But, of course, it's only the first chapter, and I think a lot of nineteenth century novels are like that; they take breaks from the plot to tell the reader exactly what he or she should be learning from the book, saying things like, "dear reader." I remember reading a novel in which there was a chapter called something like "A Break From the Plot." Is that from Jane Eyre? I don't like when fiction addresses the reader. It makes me yell things like, "You can't talk to me, (insert name of fictitious character here)! I know you're not real!" Or, to say, it sort of freaks me out.

I think I'm going to like The Picture of Dorian Gray once I get to the story. It's not that I don't like all of the "art and life, life and art" grandiose statements and such things (without them we'd have nothing to put on bumper stickers and plaques and t-shirts and other stuff at gift shops near the beach), I'm just ready for the point. (This is probably because I grew up with a microwave. I know not of preheating.)

When my grandmother saw me reading from the book she gave me she said, "Oscar Wilde, doesn't he write funny things?"

me: The one thing I've read by him was funny.

Grandma: I think he's dead now, isn't he?

me: Well, he wrote in the nineteenth century, so...

Grandma: I think I saw him on TV once.

me: Um, I don't think so.

Grandma: Yes, I remember what he looks like.

me: This says he died in 1900.

Grandma: Well, who am I thinking of?

Basically, I make my wish list on Amazon.com, and my family just buys me what I want without bothering to find out what they're buying. And I don't mind a bit.

Grandma also gave me this necklace.

We always have Christmas Eve with my mom's extended family. My mom has about a billion and a half cousins and they all have kids and I think some of their kids have kids and everything is cousins and kids. So, I sat on the couch in between my two brothers for the entire evening, watching little kids who are probably our second or third or fourth cousins rip open packages. There was some kind joke going on where these two little girls kept opening black baby dolls and the adults would all laugh. At one point one of the little girls started crying because she didn't know why everyone kept laughing at her. I didn't really know either. Someone, a maybe third cousin of ours, in about his mid-ish twenties, got a pink flamingo with different outfits for different holidays.

I think sitting in between my brothers was a good move. No one really talked to us, expect for my mom's aunt Lou, who is a perfectly bearable, and in fact, likable person. We just sat and ate and Nate showed me some pictures on his phone of his friends at school and soon Mommy beckoned and we went home to open our one Christmas Eve present. We always get to open one present from my parents on Christmas Eve, and it's always pajamas. As little kids, we were surprised every time, and now we feel compelled to say things like "Pajamas! How completely unexpected!" And Mommy just rolls her eyes.

Christmas day, or Christmas: Round Three was by far the best Christmas of the year because that's when I got most of my presents, and obviously, presents are the most important part of Christmas. From my parents (thanks to my Amazon.com wish list) I received: Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore and Trial By Jury by Opera Australia on one DVD, Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle on two DVDs, Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll, and Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia. Mommy said that she also ordered me The Complete Works of Jane Austen, but it isn't here yet.

I nearly had some sort of sensory overload when I received all this stuff. Mind you, I had received The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, and two kinds of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead only two days before this. So much to read and watch and worship. I don't know what to do first. I want to finish reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I have to read Rock 'N' Roll because I'm hopefully going to see it in the spring and I don't want to be the dumb person in the audience who has no idea what's going on. And I also really want to read The Coast of Utopia.

But, I cannot dismiss my DVDs. In addition to the DVDs on my Amazon.com list, I received Little Shop of Horrors (I think mostly because my mom wanted to get me something that I didn't specifically ask for). I'm not quite sure what made her think of this particular movie, but it should have been on my list. It's such a terrible movie. It's so terrible it's somehow great. I saw the play with my mom and brothers when I was around ten. Nate and I thought it was about as awesome as we had previously thought the Ninja Turtles to be, which if you knew anything about our dedication to the Ninja Turtles, you would know is really really awesome.

As I remember, Kevin basically cried through the whole play, causing Nate and me to make fun of him for the next... I don't think we've stopped yet. But, he was only maybe five at the time. I remember Nate and I wanted to rent the movie after we'd seen the play and Kevin didn't want to watch it with us, so we chased him around the house with the tape. I would try to chase him with my new DVD, but he's gotten really big. As in, he's in high school, and he's just not going to fit in the dryer the way he used to. However, he could probably fit me out a window.

My parents also got me this shirt, which still had the ink tag on it. I told them, "I know polka dots and flowers all at once is pretty hard to resist, but you guys have got to stop stealing stuff from JC Penney."

I received two unexpected Christmas cards from the English majors of my past: one from Jen at St. Lawrence and one from Lauren at Union, both high school friends. I'm really terrible at keeping in touch with people, but somehow, they find me, sometimes in person. My best friend forever, Kayleen showed up at my door with a whole pouch of Burt's Bees stuff for me, and I definitely have to remember to send her a birthday present.

But nothing was quite as unexpected as this bathmat from Santa and toothbrush holder from Nate. I would never ever buy a bathmat that is surrounded by pompoms and looks like a giant coaster, but I love these gifts simply for the image I get in my head of Nate and Santa waiting in line at Target with their ducky bathroom accessories, and I plan to use them. It just so happens that Erin, Alexis, and I have a ducky bathroom, as Nate and Santa knew. And, we were in need of a toothbrush holder. Thanks, Nate. And, although we didn't know it, I imagine we were in need of an additional bathmat to put in front of the sink. Besides, Erin's ducky bathmat does not have pompoms.

The last thing we all opened was our stockings. We all got Airborne, which apparently is really good when you're starting to get a cold. My brothers both got deodorant (Santa's special way of saying "You stink," either metaphorically or literally?), but I got way better stuff. Well, actually, I don't know. I didn't pay any attention to anything anyone else got, but mine had lots of colors.

(Not pictured: stretchy white gloves that, although they kind of look like mime gloves, I'm not taking off, ever.)

I really like my Inspi(red) bookmark, but I could not fully appreciate it when I opened it because I was obsessed with my Lancome lip gloss, eyeshadow, and mascara (which I know is sad, but Christmas makes me selfish). I really like the flowers on the front of everything and the way the eyeshadow slides open, and once I got over the containers that it came in, I really liked the make-up, especially the eyeshadow.

It's called Drama Shimmer, and it's my new favorite color besides pink, which, of course, would make a terrible eyeshadow color. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to yell "Mine!", grab for it, shove it in my pocket, and treasure it forever. I only recall ever actually doing this once, minus the pocket part, when I took a kitten away from my brother.

Christmas dinner was at my mom's best friend forever, Krista's house, as usual. Krista and her husband Rich have a six-year-old son, a nine-year-old daughter, and a four-month-old puppy. My mom brought the puppy a six-pack of rubber balls, and the puppy could not decide which one to chase first. I thought it was going to explode with joy and confusion. Krista's family gave me Angels in America on DVD and the cast recording of Spring Awakening (more stuff from my Amazon.com list, which I didn't even send to her because it seems rude to send stuff like that to people you're not related to). I was pretty excited about my presents, and Krista asked me what else I had gotten.

I said, "My grandma got me The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde."

She said, "The guy who directed Some Like It Hot?"

I guess Oscar Wilde isn't as well known as I thought.

Analysis Beyond All Meaning

2007-12-21T16:05:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to read over Winter Break, and I think that English majors are incapable of reading for the sake of reading. I can’t read a book for entertainment; I’m an English major. I have to read something literary and meaningful that will allow me to analyze its finer details. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? Interpret text.

In a response to an e-mail I sent the suitemates about this, Erin said:

It’s terribly true. In fact, I feel guilty if I try to read a book that might not have literary value. I feel like I should put a fake cover on it, and if questioned I should start talking about its clever use of extended metaphor and how it is a good example of the influence that romanticism exerts on our modern culture. It's like flailing, only verbally.

But, so many times, when I read the kind of book that I feel I’m supposed to read and I try to think about the things I feel like I’m supposed to think about (which are not, of course, whether I like or dislike the book because, especially if it’s a classic, I sort of feel obliged to like it), I feel like I’m making stuff up. It’s so important to find some greater meaning and say something insightful about it that I feel like I’m making connections that aren’t there. What better way to make a paper brilliantly unique than to draw conclusions that the author didn’t even know she intended?

You could say that if a book doesn’t say anything beyond what’s on the surface, it isn’t good writing. I’m sure I’ve heard that argument before. But, I think Spongebob Squarepants is hilarious. (Yes, that was a non-sequitur.) Spongebob is straight forward and to the point (it has to be; it’s for little kids), and I laugh without thinking about it because wombo is a funny word.

I don’t think something has to require so much analysis to be quality. However, this does not mean that I won’t analyze it anyway. As you’ll remember, we found a zeugma in Spongebob. Because we’re English majors, and we can’t help it. We pick apart everything. Even Spongebob Squarepants.

Erin said:

I over analyze my life. It hurts poor Joe. Most girls already exercise over analysis on their boyfriends’ words and actions, but I throw things like diction and syntax at him. It's almost cruel. Reflection on conversations with anyone can be deadly. I squeeze harmless little sentences until suddenly there is this a whole other world of implications. I think paranoia is a prerequisite for an English degree.

Like Erin, I like to reflect on conversations, and by reflect, I mean try to think of what I could have said differently that would have made me sound smarter. I think I'd be a much wittier person if I knew what people were going to say to me ahead of time, so I could prepare. The play that is my life.

Except, I doubt that would work either, as I've messed up a number of plays. In middle school and high school, I did almost nothing but practice for plays, concerts, and dance recitals. But, they still never came out right. I would watch taped dance performances, pausing and rewinding and picking apart every minute detail, and I could always find things wrong. Which, I guess goes back to analyzing. As a future English major, I think I had to.

To show you what I mean, here is an example of how to deconstruct a perfectly good lyrical solo, and make yourself feel bad about it:

Here is the first time we pause the tape. And cringe. Am I trying to fly? Is there an invisible helium balloon tied to my left wrist? What is wrong with the entire left side of my body? My left arm is too high. My left foot is turned in. I don't even know what else to say about this.

Okay, here is the second place we pause. The lyrics here are "out of the darkness and into the sun," but the pose says "Look, I'm a mole. A sad, sleepy little mole." All of my weight is on my left foot.

Third, we pause at this backwards "F." The grade for my technique? From what I'm doing on the screen, I can't even tell where my arms are supposed to be, but I would say they're both a bit low. And my right knee isn't straight.

Fourth. An interpretation of an elephant walking the high-wire, while impersonating Marilyn Monroe. What is my right arm doing, and why am I spotting the floor?

We pause at this fifth spot because what is this? I couldn't possibly point out everything that's wrong with this leap because there isn't enough right. In dance, we were taught to think of leaps as crossing a giant puddle. My face says, "This puddle is full of alligators." And, as usual, I'm leaning forward. Obviously, I'm obsessed with the floor.

And, we pause at this last spot only because the dance is over and we need to rewind and go through this again and again and again and again.

What you have just witnessed has indeed been pointless. Pointless now because this recital took place when I was a senior in high school, and pointless then because there is nothing you can do to fix a recital that’s over. Really, this solo wasn’t terrible. As I remember, I felt okay about it when I came off stage. But, I couldn’t leave it at “it’s been fun and now it’s over.” (That would be pleasure reading, if you will.) As usual, I had to go back and analyze it until it wasn’t a dance, but a series of errors.

And I think when you spend this much time analyzing things it makes everything seem flawed. Every dance has some wrong step, every book has some meaning I can’t find, every grade is too low. It’s sort of like when you’ve been dusting the same room for four or five hours and you don’t think there could possibly be any more dust, but then you notice something that’s dusty again. Something you’ve already dusted. And you don’t know what to do because the allergens seem to be winning, so you just start crying. You just don’t win.

In Alexis's e-mail, she said, "I much prefer interpretive dance to actually forming coherent words." But, I have to disagree. Words are much more definite than dances. For example, lets say tomorrow, when I realize this post is about analyzing things and Spongebob and lyrical dances and doesn't make sense to anyone but me, I can change these words, if I want to. You can't take back a dance once you've danced it.

And, P.S., I've never seen Alexis do an interpretive dance, or actually, any dance. So, I'm doubting the sincerity of that statement.

Missing 3C and the English Majors

2007-12-20T23:19:00.001-05:00

I very much dislike this intellectual void that is known as Winter Break. It hasn't been bad so far, but, then, it hasn't been a week yet. I actually hadn't dreaded this break so much as a usually fear anything that causes me to deviate from my normal routine, leave 3C, leave my suitemates, or, especially, go home.

This is because last semester was-- I think it's safe to say-- the most challenging of my college career (and it's not just me, Erin and Alexis felt it too). I was rather looking forward to having some free time to read and write for fun. And, while I've read a little nineteenth century social history and started writing down a play I've had in my head since October, the prospect of being stuck in this house for the next month without anyone to have an actual conversation with is a grim one.

I found this fortune in a cookie while eating Chinese take-out with my family:

And this is the discussion that followed:

me: This isn't a very good fortune. It says, "Think of the danger while things are going smoothly."

Mommy: That doesn't even make sense.

me: Yes, it does.

