College review — Experience of the Year?

When one first enters College, it can be a bit overwhelming. Where to start? There is so much surrounding you, yet you feel like a fish in an ocean, not knowing which school you belong to. The problem is that sometimes, college gets a bit ahead of itself, demanding too much from the attender and forcing relationships without giving them the necessary time to burgeon naturally.

College's first week is one of its highlights. The problem, however, is that it's so different from the rest of the experience that by the time you're halfway through the second semester, you wonder if you were even attending the same institution back then.

With merciless amounts of drinking (about half of it probably of the underage variety), you glean the impression that your liver is going to be doing two-a-weekends for your entire collegiate career. This isn't the case; there's actually much to do at college that doesn't involve drinking.

Eventually, as the first week ends and schoolwork becomes a necessity, you get stuck with your first choice as an attendee: is College a social forum or an academic forum?

This postulation seems difficult for many attenders to work out. In fact, whichever facet you choose to prioritize, you'll be under the impression on several occasions that you're doing it wrong. This leads to a lot of mentality changes over the course of your two semesters. Without stability, it's hard to say whether you're attending an academic or social institution; and as much as you'd like to claim it as both, college has sparse moments where it actually functions successfully as a socioacademic domicile. This leaves me apprehensive to label it a multidimensional maturational medium due to its lack of consistency to do this on a microcosmic level.

Eventually the workload steepens, and the general collegiate populace will glide down the spectrum from social enticement to become more academically attentive. Beautifully accompanying this is the atmospheric shift from summer through autumn into winter, serving as a sordid reminder that your thousands of dollars aren't going towards your friend groups, and that college isn't meant to be your playground.

On an extracurricular level, college succeeds where life's previous effort, High School, failed. It raises the stakes on the attender, raising the level of difficulty in the process, without dropping — and, in fact, increasing — the standard level of interest. There is a genuine feeling of productivity in the achievements of collegiate asides, as opposed to the apathy-chocked emptiness and general feeling that no one cares of the extracurricular activities in High School. Among others, "Student Media" and "Improvisational Comedy" are two of college's biggest hits, along with other more career-oriented clubs. The relationships formed in these extracurriculars at first tend to feel forced, but eventually gain legs, leading to solid new found companionship.

Overtoning the experience of College is the feeling that what the attendee is doing has a sincere and prevalent effect on their future, inclining them to take seriously and cherish intimately the opportunities they are handed. This adds an exhilarating aspect to further separate this effort from High School, and is definitely an element that was missing in earlier life efforts such as the feel-good Middle School.

In spite of this, many choose to spend college fraternizing (or sororitizing?) and drinking and hooking up with strangers for some good, clean (fingers-crossed, anyway) fun. This is certainly one route that can be taken with college, speaking to its versatility and openness to interpretation. Others, meanwhile, will throw away financial aid money attending every music group that claims to be good that comes to town, also a viable way to spend four years.

The drinking in college doesn't stop, but merely slows, stirs and speeds. After the first week, when seemingly everybody is waiting to hand you free beer, you work out relationships and establish your connections to enfranchise your illegal habits. Look out for cops though, and don't carry large wooden objects, or you'll have a $300 ticket like my stupid, stupid roommate.

"Thanksgiving Break," the long-winded odyssey "Winter Break" and party and dancing themed "Spring Break" provide a three-part respite from the traditional grind of the college experience. Because of this, College doesn't quite flow as well as it could if it cut down on some of the extra malarkey. "Finals" and its reprise, "Really Finals" punctuate each semester, giving college an epic ending showing that it was going for more of an academic feel all along.

This is a nice tidbit to figure out, but one that you learned too late to save your grades. Especially your Journalism class, which is embarrassing, because that's what you're trying to do with your life.

Overall, college is a spellbinding experience, and one that should be as fully explored as possible by its attenders. Despite striving for too much at certain junctures, it rolls along quite nicely and should provide a great experience for me for years to come.

