College: Some Thoughts from a Guy Who's Trying Real Hard to Become a Professor-type Person

[Note: Conor called me at 10:39 on Friday evening asking me to pinch hit for him for his Friday Classic Brian. But, since the last time he called me and said, "So...do you want to do me a favor?" he asked me to stick my hand in a toilet, swish it around, and flush it, with the phone near enough that the sounds could be heard, this seemed like a relatively minor task, so here goes.]

Considering that most of the people writing and (I think?) reading this blog are in college, I thought it might be interesting to give you a few thoughts about college from someone who's been through it as a student and is now going through it again as a graduate student/teaching assistant. As an undergrad, I majored in English and minored in music and theatre at Truman State; as a PhD student, I teach freshman writing and TA at Loyola University Chicago and will start teaching low level lit classes next spring as well. Here are some thoughts based on those experiences.

Do not underestimate the importance of the first impression you make on your professors. Your punctuality, attentiveness, preparedness, and quality of work in the first month probably shouldn't be more important than those of the third month of the semester, but realistically speaking, they most likely are. I don't know any professors who actively count those sorts of things more at the beginning, but all the 'firsts' of the first month or so of the semester are what a professor uses to develop their picture of you - the picture which will form the context for everything else you do in their class. If, in month three, something goes wrong in terms of attendance, turning in a paper, etc., you want the professor to think, "Oh, that's so unlike them," not "Here we go again." Make sure that they see good habits as the rule with you, and slip-ups as the exception. Again, this is an intangible, because I don't know anyone who is actively biased in this way, but I suspect that, to varying degrees, a first impression can have a significant impact on your overall credibility with your professors. If you have a really stellar first month, and slip up a few times in month three, I'm willing to bet that it'll hurt you less than if you have a sloppy first month and do fine in month three (when the prof probably already feels they 'know' you and is paying more attention to other things). Note that this is probably less true of papers than of, say, punctuality, attendance, and reading preparation. I recommend that you always be prepared all the time, but realistically speaking, if you're going to try extra hard sometime, do it early.

If you miss a class: 1) Do NOT tell the professor something really stupid, like "I just had so much going on that day" or "Don't worry, I'll always be on time on Wednesdays because I have to get up at 6:00 for my fraternity" (both of which are excuses given to professors I know this semester). Saying nothing is better than saying something that makes you look like a moron. 2) It's a toss-up whether it's better to give a true, albeit unhelpful explanation ("I just overslept") or say nothing. Either one maintains your integrity, so I'd say it's up to you. 3) If you do think you have a pretty good reason for your absence, feel free to explain it to your professor, but don't do so in a way that makes it sound like you think they OBVIOUSLY should ignore their own syllabus to excuse your absence - many professors might cut you some slack (or might leave some slack in the syllabus), but approaching anyone with power over you with an attitude that reeks of entitlement can only hurt you. A humbler approach is more likely to work in your favor. 4)If your professor has a few 'free' skips built into the syllabus, then generally you don't need to excuse them, and silence is fine. But keep in mind that if you use them as blow-off days and then you get sick when you're out of skips, you may well get burned.
Also, if you're leaving a day early or coming back a day late from a break (Thanksgiving, Spring Break, etc.), DON'T give some lame excuse about some other unlikely thing that has come up at the last minute that, honestly, for reals, has nothing to do with the fact that this is the last class period before break. It just makes you look dishonest. If something like this actually DOES come up, you might consider silence or you might consider saying, 'Look, I realize this sounds unlikely, but XYZ came up. I understand if you still need to treat it like any other day-before-break absence, but I just wanted you to know it wasn't intentional' or something like that. Again, judgment call.


Think hard about what you want from college - a lot of things that aren't advertised or offered are possible if you pursue them assertively (but without an attitude of entitlement). When I was in undergrad, I REALLY wanted to take a playwriting class that had been offered a couple of years before I was around to take it. I went to the professor and told her that I was very interested in playwriting and hoped very much she might be able to offer the class again before I graduated. She was flattered by the interest, and also interested in teaching the course again, I think, and as it turned out, she was able to get it on the schedule for my last spring semester. That semester, there were two courses I really wanted to take - 1) Advanced Creative (Fiction) Writing and 2) Playwriting. I was worried that they might be at the same time, so the semester before, when the schedules were in the process of being made, I spoke to both professors and they were able to find out the tentative course times for me - lo and behold, they overlapped, making it impossible to take both. I asked if the times were set in stone - the ACW class was, as it turned out, but the PW class wasn't (yet), and the professor told me if I could find a time that worked in her schedule and the department's schedule, etc., she'd consider requesting they move the time. I found a time that she actually liked better than the original time, and everyone was happy. However, this would not have been possible if I hadn't been proactive. Now, this exact situation would probably not be as easy to arrange at a larger university like OU or U of I, but the general point still holds - a lot of things are possible that aren't obvious if you know what you want, educate yourself about them in advance, interact respectfully, and pursue your goals. No one has time to do this with everything, though, so you have to think about your priorities and then pro-actively protect them. Similarly, this semester as a grad student, a class I was supposed to teach got cancelled for administrative reasons at the last minute; long story short, having to rearrange my semester on three days notice meant I might fall 3-4 months behind in my time-to-graduation (by having to prolong my coursework by a summer or semester), but by being assertive but respectful and working with the department administration and, through them, the graduate school administration, I was able to get the issue fixed without losing any time. This was after what had looked like (and been presented to me as) a couple of dead ends, but I figured I had nothing to lose by thinking up my own solutions, and happily, one of them worked out for everyone. In summary - know what you want, respectfully go after it, and some of the time, at least, things will probably work out better than if you just go with the flow of what the system presents to you.

