Conor - Several Short Essays, All Intended For Different Audiences

Essay # 1
Intended Audience: Females that I'm friends with, but I don't know all the super well. The specific instance that sparked this train of thought involves Emily Eby

     Okay, hey, what's up, The Female Gender? How have you been? I just had an etiquette question I wanted to toss your way. See, I pride myself in being a good, non-threatening, non-factor guy friend. In fact, I think there's a good argument to be had that that's practically all I'm cut out to be. It's okay! I get that. So you and I, female that I know, aren't into eachother, but we get along. Let's assume all of this is true. I am, at least. I've learned to take the safe route. I may be the King Of The Friend Zone, but I'm not blind, female that I know, and I've noticed your cute friend, who's always busy having such a pretty face. She's really pretty! To put it plainly I am attracted to her, and I would like to know really anything about her. Beyond her surface level prettiness, she seems really nice and interesting! I don't know her name, even, but I've seen her around with you a few times. All I know is she spends a large percentage of her time always looking really pretty.
     So here's the question. You and I, as I stated, have an established friendship, and I don't see that changing. I guess I just don't feel that way about you! (<--- hahahaha why does that exclamation mark feel so painful) We haven't talked about this because wow what a weird conversation would that be, and I also assume you don't feel that way about me! It's not because you're less attractive than your super pretty friend that I'm working towards asking you about. It's just some x-factor about her that I'm aaallllll about. If I ask you about her, and I admit that I'm asking about her because yeah, I'd totally date her, am I being offensive to you in some way? Is this line of questioning rude because I supposedly never asked someone about you in a similar fashion? We don't know eachother extremely well, or else I would probably know who she is if she's one of your good friends, or I just wouldn't care about offending you in such a way. Do you see my dillema here?
     I want to hit on your friend (as much as I've ever hit on someone [barely enough to even classify it as hitting on someone])  without feeling bad.
     Yo Emily Eby you have a pretty friend. I saw her driving today. She has a nice smile. So do you. But like, I really like this girls smile. Am I being offensive? Damnit.

Essay # 2
Intended Audience: Robert Langellier, Cassandra Tipping

     Dear Robbie!

     Help! How do I wear a sweater vest? What do I wear it over? I wear it over something, right? I feel like I definitely don't just wear it, alone. Yeah, this definitely feels silly. It's like a classy, stupider tank top. A short sleeve button up? Is that the proper companion to this article of clothing? Maaan, I know nothing about how to pull this off. Please text me as soon as you see this. It's urgent that I learn how to do this.
                  - Completely Confused Conor!


Essay # 3
Intended Audience: Everyone who came into Pickleman's Thursday morning between the hours of 1 and 3 AM, specifically the girl who admitted to having stolen chips, a fountain drink and a serving of croutons but still somehow sounded offended that I asked her if she had stolen chips and/or a fountain drink and/or a serving of croutons.


     Fuck you. 
                    - Conor

Essay # 4
Intended Audience: Springfield, Illinois, other people having difficulty in college

     See you soon, man. I've really missed you. It's a little embarrassing how much more comfortable I am when I'm back with you. Truth be told, I've had a hard time making friends in Norman. It bothers me. I know lots of people and I like lots of people, but I'm not all that close to many people. That's part of what made this a really weird, tough year. I think I also didn't prioritize well. Living in the Leslie House, with 6 other roommates and 11 people regularly just milling around was fun, but I see now that it wasn't an environment meant for focusing. I wasted a lot of time this semester and my grades suffered for it. There was no good way for me to do things. When I was being productive and working with Redliners (the a capella group I'm now the director of) or going to the practice rooms or reading or something I felt like I was removing myself from my group of friends, and it was regularly brought up to me that "you're never around," or "aw, Conor's going to read rather than hang out" or something like that, which made me feel worse. When I would hang out, I would always be fretting about things I should be doing. Either way led me to worrying too much and preventing myself from having too much  fun.
    Towards the end of this semester I got closer to finding a mix that works for me, and it's much more heavily slanted to the work side of things than to play. I've spent several late, late nights in the MIDI computer labs recently working on compositions  and Sound Design projects, and I've been happier doing this than I have been practically all year. Even though I'm doing this things alone, even though it's not a social thing, I'm happy doing these things. I was looking at the compositional work I was putting out a year ago, and it's bad. I've gotten better! I really have. I haven't improved as much as I should have by this point though. I've put in the bare minimum of work to get by in the composition department, because I was always hanging out, or just sitting around, or something. I'm ashamed of that now. Music makes me happy, and it's awesome, simply incredible that I get to do this for school. I'm taking how lucky I am for granted, so fuck that. I don't want to take this for granted anymore.
    I don't have a lot in common with lots of people here, but I like everyone a lot. It's been sortof painful for me to see that maybe some relationships aren't going to work out very well. I don't know who to talk to about it. That's sortof the problem, see. We'll see how things go next year. I want to strengthen existing relationships and make new ones, but I'm realizing I'm willing to sacrifice that goal in order to work harder at music. My friend Michael Ray accurately called me out the other day at Norman Music Fest, saying that I'm in my element when I can just go around and give shout outs to the tons of people I know, blah blah blah. Yeah, I get a kick out of that. It's a way for me to cling on when I was better at getting to know people.
    I'm back Monday, Springfield. I'm looking forward to this summer.