8.6/10
--Eliot Sill 

Putting the "Er" in Hipster

by Brendan Cavanagh

I tell ya, it's tough being a hipster. Just when I thought I was hip because I had a copy of On the Road: The Original Scroll and a pair of Asics' Tigers, my friend starts wearing the same flannel shirt every day, plays Ryan Adams songs on guitar and writes poetry. I've had to seriously up my game this semester, but with limited things at my disposal that would earn me hipster credibility, I feel I'm still, as someone so succinctly put it, a "half-hipster" (it was me). I've decided to put together a veritable grocery list of hip stuff that will make me look half as credible as the senior English major, Emile-Hirsch look-alike with a mustache and a fixed-gear bike. But among required hipster accessories are also necessary toiletries and such:


Items to Include in my Suitcase Next Semester:

1. An umbrella to replace the one I lost just before it consistently rained for two weeks at the end of this semester.
2. A pair of gloves whose stitching leaves more space between its stitches than those made by a senior Christian ladies' sewing club.
3. Osage Rub aftershave, because Gillette just doesn't have that Jolly Rancher-green, face-melting sensation I crave.
4. Flannel shirts that are slim-fitting and not meant to be tucked in by someone of larger girth.
5. Any air freshener (likely that Hibiscus Febreeze one) that will mask the odor that naturally arises after living in a room for eight-and-a-half months with another young man.
6. Lucky Strikes, even if I have to order them over the Internet from Korea, like my Korean pal, Kenny, did. "It's toasted."

Items to Leave at Home:

1. All of my towels except two (hopefully the aqua-green and the sky-blue) because I've found that no matter what simultaneous use is required of my towels, I can always find a way to dry off with one before I do my laundry every two weeks or so.
2. Boombox. With an iPod and a computer (and a potential resurrection of the portable turntable), why would I ever play CDs? Radio? Isn't that a movie?
3. All three of my favorite plaid shorts, because my friend says I should never wear them again. I consequently had her cut up my corduroys and khakis so I could roll them up a bit and wear them as shorts (though not in this lousy, monsoon weather).
4. Inflatable Budweiser chair. I haven't the space in my room, nor the energy to blow it up, nor the desire to sit in it to watch T.V.
5. Red pens/highlighters. I don't know why I'm so adamant about having them every school year since I haven't used them since 5th grade history class.
6. Crumby bike with a super high seat that is entirely impossible to adjust and a perpetually flat front tire. I'm gonna get me a thin, smooth Schwinn. Maybe with a basket.

The Many Faces of Brendan Cavanagh

 by Brendan Cavanagh, of all people, believe it or not

Leave it to college to cause one to question one's constantly transforming identity, or one's role in a new environment.  The situation seems nigh hopeless enough when I don't know who exactly I should be, but proves  even worse when I begin to identify with musicians or cinematic and literary characters.  That being said, let us take a glance at the many characters that have found elements of their personalities portrayed in my demeanor over the last six months:

One. Stephen Dedalus

The protagonist of James Joyce's signature novella, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as well as certain passages from his masterpiece of an Irish odyssey, Ulysses, struggles to ascertain just exactly who he is.  Over the course of his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood he engages in a number of highly significant and influential experiences that allow him to cultivate his worldview and feelings about love, life, heritage and religion.  Stephen often feels constrained by the limitations that arise from his experiences, and his metaphoric asphyxiation causes him to emerge from each experience all the wiser.

"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."

He feels that his true vocation is to be ordained into the priesthood, but upon much self-contemplation he is illuminated to his passion for the beauty of language, words and literature.  It occurs to Stephen that his calling involves not only appreciating the aesthetic value of language, but also to spread that appreciation to his brethren.

"Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."

Two. Holden Caulfield

As previously noted, the antihero of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye has had a profoundly positive and negative affect on my life.  Unfortunately, some of the more unsatisfactory traits of Holden's personality have carried over from the transitional summer between high school and college.  There are times when I just get so sick of the "phoniness" that bubbles up all around me.  It would make Holden sick to see the immaturity that often arises in a collegiate environment (which is ironic because Holden is an incredibly immature character): Guys like Holden's roommate, Ward Stradlater, who are sickeningly self-confident and suave with the ladies, but run around the unit after classes, slapping you on the butt and humping you in a twisted effort to assert their masculinity.  "Oh hey, fag, you like this, fag?  Yeah?  Uh uh yeah.  Did you do the homework for English?  I just couldn't get up, so I skipped and I don't have any of the handouts."  Yet, we still wind up feeling bad for these people when we find out, for instance, that they're about to be kicked out of school for their depressingly-habitual apathy in regards to attending classes.  And then there are the girls:

"I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.  Girls.  Jesus Christ.  They can drive you crazy.  They really can."