On a related note, if you want something from college that your school doesn't offer, think about starting it yourself. I heard about 24-Hour Theater from a friend at Bradley University, so I started it at Truman. My wife Michelle really wanted to do some children's theatre work, so she petitioned for an independent study course, got a professor to agree to oversee it, talked to a local elementary school and partnered with a teacher and his class, and did a really cool semester-long theater project with 20-odd fifth-graders and maybe 5-10 theatre students. On a larger scale, Chicano Studies programs, Women's Studies programs, and many other university classes, programs, and departments now available to you were first formed after students demanded them (in various ways and at various decibel levels, figuratively speaking). Again, the message here is, decide what you want, and decide how to get it - the way things work right now isn't the only way they can work, though institutions often change slowly, if at all.

This goes for professors as well. Not all professors are equally clear about their expectations, grading criteria, attendance policies, etc. Think about what you want to know, and go after the info in an assertive but respectful way, but think about how you'll come off first. You don't want to be the guy who says "How many free skips do we get?" in class - that will never help you. Also, asking "Will this be on the test?" will probably never help you. Sometimes you might learn that it's not on the test, but sometimes that question will get it put ON the test, and it always makes you look like someone who wants to do the least work possible. Most of us do, at some level, want to be efficient with our time, but you have to think about image, too. Ask "How would you recommend we study for the test?" rather than "Will this be on the test?" It gets you essentially the same info without making you look bad. If a professor's term paper prompt (or other assignment) is unclear, poorly written, etc., consider tactfully asking for more specifics in class, after class, or in office hours. If their response is still unhelpful, consider asking if you can look over a good example from a previous class or something like that, so you can be sure you have an understanding of what kind of work you're being asked to do. If that fails, too, your obvious options are limited, but I might suggest trying to track down someone who's had that prof in a previous semester to get their opinion on what the prof is looking for. As a teacher and a writing center tutor, I can tell you that easily half of what is wrong with student papers is failure to actually address the assignment called for in the prompt. Sometimes it's because the student hasn't carefully read (or properly understood) the prompt, and sometimes it's because the prompt is bad or unclear, but it's always bad news for your paper if you don't address the issue soon in your writing process.

If you're emailing a professor, ALWAYS format the email formally, and make sure if you have a 'signature' tacked on to all your emails, that it isn't super casual. Consider any written communication with a professor a professional communication - not all professors care, but most prefer to have "Dear Prof. xxxxx" at the top and something like "Sincerely, namenamename" at the bottom, and it can occasionally hurt your image with the professor to send them a really sloppy email. On a related note, especially once you start thinking about internships, jobs, study abroad programs, etc., make sure that your voicemail recording is professional and informative. My sophomore year I studied abroad in London. one day I checked my voicemail and had a message from someone in London about the program; they sounded a bit annoyed, and I realized it's because before they could leave their message, they had to listen to a 30-second recording of 'Springtime for Hitler and Germany' from the Producers soundtrack. Change your message before that happens.

Know that your professors are busy, and it's sometimes easy to slip through the cracks in their attention or annoy them by wasting their time. Don't email with questions whose answers are on the syllabus - that hurts you. You have a right to use their office hours to get help, but make sure you're doing so in a time-efficient manner, and if you make an appointment, don't blow it off. Everyone appreciates a person who makes it evident that they take your time seriously and don't want to waste it.

Note from a writing teacher: if your paper doesn't (implicitly or explicitly) answer the questions "So what?" and/or "Who cares?" with regard to your topic and thesis, it's probably not a very good paper and you should rework, at the very least, your intro and conclusion. Also, the conclusion of your first draft often functions well as the introduction of your second draft, allowing you to finish with a more complex and insightful conclusion the second time around (that takes the first conclusion as its starting point).

Be as careful with credit cards (and debt in general) as you possibly can in college. I know way, way, way too many people who got in more debt than they needed to by thinking "Well, I'll just put it on a card and pay it bit by bit - it's only a couple thousand dollars, that's not too bad," and who are still paying now and/or are trying to avoid bankruptcy and/or spent ten (or more) miserable years sending most of their disposable income to credit card companies. They are, if not evil, at least highly dangerous corporations that have make many a person's life a living hell for quite some time. Be careful around them. Also, if someone at a desk in the Student Union says you get a free pizza (etc.) if you fill out your info for a credit card application, but that doing so doesn't mean you're approved and get a card, so don't worry, DO NOT DO IT. They are not telling the truth (whether they know it or not), and you WILL end up with a credit card you probably don't want and that is hard to get rid of. Worse, if you don't know it's coming and just throw it out as junk mail, someone could find it and use it to rack up money under your name (I know people to whom this has happened). I know college = debt for most, but handle your debt with the utmost care.

Read your professors carefully, figure out what kind of prof they are, what they prioritize, what they don't care as much about, what they're good at, what they're bad at, and use that information to ensure that your experiences with them go smoothly. Professors, like all teachers, have very different skill sets (and competence levels) and you need to be able to work as effectively as possible with all kinds, even the bad ones (though avoiding those is a better idea when possible). This is also good practice for bosses later on.