Essay # 5
Intended Audience: The New Contacts I Put In Today

    As I put you into my eyes this morning I told myself that today marked a new day, a new story, a new saga. From now on I'll take my contacts out every night, I though, from now on there will be no more falling asleep with you fellas still in my eyes, getting all crusty and what have you.
    Oh my god was I lying. I'll never change. I'm weak. I'm so weak and pathetic. Slowly but surely I'll lose my eyesight- I swear I've noticed the vision in my left eye getting worse and worse! - but I am weak. Look at my Monster addiction! Never before has someone sucked so much.
    I have no one to blame but myself.


Essay # 6
Intended Audience: The Pottermore Sorting Hat

    Fuck you.
            - Conor

Norway

Last weekend I went to Norway with a friend. Specifically Bergen, Norway's second largest city with about 300,000 inhabitants. I've learned that Norwegians don't look much like Swedes but their language is almost mutually intelligible and they are equally as unlikely to smile back at you when you pass them on the street, mountain, bus, etc. Norway is also freezing. It snowed a bit while I was there and I wore a heavy coat every day.

However, Bergen has more going for it than just being a really small big city in Norway. Bergen looks like it was pulled straight out of a fairytale. The city is surrounded by seven mountains all dotted with colorful little Norwegian houses. It is full of thin, winding, brick roads, fish markets, red churches on top of hill and has a port that connects it to the Atlantic Ocean.

The sun set here takes over an hour and finally went down around 10pm which allowed for this kind of beautiful lighting much longer than anywhere in the US (excluding Alaska, I know nothing about that place)

As I mentioned before, Bergen is surrounded by seven small mountains. This has had some interesting effects on the town including the fact that everyone we saw was more fit that I will ever be at that respective age. When you have free time in Bergen you don't go to the movies or out to eat. You Hike/run/cycle up the nearest mountain. This also meant that everyone had really intimidating and fashionable sports clothes on at all times. The first people my friend and I couchsurfed with while there was a young Norwegian couple just out of college. The girl half of the couple was always going out for runs and bike rides and after seeing some swwiming gear in the bathroom we asked her if she did triathlons. She admitted that she had but wasn't very into them. Oh, but this summer she's going to do the Norse-Man AKA the hardest iron-man in the world. Fuck you Karoline of Bergen. Seriously, I hate you. Because of this girl and because the guy I was traveling with is super fit and outdoorsy, I then had to pretend that I was definitely up for climbing mountains and I certainly wouldn't complain the whole time FOUR DAYS IN A ROW. I mean, the first day was fine. I wanted to sense of accomplishment and the views were unparalleled but it took every fiber in my being by day 4 to not admit that hiking another mountain didn't sound fun even a little bit and I just wanted to watch TV all day. I'm so fit! I'm the perfect girl!

Being connected to the Atlantic Ocean, Bergen is also connected to the reason why everyone in the world should visit Norway: the fjords.

A fjord is a thin inlet of water surrounded by steep cliffs. In The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy the character Slartibartfast is given an award for hand carving all of the fjords on Norway. These things are some the most beautiful landscapes in the entire world. Real talk. I paid more money than a day trip should ever cost to go on a boat trip through some of these and all I could think while surrounded by the steep cliffs and clear water was "well this exists". Along some of the prettiest  parts were some little 300-person villages tucked in the valleys and you have to wonder whether the inhabitants of those villages even appreciate the fact that they live in a Thomas Kinkade painting.

I'll calm down now. But you should really google image search these fjords. Anyway, Norway is a fairytale land. It's also cold and often cloudy, has complete darkness for a couple weeks in the winter and the sun never sets for a couple weeks in the summer. That shit cray.

Mada