Finally, when Holden relates his experiences wandering New York at sixteen, or when I write my weekly blog posts, we wind up getting overly sentimental. As Holden says,

"Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody."

Three.  Bob Dylan

Sometimes it seems when I cannot put what I am trying to express into words, Bob Dylan is there to articulate it in a most poetic fashion, as if he too is experiencing the same situation as I am.  When I need a creative outlet for my thoughts about women, society, happiness, sadness, justice or injustice, I simply plug in my iPod, scroll through a selection of Dylan's best songs and sing along.  On identity and its expression:

"The man in me will do nearly any task / And as for compensation, there's a little he will ask / Take a woman like you / To get through to the man in me." (The Man In Me, 1971)

On leaving loved ones at home:

"I will write you a letter from time to time / As I’m ramblin’ you can travel with me too / With my head, my heart and my hands, my love / I will send what I learn back home to you" (Farewell, 1963)

And not to be forgotten, on moving on from past loves:

"I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind / You could have done better but I don’t mind / You just kinda wasted my precious time / But don’t think twice, it’s all right" (Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, 1963)

Four. A Certain TV Character

Temporarily inexplicable.

Five. Mike from Swingers

Jon Favreau's portrayal of Mike, a guy who just cannot seem to get over his last girlfriend (who dumped him), is almost eerily easy to relate to.  He bores his friends by constantly bringing up his issues with this breakup, though they are too friendly to admit it.  I find if I am dwelling on a certain matter, always a romantic one, I cannot help but incorporate my concerns into every conversation I have with my friends.  Some are more understanding, and allow themselves to be a medium through which I can vent, while others are more like Vince Vaughn's character in Swingers, trying to get my mind off things by thrusting me into unrelated situations and focusing attention on themselves for a change.  Despite whatever romantic similarities lie between Mike and I, our true mutual trait is in our incorporation of comedy into conversation.  He is a struggling comedian, and we we both find our jokes and references hilarious, but find there exists a massive dichotomy between our understanding of our jokes and the intended audience's understanding.  For instance, when asked to order at a cafe in Vegas, Mike says,

"I'll have a coffee... Two, uh, two coffees.  And it says, uh, here, "Breakfast Anytime."

The waitress affirms, and he responds,

"I'll have the, uh, pancakes and, uh, the Age of Enlightenment."

to which he is met by blank stares from his friend and the waitress.  Now, despite the fact that the Las Vegas waitress DID, in fact, get his obscure French philosophical reference, I can attest to the fact that quite often Mike's and my references or quips will go right over some people's heads, which can be deathly embarrassing.  However, I am not as awkward as Mike ALL the time, but we still do share a similar inefficacy in making the effort to pick up women.

.                   .                   .

Don't get me wrong, I am still plain old Brendan.  I may exemplify some of the more noticeable traits of characters from film, television, books or real life, but my personality and identity are almost entirely shaped by my own experiences.  And I hate to end a piece of writing on a quote, but as Bob Dylan says,

"Oh there's changes in the ocean / There's changes in the sea / There's changes in my true love / But there ain't no changing me."

Dreams

by Brendan Cavanagh

So there's this girl here at school that I was interested in for a while, which is ironic because she's short and has black hair- not usually my type.  We shared ballroom dance last semester, and this semester we are in the same introduction to education course.  I see her nearly every day at lunch, frequently in the hallways in between classes and we happen to be in the same group for a project in our education class.  Last semester it took me a while to warm up to her- I was admittedly a little shy, but I asked her to dance every now and then.  She always accepted graciously- she was very talented, mind you- and the two of us enjoyed ourselves immensely as I cracked the jokes and she exuberantly played off them.  Time and time again, she unwittingly showed me the limitations of my comedy as she nearly always improved the jokes with her responses.  I had no worries though; we made a fun pair.  We got to know one another over the course of the semester, and by the last class I had obtained her phone number in order to "let her know if I set up an impromptu dance practice before the final."  Pshaw.  I was shocked at my good fortune, though unsure if my luck would prevail.  But for once I was confident I was doing okay.