Writing teacher talking again: plagiarizing well takes about as much effort as writing well. If someone fails at plagiarizing well, they're screwed. If they fail at writing well, they do okay-ish. Plagiarizing is not worth it. They might get away with it from time to time, but it only takes getting caught once to really, really screw someone, and frankly, they have it coming, because everything they do to cheapen their degree also cheapens your degree in the eyes of everyone who looks at their lazy, corner-cutting work later in life and thinks, "They graduated from _____?? I thought that place had standards," and then values your degree a little less as a result.

Take your end-of-course evaluations seriously. Most professors value and adapt in response to detailed, thoughtfully-written student evaluations; evals that are one or two sloppy sentences are easily ignored and frankly not that helpful to you or anyone else, whether they're positive or negative. This is a chance for you to tell the professor and their superiors how they're doing - use it! I know of situations in which a professor has had their course load shifted away from a course they taught particularly poorly twice in a row (as the thoughtful student evals indicated). If you didn't like how a prof did, your eval will be taken more seriously if it is fair and well-explained and less seriously if it is vindictive, personally attacking, and generally mean-spirited.

Well, I think that's probably enough for now. However, if you have other college-related questions for someone who's on my end of things, feel free to post them in the comments and I will be happy to respond!

Sean O'Brien (for Conor O'Brien)

Nick - Zombie Snowpocalypse Part VII: The Final Struggle

Robert looked back out the window at the rising sun. For the first time, they had a reason to fight. Finally, a purpose. As Robert began folding the paper back up, a small red dot appeared in his matted, unwashed hair. A shot fired, and Robert slumped to the ground, dead.

There was an eerie, chilling silence. It felt like they stood in shock for several minutes, but it was no more than a fraction of a second before Nick screamed, “Everyone, MOVE!” and dived onto the two girls, all three of them tumbling out into the hallway and out of sight of any windows.

More silence.

All three of them heard a faint whirring which became more distant as they listened. Nick furrowed his brow, unsure as to the source of the noise.

“That sounds like the helicopter that came to rescue us...” Mada timidly suggested.

They poked their heads back into the room. Carnage was everywhere. Brendan lay in the far corner, a bullet wound in the back of his head. Eliot lay covered by a sheet from the bed. Mada averted her eyes before they could tear up, and looked toward Robert, most recently slain of the group.

Robert lay slumped partway against the bed. His hair was rugged and unwashed, and his T-shirt and button-up still held their casual and nonchalant look. He had become an icon of survival; he had given up all semblance of civility, he had killed without remorse, and still he had fallen in the end. His aviators lay on the floor in front of him, one lens cracked.

“Look at this...” Nick said, pointing towards Robert’s motionless body. “The bullet went clean through him. It went in his forehead and out through his lower back. Which means...”

“I did hear a helicopter!” Mada interjected. “He had to have been shot from above. But... who would want to kill Robert? And why didn’t they come for us?” As she spoke, her head turned to Brendan’s lifeless form. “And why were you and Brendan so eager to kill each other!? Hasn’t there been enough violence!?” Her voice became shaky as she began to think of her fallen lover. If only Eliot hadn’t died... they were meant to be together...

Nick faltered as tears began to run down Mada’s face. “Listen, we need to pull together if we’re going to get through this. Please stop crying. I don’t know why anyone would come for Robert. I thought maybe you would know seeing as how I’ve been kind of out of the loop this whole time. You guys did basically abandon me after all. Please, please stop crying.”

Mada regained control of herself. She would have to think about Eliot at a later time.

“And here’s the deal with Brendan. He knew this whole thing was coming. I don’t know how. I heard him talking on the phone with Conor about the optimal temperature for the creation of zombies, so I subdued him any way I could. I didn’t want to kill him, but he was obviously up to something. He was dangerous. I tried to get you guys to come rescue us so that I could capture him and Conor and then find out what’s been going on.” Nick paused, looking around the room. “But now they’re both dead. And apparently Brian was in on this somehow too, judging from that note.”

Mada was silent. It was hard to believe that Conor, who had tried his hardest to lead them through the outbreak, was behind all of this. And to imagine that Brendan was also guilty was also difficult to swallow.

Semas had also been standing silently, but she looked a little more self-aware, as if whatever drug Brian had slipped to her was finally wearing off. Finally, she broke the silence.

“You... you saved us. You pushed us out of the room.” She said, while moving in to give Nick a grateful hug.

“Er... yeah... but... I don’t think they were really... looking for us anyway...” Nick mumbled as he awkwardly received her embrace. It is a little known fact that Nick is the worst at flirting of the entire Classic Brian cast, which is quite a feat in itself.

The group took what little supplies they had. Nick pocketed Brendan’s iPod, which had remained on Robert’s lifeless body. He also took Conor’s note, which Robert had still been clutching when he had been shot. He wrapped some clothes around his leg to help the bleeding.

“I guess we’re headed for Norman, Oklahoma.” Mada said. Nick nodded in silent agreement, and Semas followed seemingly without knowing or caring what was going on.

They stopped in an abandoned department store and found winter coats. Nick changed out of his girls’ clothes into a badass leather jacket. He kept the slightly bloodstained Oakley’s he had taken from Brian. He then picked up a pair of scissors.

