Grand Illumination 2009!

Yay! Pretty!

View of the Magazine's fireworks from outside Bruton Parish Church.
Edges of the Capitol's fireworks can be seen on the left.

This was my first Grand Illumination, so it was very exciting for me. I missed the Fifes & Drums, but I arrived just in time for the fireworks, apple cider in one hand and iPhone camera in the other. (Much thanks to the study abroad fundraiser that was handing out cider and cookies!)

I was really amazed by the mass of people gathered in Colonial Williamsburg for the event -- more than I've ever seen in CW at one time. It must have been thousands, all packed together on Duke of Gloucester street, huddled against the cold and gazing up at the fireworks; yet people were saying that this was a small turn-out compared to previous years.

Colonial Williamsburg has really suffered this past year or so, despite the neat programs they've recently started (and the opening of the Charlton Coffeehouse, which I finally visited this weekend and is SO cool, go check it out). It's not a matter of CW being less interesting, relevant, or enjoyable; it's just that everyone's broke. Attraction sites around the country are suffering the same losses, but for a great institution like Colonial Williamsburg to suffer like this, that's a real tragedy.

So if you and your family are looking for somewhere to visit this holiday season, consider spending a day in Colonial Williamsburg. And attend 2010's Grand Illumination!

(The holiday parade being canceled due to bad weather was a real bummer, though. I'll just have to make sure to see it next year.)

And so the holiday season truly begins...

reconciling lit with tech

Though I will never be as intimate with technology as the almighty programmers, I am a product of my generation and have a great love for technology, and consider myself fairly tech-savvy (enough to coach my mother on computer use). I don't know how the world functioned before Google, Gmail, and iPhones, I really don't, especially for schoolwork. (For example: I had a meeting with my group for a final project, where the four of us sat together with our laptops and shared research links over Gmail chat, no lie.)

I'm addicted to Wired articles, and this one made me squeal aloud with delight: Print: Applying Quantitative Analysis to Classic Lit.

Using Google-esque search technology in the analysis of literary mechanics? I am all atwitter! (I may have to tweet about this.) My English major heart has finally been wedded with my Google love affair.

Now if only my English professors would get over their stereotypical technophobia, we could have some real fun with this. Most of the linguistics professors here seem well-integrated with technology (due to a closer relationship with language mechanics rather than the more nebulous analysis?), but most lit professors seem to have a real avoidance of technology. Features like this, though, hold some real promise for bringing the study of literature into the Era of Google.

Doesn't the idea of literary word clouds sound fascinating? I love word clouds in general, but now I'm terribly curious about what word-frequency indicates in a piece of literature.

Here's an experiment:


This is a word cloud of the text of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (though not Through the Looking-Glass, maybe I'll do that next). Isn't it lovely? It looks dreamy, like a thought-bubble emerging from Alice. Aesthetics aside, this cloud tells us a lot, thematically speaking. To have words like "know", "thought", "went", and "time" appear so large is a strong indication of the existential qualities of the novel. I would have thought "Rabbit" to be bigger, though. And "curious" as well. Hm.

If there were a word cloud of the complete works of Oscar Wilde, how big do you think "fascinating", "shame", and "vermilion" would appear? I know for a fact that Wilde rhymes with "vermilion" at least three times in his volumes of poetry. I'm not sure what that says thematically, but I know it indicates that he's a great big show-off. What a marvelous paper that would be. "The Statistics of Showing Off: Frequency of Word Usage in the Works of Oscar Wilde". I sense a thesis coming on.

Last Day of Classes

What the last class of the semester looks like:

Last class of intro psych in Millington Hall,
and someone's ready for the semester to be over.

This would be reason #37 to get a soft and cushy laptop case. Works as a good impromptu desk-pillow! HUTF.

(And of course everyone else is saying, "How can she sleep? This is our last chance to hear about the final!" and then they realize that this means they have an advantage over sleeping-girl, and feel superior in that wonderfully "TWAMP"-y way.)

Happy Last Day of Classes, W&M. Don't go too crazy at Blowout. By 4pm I'd already counted three paramedic vans racing down Jamestown Rd. A little early for alcohol poisoning, don't you think? Be safe.

Raining Finals

This is what rain during the last week of classes looks like at W&M:

Sea of umbrellas in the mudroom of Swem library, Wednesday night.

Happy studying, Swemmers.

Swemming

The view from my current hideout in Swem,
where I'm sure to be all night.

Even though I really need to be working on the final that's due tomorrow morning, I had to share with you all the following TSM (Typical Swem Moment):

[For those of you who aren't W&M-savvy, the Earl Gregg Swem Library is the campus's main library, and thus where most of us live during finals.]

Going into the women's bathroom on the 3rd floor (i.e. the silent tomb of death -- the floor, not the women's bathroom specifically), I see a girl brushing her teeth.

Seriously. Brushing her teeth.

Either this is because she's been in the library for so many days now that she has to perform her hygiene rituals here, or she just had to get the taste of that essay out of her mouth.

All right. Back to that final.

Reexamining the Tuition Hike

While yesterday's announcement of the mid-year tuition increase of $300 for W&M undergraduates has made the Board of Visitors an unpopular bunch, perhaps we ought to stop, step back, and gain a little perspective, as graciously offered to us by the crisis in California.

Wow. 32% increase in tuition for all University of California campuses? Compared with the thousands of dollars these students have to come up with for next semester, $300 doesn't seem like much.

Still a kick in the shins, but not the kick in the cojones that the UC students are getting.

Fiat Lux? More like Fail at Lux.

Graph based on figures from CNN article & W&M Tuition & Fees,

and may or may not have been created on GraphJam.