Mommy: I don't get it.

me: What do you mean you don't get it? What's not to get?

Kevin* (from the dinning room where he is eating by himself, while everyone else eats in the kitchen): It means things are good now, but something bad could happen.

Daddy: Like prepare now.

Mommy: Oh. I'm tired.

I am thinking of the danger. The danger of more conversations like this. The danger of all this family time. And next week is Christmas, which can only mean more family members. It means Christmas Eve with my mom's family, and I think I might stand on a chair and make this announcement at the beginning of the night:

Yes, I am still in college. I do like it. Washington College. No, it's still in Maryland, just like last year. I do alright. English. Yes, still English. Yes, my hair is brown. Well, my natural color is actually a bit darker, but-- Thanks, I think you're growing up to be very normal too. It's true, I do not have a driver's license. I kind of like riding my bike, and I'm also terrified of cars. What if I need to bring the baby to the doctor? Um, what baby? Oh, the future, hypothetical baby. I guess I'll have to bring it on the bus. You know, the bus? No, I don't have a boyfriend. Actually, I'm not a lesbian; Grandma started that rumor last year, but I think maybe she just watches too much TV. Thanks, I like my shoes too.

I think that should about cover it.

Oh, I miss those writer-nerd girls and meaningful conversation already.

*Kevin is my 16-year-old brother.

Time Line of Failure

2007-12-19T18:53:00.000-05:00

I am tired of thinking about my grades, but I cannot think of anything else. It's not that I expect my grades to be perfect, they're never perfect. It's just that I seem to be getting worse at English instead of better. Last spring I only had one non-"A", and this fall I have two non-"A"s. I mean, what's next? Where is this going? What if I'm slowly getting dumber and dumber until I'm just dumb?

I've tried to tell myself that I will do better next semester and that I'll be able to stop thinking about this semester when that happens. But, first of all, who knows if I'll do better next semester? I probably won't. And, second of all, I'm not over bad grades I got in kindergarten, so I doubt I'll be getting over this any time soon.

I have come up with this time line of failure to illustrate my point:

Kindergarten- I get my first bad grade. In shoe tying. But I can tie. I practice all the time, tying little yarn bows on railings and kitchen chairs. But, I choose to sport the loose lace look while in school, and I am upset when I do not get a check mark. I accidentally make myself throw up.

First Grade- We learn about homophones. The teacher tells us that two, to, and too sound the same, but have different meanings and different spellings. She asks if anyone knows any other words that sound the same, but have different meanings and different spellings (presumably hoping for there, their, and they're). I raise my hand and offer can.

Mrs. C.: What are the meanings of can?

me: Like I can do something or a can of soup.

Mrs. C.: How do you spell the first kind of can?

me: C-A-N.

Mrs. C.: How do you spell the second kind of can?

me: Um... It's the same.

Mrs. C.: And, I asked for words that are spelled differently, right?

And I won't be talking to you anymore this year.

Second Grade- Everything I do takes me an eternity and a day. I am the slowest and most careful colorer in the history of forever. I color better standing up, which causes me to get my chair taken away. I never finish my work in time for recess, and I always have to sit inside.

Third Grade- When everybody else goes to recess, I have to go to stupid speech therapy and practice saying "r" and "sh" with Mrs. Saywik (Sherik). I can't hear the difference, and I don't know what I've done to deserve this. I seem to have failed at talking, which I didn't even know I was being graded on.

Fourth Grade- I get am getting a B in math for the quarter, and my mom calls my teacher and tells her that I am very upset by this and come home from school crying every day (which is a problem because crying makes me hyperventilate, which makes me have asthma attacks). Mrs. G., who is a thousand feet tall with long grey hair, and a pointy nose, brings me out into the hallway (probably to eat me, as I'm positive that she's a child-eating witch).

Mrs. G.: Your mom says you come home from school crying every day. Why is that?

me: I don't know.

Mrs. G.: Your mom says it's because you're not doing well in math. Is that why?

me: Um. I guess so.

Mrs. G.: Right, so you're not going to cry anymore.

Fifth Grade- I get a C on a science test. I throw the test away on the school bus, and when I get home, I shut myself in my room and hide in the closet with my rescue inhaler.

Sixth Grade- I do not ever finish my in-class reading in class. I always have to borrow books to finish for homework.

Seventh Grade- I'm going to fail science. I'm too slow to finish my tests before the bell. The teacher says that if I study and learn the information, I will be able to think of it faster. I tell her that I do study, but I can't understand the questions that fast and maybe I should finish during lunch period.

Ms. S.: You probably haven't developed good study habits. You think you've studied, but you actually haven't learned anything.

me: I get it right on my homework.

Ms. S.: That's because you have the book in front of you, but you haven't really absorbed the information.

me: I know it. I just can't remember it that fast.

Ms. S.: Well, everyone else finishes the tests in one period. Why is that?

me: I guess they're smarter than I am.

Ms. S. requests a meeting with my mother. She tells my mom that I put my head on the desk whenever I'm called on and that I have failed every test so far that year. I don't see this as news to anyone, but I cry through the entire meeting and do not answer anything my mom or Ms. S. ask me. When my mom leaves, I'm told to go to back to class.

I take my rescue inhaler in the girls' bathroom, and then I go to my guidance counselor and tell her that Ms. S. will not let me finish my tests because she is trying to make me fail. Even as a seventh grader, I know that this guidance consoler is a truly clueless person, and she proves it by saying, "I'd say you're more of an audio learner." I do not know what that means or find it to be useful information, so I ask for a late pass and return to class.
...

Junior year of college- I get two non-"A"s.

Grades, Grades, Grades

2007-12-18T14:48:00.000-05:00

The thing I find really upsetting about grades is that I know I couldn't have done any better than I did, and that's what makes me feel stupid.

I've heard the whole "you should be happy because you know you tried your best" speech before, but this does not make me feel better; it makes me feel worse. Because I try my best and still don't do very well, implying that I can't do well. Which, brings us back to the whole "should I really be majoring in English" debate.

Well, as I've said before, I don't know what else I'd major in and junior year is half over at this point. So, basically, the only thing to do is to somehow convince my right hand to stop clicking on Web Advisor and bringing me to my grades and then proceed with feeling hopeless.

The Last Remnants of Last Semester

2007-12-17T14:33:00.000-05:00

Two of my grades are not posted on Web Advisor yet. This means that I must sit here refreshing the page and willing those last two grades to be satisfactory until they appear. At least I know I'm safe with Poetry and Writing Theory. But, as far as my other two classes go, all I can do is wait and hope.

Ten Reasons I Can't Live in 19th Century England

2007-12-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

While reading the book What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, I realized that I am not at all fit to live in nineteenth century England. This is why it's not going to work out:

1. I can't conceive that a hog (or shilling) is less money than a guinea, as I know guinea pigs to be smaller than regular pigs and therefore, worth less money.

2. I cannot sit around and do nothing all the time. I'm cool with reading for most of the day, but I'm probably going to want to go on a jog or something after dinner. And I don't know that the chaparone I'm going to need on my stroll is going to be able to keep up.

3. I would be really tempted to call baronets Bart for short (which is the abbreviation, but not what you call them).

4. I don't know how I'd tell the most honorable people from the most revered people, or the Sirs from the Lords, or the Earls from the Dukes (unless, of course, they all wore name tags).

5. The book says that if a lady wishes to discontinue an acquaintance, "a simple stare of silent iciness should suffice." And I would soon cut myself off from all human contact. One by one, staring at people and discontinuing acquaintances. Until I was no longer acquainted with even the members of my own family.

6. I get really bored playing cards.

7. I'm picturing a ball and I don't see myself. Then I realize that I'm there, keeping the corner company. And I step on my dress and fall down the front steps on the way out. Which, I guess, makes me a spinster and a burden to my family.

8. The general state of hygiene at the time. (The girls in 3C will tell you that I brush my teeth for half an hour at a time, but they are prone to hyperbole. I never brush my teeth for more than fifteen or maybe twenty minutes.)

9. Uncomfortable furniture. Especially when I'm doing so much nothing.

10. Simple mathematics. Fog + no rescue inhaler = I probably would have died of an asthma attack by the age of eight.

Time?

2007-12-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

The past few days have been full of lasts: last paper due, last day of work, last/only final. There is now no reason for me to be in Chestertown, Maryland.

Yet, here I am. Still in Harford 3C. And I have no idea what to do with myself. Repeatedly refresh my inbox? Join Laura in watching endless episodes of Arrested Development on DVD? Pace up and down the hallway? I did all of our dishes.

I know I've dealt with this "free time" stuff before, and I don't think I liked it then either. What do people do when they're not doing schoolwork? I'm starting to panic about not having anything to panic about.

Alisha suggested that I read. But read what? Nearly all of the books I have here are from classes I just finished (with the exception of a few that followed me from home). And I don't feel like it's time to start reading yet.

I plan to spend my entire break reading. For me, the snowy cold of Upstate New York equals I will not be leaving my room for the next five weeks. I have lots of books and wireless internet, and I see nothing that could persuade me to do anything but hibernate.

Only when absolutely necessary will I make the long journey downstairs to eat, and I've tried to train my cat so that I will not have to do this. I've taught him things like "make macaroni and cheese," "do laundry," but as I do not speak cat well, he translates these commands to "walk across key board," "chew on my hair." So, we're working on it.

I haven't even left school yet, and I'm already a tiny bit tired of being home.

Giving Up On Paper Three

2007-12-11T14:43:00.001-05:00

My after paper is finally... well, whatever it is, it's getting turned in. I feel like my papers have been slowly diminishing in quality: the before was fine, the during was iffy, and the after exists.

When Erin read my after paper, she was so shocked by the poor construction of my sentences that she was compelled to illustrate her emotions.

But, for some reason, I just don't care. This paper shouldn't have been difficult to write; it would have been easy to write if I hadn't just finished writing my other two papers. But, my brain could not handle a third round, or rather my left eyelid couldn't.

I blame my left eyelid (and, of course, Alisha) for the disaster that is my third paper. I know, it's a questionable excuse. But, that eyelid is spazzy. It jumps around and makes my vision blurry, and I have to cover my left eye to read. I think it's possessed by demons who are trying to prevent me from ever accomplishing anything.

So, the paper is getting turned in the way it is. I can't read it, and like I said, I don't care. It's just lucky I'm a good typist. I'm aware that my paragraphs are ridiculously long, that my language is redundant, and that, while I hint at the thesis, I don't make any real conclusions. But, Erin says it's at least coherent.

I guess my left eyelid has won this time.

As Usual, It's All Alisha's Fault

2007-12-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

It started with Erin calling me a wuss, which, as I said, I can accept. Then Alisha called Erin an "enabler." This had something to do with Erin agreeing to send e-mails for me (so long as I accept that I'm a wuss).

Now Alisha has polluted Erin's mind with the idea that sending e-mails for me is bad. Stop it, Alisha. Every wuss needs someone to send e-mails for her. There are some people who are just too scary to e-mail who happen to have information that I need, and that's where Erin comes in.

It's not like I can't get this information on my own. I could very easily make up a fake person, make up an e-mail address for that person, and send as many e-mails as I wanted. But, I don't have time for that right now. It takes a while to make up people. Especially figuring out what the person's interests and things are for her Facebook account.

Do you see how much extra work you're creating, Alisha? Surrender Erin at once.

I Can Accept That

2007-12-09T12:39:00.000-05:00

Erin called me a wuss (we don't need to get into why), and I said, "I think I might be okay with that." So, being the word-nerd that I am (yes, I said word-nerd, it's a tiny bit different from being a writer-nerd), I looked up the definition of wuss to make sure I wasn't offended.

wuss (wŏŏs)
n. Slang
A person regarded as weak or timid and especially as unmanly. (www.dictionary.com)

Well, I'm definitely not offended by "unmanly," and I have been called timid from time to time. So, I think I'm okay with being a wuss.

And Finally, The After

2007-12-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

I have finally moved on to my after paper (see The Before, During, After Plan). My during paper (which never did get to be quite as long as it should have been) was due yesterday, which means that for the first time this semester I only have one paper in the works.

This is good news, except that for some reason I feel like this semester is over already. I keep thinking that there cannot possibly be any more papers to write. How can there be anything left to write about? I have to keep reminding myself that I still have one left (and a final to take, but I haven't decided to acknowledge that yet).

Luckily, this last paper isn't a terribly difficult one and I've made significant progress this morning, but I don't know if it makes any sense because I just feel so tired and icky.

Yes, it is the traditional end of the semester head cold. The one that makes all of the fluids in my body rush to my head every time I lie down. I feel like one of those little plastic liquid-lava hour glass things that you turn over to make the colored goo drip down to the bottom.

I have quarantined myself in my room, where I will live on carbonated beverages (as I like the bubbles) and of course, my asthmas inhaler (because with my stuffy head and finals week approaching, I see no way breathing is to happen on its own).

I have left my suitemates a message on my dry erase board, letting them know that I do not plan to come out of my room or to get dressed ever again. Or at least until Monday.