“We’re going to have to travel light. I’m going to need to be more aerodynamic.”

The group stood in silence as Nick cut off his long hair. He stood before them more confident, agile, and sexy than ever before. Then the group set off again.

Hordes of zombies were rarer now; it seemed that with less people to eat, the weak ones were slowly dying off. After a long journey, they found a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle with flowery brake lights and keys still in the ignition. They set out for Oklahoma listening to a torturous amount of Taylor Swift, because Mada was riding shotgun and therefore in charge of the radio.

As the group arrived in Norman, they noticed that it was far colder and far zombie-er than the rest of the trip had been. This place was the source. This is where it was all going to come down.

“I’m picking up a weird radio signal. It’s interrupting my horrible, horrible taste in music.” Mada said.

Nick looked out the window. There were zombies surrounding them, but they seemed totally oblivious to the car full of human flesh. The hordes were traveling somewhere, as if they were being directed.

“This might be a stretch,” said Nick, “But those zombies are clearly headed somewhere. Maybe the radio signal is directing them...?”

“Then all we have to do is follow the zombies to find out where this is coming from!” Mada interjected.

Semas sat quietly in the back seat and said nothing. Although the drugs Brian had given her had worn off, she was still quiet and scared out of her mind by the whole situation.

After following the zombies to the center of campus, the ended up outside the music building. Zombies were packed all around it, standing completely still, unable to get in due to the metal fence surrounding the building.

“That’s where this is coming from. I think we just need to get inside that building and we’ll find out what’s been going on.” Said Nick, not letting the hordes of zombies around them break through his calm demeanor.

“I don’t know if we should do this,” Mada said, “Maybe we should stop and make a list of our options.”

“There’s only one way in,” Nick responded. “Besides, no one likes reading your lists.”

It was a risky move, but the trio got out of the car amidst the horde of zombies. They walked slowly through the eery crowd to the short fence, which was easily climbable for a human but prevented the zombies from entering due to their poor agility. Mada hops over the fence with her cat-like agility. Nick puts his hand on the it, preparing to crawl over.

The zombies attack.

Mada screams, Nick jumps over the fence, and Semas flails in panic as the zombies crowd around her. Nick and Mada reach over and pull her over to the other side, but not before she is bitten several times.

“NICK! WHAT DO WE DO!?” Mada screams. Semas stands, dumbfounded. Mada gets out machine gun she had taken from Eliot’s body.

“No.” Nick said, putting out his hand. “We have this.” He holds up the flask; all that remains of Cory’s miraculous, hallucinogenic serum. “She’ll be tripping balls for a few hours, but at least she’ll survive.” He pours the contents of the serum into Semas’ mouth. She returns to the silent, out-of-touch state she had been in back when they rescued her from Brian’s tyrannical clutches.

Mada and Nick shared a long, passionate glance. At least as passionate as eye contact can be through a pair of sunglasses. Nick threw down the empty bottle of serum and clutched his knife. Mada held onto her machine gun; there was still a little bit of ammo she had been saving. Semas deliriously clutched her broadsword. The three stepped into the musical fortress.

Blackness.

It was totally dark inside the building. Mada led the way with her gun in hand.

All the lights came on suddenly, blinding the trio. Mada screamed.

Nick took control, protected by his powerful sunglasses. “Mada! It’s okay. The lights must be automatic. Everything’s fine.”

They looked around. The room looked like an experiment gone horribly wrong. It was filled with strange machines. Through the smoke and debris around them they could still see a shadowy figure on the other side of the room.

“I’ve been expecting you.” A voice rang out and the figure stepped forward into the light. “How do you like the new world I’ve created?”

And then Mada sees his face. Covered in tattered flesh like a zombie, the face is somehow familiar. It’s the face of a friend of hers... or one that looks like it. It’s hard to explain how similar yet dissimilar the zombified face looked.

“It’s impossible!” Mada shouted.

It’s Conor. Zombie Conor. His flesh was tattered and pale. There was a large bullet wound in the back of his head.

“How are you... what happened? They said you were dead.” Nick stuttered.

“Allow me to explain.” Said Conor, menacingly. “I was new here in this town. Winter was at my door. I was terrified. And lonely. I didn’t have any friends here in Oklahoma. So I thought, why not create my own friends? I thought I could control people. I got funding from the school to do this science project.”

“But,” Nick interjected, “How did you find time to do all of this?”

“Simple,” Conor scoffed, “I’m a music major. I don’t have any real work to do. Anyway, I was working on my experiment. But then the dean came to visit, and he disapproved. They were going to cut my funding. I had to launch my plan early, and I couldn’t really control people. I could just, uh... sortof zombify them I guess. When my plan backfired, it began to spread. I came back to Springfield to save you guys. AND YOU SHOT ME IN THE HEAD.”

His voice echoed through the large room. The trio listened to the echo grow smaller and smaller each time it repeated.

“Conor... I’m sorry... I didn’t...” Mada tried to explain it, but the words wouldn’t come out. She had, after all, shot him. She could understand his anger.

“But... how are you alive?” Nick asked.