This semester I found out we shared another class, so I determinedly decided I would woo her.  And for a while, it seemed to work.  For instance, in class the two of us paired up for an in-class project.  I confidently (and jokingly) did a sort of horrible strut/dance from one side of the room to the other, and to my surprise, she followed behind doing the same thing, repeating "Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a."  For once, I wasn't the only one making a fool of myself with a bizarre sense of humor.  Another time as I walked through the hall in a trance after a class, she caught my attention by very cutely tripping me in front of a group of people, laughing and sprinting away.  If this was yet another case of me awkwardly sprawling out alone all over the stairs, I would naturally have been quite ashamed, but this time I was pleasantly surprised that it was her doing.  I walked back to my room with a smile.

The playful banter between the two of us continued for a couple weeks, and then I was eating lunch with her best friend and a buddy of mine.  We were discussing fraternities and sororities because once you join one that seems to be all there is to talk about with other pledges.  The topic of formal dances between houses came up, and her friend (for some reason it was pertinent, not because of my interest) casually mentioned that this girl I liked would have to attend the formal of a certain fraternity, which confused me.  Did this mean she had set plans with a friend from there?  Wait...does she have a boyfriend?  I kept my concerns to myself and decided I would solve this matter myself.

Later that week I actually remembered what I had planned to do (I forget to check my planner, and I fail to remember any mental notes I make), so I logged onto Facebook to do a little sleuthing.  Totally legitimate means of investigation, nothing creepy about it.  I visited this girl's page, who I was technically not "friends" with, to see if her relationshiop status was viewable by the public.  It turns out that it was, and to my chagrin, this girl was taken.  Bummer.  But I looked at her boyfriend's page out of mild curiosity.  Ahh I knew this guy, I had seen him around campus.  He's the one that, whenever I pass him I think, "That guy is definitely gay."

Sooo basically I'm not really threatened, but I don't believe in breaking up relationships ('CAUSE I'M AWESOME), so I've decided not to worry about it and pursue other girls.  If this girl winds up single and looking for a mate in the future, well, let's just say I'll likely still be single anyway so maybe we can work out an agreement.

ANYWAY, in order to incorporate the seemingly irrelevant title of this post into all of the above exposition, let me relate to you a little dream I had the other day.  First, a few points should be made:

FIRST, that this girl was to be my driver on our class' field trip to an elementary school.
SECOND, that I had to wake up at a very specific time in order to allot myself the proper amount of time it would take to shower, dress, eat and meet with her and my fellow passengers.
THIRD, that I have had the awful habit lately of waking up, turning off my alarm and allowing myself to enjoy another two minutes of light sleep before getting up.
FOURTH, that the following dream transpired in the six minutes I slept after turning off my alarm:

I wake up from my allotted two-minute slumber TWO hours later, at 1:15 in the afternoon.  I fly off of the top bunk and hastily assemble a somewhat presentable assortment of clothing.  When I look at my alarm clock again, another hour has inexplicably passed by, and it is now 2:15!  It's far too late to catch up with this girl and get to the elementary school on time.  Suddenly, I'm nestled somewhat comfortably in the boughs of a tree, where I watch a mind-projected, college-aged student that I feel I've seen before walk up to the tree with his girlfriend, who seems familiar as well, but I have never seen her before.  They speak a few words to the girl I'm interested in, and then the man leaves, leaving the two girls who are now facing me with snow balls in hand.  I realize I'm situated such that I have my legs spread apart, with my crotch exposed before them (still wearing pants, don't worry).  Simultaneously they begin to pelt my crotch with snow balls, as I sit there immobile.

FIGURE THAT ONE OUT.  Clearly I was aware that I could potentially sleep through the field trip.  The dream took on a double meaning, in my opinion, when they began to pelt me with snowballs.  I think, and this is a little explicit I admit, that my subconscious is telling me that even if I consider myself temporarily "over" her, she still remains in control of my sexual urges.  So maybe I really do still like her.  Honestly, I don't care that I was thwarted by my own subconscious because it's pretty sweet that I figured out how I really feel based on a dream, which in my experience is usually trippy as hell and entirely impossible to interpret.