This should give me lots of time to either write my after paper (which I'm a little bit panicked about, since I only started it a few days ago, and it's due on Tuesday), or to take a very long nap.

If only I could type in my sleep.

Scientific Solutions

2007-12-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

Erin: Something smells like burning.

me: I smell burning too.

Erin: This is a job for Pumpkin Spice room spray.

me: Right, that should cover up the burning smell.

Erin: Nothing's on fire.

Alexis: Fire extinguishers are actually just a lot of room spray.

Well, I see how the plastic spoon fell in the heater, but it seems like you would have smelled it, and I don't understand why it would explode like that.-- I hope Pumpkin Spice isn't combustible.

[Addendum: No, Laura. There is no spoon in the heater. It's alright, just never mind.]

Harford 3C and the Wall of Rhetoric

2007-12-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

Today, in 19th century class, the professor handed out packets on the rhetorical devices used in A Christmas Carol, and I have to say, it was pretty exciting.

"Sweet," I thought as I slid the packet into my notebook for later study, "I love rhetorical devices." Erin nudged her packet toward me on the table with the tips of her fingers. It was open to the last page: zeugma. (Not only does the packet include an example of a zeugma, but the fact that zeugma is on the last page immediately lets me know that the devices are in alphabetical order, which I'm always in favor of.)

The page said:

ZEUGMA
An adjective or adverb is made to modify two words although it is grammatically or logically related only to one.
Our search of 'A Christmas Carol' could avail us no zeugma, so we send you one of our own. We extend to you our wishes for friendly conversation and rhetorical figures.

Since we in Harford 3C recently realized that zeugmas are great, Erin and I appreciate that the packet's authors (whomever they might be) include a zeugma, even if Dickens doesn't use any in A Christmas Carol. (Although, I find it hard to believe that there aren't any in the whole book and will probably check.)

As soon as Erin and I got out of class we started talking about the packet.

me: Erin, it's the nineteenth century and rhetorical devices. At the same time! And it has animations, wearing top hats.

Erin: I know. It's the best handout ever.

me: I'm going to carry this packet around forever.

Erin: I'm going to make photocopies and give them to my high school English teacher.

me: That's pretty weird, Erin.

Erin: Look, it's Alexis.

[Erin and I follow Alexis up the sidewalk and talk about the fact that we're following her until she acknowledges that she is aware of this fact.]

Erin: Alexis, it's a whole packet of rhetorical devices.

me: From A Christmas Carol.

Alexis: I want to see!

Erin: It has a zeugma.

Alexis [looking through packet] This is great. You guys should write the professor a thank you note.

[Erin and I sceptically avert out eyes.]

Alexis: Fine, I'll write him a thank you note.

me: Thanks for the handout on rhetorical devices that you gave your class that I'm not in?

Alexis: Yes.

me: We're memorizing these over winter break.

Erin: Will there be a quiz? I don't want to get kicked out of the suite.

Alexis: We can't kick you out of the suite.

me: We'd kick Alisha out.

And then we returned to 3C, where Erin disassembled her packet and attached all of the pages to the wall outside of her room under the title "Rhetorical Devices, or Devices of Rhetoric?"

"But what purpose does this wall of rhetoric serve?" you might ask. "Well, obviously," I might answer, "We'll need a place to stick up the post-it notes with the example sentences we're going to write."

Rhetorical devices are endlessly fascinating, and a great game.

Going Red*

2007-12-02T17:55:00.001-05:00

So, like I said in The Before, During, After Plan, I wrote the second of my three papers, the "during," over Thanksgiving Break (actually Microsoft Word says that I started it on November 11th, but I did not get far at that time).

By the end of break, I thought I basically had everything laid out. The only weird thing about it was that the syllabus called it an eight-pager, which I thought was a funny thing to call a five page paper. But, other than that, it just needed a little re-wording. So, I printed it out to see what I could do.

And it sounded like it was written by a twelve-year-old. (A twelve-year-old who thinks that she can communicate with aliens by leaving select words out of sentences that the aliens will then put together to reveal secret messages.)

As you can tell from the picture, some pretty intense revisions took place. "This is good," I thought, looking at everything I had written on my paper. "Surely this will make it longer."

But, alas, my math skills were not up to par, and I did not realize that I had crossed out more than I had written in. And, when I made the changes on my computer, I was left with only four pages.

For some reason, a five page eight-pager hadn't seemed like a bad start to me, but I found the idea of a four page eight-pager slightly alarming.

I began contemplating my next move. (Canada?) "I'm dropping out of school," I announced. My suitemates were not surprised. It was about time; it had been at least a week and a half since I last made this announcement. Alexis offered to join me.

But, really, I did not know what to do. Discuss another poem? Try to say more about the poems I had already talked about? Panic?

This always happens when I have to write about poetry. I usually try to solve the problem by lying on the floor in between Erin and Alexis's rooms and demanding, "You write it!" But, for some reason, Alexis and Erin will never do my homework for me. I think that's pretty lame of them.

So, knowing that Alexis and Erin were not going to finish my paper, I printed out my icky four-page version and began elaborating. Mommy always says, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS."

And when I entered the changes into my computer, I had elaborated for two whole pages.

Six pages is still a bit short for an eight page paper (although it's seven with 2.5 spacing, and the syllabus doesn't specify, I checked). I might go back and talk about another poem, if I have to. But, for now, I'm going to print it again and have a suitemate read it.

(Then I'll plant a forest because this will mean I've printed over twenty pages. I know, you're trying to add it up right now, and you're not getting twenty. Well, it's possible that I've printed some pages more than once.)

*Going Red is the opposite of Going Green, if you weren't with me on that, and I stole this footnote idea from AJ.

Paper Revisions and the Passive Voice

2007-11-30T13:23:00.000-05:00

When I first started taking college English classes, I hadn't a clue what the passive voice was. I knew that rubrics said that I shouldn't use it and that comments on papers said that I did use it. I was even given examples of sentences written in the passive voice (like this one), but I still could not grasp the illusive concept of the passive voice.

It wasn't until I realized that enabling grammar & style check on Microsoft Word would point out places where I had used the passive voice, that I could figure out what passive voice meant. Before that, people had told me that I shouldn't use the passive voice because it wasn't active. And I would say, "Oh. Okay," but not in a terribly confident manner.

Well, I finally figured out what the passive voice was when I noticed that sentences with people in them did not cause Word's passive voice censors to go off. Passive voice doesn't mean "not active"; it means missing in action. For example, Word would highlight, "She was raised on a farm" because nobody knows by whom she was raised-- her parents, wolves, leprechauns? So, you change it to "Her parents raised her on a farm," nobody is MIA, everyone gets to be part of the sentence, and Word is happy with it.

You can use the passive voice without leaving anybody out by saying "She was raised on a farm by her parents," but that just sounds bad to begin with. And it totally messes up my understanding of what the passive voice is, so I'm not going to acknowledge it as the passive voice, even though it is. That's just a sentence that's in the wrong order.

The thing I don't like about grammar & style check is that, while I find it really useful for pointing things out, the solutions it suggest are usually awful (I could tell that much without knowing what the passive voice was), and it often points out things that I don't think are actually written in the passive voice. So, I think it only works if you know when not to listen to the computer, and I think it's better if you have a real person look at it.

Erin and I traded 19th century papers before we turned them in to make sure that they were both good to go. We often stand in each other's doorways, wait for the other person to look up from her work and then read a paragraph (sort of like Christmas caroling), but when we're ready to have the whole thing read it gets far more serious, often involving multiple highlighters.

I sat in the common room and underlined sentences that I liked and sentences I found redundant or confusing. I wrote comments all down the margins. I crossed things out and changed wording for no other reason than I thought I had better words (which, I would never do in something like a Writing Center conference, but since I knew Erin would probably change everything back, I felt free to humor myself).

I had made quite the mess of Erin's paper, and I thought, "Maybe this is a bit much." Then Erin emerged from her room and showed me my paper."I highlighted every time you use the passive voice in orange, which you do a lot. The blue is sentences I didn't like or thought were confusing. I underlined some sentences that I thought were good, and you can see all of my comments in pen down the side."

As you can see, Erin is great and far superior to grammar & style check.

The Before, During, After Plan

2007-11-29T00:32:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, when I was planning my homework schedule for this semester, I noticed that I had three big papers due in very close proximity and came up with the fabulous Before, During, After Plan-- one paper before Thanksgiving, one during, one after.

Had I not come up with this plan and tried to work on three papers at once, it is quite likely that I would have ended up with some sort of paper on 19th century writing theory after 1945. And, I don't know how I'd figure out which class to turn that in for.

Well, as good of a plan as I still think it is, I haven't finished revising my during and have yet to start the after. I do not believe this means that I have strayed from my plan, as whenever I get to that third paper, it will certainly be after.

And, I think the before is really truly done at this point (it sort of has to be, as it is for tomorrow). It's just that I had this last minute comma usage emergency, but it's in my bag now (I just checked again to make sure it hadn't crawled out, but will, of course, check three or four more times in the morning to make sure it hasn't disintegrate or anything overnight). This means that I only have two papers left. Which is a step.

But, it's weird. I can't figure out why I'm not panicking about the after. Do I not realize that I have a paper due in two weeks that I haven't even started yet? It's almost like I think I'm just going to polish up the during and have plenty of time to write the after and haven't even considered the possibility of a power surge that could blow up my computer.

Of course I've considered that. And I have everything in my e-mail in case of such an explosion. Wow, I just feel so together right now.

Writers' Theatre Is Over (For This Semester)

2007-11-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Tonight was our last Writers' Theatre meeting of the semester, and I have to say I'm not really sad it's over. I never imagined how much work being the president of a club would be compared to being treasurer or vice president (one semester I was somehow both at the same time).

Unfortunately, we were unable to reschedule the second performance of our fall show. There was one day that we could have the theatre, but enough of our actors couldn't make it that day that it wasn't going to be worth it to do the show. I think it's just too late in the semester. Everyone is really busy, and there is just no time.

I'm a little bit disappointed that we only got to perform it once because I think that it's a good show, and such an incredible amount of work was put into it by everyone involved. I've also had a lot of people tell me that they were planning to go to the show on Saturday. So, I'm glad that there was interest, but sorry that we didn't get to put on the second performance.

Another thing that we never ended up doing is the reading that somehow kept getting pushed later and later into the semester. Well, I thought as long as we've been pushing it back, we'd push it right on into next semester, and we'll make it a "drama I wrote over winter break" type reading instead of a "we know you have a ton of work right now and so do we, but here is the skit I wrote this morning" type reading, which I think is for the best.

And this time I'm planning it myself, since it seems that when I delegate I soon have no idea what's going on and the people who I've put in charge can't get anything done because they're not actually in charge, but I can't tell them what to do because I'm confused and there are just too many people involved. So, thank you people who tried; I was truly too busy to plan anything else, but I think next semester I'll go back to wanting to control and plan everything myself anyway.

Next semester I think I'll be more realistic (but not much more, I'm still going to pretend people will go to the Writing Center if I tell them to). We'll have the spring murder mystery, as always. And we'll have the reading that we were supposed to have this semester. And that's all because I'm just not enough people to plan anything more than that and do my school work and go to classes and work at the writing center and go to my actual job (which I've already had to send my left foot to alone a couple times, and my left foot is terrible at making photo copies).

Well, I wanted to accomplish something in my first semester as president of Writers' Theatre, and here is what we have:
-fifteen dedicated members, an increase from semesters past (not to mention a lot of people to fit in the small backstage area of Norman James Theatre)
-a rather funny show about Rose's Discount Store, that despite being written by thirteen people seems to have some sort of consistency
-a cardboard faux-wood-grained shelf paper coffin that, according to Erin, we are keeping
-and, of course, blue t-shirts

And, when I think about it, I don't know what else I wanted to do. Possibly the reading that we're now having next semester, but actually, that wasn't even my idea. I just wanted new events. Okay, we didn't have any new events, but we've never had t-shirts before.

It doesn't seem like a lot. For all the effort that went into it, it really doesn't seem like a lot. But, we're Writers' Theatre, and we wrote a pretty alright show. And, I think that's the idea. So, I guess I didn't wreck the club.

English Majors Aren't Necessarily Good at Scrabble

2007-11-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

Every single holiday brings on the Scrabble tournaments. I try not to get sucked in, but somehow I always fail.

My grandma loves Scrabble. My aunts, my cousins, they all love Scrabble.

I hate Scrabble. I have no ability to look at a jumble of letters and turn them into words. If my little Scrabble tray says "rhgydri," the only word I can think of spelling is, well "rhgydri." Or possibly rhinoceros.

And somehow they get me to play. They say, "You're an English Major. You should be good at this." But it's just not true.

They stare at me with the Scrabble board in their hands.

And somehow I'm playing scrabble. And losing to Grandma by one hundred and thirty four points.

Think English

2007-11-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

During a recent google-blog search for other English Majors, I found that many people find English to be an exceedingly lame major. I had never suspected this, since all of my English Major friends find English to be an endlessly fascinating and challenging major. But, site after site, contained English Major bashing. There seems to be a huge misconception that people major in English because they have no goals in life, but like to read.