“Well, I had been working on fixing this mess. I developed a way to make zombies that could be controlled. That could talk and act like a normal person. I even trained a few to fly helicopters and shoot guns. I injected myself with a vaccine that would kick in if I were bit by a zombie; I would turn into one of my improved zombies instead of a mindless monster. Of course, I didn’t expect it to be as necessary as it was. It was merely a precautionary measure.”

“So what you’re saying...” Nick started, “is that you can fix this? That the zombies can be stopped? I’m so glad we made it here to talk to you!”

“Oh no,” chuckles Conor, “I think you misunderstand me. I’m not going to turn my lovely hordes of killers into peaceful creatures... I’m going to turn everyone into one of my zombies, and then I will rule over all of them! Plus, uh, I sortof still have a craving for human flesh. I couldn’t work around that side effect.”

Conor burst into maniacal laughter. Mada took aim and fired the last ammunition from her machine gun into him, but the bullets all impacted the dead flesh of his legs with a dull thud.

Conor called out to a doorway behind him. “Assemble, my minions! Our ultimate battle team cannot be stopped: Final Fiendish Faceoff Friends, assemble!”

And from the doorway behind him came zombie Eliot and zombie Brian. Mada began to sob, and called out to Eliot.

“Eliot! I love you! Remember when we went to prom together?”

Zombie Eliot was oblivious to her cries, as he was firmly under Conor’s control.

“We’re going to kill you and eat you.” Said zombie Eliot. “We’re going to keat you!!”

The Final Fiendish Faceoff Friends attacked all at once, and began to run at Nick Mada and Semas.

“Wow.” Nick remarked critically, “You guys are terrible at fighting. What kind of strategy is that? Did you even think this out at all? I mean, you should be running long range attacks on Eliot instead of Conor.  And you clearly didn’t stock up on items before you started this fight.”

Mada and Semas ganged up on Brian, while Nick stood back and healed them.

“Man,” Nick remarked bitterly, “I hate being the white mage.”

“Go to sleep!!” Brian shouted as he lunged with his knife.

“Hey Brian!” Nick shouted, “I’m deriving serious pleasure from fighting you. I’m really enjoying it.”

“Ha! Your spite trick won’t work on me. I’m not going to take myself out just to spite you.” Brian responded.

Mada jumped into the conversation. “Zombie Robert would have been dedicated enough to do it!”

“Dammit!” Shouted Brian, as he put himself to sleep with his knife out of spite.

The trio turned to Conor and Eliot.

“Muahaha! You may have taken out Brian, but it’s getting late. Once we reach three in the morning, I’ll be filled with unstoppable grumpy rage!”

“Oh yeah,” said Zombie Eliot, “You do get kind of bitchy when you’re tired. Like on that acid trip I had.”

“Hey Conor!” Said Nick, waving Brendan’s iPod in front of him, “I was just talking to the zombies outside and they haven’t heard any Band Practice songs.”

“What... really? Well... can I borrow that iPod for a minute?” Conor took the iPod and hurried outside to show the zombies his music.

“Ha! Conor is a terrible villain.” Nick exclaimed, “Well Mada, according to that letter, there should be a way to stop the Zombie Snowpocalypse in here somewhere. I bet it’s deeper in the base. ...Mada?”

Nick turned to see Mada running toward Eliot with open arms.

“Oh Eliot, I missed you so much! Being around Robert and Brian for so long made me realize what a real man you are! They always try and pretend that they’re cool and confident... but you don’t have to pretend, Eliot. You’re comfortable with who you are, and I love you for it.”

With that, Mada jumped into zombie Eliot’s arms and proceeded to make out with him passionately. The only problem was that Eliot was, in fact, a zombie and was actually just trying to eat her face. The two were disgustingly intertwined, Mada filled with love and Eliot filled with a deep hunger for mortal flesh. The scene was startlingly similar to the “sex” scene which had been chronicled with disgusting detail in Eliot’s acid trip, except that Mada probably wouldn’t survive it. As Eliot consumed Mada’s face, Nick pulled Semas away from the adorable/gruesome scene and ran further into the fortress.

Nick was in bad shape. His injuries from the days previous pretty much prevented him from fighting. Semas could only protect him for so long in her drugged state. As the two of them dashed into the next room, Zombie Robert stood in front of them, his bullet wound still bleeding and one lens of his aviators cracked.

“You know,” said zombie Robert, “Working for Conor sucks.”

“Will you let us through?” Asked Nick. It was, admittedly, a stupid question.

“Well...” Thought Robert, “What’s in it for me? I mean, I would let you through, but it’s going to take some serious persuasion to make me ignore the big plot hole. Conor went to Springfield when he could have just stopped the zombies from here? Plus it was never explained why he sent people to kill me but not you. I mean, come on. What shoddy story writing.”

After some negotiating, Nick hesitantly agreed to give Robert Semas in return for passage. She was still totally clueless about what was going on.

“Okay, thanks!” Said Robert, taking his new acquisition with him. “I never even liked Band Practice that much anyway. Your leg is bleeding, by the way.”

As Nick advanced past Robert, he could hear him talking to Semas. “You’re going to be the new Hannah. First I’m going to dye your hair, and then teach you how to do improv, and then make you a Bears fan...”

As Nick hobbled into the last room, a giant computer screen towered above him. It appeared to have the controls for the zombie program on the display. “I’ve got to get to that monitor!” Nick shouted aloud.

“Luckily, I’ve been monitoring your progress!”