(Am assuming that the UC & nationwide figures are also per semester.)

Financial Fail

Yesterday the students received an email from President Reveley to inform us of how financially screwed we are. I was surprised at the bluntness of his message, especially compared with his State of the University address last month, which remained romantic in the face of our hardships.

The attitude last month was "our trees are still pretty, our bricks are still old, we're fine."

Now? "Buckle down and help us dig spare change out of the couch."

Reveley offers us lots of scary numbers to drive home the reality of our financial plight, particularly all the money we're now not receiving from the State, and how many millions we're trying to make up for through canceled raises, elimination of vacant positions, etc. (To see the word "millions" so many times in a single paragraph is a little mind-boggling; I don't think any of us have really grasped how much money it takes to run a school, and how much we're losing.)

One of the tactics employed to come up with more cash is "increas[ing] slightly the size of the College’s incoming freshman class to generate additional tuition revenue" -- a seemingly obvious idea, but perhaps bordering on ridiculous, considering the housing situation on campus. (The housing pool last semester had to "bump" out 300+ students who sought on-campus housing.) Likewise the horrific on-campus parking for students, residential as well as commuter, which remains one of the most complaint-inciting problems for students. Increasing class sizes will just create more competition for on-campus housing and parking spaces, or does the administration hope to compensate some of the budget cuts through parking tickets?

The College has also finally been forced to resort to layoffs, which we'd thankfully avoided until now. Twelve staff members will be laid-off starting in January, adding another dozen people to the epidemic of unemployment in the country.

Increasing class size and reducing staff size (not yet faculty size, though we'll see how next year's budget solutions pan out) -- this sounds like a vicious cycle that could lead us somewhere very bad.

To top it all off, the Board of Visitors has approved a mid-year tuition increase of $300 for each undergraduate. When looking at $11,000 for in-state tuition and $21,000 out-of-state per semester, $300 doesn't seem like much, but when many families are struggling to pay for college as it is, major banks are getting stingier with loans, and, worse yet, some students have to make the decision not to attend college at all for financial reasons, that extra $300 is a real kick in the shins.

(And, speaking of tuition costs, check out Delegate David Albo's thankfully failed bill to change that in-state/out-of-state ratios if you really want a budget scare.)


None of these hard choices the College has had to make are pleasant, but what else can we do? With the way the economy is now -- well, things suck.

(i.e. SAVE US, OBAMA. You're nearly done on that health care stuff, right? Can you get back to education?)

Hamthrax at W&M

All right, TWAMPs. Swine Flu is a scary thing. After that email on Oct. 30 about how many cases we've had on campus (530 reported from Sept. 1 - Oct. 30), and how many cases we have on average at any given time (40-50 cases!), I was dousing myself in hand sanitizer any time someone sneezed.

So go get your H1N1 vaccine in the Sadler Center today. It's FREE for students. Can't argue with free and not getting the piggie flu (also, I got in and out of there within five minutes, which is pretty miraculous for any flu shot setup). I've got my little band-aid to prove I'm Swine Flu-Free. Go get yours!

Ow

Watched the Queen's Guard of W&M practice their rifle-spinning drills, looking so trained and badass. 'Til one of the guys hit himself in the shin. HUTF. Don't worry, guys. You still rock.

It's Galing, We're Harking

gale, n. 1. a. A wind of considerable strength [OED definition]

--

I've always thought "Hark Upon the Gale" was a curious motto. "When the wind blows, listen up." Seems like good advice. Along the same lines as Hogwarts's draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, "Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon." It's just good advice.

After three solid days of rain and gales, from Wednesday to Friday, my rainboots have finally dried out. The fringes of Hurricane Ida, I think? Whatever storm was going along the coast. I don't know what it is about Williamsburg, or what meteorological phenomenon that must surround it, but we seem to get an inordinate amount of rain here. If last week was any indication, our weather is positively diluvian. Williamsburg is the Seattle of Virginia.

With all the uneven brick of old campus, it makes for a patchwork of puddles, particularly after such Biblical rain. Upon my acceptance to the College, a friend informed me as we walked through old campus in the rain, "If you are a connoisseur of puddles, then William & Mary is for you." One must always be prepared to fall on one's ass when walking through old campus, combating the chaotic and unexpected rise and fall of ancient bricks; to have the additional level of difficulty that is water, it's just cruel.

Photo of TJ in Thursday's rain, courtesy of
the Office of University Relations (Twitter account: WMNews)

The gales of wind on Thursday morning were so tempestuous that all umbrellas brought into my morning class were broken, or at least severely tweaked. I'd never in real life seen an umbrella turn inside-out before, like in the cartoons, but the passion of a Williamsburg rainstorm was enough to best my cheap umbrella. The truly poor souls, however, were the students without umbrellas. Drenched, they squelched into every building, their soaked shoes leaving great imprints of misery upon the floor. To not own an umbrella seems an absurd concept to me, but the girl who sits next to me in the aforementioned broken-umbrella class claims that she was unaware of the dire need of an umbrella that arises from living here, because while it rains elsewhere, it rains here.

We came up with the following solution to this ignorance, so please take note of this, whomever puts together those "What to Bring to College" lists from the Admissions Office: on the very top of that list should be "an umbrella". Before computers and lava lamps and toothbrushes, an umbrella should be on that list. Applicants to the College should be adequately forewarned of the soggy future that awaits them at W&M. While beautiful, picturesque, and brimming with delightfully pretentious elitism, William & Mary is rainy. Hark, and come prepared for gales.

Is this thing on?

Testing. Testing. One, two, three.

All right. More to come later.