Then, I came across a blog post called English as a Major: A New Found Respect. The post says that the purpose of the English Major is to teach people how to think. Well, I think we're also supposed to learn something about the literature we read, but I think it is a valid point that being able to think is a more marketable skill than knowledge of nineteenth century literature.

The post compared English in the humanities to math in the sciences because they are both majors where the thinking that is done is more important than the knowledge gained from it. I would say that's not as true for English as it is for math because while you can't do much with math besides apply it to science, I think there is more to studying literature than how the way it is studied applies to other fields. Perhaps I would feel differently if I was a math major.

In any case, Alexis (who you will remember is majoring in both English and math) must be a great thinker.

Zeugmas Are Great

2007-11-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

Laura and I were talking about the episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Mermaid Man loses his utility belt at the Krusty Krab, and Spongebob finds it and says, "For sixty-five years this belt has been preventing the fall of nations. And pants."

We think that's a really funny line. Alexis thinks it's a zeugma.

"Azoogma?" I thought, "How great! It's so much fun to say. It sounds like something you can look at under a microscope-- azoogma- unicellular organism of the kingdom Protista. Or a tribal god-- Azoogma- god of the volcano. Or a vegetable-- azoogma- edible seed of the legume family. But what does it have to do with Spongebob?"

"It's azoogma?" I said.

"It's a zeugma," said Alexis.

"What's a zeugma?"

"It's when you use the same word to describe two things. One thing that goes with it, and one that doesn't necessarily fit. Like, 'He stole my car and my heart.'"

"I like it!"

And so began my quest for zeugmas. Starting with the real definition.

zeug·ma [zoog-muh] –noun Grammar, Rhetoric.
the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold. (www.dictionary.com)

Not only is it fun to say, it's a super cool sentence structure. First instinct-- find examples. To Wikipedia!

It turns out that there are different kinds of zeugmas, and I believe what I'm dealing with is a syllepsis.

Syllepsis is a particular type of zeugma in which the clauses are not parallel either in meaning or grammar. The governing word may change meaning with respect to the other words it modifies. This creates a semantic incongruity which is often humorous. Alternatively, a syllepsis may contain a governing word or phrase which does not agree grammatically with one or more of its distributed terms. This is an intentional construction bending the rules of grammar for stylistic effect. (www.wikipedia.org)

Not as fun to say as zeugma, but up there. I particularly like the "epsis." I think I might start using these syllepsis things a lot.

Here are some examples that I like from Wikipedia:

[She] went straight home in a flood of tears, and a sedan chair. - Charles Dickens

... and covered themselves with dust and glory. - Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. - Groucho Marx, from Duck Soup

Laura and Erin made a co-zeugma.

Laura: I want your body.

Erin: And your Cheese-its.

Zeugma construction is going to be a new favorite game in Harford 3C, I think.

Show Canceled

2007-11-17T19:27:00.001-05:00

We've had to cancel the Writers' Theatre show for tonight. We're going to try to reschedule it for after Thanksgiving.

One Down

2007-11-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

I think the show went well last night. There were about twenty people in the audience, which is normal for us. The show was still a little slow at some parts, but we got through it. The audience seemed to really enjoy it, and that's what matters. They laughed in the right places, and that made me really happy. I think there were quite a few parents in the audience last night, so I think that helped. It was nice to get a positive reaction from the audience. I do think the show is good. We'll see how tonight goes.

The Only Thing To Do Is Panic

2007-11-16T18:11:00.000-05:00

We're less than two hours away from the Writers' Theatre show. I really don't know what's going to happen. As of last night, some people still didn't know lines. (I had a request that we use scripts, but I don't think that's fair to the people who learned their lines. And I don't think it would look good, so I said no.)

The amount of props involved in this show is insane, especially with very little room backstage and only Erin to be in charge of props and lights.

Everything needs to be faster-- lines, changing the stage from one skit to the next (so many people, so little room). I don't know what's going to happen.

I think some people still think that show is being held at Rose's (my fault for saying "takes place at Rose's" when I should have said "is set at Rose's," although I thought the words Norman James Theatre would suggest-- well, it doesn't matter). I don't know what's going to happen.

An Advertising Oops

2007-11-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

I have recently been alerted that the words “our play is called The Rose’s Experience and is being held in Norman James Theatre,” translates roughly to “Writers’ Theatre is having a play at Rose’s” in some dialects spoken on this campus. My translators are working on it.

Props. Everywhere.

2007-11-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

As president of Writers' Theatre, I spent the afternoon constructing a coffin for someone else's skit out of --you guessed it-- a cardboard box that someone recklessly abandoned near a trash can (I saw it, and knew it belonged to me. As one-guy-down-the-hall's box from his new printer is really useful cardboard.). It also required a lot of duct tape and, of course, faux wood grained shelf paper.

(Note--Laura's arm sold separately.)

Vice Pres. Laura spent the evening tin foiling her x-ray machine.

Stage Manager Erin grouped props by skit (the first shopping basket contains props for the first skit, the broom and the bag next to it are props for the second skit, and so on down the hall and back and up the other side and so forth).

(Note-- I did not steal the shopping baskets. I ask and received.)

So, this is our hallway. (Or was. Once.)

The props have taken over (by force).

We tried to fight back.

But somehow Alexis ended up with an afro.

And I retreated to my coffin.

Dress rehearsal is tomorrow.

Never Fear

2007-11-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

I just received my grade for the re-write of the paper from the post English Major Frustration, or English: Major Frustration, and all is right with the world.

I Could Call This "A Hunger for Words," But I Think That Would Be A Pretty Lame Title

2007-11-12T23:12:00.001-05:00

[I burst out of my room into the hallway waving a peeled citrus fruit in Alisha's face.]

me: Do you know what this is called?

Alisha: Isn't it a tangerine?

me: No, it's not a tangerine.

[Alexis's head pops into the hallway from her room.]

Alexis: Is it a mandarin orange?

me: I don't know.

[Alexis enters hall and examines citrus fruit.]

Alexis: It's not a mandarin orange.

Alisha: Kendall called it a tangerine.

me: I think it starts with an n.

Alisha: Nectarine?

Alexis: No, that's like a peach.

me: Yeah. That's like a peach or a plum.

Alexis: I think it's a tangerine.

Alisha: Kendall calls them tangerines.

me: It's not a tangerine. Tangerines are-- Wait. No, those are clementines. This is a tangerine. Okay. Thanks.

[I exit.]

Alexis: Glad we could help.

me [from my room]: I just couldn't eat it when I didn't know what it was called.

I Hope This Isn't What You Would Call "The Eye of the Storm" If You Were Inclined to Use Clichés and Such Things

2007-11-11T22:55:00.000-05:00

I spent a total of five hours at Writers' Theatre rehearsal today (and I wasn't there the whole time rehearsals were going on). I'm impressed with what's happening right now. I really do feel good about the show. Better after today.

I've liked my skit, as I wrote it, for quite some time, but I wasn't sure how well I was going to like my skit with actors. But they were great. There is one part that I was particularly concerned about because it goes by really quickly, and I was worried about things getting confusing. But the actors understood what I wrote and what I told them right away, and I really like how it looks.

All of the skits I've seen are coming together quite nicely. There are still a few things to be worked out. We're minus one actor for one skit, which makes me nervous. Some people still have to learn some lines. But, it'll be okay. I keep telling myself.

I won't really stop feeling nervous about the show until after we do the whole thing in order at dress rehearsal on Thursday. Then all we'll have to do is the actual show, and that's the easiest part. But, I think I'm at least rid of most of the flailing idiots (see Give It Back, Plastic Man).

I'm very happy with the way the show is coming out. I think that the skits were well written to begin with. I really was impressed with them, and I'm pleased and, I'll admit, a bit surprised that people really have taken care in re-writing them.

This is the first time since I've been in Writers' Theatre that a lot of revision has occurred, and something really cool has happened that I had not anticipated. In the final versions of the scripts, many of the skits have acquired references to (and even characters from) other skits.

The skits actually seem like one show, instead of nine skits written by thirteen different people (my math isn't off, some of the skits are co-written).

I had hoped that by working on our writing more we would improve our individual skits. I hadn't thought much about improving the show as a whole. (Improving each skit does improve the show as a whole, but this is something different.) The show has something that I would almost call continuity.

It's not a play written by thirteen people; we still have nine skits with nine sets of characters and nine plots. (Well, maybe ten plots. There is one skit that I think might actually have two.) But, they seem to fit together to make a show, and now that I think about it, I think that's what we've been going for.

I think I might not panic.

I Think I Should Think

2007-11-11T00:40:00.000-05:00

I usually like to think about things, but I can't seem to think of...anything. (Erin disapproves of people using ellipses in the way that I just used them, and I am prepared to face that.) Today, or rather yesterday at this point, has been more of a watching and listening sort of day than a figuring out sort of day.

I'm watching an interview with Tom Stoppard on YouTube either because he is a good thinker or because he has a pretty accent or because I love Tom Stoppard or possibly because I'm wasting my life watching things on YouTube.

In the post Observing at the Writing Center, I talked about my fascination with other people's conversations. Particularly regarding writing, but really just in general. I feel like other people's lives are my business. YouTube provides me with new ways to act on that feeling.

The interview is half an hour long (the second half of the video is someone who is not Tom Stoppard). I understand if you don't watch it because half an hour is a large part of your life to devote to a YouTube video. But I'm putting it here in case you also like listening to smart people with accents talk about writing things.

Laura is currently watching an episode of Spongebob Square Pants and singing along.

I Will Miss The Internet and Toaster Ovens

2007-11-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

Erin and I have decided to withdraw from society and become transcendentalists-- for real this time. The boxes you see are addressed to nature.

Give It Back, Plastic Man

2007-11-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

The Writers' Theatre show is a week from Friday. I suspect my mind is somewhere around a week from Sunday by now. By the time I get there, it will most likely be on winter break with out me, and I suspect I will have to fly to Albany to retrieve it. In any case, there are about ten thousand small flailing idiots running around the inside of my head, bumping into each other and falling down looking for it.

My favorite line from the show right now is, "I traded with a plastic man." Thanks for embodying the feeling, Laura. Even if you were talking about pants.

Observing at the Writing Center

2007-11-03T13:29:00.000-04:00

Laura and I have just finished observing at the Writing Center for our Writing Theory and Peer Tutoring class. We had to observe four conferences, take notes on what kinds of questions the tutors asked and what the students' responses were, and write journal entries on what we thought the tutors did right or wrong and what we would have done differently.

I could take this up as a hobby. In fact, at one time, it was a hobby. When I was seven or eight, I went through a phase where I thought I was a secret agent. I would hide under stairs and in closets where I could observe my parents or my brothers and take notes on their conversations. I was constantly on phone extensions, usually listening to my mom talk about work, which I found endlessly interesting.

This Writing Center observation thing has not only given me permission to listen to and take notes on other people's conversations, but the conversations are fantastic. I watched a conference on an essay for a graduate school application, a conference on a CNW paper, and two conferences on Writers' Theatre skits.

I'm not sure what makes these conferences so fascinating. Obviously, I had an interest in hearing what the tutors had to say about the Writers' Theatre skits, but the other two essays were about things that I knew very little about.

I think that I'm going to learn a lot about subjects that are not English from the Writing Center. People write papers on all kinds of things that aren't English. This seems obvious, but I don't think I thought about it before I started observing. So, that's one thing I liked about observing.

Laura said that she liked observing for that reason too. All of the subjects, and also all of the kinds of writing. She said, "Seeing all of the different things you can bring to the Writing Center. International students' papers, just regular essays, creative writing. The diversity. That's what I really liked about it."

The main thing that I really liked about watching conferences was watching people revise their papers. I think my favorite thing about taking the Writing Center class has been learning about different ways that people write and re-write, and actually seeing it in progress is pretty much the best thing ever.

How I'm going to function as a tutor worries me a little. I'm very excited to be a Writing Center tutor, more excited now that I've observed some other tutors. But, definitely worried. Before I took the class, I thought I'd make a pretty good writing tutor. I mean, I read my friends' papers, and I think I say helpful things. But, I am worried because who knows what will happen when I actually have to tutor someone in the Writing Center?

No one knows. Especially not me. I can see myself being a really good writing tutor and having a lot to say about everything. Then, I can also see myself suddenly forgetting who and where I am. "Is this cheesecake land? Who are you? Why are there papers near me?" I truly hope we go with the first situation, but I think it's out of my hands.

Alexis already works in the Writing Center, and she said that she liked observing because she liked seeing how other people interacted. She said, "But I definitely think it's easier to think of what you would have said when you're watching than when you're actually on the spot tutoring." I foresee that becoming particularly relevant in my near future.

Next week could be either a really good or really bad experience for me. I doubt it will be in between.