Brendan dropped down from the ceiling. He had become a horrifying bird-zombie reminiscent of the Birdndan from Eliot’s imagination. Also, apparently his puns are worse when he is undead.

“Out of my way, Brendan. I’m sorry about what happened between us, but I need to get to that terminal!”

“That’s not the only thing that’s terminal!” Quipped Brendan cleverly, as he left a probably-fatal gash in Nick’s shoulder with his talons.

Nick fell to the ground. Too injured to stand, he could only pray for a deus ex machina. As hopelessness overtook him, he heard a CRASH as someone burst through a wall. (It was a really quick deus ex machina.) Nick and The Birdndan stared open mouthed at the one person they hadn’t expected to see.

“What kind of titty-munching pussy gives up after one hit from this asshat?”

It was Roy Schribner.

“You go ahead,” He said, “I’ll take real good fucking care of this dick-tree.”

Nick crawled up to the computer. He could hear the sound of The Birdndan and Roy Schribner fighting behind him. He guessed Conor’s password (it was “<3 U Rhett”) and found the zombie deactivate button. As he clicked the button, he began to fall in and out of consciousness. Would the button turn the zombies back? Or stop their spread? Or would they all just fall down? It’s really weird how unclear that was. The last thing Nick heard before passing out was a victory cry as the fight behind him ended...

“ScHrIbNiZzZzZ!!!!!!!”

Outside, snow fell. Debris from the crisis lay everywhere. Zombie Snowpocalypse.

CREDITS.

Zombie Snowpocalypse Part III: Breaking the Ice

by Brendan Cavanagh

Blackness.

Brief shots of the faces of each member of the Classic Brian team fade in and out of view.  Faint screams are heard.  Scenes from the previous two movies similarly fade in and out in silence- Zombie Brian and Zombie Chief Illiniwek simultaneously sprinting in slow motion...a bullet-ridden Birdndan (half-Brendan, half-bird) somersaulting into a field from the skies...the remains of Eliot and Mada's cannibalistic frenzy- what looks like a small pile of ground meat with an outstretched hand, its extended fingers positioned in the style of a perfect Gb dim chord...

"Eliot."

(slap)

"Eliot!"

(slap)

"Eliot, wake up, damn it!"

With one final powerful backhand, Brendan managed to revive Eliot from his feverish slumber.  Eliot slowly regained consciousness and struggling, was able to sit upright and face Brendan and Mada.  Eliot saw the concerned, loving look in Mada's tear-strewn eyes and knew immediately something had gone wrong.  Brendan saw that look, too.  He felt awkward continually being involved in situations like this.  It was always weird to be around those two.

"What happened?"  he asked hastily.  "How are you alive, Brendan?  I shot you out of the sky the other day!"

Brendan and Mada exchanged quick looks of bemused surprise and smirked.  Brendan turned back to face Eliot, who by now had pulled out his phone to check something.

"Eliot, if you're looking for NFL updates again, I'm going to have to take your phone away from you...though I don't know why you still have it.  The zombie outbreak was worse than we thought.  It's already broken out of the U.S. and into surrounding countries.  Eliot, I'm sorry, but...there isn't going to be a Super Bowl.  The Green Bay Packers have nothing left but a couple third string tackles.  They're zombies though.  You've been out of it ever since we ran into Cory.  Do you remember when he gave us that 'serum?'"

"Of course," Eliot replied.  "That was right before we moved on and fought those zombie cows...and you turned into a bird and I killed you!...and we went back to U of I and I fought off Chief Illiniwek and Zombie Brian...and Mada killed Conor with a katana...and we ate him...."  His voice began to fade as he realized how cartoonish and overtly metaphoric it all seemed now in hindsight.

"Eliot, you tripped balls," Brendan interjected with a laugh.  "Cory forgot that he put a bunch of acid in his PBR.  You lost it, man!  I think you must have had too much for your build- the rest of us just laid on tree branches and listened to Animal Collective for a few hours."

"So...so none of that actually happened?  Eliot couldn't believe it.  "But it all seemed so real..."

 "Hey man, don't worry about it.  At least you didn't ride off naked on a fixed-gear bicycle like Cory did.  It's just the three of us now.  But I'm glad you're better.  We couldn't go on without you."  Brendan placed his hand on Eliot's shoulder and the two shared a knowing look.  They both knew how much they needed each other in these desperate times.

"When you two queers are done having a moment, maybe you'd like to take a look up there."  They turned to see Mada pointing at the sun, which until now had remained invisible for a number of weeks.  As they looked around them, they realized the layers of ice on the trees and ground, once inches thick, were beginning to melt.  With exclamations of relief, the three exchanged high fives and hugs.  When it came time for Eliot and Mada to share their joy, they stopped and stared intently into each others' eyes.

"I'm really glad you were there for me.  I...I don't know how I could face these zombies and bitter temperatures without you."  Mada could tell Eliot wasn't feigning appreciation for her like he normally would.

She responded to his words with a hint of teeth and said, "Yeah you're pretty useless on your own."  She chuckled.

Eliot guffawed at her joke perhaps a little louder than he should have, looked down at his feet and then back to Mada, and uttered a somewhat lame, "Yeah."

