It’s that time of year again, folks. Demeter is mourning Persephone’s return to Hades, our football team has a chance to prove its fantastic skill again in South Carolina this weekend, and I get the honor of freaking out about producing my first digital essay. What is a digital essay, you ask? Well, since you requested this information so sincerely and adamantly I will enlighten your cliffhanger-anxious spirits and tell you about this semester’s series of finals. First of all, I am taking four classes. My bio “final” is really just a chapter test (YAY a little). My organic chemistry final is comprehensive over two semesters and I foresee all my hair falling out as a result of my unease. But my panic attacks do not fundamentally find their roots in organic chem.
Let’s also acknowledge English and Spanish. For both classes, I have the privilege of presenting group projects instead of finals. This would be all right if I was a techno-savy, metaphorically unhindered artistic prodigy. Now, I’m pretty creative—or can be when the blellow (not green) creativity monkeys stab ideas into my head with the same radio waves they used to cancel Elvis’s program on Earth—but I still don’t know how to use certain computer programs. No, the king isn’t dead, if you were wondering, and Tupac is producing some of the best music in years—at least in the years following his death, that is. A digital essay is basically an opportunity to create a visual and experiential presentation of an idea you gave in essay form. In Spanish this translates to el uso del idioma y la conducta artísticamente ridícula– or artistically ridiculous behavior and use of the language. I’m excited about it, though. I think it will get my creative juices flowing (and the imagery that just flooded my head by writing juices is making me nauseous) before Christmas break when I have to start really working on my screenplays (I hope to have finished editing my screenplay from this summer and to have another finished by the time I leave for study abroad in February).
Oh, and I don’t know if I mentioned that I will be attending the University of Melbourne in Australia next semester. I’m nervous but the more I discover about Melbourne, the more anxious I am to get there and start exploring. One exciting note to add, Melbourne is home to one of my favorite bands in the history of music—the Cat Empire. Everyone should check them out on Myspace or iTunes. Their entire band consists of less well-recognized rock instruments, including a trumpet. But they’re a fantastic band and I hope to attend one of their home-town concerts if I can.
Inhale, you just took in the world,
Jordan 
istockphoto.com - its says it’s the victory sign with handcuffs, but I’d rather refer to it as a peace sign–resist oppression!
Quote of the week:
“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul” – Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang introduction
Whenever someone says to me, “You don’t know what cards you’re gonna get dealt in life” I can’t help thinking…where the heck is this big deck of cards that everyone’s talking about? Who was the first person to use that expression? Did he/she have anything to do with playing cards? Or was he/she just present at an unlucky hand? I wonder how the backs of the cards are decorated. Are there stars and moons—a mystical deck? Is there a big question mark ringed in rainbows like a deck from some arbitrary cosmic board game? Or are they blank (this all assuming they’re tangible to begin with)? And if they are blank, then what color does that imply? White or black? Gold or red? Does it matter? Would you choose to pick a card or have one drawn for you? I don’t know if I like the image of a giant deck of cards deciding my fate—even when absolutely nothing is going my way. It seems so profoundly arrogant. If we were created with a will then we—or at least the parts of us that are eternal—have a say in what happens to us. And yet, what about those accidents that plague our existence like an obnoxious reminder of universal unknowability?
As you can see from my rambling existential dilemma scrawled above (or would be scrawled if I free wrote that instead of typed it), I enjoy writing. Well, that’s a dramatic understatement but for right now digressing into the overwhelming emotion experienced when a written work is complete would end up being just that—digressing. All you budding romance novelists, desperate poets, and prose-rs will love to know that the Richmond campus definitely fosters the creative monster. The Messenger is the literary magazine on campus and it’s a pretty neat expressive tool for written tourette’s (and the pensive, exquisite written word as well, of course). Last semester I submitted a short story the day before the deadline passed and I was very pleased and feeling pretty fulfilled when I received my copies of the Messenger and saw my words, my thoughts, in print.
Definitely do some surfing on the UR website if you’re unsure of a desire for this academic and social environment. The Messenger is just a tiny offering in the UR student activities smorgasbord. And who knows? Perhaps something (or you) will pick up the card from the deck and you’ll realize that those scribbles you submitted to this literary magazine (under duress from friends) are calling you into the unknown where events unfold as if they were plucked one by one from your wildest fantasies.
Be bold, be good, be grateful,
Jordan
Enjoy Thanksgiving!
Quote of the week:
“No fear, no distractions. The ability to let that which doesn’t matter truly slide.” – The Narrator, Fight Club
I discovered time travel today. Or a head rush. Either way, it was hard to believe. But every time I walk up the stairs—any stairs—on campus it seems like time slows down for just a second and I pause like a silly person on the top step. Then I move on as a shadow, peaceful as a hum. But, then again hums don’t have to be peaceful; that should be pretty obvious.
I have a favorite hum on campus and I get to listen to it at least twice a day as I pass between Jepson Hall and the Weinstein Hall, up a large stairway, and onto the Richmond quadrant where the statue of Dr. Robins is located. There is a massive air duct-thing right beside the stairs that separates the buildings and it pumps out hot air, emitting a low roar-hum as it reinforces its ductness. Boy that hot air can be mighty refreshing with the cold weather we’ve been having.
I also have a favorite season on campus—autumn, you might have guessed since I’m bringing this up now. Have you ever seen a color that is so brilliant you stand in awe and go, “That can’t possibly be real.” It happens a lot on this campus, especially now when the leaves are changing. The trees that line the side of Jepson are this hazy University of Richmond 2007-08 Campus Directory color red. Although that’s a silly reference since you don’t have a campus directory. So, yeah, it’s just a deep blood red (not trying to be creepy and I’m failing miserably in the attempt). Actually, a few minutes ago I found a leaf that made its final descent as it was trying—probably with great difficulty—to decide to change to yellow or to just skip ahead to red. It looks like a rainbow except the spectrum is not ROYGBIV but BGYOR (brownish-gold, green, yellow, orange, red). And the stem is a beautiful orange color as well.
I’m writing in this random fashion because this weekend my parents and I are going camping so I won’t be able to write until next Monday or Tuesday. The only unfortunate thing about this weekend’s turn of events is that The International Formal will be on Friday. *sniffles sadly* Too bad I’ll miss my favorite event of the year (but I get to go Camping!!! THAT’S A CLOSE SECOND!). So have a wonderful week and I’ll write soon.
Drizzled syrup ingenuity—That’s sticky!
Jordan
Quote of the week:
What do you say to a tent with a split personality?
- You’re two tents.
- joke on a popsicle stick