I Love New York, but Not Unconditionally, or Why Erin Dislikes Dickens

2007-11-01T13:34:00.000-04:00

Erin and I (and quite likely Alexis-- see I Think Alexis Might Be Magic) have been reading Hard Times for our nineteenth century class, and Erin says that she just can't get into it.

Erin: It's too distant. I don't feel emotionally invested in the characters.

me: I think it's supposed to be like that. I mean, it's a satire. I don't think we're supposed to feel emotional about it. Especially because it's about facts. Only learning facts. Not wondering things or being imaginative.

Erin: Yeah, I know. But I don't like it. There is nothing to connect to. You don't know where you are. Maybe I just don't like Charles Dickens.

me: It is mostly dialog. I think Charles Dickens secretly wanted to be a playwright. When I was in Adirondack Children's troupe we did a play of A Christmas Carol. Then I had to read the book for a class and I realized that the play is basically the book without paragraphs.

Erin: His books are his books without paragraphs. He leaves out the descriptions that novels are supposed to have.

me: I think they actually make better plays than novels because then you see what you don't read in the book, and you still hear what you would have read. Maybe I like him because I like reading plays.

Erin: That's probably it.

Laura: That's something you could say in your nineteenth century class. That Charles Dickens secretly wanted to be a playwright.

Or I could say it on my blog:

I think Charles Dickens secretly wanted to be a playwright. Maybe he didn't even know. When I read A Christmas Carol after having been in the play, it was like listening to a song that's on the radio a lot that I didn't realize I knew the lyrics to. I realized that I was singing the book in my head as I was reading it, and I thought, "Why do I know the lyrics to this book?"

It was really weird, and I momentarily thought I was having premonitions. It was like this one time when I thought I had somehow learned German because I knew what all of the words to this German song meant, but then I realized that I knew the song in English. It was a sort of disappointing thing to discover because it would be really cool to learn German without meaning to. Similarly, it was disappointing to realize that I was probably just remembering the play and not having premonitions.

But, this experience (the one with A Christmas Carol, not the one with the German song) made me notice that most of what Charles Dickens writes is dialog, which is perfectly fine with me.

I like Hard Times. I think it's funny. Particularly because it reminds me of an essay I wrote in high school as a reaction to the New York State Regents Exams.

I can't believe I'm talking about the Regents when I am a junior in college and have not had to worry about such tests since I was a junior in high school (Yes, a junior in high school. I made sure I had taken all of the tests before senior year even started because I knew that taking June Regents Senior year would make my brain explode. Not knowing if I was going to meet the criteria to graduate until the week of graduation? In retrospect, I'm glad I realized this would probably kill me.).

I don't remember exactly how the essay was worded (I might have it at home.), but I do remember basically what it said. The subject of the essay was my discovery of the meaning of life-- passing the Regents. It was mostly a rant on how stupid it was that I had to take two science Regents (I actually took three, hoping I'd pass at least two), when I had known since the age of approximately ten that I was inept at science and since the age of approximately six (as I remember to be documented by my first journal) that I was going to be a writer.

What Hard Times reminded me of was a part of the essay in which I talked about New York students not being allowed to learn anything that they don't need to know for the Regents-- the ultimate test of knowledge. The students in Hard Times are only taught facts, and they're not allowed to think about anything creatively.

The students are also referred to by number, which reminded me of a part of my essay where I talked about New York State creating standardized students (through genetic experimentation) to take their standardized tests, although not as extreme.

As I was thinking of this, the thought occurred to me that Charles Dickens must feel the same way about the Regents as I feel about them. Then I realized that not only is Charles Dickens not from New York, but he is not from our time.

Still, I feel that Dickens could not possibly be satirizing anything but the New York Regents in Hard Times. Apparently, he's the one who had premonitions.

Guest Entry: Felons Found

2007-10-31T18:25:00.000-04:00

A post by Alexis as an update to the post FindFelons.com.

I sometimes wonder if our generation has forgotten how to hold a conversation. [Some have forgotten that “conversation” has its root in “to converse” not “to conversate” (because that's not a word). I see the reasoning behind this mistake—but I suspect the 19^th century would have been much different if gentlemen slipped away after dinner to have regular “conversions” (logically what you get from conversing).]

Here in the 21^st century, we talk. We gossip. We text and IM. The female population alone says more than enough. But honest-to-goodness conversation, the kind that flows from one topic to the next and sometimes jumps back again, unrestrained and engaging, is becoming harder to find. Okay, we’re busy people—especially on a college campus where papers and projects and thes-i abound. Conversing between deadlines isn’t easy; there are other people, other ideas to internalize and accept.

So blame our schedules, if you would prefer. But there’s also this ever-growing Me factor to take into account.

[Enter OKCupid.]

OKCupid has perfected the art of the anti-conversation. It provides each profile with badges to indicate whether that person is “less kinky,” “more celibate,” “less nerdy,” etc. So all anyone needs to do is type a keyword and see who pops up. Then he can click a button to “woo” that special someone, who then gets an email stating, “You have just been wooed”—and you weren’t even there! You have been wooed without being present. You have been wooed without any presents. No chocolates! No flowers! No serenades at dusk!

For those of you who want an update, my friend has survived all three encounters with…“men” isn’t quite the word…from OKCupid.com. She’s a bit humiliated, a little forlorn, but very much still alive—and that’s what’s important.

First there was IndigenousFiend who took my friend to a sports bar. This would have been great if she liked sports. Or bars. So, okay, maybe he didn’t read that little “I like drama and vintage clothing” blurb in her profile. But whenever she tried to talk to him, he responded by flicking paper footballs at her.

IndigenousFiend could have gotten away with this rather annoying behavior (maybe he’s shy!) if, when she said, “Jimmy, I’m going home,” he simply replied, “Goodnight.” Instead, Jimmy apparently thought she meant, “Please, unbuckle your belt. The way I’ve been ducking airborne objects all evening has turned me on to the maxxxx. And I say ‘maxxxx’ with four x’s because it’s just that powerful.”

[Insert awkward moment.]

After her disappointing encounter with Jimmy the Indigenous Fiend, my friend made a point of holding IM conversations before meeting people offline. Cue Bachelor #2.

My friend insisted that this “gorgeous,” well-established, older man’s lack of description on his profile made him “mysterious,” and the golden retriever puppy made him “adorable.”

I insisted that his lack of description meant that he probably fell asleep trying to list his own hobbies, and the puppy was strategically placed there to distract viewers from the fact that he had absolutely no personality. The most interesting thing on his profile was his screen name, Your_Ultimate_Fantasy, which he most certainly was not. I definitely called that one.

Finally, there’s Skip (I use his real name because his screen name isn't ridiculous). He took my friend out for Thai food (a wonderful choice) and, in the middle of their budding conversation, informed her that she was not, in fact, his girlfriend. He must have been sorely disappointed when he realized this himself, for he then went on to describe all of the other girls who were or had been his girlfriend(s) and how they differed in intriguing and exotic ways not necessarily appropriate for dinner conversation.

Skip’s profile listed him as “looking for a relationship,” but I suppose that meant he had lost one of his own and was, contrary to common practice, actively searching for it.

With these random samples in mind, I can’t help but wonder if we have forgotten, or never learned, how to hold a conversation. We live in an age of Me: take Me or leave Me, but don’t expect Me to change because it’s all about Me. We look for love on dating sites and sort through people like groceries. (This one’s colorful but a little overripe.) I think that often we forget that it’s not about Me, it’s actually about You. Because You’re the one whose interest I need to keep long enough to establish rapport.

Having said this, I’m not trying to put down the online dating concept or community. We live in a huge world, and we meet hundreds and thousands and millions of people online. Horror stories about axe murderers aside, why shouldn’t we look for our soul mates somewhere outside of the 16-block town where we grew up? (Heck, most axe-murderings take place in the 16-block town where we grew up. Funny how that works out.) We don’t have to marry the Robinsons’ boys or that Johnson girl. We can meet people. But here’s the point (I apologize for taking so long to get here), if you’re planning to start the foundation for a relationship, you need to build something positively memorable. So why is it that the people online, who most need to rely on their wit, charm, and conversational ability, seem to be the people least capable of interacting with other humans?

You’re not going to build a healthy relationship out of virtual woo-age and half-assed descriptions of who you might be.

So that’s most of what I have to say. Thank you for your time and patience in reading this post. It’s been quite therapeutic for me, and I’ve just learned that my friend finally closed her account with OKCupid. Looks like Mr. Anti-Christ is going to have to move on. So Huzzah!

Before I go, I’d like to post one final paradox. Consider BadassMcBadass who both kicks ass and digs it. He’s apparently amazing in every way. So what the hell is he doing on a site that’s just OK?

Have fun!

Alexis.

Kendall Has T-Shirts, She Must Be Real

2007-10-26T16:36:00.000-04:00

In the post We Have T-Shirts, We Must Be Real, I said that our new Writers' Theatre t-shirts prove that we are a real club. Well, I think that if t-shirts prove that Writers' Theatre is real, they should certainly prove that Kendall is real. And Kendall owns t-shirts. She even owns tank tops.

So this is Kendall:
She is a real live member of Harford 3C. I know that I've never mentioned Kendall in a post (other than Meet the Suitemates, where I say that she is a Spanish major from Chestertown). But that isn't because Kendall doesn't exist. She does exist, and I've seen her.

Kendall spottings are rare, but she has been sighted at such places as Riley's restaurant and the store Twigs and Tea Cups (probably because she works at those places). And she has even, on occasion, been known to appear in Harford 3C.

True, Kendall doesn't join in our writer-nerd conversations. She is not a writer-nerd (not everyone can be), but we still value her as a suitemate.

Kendall wants to be in this blog more, and I think she should be. After all, she has plenty of things in common with the rest of the suitemates that we can talk about and I can blog about.

For one, Kendall shares in our collective poor eyesight. No one is Harford 3C can see correctly. If there were no such thing as contacts and glasses, we might all think we lived alone but heard voices sometimes. (Except for me, since I never wear my glasses anyway.)

And I'm sure there are other things that Kendall has in common with us. Things that we can discuss as a suite.

I don't know what those things are, but I think that Kendall adds something to the suite. I think it might be red hair. I mean, hair is something we have a lot of with seven girls (especially with Laura, who has enough hair for three or four girls), but without Kendall it would all have brown roots. I think that's pretty boring.

Kendall makes our lives exciting.

I Think Alexis Might Be Magic

2007-10-25T12:43:00.000-04:00

Alexis is majoring in math and English, plus she has education classes. She has a lot of work. So, I'm not really sure how she has managed to keep up in classes she's not taking.

When Erin and I read Pride and Prejudice for our 19th century class, Alexis read it too. Okay, I knew she had wanted to read Pride and Prejudice for a while.

But then, Erin and I read Wuthering Heights, and Alexis seemed to know a lot about it.

While Alexis and I waited at the airport for our flight for Fall Break, I was reading Jane Eyre. Alexis was reading too. Guess what book?

So I said: You're reading Jane Eyre?

Alexis: Yes.

me: But you're not in the 19th Century class. Erin and I are.

Alexis: I know.

me: So, why are you reading the books?

Alexis: So that I can participate in your conversations.

Obviously, if Alexis did not keep up with the books that Erin and I were reading, we would exclude her from our lives.

I asked her why she didn't just take the class. She said it was because she already had the time period.

She has already met the "English Literature between 1800 and 1900" requirement for the English major, so she isn't taking the class. But she is doing the reading anyway.

I had to think about that. She's doing the reading, she might as well-- This sounds silly, but when I thought about it I realized that if I didn't need the time period, I probably wouldn't have taken the class either. As much as I like it.

We're task oriented people. We take what we need. And, if we're Alexis we just read the books for the classes we don't need (and by we I mean Alexis because no one else does that). I don't know how she does that in addition to her own work.

I think she must have secret powers.

Guest Entry: Size DOES Matter if You Don’t Do It Right

2007-10-24T21:42:00.001-04:00

Hello, my name is Laura, and I feel the need to compensate.

For the Writing Center internship/class, students were asked to attend a conference to review our own writing. The Writing Center staff will go over any type of work, but most students bring essays or application letters, since grades, careers, and such depend a great deal upon quality (or so I’ve heard). But when I thought about what to bring in, I realized that I have nothing that would really benefit from a conference.

This is odd because I’m a non-declared/should-have-done-so-long-ago English major. I should have to write all of the time. But the only essays I’ll have this semester are one for history, which has already been graded, and three for the internship. It feels odd to bring one of the latter essays in. I’m afraid my professor at the Writing Center will read it twice – once in the conference, and again when it’s turned in – and decide that it didn’t improve enough to warrant a decent grade, since I was given so much feedback to fix the rough draft.

The only piece of writing I’m left with is my Writers’ Theatre skit, which is about three pages (five in proper dramatic format) and seems puny. Even a poem can be taken to the Writing Center, but since this is a class requirement, I feel that something more substantial would be more appropriate. Plus the skit is by nature very silly, and I somehow feel that the well-read instructors won’t understand it, and stare at me when we finish reading. Or we’ll fix a few things and still be done within ten minutes.