Well, I finally pulled myself out of my sleep by sheer will, as I at that point realized that I was still slightly awake, and it was only 11:21.  Whew.  I had time to complete all my objectives before the field trip, which too played out fortunately.  All I know now is that I'm once again interested in my dreams and the secrets they can reveal to me, so there will be my focus these days.  SORRY CUTE GIRL.

Dead Poets' Society Blues

Not my English class

by Brendan Cavanagh



Well I'm in college now. Free to choose my own classes, and those that I have a particular interest in, mind you. I'm about to cast off the constricting shackles of an "Exploratory" major in favor of that of "English Education." This semester I've chosen to sign up for more classes that revolve around literature, language and teaching and fewer "core," or general, classes. For the first time since I've come to Butler, I'm genuinely excited to go to my classes because I take personal stock in most of them, and I rather enjoy the material, which consists of much lengthier reading assignments (Hot dog!). Finally I can stop slacking and instead heighten my attention and focus in class! Right?

Oh noes. I can't help but transfer my focus on the novel and discussion at hand to the multitudes of characters in my classes. Don't get me wrong- I'm still attentive of the discussed themes and of my homework, but today for instance, in my Introduction to English class, I set aside Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and the class notes it had once inspired and instead began jotting down into my planner notes about the numerous eccentricities of people in my class.

As I walk into the classroom at 9:30 every Tuesday and Thursday, I engage in a well-rehearsed pastime of finding the prettiest, albeit approachable girl in the class and positioning myself beside her. Unfortunately, it appears that other English majors are more anxious than I am to arrive early to class, so my options for seating are limited. Both times I arrived this week, there remained a solitary seat in the front of the room, beside the Know-It-All of course. O, but how I yearn to someday get to class early enough to find an empty seat next to Cute Indie Girl. She always seems to be obscured at first or else out-of-reach, on a far side of the classroom with a barrier of boys and girls surrounding her. I met her during the first group activity of Welcome Week last semester. She seemed shy and exhibited sure traits of a hipster, so I casually (but entirely randomly) proclaimed that I would guess her musical tastes based on the shoes she wore at the time, a pair of small white Vans. And how about this? She liked all the same "indie" or "contemporary" or "alternative" or "hipster" music I like: MGMT, Phoenix, Black Keys, basically anyone who played at Lollapalooza 2010, which we both happened to attend. Today in class I made a sort of joke, thought it wasn't intended to be one, and she gave me a fleeting look and a smile, which I think either meant she thought I was funny (like a clown) or pathetic. Either way, my five-month goal of someday getting to know her again has not been discarded. Ooh, how I'd like to sit down and have a discussion about Faulkner with her sometime.

Yet I'm afraid my identity will only be melted and consolidated into the entity I can only describe as the Three-Headed Brendan. You see, in case I'm absent from class some day in the future, there are two other Brendans to fill in for me. It was bad enough in preschool when I was so callously referred to by my teachers and peers as Brendan C. (as opposed to Brendan P.), or in high school when there were two other Brendans in my grade, and a few others scattered about the grades above and below me. Thanks God one of the Brendans in my English class goes by Alex, but that leaves the goofy one in my three-person discussion group. He's cool, but I'm pretty sure he, like me, is unwilling to give himself a nickname and be relegated to an identity that is not distinctly his, which is going to cause some serious knee-slappers during roll call.

The three-person group today was made even more incredibly awkward because the girl of the group (the inevitable secretary) just so happens to look exactly like one of my friends from home. I'm not kidding. It's uncanny. I honestly think the only thing that distinguishes this girl from my friend is that she has slightly more pronounced incisors, and she favors Uggs over boots from, like, T.J. Maxx or something. All during the discussion I kept losing my train of thought and ending my points prematurely because I couldn't get past her appearance. I'm not one of those guys who will immediately tell someone that they look like some one else ("Dude! Dude! Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Cormac McClaggen from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? The resemblance is riddikulus!"), but finally, I had to explain to her why I might suddenly or subconsciously throw her glowing looks of endearment. Fortunately, she was understanding and thought the whole thing was rather amusing, but I couldn't help but wear a pained smile every time we conversed thereafter, for fear that I might laugh more than I should or hug her when it came time to leave class.