Brendan's eyes darted back and forth.  He wasn't sure the other two realized he was still present.  This was, without a doubt, the most awkward situation in which he had ever been involved.  He wanted to clear his throat, or even leave them alone- somehow break the unbelievably tortuous tension, but he was frozen on the spot in awe of what transpired next.

Eliot closed his eyes and craned his head just slightly to the side as if to signal that he was going to kiss Mada, finally manifesting the unspoken attraction between the two, though he stood no less than three feet away from her.  She instantly picked up on his intentions though, and began to lean in to kiss him.  It was a far lean though, being three feet away.  As her lips sailed slowly towards his, Eliot began sort of wetly writhing his lips in a mixture of anticipation and expectation- Brendan had a feeling that Eliot thought that he was already kissing Mada.  She soon found her way there though, and the two began to make strange, albeit passionate grunting sounds.  Their feet planted firmly on the ground, their arms held tight to their sides, the two kissed for several minutes, all the while still grunting, with the occasional intermittent "Yeah" from Eliot.  Brendan knew this moment was a special one, for the film-goers and for the other two, but he couldn't help but wonder if either of them had ever been kissed before.

He soon could take no more of this awkward situation, so he pointed his gun towards the horizon and fired a couple rounds.  "Oh sorry guys, I thought I just saw a zombie.  My bad.  We should probably get going before it gets too late."  At this, Eliot and Mada promptly ended their make out session and joined him on the now muddy road.  Eliot held back for a moment to walk beside his buddy, letting Mada go ahead without him.

"Brendan.  Hey.  Mada and I just had sex."  Brendan could see the enthusiastic naivete and pride in Eliot's countenance and didn't have the heart to correct him.  He gave Eliot a halfhearted pat on the back and said, "Congratulations, man.  I'm real proud of you."  He then proceeded to roll his eyes upon turning away, thoroughly aware of the fact that the fate of the three remaining members of the Classic Brian team was in his hands now.  His thoughts wandered and soon settled upon his recently brief foray into anti-zombie gang life back in Springfield, and he began to get overly sentimental.

Damn, he thought, I never should have left those guys for this.  I mean, they were all essentially bandwagon-jumpers the way they so conventionally killed those zombies and listened to Dave Matthews Band.  And I was always unhappy, but...I sort of miss being unhappy in Springfield.

But he trudged on nonetheless.  Eliot and Mada may have been sexually misguided, but they were his good friends, and he knew he was safe as long as he remained with them.

Just as he started to get sentimental about his current situation, a blood-curdling, high-pitched scream broke out ahead.  It was Eliot.  He was jumping up and down and waving frantically towards a patch of nearby woods, from which an enormous pack of zombies emerged.  He grabbed Mada's hand and placed it in his, and they and Brendan fled from the mob down the road into a quaint, dilapidated chapel.  Brendan left Eliot and Mada to barricade all points of entry while he scaled the adjacent bell tower, at the top of which he would hole up and pick off the advancing horde.

The zombies quickly surrounded the chapel in snarling and drooling unison.  Brendan noted how similar this situation was to his daily experiences in the cafeteria at his old high school.  He placed the earphones of his iPod in his ears, turned on "Gimme Shelter" to get him pumped, picked up his sniper rifle and took aim.  He singled out a rather surly looking adolescent pounding on the frail stained glass.  He located the zombie's head in his cross hairs.  Through the scope he could see the boy was wearing blue and orange braces, probably a fan of the Illini.  He took aim and muttered, "Smile, you son of a bitch" before blowing the boy's head clean off his body.  A few of the surrounding zombies lunged at the headless corpse and fought over the meatiest bits.  Brendan saw one fending off another from its meal with a severed hand.  Locating the second zombie in his sights, Brendan said, "Need a hand?" and shot him in the head.  For good measure, he decided he should kill the first zombie, who was now triumphantly pounding his chest while also eating the hand he had just used to beat off his friend.  "You can't always get what you want," said Brendan (he was on a Rolling Stones kick) before he shot the zombie in the head.

Meanwhile, Eliot and Mada were having less success.  They had two bullets left in their sole revolver and tens of zombies thrusting their hands and heads through the makeshift barricades.  Eliot turned to Mada with tears in his eyes.  "Mada," he said solemnly, "I don't think we're gonna make it like this.  There's no way Brendan can take out all these zombies, and they're gonna break in here anyway and kill us.  I think we should-"

"No!  Eliot, I won't let you," interjected Mada.  "I won't let you shoot yourself.  I love you too much to have to watch that happen.  I'll...I'll do it first.  That way I don't have to see your beautiful brains spurt out of the side of your skull and onto this organ."

"No!  Mada, no, that's not what I was going to say at all," replied Eliot.  "No, I was going to suggest we go through that door and join Brendan up in the bell tower.  He's got more ammo.  And possibly grenades."

"Oh," replied Mada.  "Yeah that's a good idea."

And the pair of them ascended the adjacent bell tower, where they found Brendan pretending his rifle was a guitar, jamming out to some Bob Dylan song.  They could tell it was Bob Dylan because the sound of harmonica was blasting from his ears.  He clearly did not hear them enter the room, what with his hearing impairment.  They watched for a couple minutes as he alternated air-guitaring and picking off zombies, repeatedly uttering the cheesiest puns every time he successfully killed one.  For instance, after he blew one's head off, he pompously yelled out, "You may have been an A student in life, but as a zombie, you got NO BRAINS! AHAHAHAHA!"