It’s an irrational fear, I know, but I don’t speak a lot in English/related classes (I catch concepts about a minute too late). Thus I want my conference to be productive. Actually, Aubrey is bringing in her script as well (to be a good role model for the younger, also silent Writers’ Theatre members). But hers is about nine pages and very good/funny/it makes sense. I’ve edited my script once, so the dialogue no longer stops suddenly and the characters no longer break into a dance party. And because there is now an actual ending, there is less fodder for my Writing Center appointment.

I know that the purpose of our going to a Writing Center appointment is for our own good: a) so we can improve our writing, and b) so we will remember what it’s like to be on the other side of the table when we eventually blossom into writing consultants (which I think is two weeks from now – yikes). So bringing a script to the center really will be a good idea. It’ll give a preliminary audience’s reaction to the lines, improve my writing, and allow one of my classmates the chance to observe a conference (which is also part of our requirement). Only benefits can come from reviewing my script.

But I still think it’s puny.

We Have T-Shirts, We Must Be Real

2007-10-23T23:53:00.000-04:00

Writers' Theatre is getting t-shirts. For real this time. In semesters past there were rumors of t-shirts, but they were always just that.

We agreed on what to say on the t-shirts. We approved the picture Laura drew for them. We agreed on a color (blue). And Laura designed them. We approved Laura's design. People are actually going to buy them, and we're ordering them next week so that we'll have them before our fall show. People have actually given Laura money.

This is the first thing we've accomplished since I've been president. It's really exciting. I'm going to wear my t-shirt every day for the rest of my life (or at least on November 16th).

If you recall the post Who Cares About Writers' Theatre?, this is a significant turn of events. Alexis said that I can't expect everything I want to happen all at once, and I think that's exactly right. As much as I would like everything to be done perfectly and done now, I know that's not realistic. By realistic standards, Writers' Theatre is improving.

We don't have any new events planned for this semester (as I had hoped we would), but that is probably my fault for not pushing the issue. I just haven't had the time to organize new events. But, we are planning to participate in a dramatic reading being put on by the Writers' Union, which we haven't done before. And, we'll have time after our fall show to plan things for next semester. Hope for new events is not lost.

And our old event-- our big fall show, is well underway.

We started casting the fall show, and we actually had a drama major show up. Club members (including freshman) volunteered to play parts in each other's skits. We don't have every part in every skit cast yet (which I would like to have done by now), but we're getting somewhere.

I mentioned in my previous Writers' Theatre post that Alexis had brought up splitting into groups to talk about our writing. Well, we haven't had time to do that. We have to get these things cast and start rehearsing them. But, I think that the kind of interaction she was talking about will happen during our rehearsals.

When we actually have to do the skits, we'll think of things that we didn't think of when we heard them read or when we read them in e-mails. I think rehearsing might be the most helpful part of writing our skits. I hope that the writers re-write things as we're rehearsing (not the week of the show, of course, because that would be confusing for the actors).

We're still encouraging writers to bring their skits to the Writing Center, and I know at least four writers are going to do so (Laura, Erin, Alexis, and I). I asked Laura to include the e-mail address for the Writing Center in the meeting minutes (possibly appearing as follows: IT'S SIMPLE!!! IT'S EASY!!! IT'S FUN!!! JUST CLICK HERE (but not actually, this is just an example) TO MAKE YOUR VERY OWN APPOINTMENT AT THE ONE AND ONLY REALLY HELPFUL AND INCREDIBLY AMAZINGLY EXCITING WRITING CENTER!!! EXPERIENCE THE AWESOMENESS FIRST HAND!!! (I do not generally support writing in caps or using multiple exclamation points, but this is an example of a hyperbole and also of an abuse of the right to say things parenthetically. (If your parenthetical statement persists for more than, well, much less than this, you're probably on a tangent))).

But, really, the show is going to be good. The skits are incredibly creative, often ridiculous, and a lot of fun. Being president of Writers' Theatre is harder than I thought it was going to be, but I don't think the club is going to crumble to pieces (I could be wrong, but this is an optimistic post).

And Now For the Long Awaited Couch Debate

2007-10-21T16:45:00.000-04:00

Can you start an article with a couch?—I mentioned that this was a topic of discussion in Harford 3C in the post Brain Mush, and now I will explain.

Erin's first sentence in the article “Lit House: Home Sweet Home,” that she wrote for the October 5^th issue of the Elm, was, “The red couch has the perfect level of softness to induce warm-fuzzy feelings and chase away any stress.” But, if you read the article in the Elm, the first sentence you saw (courtesy of editor Alisha) was, “People just don’t realize how amazing the Lit House really is.”

When Erin complained that Alisha always adds sentences to the beginning of her articles (in this case, an entire paragraph), Alisha replied, “Erin, you can’t start an article with a couch."

Erin likes to jump right into her articles. She justified her opening by saying, "You can totally start an article with a couch, if the couch is as lovely and comfortable as the one in the Lit House."

I usually feel the same way that Erin does about getting to the point, but in this case, I’m inclined to agree with Alisha that Erin's original opening did not explain where she was going with her article (even if the couch is lovely).

Alisha said, "You have to include who, what, when, where, and why in the beginning of an article. Some people might disagree with me about this one because it's a personal piece, but to me, Erin's opening sounds more like the beginning of a short story than the beginning of an Elm article."

Alexis agreed that it depends on the affect you're going for. She said that Jane Austen would have started out with a long description of the couch.

As much as I love Jane Austen, I'm not sure that she would have been a good journalist, and the idea of Jane Austen in the Lit House sort of freaks me out. Now I'm going to have scary dreams about going to the Lit House for Writers' Theatre and finding it full of pasty Victorian people.

But Jane Austen aside, when I read the article with Alisha’s intro, it gave me time to realize what I was reading about before getting into the article. It only took a few extra sentences, and I think it was necessary.

Maybe if the title was about the couch instead of the Lit House I wouldn't have needed Alisha's opening (which, by the way, is incredibly Alisha-sounding, and not very Erin), but as it is, I think Alisha made the right call.

2007-10-20T12:39:00.003-04:00

Torrential Homework

Guest Entry: Too Much Caffeine

2007-10-18T23:26:00.000-04:00

Aubrey is in no way responsible for the ridiculousness that follows, blame Erin.

Two out of four people in the common room are holding mugs filled with unidentified warm liquids as I write this, and I'm willing to bet that they both contain tea. Actually, upon further investigation I discovered that one of the cups held apple cider.

Regardless, there are no less than four varieties of tea sitting on our food shelf, and I know that four other kinds are hidden in my room. I'm almost certain that at least one other English major in this suite has a secret stash of tea squirreled away in some super secret space. Probably Alexis.

One by one we all surrender ourselves to the stereotype of an English nerd sitting around sipping specialty drinks while discussing some pretentious detail in some obscure novel.

English majors and caffeinated beverages are practically joined at the hip, or at least they would be if drinks had hips. There must be something about some literature that requires large doses of caffeine. Ralph Waldo Emerson, I'm looking at you.

The Lit House practically runs a drug ring in the kitchen, considering its array of teas laid out invitingly in cozy shelves and practically inviting indulgence. I've seen people gathered around it in a semi-circle, boggling at the glory and variety.

It's a little silly, but most English majors are Buy 10, Get 1 Free Card-carrying members of caffeine addicts clubs. I actually have 3 different cards.

I feel that this phenomena demands further investigation, and with the power of Aubrey's blog, I encourage careful observation and contemplation. Make sure that your professors aren't slipping you anything when you aren't looking. Break into their investment portfolios, look for tea companies.

Paranoia, my friend, is a fun thing to play with.

love, Erin

English Major Frustration, or English: Major Frustration

2007-10-16T17:14:00.000-04:00

I just got a horrific grade on a paper that I spent more time than I'm willing to admit writing. I know bad grades are not some new phenomenon that I invented, but I’m still upset. I feel like there are usually two reasons a person doesn't do well on something-- they didn't try or it's just not their subject.

Well, I don't see how I could have tried any harder, but the second option scares me. English sort of has to be my subject. I don't have another subject. I've been browsing course listings, and although other areas offer a course or two that look promising, the only subject where I find myself thinking, "I could major in this" is English.

But, if I do the best I can and I still cannot do well, perhaps I am not meant to be an English major. Obviously, junior year is too late to do anything about this, and besides, I've planned to major in English since I knew what college was (possibly before that). I know I wouldn't be happy as anything but an English major, but what if I never get to be good at it? Won't that just lead to endless frustration?

Alisha told me that Laura is really good at chemistry, but she thinks that Laura likes English because she likes the challenge (not that Laura isn't good at English, she's just multi-talented). In Laura's case, I think it will work out, but in general, this doesn't seem like a good way to choose a major.

If someone's talent is in one area, isn't it better for them in the long run to learn more about what they naturally excel in, rather than floundering in a field they love? I sort of wonder if I really don’t like anything besides English or if I’ve just been obsessed with being an English major for so long that I never gave anything else a chance.

I think back to those terrifying New York State tests—the Regents—that I had to take throughout high school, and you know what? I didn’t do well on the English Regents. My best Regents was Spanish, followed closely by US History. Actually, I did similarly on the English Regents to how I did on the paper I got back today. I always thought state testing was the dumbest thing ever, but now that I think about it, maybe I’m supposed to be a Spanish major. If so, it’s possible that I’ve ruined my life.

Who Cares About Writers' Theatre?

2007-10-12T16:03:00.001-04:00

It has become increasingly evident to me that no one cares about Writers' Theatre. This slow revelation has been reinforced by the treatment of an article that Claire recently wrote for our college news paper, The Elm (the Writers' Theatre article is not on the Elm website yet). The article appeared in the Student Life section (the section that Alisha edits and that Erin, Laura and Claire write for), and it was an absolute mess.

The title of the article is "Club Spotlight: Writer's Theatre." Now, we're certainly not the biggest club on campus, but we do have more than one writer. Give us some credit, Elm.

As I continued to read, I became more and more upset by the many blatant blunders. Spaces were omitted between words. The word "year" was spelled "yer," in a sentence that is not incorrect in stating that last spring's show was themed. But, that's implications aren't exactly right, as our spring murder mystery is always themed.

I was reluctant to allege my suitemates of these oopses. I didn't think Claire would be so careless in writing her article. I know that Alisha puts a lot of time into editing the articles in her section of the paper, and she puts in insanely long hours at Wednesday night Elm meetings, which have frequently run well into Thursday morning. But, I had to ask-- how did this happen?

Alisha blamed copy editing. She said that copy editors changed "Writers' Theatre" to "Writer's Theatre" in the title of the article-- exactly the kind of thing that will bother me endlessly. She blamed the absent spaces between words on having to move and reformat the article a lot. I understand how this can happen, but doesn't anyone do any sort of final check? The general consensus in 3C was that, yes, they do, but they have a lot to check over, and if they have to skip over something, who really cares about Writers' Theatre?

I'd like to offer that we in Harford 3C care a great deal about Writers' Theatre (you will recall from the post Meet the Suitemates that I am president of Writers' Theatre, Laura is vice president, and Alexis and Erin are club members). I think it's true that we are a minority. I don't think most people know what Writers' Theatre is. My hope for Claire's Elm article was to clear this up, but I don't think that the article showed off the club or Claire's writing. (Claire is quite capable of spelling the word "year.") So, I will explain here what I hoped would be explained in the Elm.

Writers' Theatre is a club for students to write and perform their own plays. Anyone who wants to write or act can do so. Alisha said that she thinks Writers' Theatre is misunderstood, that people think they have to write and act to be in the club. This isn't true. Those who want to do both are welcome to, but we have writers who do not act and actors who do not write. We can't expect that everyone will want to do everything.

Each fall, we put on a show that is based on a setting. For example, each skit in this fall's show (November 16th and 17th, Norman James Theatre, 8pm) will take place in Rose's Discount Store. For each show, we come up with the setting by brainstorming a list of places and voting on one. Next, everyone who wants to write writes a five to ten minute skit that takes place in the agreed upon setting. There are also two lines that occur in each skit (this year they're "That's illegal in Equatorial New Guinea" and "These aren't my pants"). We come up with and decide on these lines the same way we come up with the setting, and the writers can use the lines however they choose.

Right now, we have read through seven of the skits for the fall show (we have five more to get to). During my first two years in Writers' Theatre, we brought in our skits, we read them together, and we doled out the parts, but I felt like something was missing from this process. This year, I wanted to talk about our skits as a club after we read them. None of us are experts on playwrighting (or know much at all about it, for that matter), but I thought that if we could give one another feedback on our writing, we could make it better. I mean, we're students, the audience is going to be students, so if there are parts that we like or parts that we see problems with, the audience will probably see that too. I thought we could fix it ahead of time. If we could make our writing better, more people would want to come watch our shows.

We're only two weeks into trying this out, but it hasn't gone well so far. This is mostly because I cannot get club members to talk to each other. I truly don't know why. Everyone stares at me, and no one talks. I continually ask them what they think about things, and no one answers me. Now, to a point, I feel like a hypocrite because if this was a class I wouldn't say anything either. But, it's not a class. There is no scary professor who is much older and probably much smarter than us looming overhead. I'm not sure what the problem is.