As much as I love to be given a chance to contribute my humble opinions about the themes of Kafka's Metamorphosis to the class, thereby making a good impression upon my teacher and sounding somewhat intelligent in front of my peers, I would much rather be interrupted by the officious, self-indulgent, brown-nosing know-it-all in the center of the front row (incidentally right next to me). Clearly, whenever everyone in your vicinity smirks or chuckles after you nervously but loudly interject in the middle of a discussion to regurgitate what you read on Sparknotes last night, your frequent opinions are well-received. You're providing a double service- not only do you save the blow-offs in the back row from the pressure of answering a question they don't know how to answer because they didn't read the text, but also you save people like me, who really only want to prove they did their homework and contain a genuine passion for literature and novel-based discussion, from wasting precious breath which we could thankfully! instead use in order to exhale loudly so as to display discontent with your offerings. We all really believe you're smart because you spit out information faster than it probably took you to skim Google for .org- domain websites featuring study guides on the Metamorphosis. And I can't say I didn't breathe a sigh of relief when you jaunted into Spanish class late, telling the teacher, "Lo siento, Senora, pero..." That sigh of relief soon turned into an impressed exhalation at your Spanish-speaking skills. You are what aggravates me beyond belief in class, but if it wasn't for you I would never get heated enough to spark a much-needed, in-depth discussion about major themes of a story. Thanks?

And then there are those students that are apparently English majors, but don't seem to be book-readers at all. I admit, this is entirely a shallow judgment on my part, but I'm learning that there are different types of people in this world (who knew?) and that more specifically, there are different types of English majors at Butler. But this one guy in my class, who I know as "Jalapeño" Jack from Orientation last semester (he knows me as "Beatbox" Brendan, another blog post entirely), just doesn't immediately strike me as an English major right away, for no reason at all. It's probably because he's one of those guys that seems real shifty and nervous, but every once in a while makes a loud, awkward joke in class in order to be the intelligent, intuitive class clown who can humorously tie literature to pop culture, but mostly to keep people from thinking he's an introverted spaz. For example, today as we discussed Gregor Samsa's relationship with his father, Jalapeño explained to us that Herr Samsa, in a fit of fury, started "whipping apples at his son ... [wait an untimed beat-and-a-half] ... like Nolan Ryan."

?

This, the class found funny, only ensuring that my double and triple entendres during Shakespeare's Tempest will be met with silent pity.

On the topic of my infrequent contributions in class, I just want to point out how much I hate being cut off while I explain my interpretation of various themes in English class. This is a travesty that I have been a part of since early high school, when I discovered that it requires much explanation for me to accurately get my point across. Today our teacher asked us to point out and explain symbols in Gregor's bedroom. I had been itching for three days to offer my interpretation of the handmade, gilded frame containing a picture of a woman in furs on Gregor's wall, but I only got as far as, "The gilded frame-" before my teacher thanked me, agreed, and asked for more symbols. At this point, Miss Know-It-All chimed in with her fast-paced, extraordinarily vivid animalistic viewpoint of the fur-clad woman, which brought our discussion to industrialist and dehumanizing themes in the Metamophosis. All I wanted to say was that anytime something in literature is gilded, it usually represents something ugly being obscured by a superficial shine! Agghhhh. But I'm not mad at my teacher. I quite like her. She's chic and intelligent and funny and reminds me a lot of Helena Bonham-Carter (the last few Harry Potters, Sweeny Todd, Fight Club, etc.). I feel like we have this attachment because I visited her once last semester in order to inquire about the operations of the English department and its according majors. She had plenty of posters up in her office, one in particular featuring Bob Dylan, circa 1965 during the Highway 61 Revisited recordings. Despite this unspoken bond I feel is present, I get the feeling she doesn't remember me, so now I have to once again prove my worth by performing well on various essays throughout the semester, as there's no way she's going to extract much value from my classroom contributions.