Eventually, Eliot and Mada could take no more of this low form of humor, so they cautiously approached their friend and tapped him on the shoulder to signal his attention.  Shocked by the appearance of his friends, Brendan tripped over his iPod cord and accidentally dropped his rifle out the window, but not before it went off and shot Eliot in the foot.  Mada screamed and rushed to see what she could do about to stop the blood.  Fighting back tears, she turned to Brendan and yelled accusingly, "You idiot!  Look what you did!"

Eliot winced as she took his shoe and sock off his injured foot.  He looked up at Brendan, and then looked back to Mada and said calmly, "It's alright Ma, I'm only bleeding."  Brendan, in actuality the only person in that bell tower who knew that that was the title of a Bob Dylan song, began to laugh raucously.  He was joined by Eliot, who in fact didn't realize he just made a great reference, but he laughed uproariously anyway.  It turns out that he thought now, as he broke the tension between his friends, was the appropriate time to break out his pet name for his new unspoken girlfriend.

"Well, I guess we're screwed now guys,"  said Brendan rather gravely after he finished laughing.  He looked out at the setting sun in deep contemplation.  He realized this was the first sunset he had seen in weeks.  Although the sun was fading out of view, he knew that he could depend on seeing it again in only a few hours.  Unfortunately he couldn't say the same for his Classic Brian brethren.  He thought of each of his fallen comrades: Conor- His Friday murder by Mada's hand really set the tone for the weekend.  Nick, who's usually there to pull things together after the weekend, died tragically the following Monday.  Then there was that one weekend when Brian and Robert decided to double team a pack of advancing zombies, sacrificing themselves to save the others.  Brendan would miss them.  But sooner rather than later, it seemed, he and the other two survivors would probably meet similar demises.

He turned around and watched Mada lovingly tend to Eliot.  It was comforting to know there was still some humanity left in a world driven upside down by zombies and a freak ice storm.  Yet, what place did love have in this world?  It was useless!  Love would never defeat these zombies.  They may be stupid, but there was simply too many of them to even hope for survival.  Brendan picked up Eliot's revolver which lay on the floor next to him and check its contents.  Two bullets.  Just enough.  He cocked the gun and pointed it at his friends.

"Thursdays were never good for me."

But just before he could pull the trigger, Mada sprung off the ground like a cat and attached herself to Brendan's arm, where she bit him fiercely.  Howling in pain, he dropped the gun on the floor and struggled with Mada.  She overtook him and  he began to tip over the edge.  He could rely on his exceptional balance no longer, and his friends weren't going to help him, and he tipped over backwards.  Luckily his hand swiped out and caught hold of the bell's clapper, and he clung to it with all his might.

"What do you think you were doing?!" screamed Mada, who had taken control of the revolver and was now pointing it at the rope suspending the bell in the air.  "I could shoot this rope right now and you and the bell would come crashing down the tower."

Brendan, scared back to his senses after nearly dying, looked incredulously at Mada.  "Mada, that's it!  There's not too many of them left.  We wait til they crowd in here and try to climb the ladder.  When they do, we shoot the rope and it crushes them!  I'm sorry I tried to kill you guys.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I became delirious with hopelessness.  I just didn't know how to resolve our situation.  I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!"  He began to sob.

Eliot reached out and touched Mada's leg.  "Ma, it's okay.  He just made a mistake.  Let's get him back to safety."

At this, Mada lowered the revolver and put her hand out to grab Brendan's.  He caught hold, lunged and managed to get back across safely.  There he and the others waited for another hour, when the zombies broke through the barricades in the chapel and made their way to the connected bell tower.  Once they crashed through the door and entered the tower, a pair of them started attempting to climb the ladder.  At this moment, Mada shot the rope and the bell fell to the ground with a resonating clang, crushing every zombie under it.

Eliot, Mada and Brendan made their way down the ladder and walked into the chapel, which was torn apart by the bloodthirsty zombies.  As Brendan aided a hobbling Eliot, Mada sprinted over to the organ and proclaimed that she knew how to play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano, but she could probably play it on the organ because how difficult of a transition could it be?  After her impromptu recital, Eliot looked at both his friends and said cautiously he knew the right hand's chords for the first verse of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," so their departure was delayed another few minutes as they belted out the lyrics together and decided that the song really was very good, despite its ubiquitous nature and cheesiness.  Not to be outdone before they left, Brendan sat down to casually play Pachabel's "Canon in D."  But the other two had already played and they pretended to listen for a little bit before they decided to start making their way to the door.  Brendan yelled, "Guys, this is the good part!"  He kept playing and said to himself, "I'm definitely finishing this song," but halfway through the "good part" he felt like the other two weren't going to wait for him so he got up and joined them outside.

The sky was turning a faint gray-blue, signaling an all-too-rare sunrise, once Brendan caught up with the other two.  Through the sparse fog he could make out a sign that said "Champaign-Urbana 10 miles."  He didn't know what "Chambana" or as people were referring to it these days, "Zombana," held in store for the three of them, but he was excited at the prospect of starting over and maybe living one single day without any stress.  He looked at Eliot, who walked with his arm around Mada.  Her head rested on his shoulder and her hand was placed in his back pocket.  Brendan hoped there were some cute single, college girls there- living ones, that is.  Also a good sandwich place.

CREDITS.