I don't remember Writers' Theatre being like this before. I have asked people who have been in Writers' Theatre if it has something to do with the way I run the meetings, if there is something I am doing wrong that makes everyone really quiet (like my awkwardness is rubbing off on them?). They have all told me that it's not my fault, but I'm not sure if they're just being nice. I don't feel like a leader, so much as an organizer. I ask the club what they want to do, and I try to sort that out and figure out what we want as a club. Then I make schedules and send e-mails.

I really thought e-mail would save us. Okay, they don't like to talk. Certainly, they can send e-mails. I asked everyone who has had her script read so far to e-mail it to the list serve. I asked the club members to read the scripts that have been sent out and to reply to the e-mails with feedback. As I am not completely oblivious to what is going on, I know they have not done this.

They won't respond to e-mails about things like, is this a good time for us to meet? I assume it's fine, only to find out later that half the club has lab. Then I reschedule. It really gets tedious. They won't respond to e-mails regarding the t-shirt that Laura is designing for us, as if Laura's life would be shattered if they told her they didn't like blue. Maybe I'm sending too many e-mails? Are they overloaded with information? I don't know. No one will e-mail me and tell me, and like I said, I don't lead, I organize.

Alexis suggested breaking into groups to talk about our skits, and I think this is a good idea. After we read the last five skits, as a club, I want to have another meeting where we talk about our skits in groups. By that time, everyone will have had the chance to hear everything read and to read it in an e-mail. Maybe will we be ready to talk about it then? I think it's worth a try.

Another valuable piece of information that I learned from Alexis is that people bring creative writing to the Writing Center. She works there, and she said that people even bring in poems. Laura and I are taking the class you have to take to work in the Writing Center, and I did not know this. I thought that the Writing Center was for academic papers. That's certainly what we've concentrated on in the Writing Center class, and I think that most people have that misconception.

If I can't get members of Writers' Theatre to talk to each other about their writing, can I get them to take their writing to the Writing Center? I can at least encourage it, and I think that it would be good to get feedback from people who aren't involved in Writers' Theatre. Alexis said that people in Writers' Theatre might be afraid to hurt each other's feelings, and I think that's probably true.

One of the main things I wanted when I became president of Writers' Theatre was for us to help one another improve our writing. I feel like that should be a large part of the purpose of Writers' Theatre, but I don't think it happens.

I don't think that people think of Writers' Theatre as being on the same level as other clubs. We're just a group of people who write a bunch of silly garbage and put it on stage. Well, we are silly, but I don't think that means we're not valuable. Maybe it's just because I'm such a fan of silliness or because I've worked so hard to keep Writers' Theatre together, that I want to think we have a place on campus. We are rather disconnected from the people it makes sense for us to be connected to.

We're supposed to be a combination of drama and English, and instead we are shunned by students of both majors. English majors and creative writing minors who are members of the Writers' Union find more popular places to write than Writers' Theatre, although some members of the Writers' Union are members of Writers' Theatre. Drama majors and other people who act are busy with drama department shows or other theatre groups on campus.

I don't think many people see a need for Writers' Theatre, but there really isn't any other place to write plays and have them performed. The only thing I can think of is that, other than the fifteen people currently writing for Writers' Theatre, no one is interested in this. Or, if they are, they don't want to associate with Writers' Theatre because we are not an esteemed group on campus.

I think another problem that people have with Writers' Theatre is the casualness of the club. We let everyone write. We let everyone act. There is no hierarchy, and there are no auditions. Personally, I like it this way. I like that everyone has a chance to do something they might not be able to do other places. I don't claim that any of us know what we're doing, but for me, that's the point-- trying to figure these things out and help one another learn.

Okay, we have writers directing their own skits, who do not know or care about directing. And, I think it would be great if we could attract people to the club who know about things like that. I want to attract as diverse a group of people with as many different talents and interests to Writers' Theatre as possible. That would be ideal. But, truthfully, we have to work with the people we have.

I have tried desperately to increase membership and general interest in the club. Laura and I have sent e-mails and put up fliers. Along with a few other dedicated club members, we advertised at Club Fair (where people like wshakespeare2@washcoll.edu joined our list serve) with pictures from past events. I've told people to tell people to bring their friends to meetings (Tuesday nights at 8:30 in the Lit House). I convinced a friend of mine who is a physics major and does not like to write or act to join. I don't know what else I can do to make people interested in Writers' Theatre.

This post is not meant to attack the current members of Writers' Theatre. I truly appreciate the people who come to meetings every week, even if they won't talk to me or respond to my e-mails. Without them, there would be no club. And, of course, I appreciate the board members and other club members who volunteer to do all kinds of things that aren't their jobs or who do things just because I ask them to.

The problem is not with any specific person; it is a problem that we have as a club, and I'm sure that I'm just as much a part of it as anyone. I feel that, as president, most things are my fault. No matter how beyond my control things seem to be, the fact is, I'm responsible for them.

I really want Writers' Theatre to grow as a club. I want us to have more than one event a semester. We don't have to do the same things we always do just because we've always done them, but I've found it difficult to plan new events. Although I have had a few very good suggestions for new events from club members, I haven't gotten as many suggestions as I would like to have gotten. I don't feel like everyone is with me on planning these events, and if there isn't interest, what's the point?

The biggest question I have on my mind is would anyone care if there was no more Writers' Theatre? I have a feeling that the loss would not be grieved. It's just very frustrating to put so much effort into something that is not appreciated. But, I'll take whatever suggestions I can get.

Brain Mush

2007-10-07T22:49:00.000-04:00

I feel like I should write a blog entry, but after reading all day my brain has stopped sending signals. It's all static and dropped calls, and not one of my writer-nerd suitemates would agree to be a guest blogger. I wanted one of them to write an entry about a discussion we had about whether or not you can start an article with a couch. One day, I'll explain what that means.

Math in Harford 3C

2007-10-06T23:31:00.000-04:00

This is the conversation (as best I can recreate it) that followed Laura's seemingly simple question to Alexis-- Do you want to teach math or English?

Alexis: Math. English is too objective. With math, four plus six is always ten.

me: That depends on who you ask.

Erin: It could be forty six.

Alexis: No, four and six could be forty six. Or sixty four. But four plus six is always ten.

Erin: It's like in Spanish. Cuarenta y seis. Four and six. Fourty six.

me: That's forty and six.

Erin: shh.

Alexis: It's still ten.

me: Maybe four and six just like each other. Four plus six. In a heart.

Erin: But, if they like each other they'll be closer. Like forty six.

Alexis: If they like each other, they will become ten.

me: That doesn't sound like a very good relationship. I think they might better stay four and six.

Alexis: They'll be part of each other.

Erin: They'll be forty six.

Alexis: They'll be ten.

me: They might not like each other that much. What if they break up?

Alexis: Four will always remember six, and six will always remember four. But, they will always be ten. Four plus six is ten.

me: I see how six can remember four, but I don't see how four can remember six when it hasn't gotten there yet.

Erin: They could be two in binary.

Alexis: There's no two in binary.

me: Ten is two.

Alexis: Ten is ten.

Erin: If they were ten, they could be five and five. What happened to five?

Alexis: Five is gay.

An excellent example of why Alexis does not want to teach English? I believe so. I don't feel the need to comment on this conversation further, but what I want to know is how Laura managed to stay out of it.

The Papers

2007-10-05T20:22:00.000-04:00

Harford 3C (the suite and its residents) is currently experiencing papers. We have reached the part at the almost-middle of the semester where we have papers due for nearly every class. This is the part where I think, "Four writing intensive classes felt like a good idea when I signed up for them. What happened to that feeling?" And what happened to the suite?

We are usually neat with a capital freak, but right now there are papers everywhere. I admit, it's mostly me. I have taken over the entire common room with my need to cut out all of my paragraphs and line them up across the room from left to right. Honestly, I don't know why this helps. I just know it's essential. And I have to cut them out anyway, so that I can re-write them one at a time in various shades of colored pencil.

Erin is another who requires rather expansive floor space for writing, although she also requires solitude and has confined herself to her room. The last time I saw Erin, she was sprawled on her floor surrounded in a whirling mass of 19th century literature.

Alexis has been similarly immersed in something or other, but she doesn't have nearly as impressive an amount of papers as Erin.

I fear I might have taken Laura's homework space. The common room is usually her work area, but she is more of a chair girl. One of Laura's hobbies is seeing how many chairs she can take up with one homework assignment. It's pretty impressive.

Alisha is perhaps the most spatially confined in her paper writing. She's pretty electronic, but she requires more people power than the rest of us. She is a type-and-reader. She types something, and then she reads it to all of us to hear our opinions. We happen to have lots of them, but not when we're writing papers.

We don't do much else when we have papers to write.

Participation

2007-09-30T22:21:00.000-04:00

Friday marked my first "you don't ever participate in class, maybe you should" e-mail of the semester. I generally expect these e-mails around mid-term. This one was a little bit early. I have to say, I've been getting this comment since kindergarten, and the e-mail didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. So, I deleted it, assuming it was rhetorical and having long ago accepted the fact that I am not a participant.

Then, today I had a thought-- was I supposed to reply to that e-mail? I asked Alexis and Erin. Alexis said, "The e-mail was about you not responding, so they probably expected that." She thinks she's funny, and she is because it's true.

I often worry that not participating makes me look like a slacker because my professors have no way of knowing whether I do the reading or not. The e-mail said something along those lines, so I feel encouraged to worry about this further. It's frustrating because, ask any of the girls in 3C, I do nothing but homework. I don't do homework with the intention of participating (in the sense of volunteering information), but I am incapable of attending a class without doing the reading. (I am also incapable of not attending class.) I would feel lost, if I didn't read. Hey, I follow discussions (like a tennis match or something). I feel like that's participating. (Well, maybe it's observing, but it's as close as I get.)

Erin and I are in 19th Century English Novel together (which is not the class I got the e-mail about), and we talk about it constantly. We gossip about characters in these novels like they're real people and we're high school girls who can talk about nothing but who is dating whom. I get emotionally invested. The last book we read was Wuthering Heights, and I was truly upset by Heathcliff for a good portion of last week. I told Erin I hoped he got eaten by his dogs. If you've never read Wuthering Heights, this does not happen. There is not even a hint of a possibility of this happening, but the dogs are mean and Heathcliff deserves it. All week, I willed them with my mind-- attack Heathcliff. For some reason, I was unable to change the outcome of the novel.

This is part of life in Harford 3C. Yet, what do Erin and I say in class? Nothing. We sit together for protection from other students who might talk to us, and we try not to make eye contact with anyone. Erin has the word "shy" tattooed on her back. She thinks that people will see this tattoo and leave her alone, but I think she has actually been called on more than I have. Perhaps she should have gotten the tattoo on her forehead.

I've been surprise-attacked twice in that class. I hate being called on. The first time, I went with the "deer in the headlights" approach. That one always seems to take a while, so the second time I went with the slightly more acceptable, "Um, I don't know." I've been thinking that it would be really cool if I could say something brilliant sometime (or at least something), but I can't do that. There is something about being called on that makes me forget words. I always forget words at really inconvenient times. I try to remember, and when I finally think of something, it's peanut butter or octagon or tai chi. It has little to do with 19th century literature.

I don't think Erin and I are very good English majors. (Sorry, Erin.) Shouldn't English majors be able to use spoken English? (I prefer written English.) If everyone was like us, we would never learn anything. Everyone else is in classes, and we watch classes. That's what I do, anyway. Erin might be extremely outgoing in her other classes. (She might also be a robot, but I don't know because I've never tried to stick a magnet to her.) I feel like people like us are more suited for something less discussion oriented. I mean, I wish I could stop enjoying being an English major so much, but I just can't agree with myself. It's possible that I like being an English major because I like listening to other people's conversations (a favorite hobby of mine). Thinking about this always confuses me. I live in a suite full of English majors, but does that mean English is really our thing?

Immobile Michaelmas

2007-09-29T22:29:00.000-04:00

Erin and I love 19th century literature, so, of course, we wanted to celebrate Michaelmas today. Everybody in Austen and the Brontes does it, and I just happened to remember that it was on September 29th. The problem was that we didn't know how to celebrate Michaelmas. All I knew was that it marks the beginning of fall, and I was completely in favor of celebrating fall because it means that the weather will soon be right for me to wear the jumper I bought yesterday. Erin thought Michaelmas had something to do with eating carrots, and Alexis said that we had to steal a horse.

With not much information, not much time to look into it, and not much time for any sort of actual celebration (I spent the day writing a paper for my 19th century class, coincidence? but it didn't have to do with Michaelmas), I suggested that a bike ride after dinner would be an excellent way to celebrate fall and enjoy today's weather. Erin agreed, and I was really excited because I hadn't been on a single bike ride since school started (unless you count riding my bike to work, which I don't).