It's amazing how pretentious some of these students are. All these students throwing out interpretations faster than I can come up with one. I know I frequently fall short of staying modest, and I'm sure this post was like a bad acid trip in a public library, but I feel slightly overwhelmed in class. I'm simultaneously thrilled to be in such a literature-based course and disgusted by my peers who all seem to be scrambling for attention and competing for appreciation, like pups vying for a first taste test of Mom's teats. How about that analogy? But maybe I'm learning that there are other people like me. Maybe there are (gasp!) smarter students than I in my English class who legitimately like literature like I do. Maybe- just maybe- I'm slowly sliding off my pedestal in the clouds, falling down to earth so that I don't hold myself in higher esteem than my classmates. I take this ominous threat only as a challenge. I'm stepping up my game this semester. Sure, I had fun last semester, taking core classes in order to get my most basic college credits, goofing off and doing the little homework assigned, knowing I could still pull off a good grade. But now I'm (almost) an English/Education major. The time has come to focus on my studies and excel, so that when I'm teaching English one day in the future, I can successfully tell the pretentious Know-It-All in my class to shut the hell up and get out.

Brain in a Blender

Today was a long day. I don't know how I'm not dead exhausted. I stayed up til 5 last night. It's good to know my summer disease of not being able to sleep before the sun rises still has potential to kick in at any given moment. At 4, after an hour of tossing and turning and whatnot, I decided there was no way I was getting up at 9 today. I showered. Went to bed at 5, woke up at 9:30, got to class on time. Bam. Time budgeted.

After the fourth or fifth consecutive day of failing to meet my own ultimatum of not having clean clothes, I suppose I should be doing my laundry right now. But alas. MORE IMPORTANT THINGS ARE AT HAND.

Well there are, as is becoming more usual, a few things I want to talk about.

1. I don't want to talk about anything.

Things are overwhelming. There's so much shit to do. Asking me to do it all would be like asking me to not allow for spare time five days out of the seven we decided that God gave us in a week. (Side thought: what if there were eight days in a week? ponder that. holy shit. yeah. that's a longggg time in between football games) Classes are throwing pounds of work on me. Not that many, but it's a lot of work if you want to actually full-ass the classes. Reading books? Chapter of my textbook before every psychology lecture? Kiss my ass, I'll take the B. Add to that the fact that I work for the Daily Illini, our student-run newspaper, albeit not very much. My first story went in this week. A feature on the sport of underwater hockey that dominated two-thirds of the front page of the sports section. That felt good. Also I need to find a work-study job? Fuck, should've went to Lincoln Land.

Oh well, I am realizing that I bit off more than I can chew financially by going here, but I don't care. I have had an amazing time and learned so much about the craft of journalism. It's like training with King Kai. You have to be dead in order to do it, but hot damn you get so much stronger. I'm just waiting for someone else to collect the magic dragonballs and wish me back to life so I can apply this knowledge. Uhhh, oh boy. (That's called taking the analogy all the way, boys and girls) I have met some crazy awesome people. Although I didn't meet half of guest week at my school, I'm still enjoying exploring this sea of individuals that reside in the UC area. Meeting people and making friends is an important task at college. It takes time and (not very much) effort (...for a guy like me) to do this. And school. And extracurriculars. And work. And it takes money. I don't have everything, but I'll make do.

When I sit and think about the hole I'm digging, though I know how worth it is, I reallly just want to turn another cheek and play video games or something. I just don't wanna face it. At least definitely not at once. And definitely not unless you tell me to.

2. Man, some people be on some bullshit

You wanna know why I hate baseball? Because Pete Rose still hasn't gotten in the hall of fame. Gay people get married on the reg, a black dude is our President on the reg, and people buy pot in California legally on the reg. The common theme? Society is changing. Forgive the dude for betting on baseball. Who really cares? He wagered for his team. How much of a crime can it be to put financial interest into winning sporting events? Oh wait, we do that all the time anyway. Pete Rose violated baseball's "cardinal rule" and because of this he's S.O.L. for the rest of his life. That's like when I got in fights with my brothers and to piss them off and land an excruciating blow I would boldly claim "I am NEVER!! EVER!!!! TALKING TO YOU AGAIN!!!!!". Baseball has said this and, like an asshole, is actually following through on their promise. I can't WAIT until Pete Rose dies and baseball finally lets him into the Hall of Fame, out of honor and respect, because I will write a column ripping baseball into a thousand million pieces. I can totally see this happen because in society today, we tend to ignore death as something that's GOING to happen to everyone and that COULD occur between now and the next time you tie your shoe. He's going to die from some stupid alcohol related liver disease, and baseball will finally let him into the Hall of Fame and honor him for what he was when he played, meanwhile he will have died without ever receiving the one call he wanted to hear most in his entire bleeping life.