We didn't get very far from campus when my bike, which is covered with rust and held together by hope and blue tape, lost its left pedal. It wasn't nearly as bad as the time the rubber part of my tire came off of the medal part, but still, I think I almost died. I found my pedal, not far from my bike, but I did not find the hardware that held it on. However, I wasn't going to let this foil my bike ride, so I said, "It's okay. It'll stay on without that. Let's keep going."

The first time I put the pedal back on, it immediately fell off again. Well, it didn't actually fall, so much as it flew. Into traffic. Perhaps that should have been a sign that I was operating on a bit too much hope, and not quite enough blue tape.

We walked our bikes across the bridge over the river to ride through the neighborhoods over there. At first, my pedal fell off every few seconds, and I had to go back and get it. After a while, I learned to kick the pedal back on with my heel just before it was about to fall, in spots where I could coast, but that's just not an effective way to ride a bike. I became frustrated.

This is a picture of my pedal on the floor of my room. It is on the floor of my room because the pedal and I are not on speaking terms right now.

Bethesda Bathrooms

2007-09-29T10:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Alexis, Alisha, Erin, Laura, and I took an excursion to Bethesda, MD to celebrate Erin's 20th birthday. We had two objectives: Heritage 1981 and a diner. Heritage 1981 is one of my favorite clothing stores in Albany, NY, and I had teased Erin with tales of this store so much that she felt the need to find its nearest location and check it out. It turns out that Bethesda is the home of the only Heritage 1981 in Maryland. It also turns out that Bethesda is the area's shopping mecca, and I don't know why I hadn't heard of it before. We spent far too much money.

We were also in search of a diner because we have made the decision that we are "diner people." We don't eat in restaurants that are connected to or enclosed in other buildings. We only eat in free standing metallic looking places that are open 24 hours and serve breakfast all day, and we don't eat in restaurants with police cars in front of them. It takes us a long time to find a place to eat because we're all too passive to make decisions.

Shopping and diner-dining seem like such a normal, non-nerdy way to celebrate a birthday, but we found ourselves unable to escape our writer-nerd tendencies. The first thing we did when we got to Bethesda was find a bathroom, and that's where we saw this sign:

You can't tell from this picture, that Alisha took with her camera phone, but someone wrote in the missing "n" in "Environmentally." This sign reminds me of something that one of the "grammar-snob blogs" I was discussing on Thursday would blog about, but when we saw this in the bathroom, we could not help dwelling on it. There are so many capital letters, and isn't the wording weird? From the sign, I understand that I am supposed to use the hand dryer and I know something about "Enviromentally Friendly," but I don't know that using the hand dryer is environmentally friendly. Do I? And, is it really necessary to tell me that the hand dryer is on the wall? If the sign read, "Please use environmentally friendly hand dryer," would I truly not know where to look for it? "Well, I see a hand dryer under the sign, but I don't know if it's the environmentally friendly hand dryer. The sign doesn't say where that is. Maybe I should check the ceiling." How do signs like this get posted?

Grammar-Snob Blogs

2007-09-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

This morning, I received an e-mail from fellow blogger AJ (author of Stalking With the Stars) about The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, and I admit, I was intrigued. People send this blogger pictures of signs with incorrect quotation mark usage, and she posts them and makes brief comments. The site reminded me of a story my friend told me about a sign on the door of a gas station bathroom that said "Costumers Only." She found the sign particularly funny because she happens to be a costumer and was able to use the bathroom, while her friends, who were not costumers, had to buy stuff and settle for being mere customers.

However, the blog made me a bit self conscious about using quotation marks. I hope that my writing doesn't ever read like the writing of the air quotes guy from the post "FindFelons.com," but I sometimes use quotation marks when they aren't absolutely necessary. I use quotation marks a lot in the post "Talking about Speaking and Talking." I felt that because I was discussing the words "speaking" and "talking," not using the words "speaking" and "talking," I was justified in using quotation marks. I was trying to be clear, but now I'm not sure if quotation marks were the way to go. What about italics? Maybe I should have just left the words alone. I don't know. I fear the grammar police.

When I was beginning this blog, I tried to find other blogs about "writer-nerds," but I was unable to find anything that wasn't full of teen angst or bad. While I knew that my suitemates and I were not alone in the world, I was unable to locate others like us online. The quotation mark blog lead me to a slew of other blogs on punctuation and grammar: Apostrophism, Mighty Red Pen, Why a Title, Red Pen Inc, Lowercase l, Literally, a Web Log, and Apostrophe Abuse. I have located the "writer-nerds," or at least the "English-nerds" (yes, I am using quotation marks) of the internet, and I have to wonder if this is all pretentiousness. Are these blogs no more than exhibitions of intolerance by oversensitive people who feel grammatically superior to others?

I'm not sure about this. Should I be making fun of people's profiles on dating sites? (I think they deserve it.) I am not a snob, and this is not a grammar-snob blog (or a tribute to Dr.Suess). I'd like to think of this blog as a discussion, not without valid answers, but without absolute answers. I like clarity, but clarity doesn't always require perfect grammar. It requires some sort of grammar, but I don't think it is always necessary to abide by all of the formalities of grammar. Just this morning, I ended a sentence with a preposition. Laura corrected me, and I said, "No, Laura, I'll end my sentences with prepositions, if I want to."

I haven't had a chance to talk to the 3C girls about their opinions on grammar snobs and grammar-snob blogs yet, but I will ask them to discuss it in the comment section. I have to say, though, that whether it's snobbish or not, I would be weary of using "rest rooms" (The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks).

[Addendum: Erin's latest blog post relates to this perfectly. I had no idea that she was writing about the same thing that I was writing about in the next room, at the same time. Weird, but convenient.]

Class Action Suit?

2007-09-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

Public Safety sent an e-mail to the campus about power outages. The power was out for an hour this afternoon, and the e-mail said that we might expect power outages in the evening (we haven't had any so far). I didn't think much about it. Sometimes the power goes out. It's mildly inconvenient, but it's not a big deal, especially when it's only for an hour. Laura said that if the power went out again, after the e-mail, she would think it was because they were fixing it. That made sense to me. The reason we started talking about this is because someone (who it appears, from googling him, is a professor, but I don't think I want to talk about that) sent an e-mail to the entire campus saying that we should file a class action suit against the power company. What? First of all, we're not individual home owners, we're students living in dorms. If anyone were to sue the power company, I think it would have to be the college. Did he mean to send the e-mail to Public Safety and accidentally click "reply all," sending the e-mail to the campus? I hope so, but I fear it's not the case-- you don't begin a class action suit by e-mailing Public Safety. But you don't sue the power company for an hour's power outage. To Laura and me, that seems like an overreaction.

Thanks for Making Us Sick, Alisha

2007-09-24T17:41:00.001-04:00

There is currently a general feeling of bleh in Harford 3C, and we should probably be quarantined before it spreads (but we’re not ones for missing classes). Our usual English-talk has been interrupted by a collective sore throat. I attributed it to the changing seasons, when Erin, Alexis, and Claire came down with it last week. Now that I have it, I think it’s probably something more serious (most likely the Black Death or consumption).

I’m often tempted to blame this sort of thing on my job, since it frequently surrounds me with dozens of gooey five-year-olds who need to be touching something at all times (usually something gross, each other, or me and usually in that order). These children commonly employ one hand in nose picking, while grasping my arm with the other. That’s pretty much a staple.

However, I feel that this illness must have its origins in 3C because I was not the first to have it, and it would be weird if my suitemates got sick from my job before I did. Alexis was the first to get sick, and I thought that we might have caught it from her. Then I remembered that old Harford 3C adage, “Everything is Alisha’s fault.”

It was pretty sneaky of Alisha to get Erin, Alexis, and Claire sick before getting sick herself (the same day I started to feel sick, I might add), but you have to watch for things like that with Alisha. I think we might have to send Alisha to the bean bag chair behind the couch for this.

FindFelons.com

2007-09-22T17:35:00.001-04:00

Alexis's friend made a date with a guy she met on the website OkCupid.com, which we all think is crazy. Alisha was particularly disturbed because she thought the website was "OkCubans.com" (a website where one finds mediocre Hispanic singles?). Anyway, Erin, Alexis, and I went on OkCupid.com, which Alexis has since nicknamed "FindFelons.com," to read some profiles and see what kind of a person Alexis's friend might be meeting. The first thing that the first post on the website said was, "I am bipolar." Some people sure are honest. He then goes on to talk about his career, but obviously, that's not the part of his life he feels is most relevant.

We read posts that said things like, "into pubbin clubbin cinema anything that u can have fun doin, " and "no more sentences, just senses. tryin to fill this blank is a little bit boring. if i write it as formal, may be it will get easier, but no need. it's filled." Alexis was concerned about the lack of "g"s on the gerunds, but, particularly with the second post, I feel that there are bigger issues, as profound a statement as the man makes.

Then there was this post: "hello i like 'BEAR' and 'pop'. i like 'working' playing 'sports' :scosser' 'ball' 'tennis' see ya." I imagine that this guy uses air quotes a lot. I sort of wonder if the most important thing about him is the range of beverages he enjoys, or if it's that he really likes bears and his dad. Erin wants to print this post and correct the spelling and grammar, then make a date with the guy to show him his mistakes. Personally, I hope I never meet this person.

The one post that I am truly intrigued by is this: "I'm writing things cause i have to. I like Green Things and pantomimes." I would almost message this guy to find out why he capitalizes "Things," but not "i." "I like Green Things and pantomimes." I'm trying to process that information, but it just makes me laugh.

I'm really worried about Alexis's friend.

Talking About Speaking and Talking

2007-09-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

For the last few days, the topic of discussion in 3C has been the difference between "speaking" and "talking." I said that I thought of "speaking" as more formal and "talking" as more casual. When you're in high school and a teacher wants to "speak" to you (or worse, to your parents), you know you're in trouble. The teacher doesn't want to hang out and gossip. Speaking sort of scares me. Talking is an everyday occurrence-- something you do with your friends. I feel like speaking is something people over thirty do a lot.

Laura brought up the “speech.” People are professional speakers, but no one is a professional talker. If you "talk" by yourself, you are either schizophrenic or, I guess, a writer, but “speaking” by yourself is fine. Laura said, “Talking is more personal. You speak at whoever is around.” I guess that talking being “more personal” is what I mean when I say “more casual.”

Alexis said that she thinks of “talking” as more formal and “speaking” as more informal. Her reasons are that talking requires more than one person, where speaking only requires one person. She said that, “You can be speaking to a wall. It’s more informal because you don’t have to be mentally present when someone else is speaking. Talking requires interaction.”

We all agreed that talking requires interaction, but speaking doesn’t. When you write an essay for school, you speak. You talk when you write a letter to a friend. That’s something else that makes me feel like speaking is more formal. Alisha said, “Talking is conversation, but speaking doesn’t require the other person to be engaged.” I think that’s what Alexis means when she says that talking requires more “mental presence.” I think Erin summed it up perfectly, though. She said, “It’s all about the with and the to. You talk with someone. You speak to them.”

Well, not to lessen the value of our conversation, but the first definition of “speak” on www.merriam-webster.com is:

to utter words or articulate sounds with the ordinary voice : talk b (1): to express thoughts, opinions, or feelings orally (2): to extend a greeting (3): to be friendly enough to engage in conversation speaking after the dispute> c (1): to express oneself before a group (2): to address one's remarks <speak to the issue>

And the first definition of “talk” is: “to deliver or express in speech." As we had suspected, "speak" and "talk" are synonyms. I must say that I was a little bit sad when the word "talk" was used in the first definition of "speak," but I can't say I didn't anticipate it. Anyway, I'm sticking with our official Harford 3C usage. It makes sense.

Meet the Suitemates

2007-09-20T18:37:00.000-04:00

Since this blog is about the girls of Harford 3C, I thought it best to begin by introducing everyone. I'll make my first real post tomorrow.

Alexis (right) is a junior math, English, and education major. She is treasurer of Pi Lambda Theta and a member of Writers' Theatre. Alexis updates her dry erase board on a regular basis. She enjoys polka dots and Dr. Pepper.

Alisha (left) is a sophomore with a major in Political Science and and a minor in English. She is editor of the Student Life section of the Elm, she's a member of the College Democrats, and she subconsciously wants to be a member of Writers' Theatre (she just hasn't admitted it to herself yet). Alisha likes applesauce a lot.

Claire (right) is a sophomore English major with a minor in creative writing. She writes for the Student Life section of the Elm. Claire comes with a free bonus drama major named Corey.

Erin (left) is a junior English and sociology major. She writes for the Student Life section of the Elm and for Writers' Theatre. Erin likes ducks, diagramming sentences, and ducks diagramming sentences. She's shy, and she has a tattoo to prove it.

I (right) am a junior English major with a minor in creative writing. I'm president of Writers' Theatre, and I've just decided to declare myself president of this blog. I like pink.

Kendall (left) is a sophomore Spanish major. Kendall is from Chestertown.

Laura (right) is a sophomore. She doesn't know it yet, but she is an English major. She might also be an art major. Laura is vice president of Writers' Theatre. She dries naturally.