No that topic isn't relevant to modern society, but the origin of that thought entering my mind was the new hit rules that are sure to ram themselves into the heads of NFL fans as eyesores in the form of yellow flags come flying for new and creative reasons. We've seen new penalties created every year for the last forever years in football, and it's really unnecessary and needs to stop.

Have you ever made up a game? Have you ever started a club? Have you ever been a part of something's beginning? Well the longer that game is played or club exists or thing perpetuates itself, the more you realize that it isn't a flawless system.

The longer something exists, the more it sucks. People do stupid things, or make mistakes, whatever, and rules have to be put in place to prevent people from dying.

It's going on with football today. It's a violent game. They're trying to eliminate violence from the game. You can make the game safe, but it won't be the beautiful game it was before safety was put first. That's why I don't play football, and that's why those who do make millions. Because you play with guys like Ray Lewis and James Harrison, who have to have won every argument they've ever been in by using this face and this face, respectively.

It's going on with government today, as Nick pointed out on Monday. Rules suck. You remember the beginning of things as the hay-day. The first few years, ironing the groundrules out, you spend them editing the things you left out. And then you spend the next part editing in things that may "enhance" the experience. There are a lot of good ideas to improve player safety, but depriving football fans of the shear awesomeness that is caused by glorious destruction such as this. Or this. Why did he have to die so soon? Ahh, I love football. But anyway. You get it. It isn't safe. You aren't going to make it safe and keep the intensity and the beauty.

Do you know who Mitch Albom is? I didn't. Not before today. He's a writer. And he's a damn good one. In 2005, he did something that was hilariously dumb and completely embarrassing. He lead a column of his with a beautiful moment that occurred at a basketball game. Two alumni coming from different corners of the NBA universe brought together to celebrate and rekindle their friendship while watching their team make its first triumphant return to the Final Four. The game was one he never went to. The moment was one that never happened. He was told by two players that they would attend a basketball game together. He made a cutesie lead for a story out of it. They changed plans. He didn't check. He lead his column. He was wrong. He had to apologize. He broke journalism's own "cardinal rule" by telling the public something he didn't know. He won a prestigious award this year for his writing and some asshole wrote a column claiming the guy didn't deserve an award for his work because of something he did five years ago.

Seriously? View a body of work for itself. Not for related bullshit.

Anyway, I'm done talking about that. Haha, even I got kinda bored... uhmm...

Improv.... improv.... improv....... drawin a blank guys, sorry.

VIDEO GAMES. NBA 2k10 is IN at room 112 in Blaisdell Hall.

Classic Brian is no match for my mad Iguodala skills.

I really think sports games get a bad rep. And deservedly so. They're a suckers fettish.

Never have I bought a Madden and said "I bet this will be very good and I will never be mad while playing this!" or "I bet this version will never be improved upon!" or "the replay value of this game will last longer than one year!"

Supposedly NBA 2k11 is a great game. "Sports game of the generation", as IGN calls it. Well I bet 2k12 will be better. I just wish Madden would stop dominating the Players Association so some competition can arise and light a fire under their asses. People have tried to work around this agreement, making games with players that don't actually exist. Each one had an angle that they thought would succeed. None have. But all have come close and had their moment in the sun. All-Pro Football 2k8 (used old "legends" of the game) Blitz (the badass hitting, you know) and Backbreaker (an actual physics engine to alleviate the problem of annoying redundant animations). SOMEONE MAKE A GAME WITH ALL THREE OF THOSE AND COMBINE IT WITH THE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION'S SIGNATURE AND BEAT OUT MADDEN. I WANT A BETTER FOOTBALL GAME. AND OH YEAH MAKE IT SO I DON'T BUY A NEW COPY EVERY YEAR FOR UPDATED ROSTERS AND PLEASE SOMEONE TURN THE CAPS LOCK OFF.

Thanks.

Gosh. I was gassed today guys. Sorry for the lateness and the topical sluttiness.

If you enjoyed it anyway? Then good. That means you like me for who I AM. Not what I write.

Smoothie.

--Eliot Sill