So close to Thanksgiving... (Fall 2010)

It's been basically a whole semester since I last posted, but I just had to post this priceless photo:

Some poor soul in the
Info Commons of Swem Library

Story of our lives, people. Story of our lives.

Along those same lines, here's Mews, the Starbucks on the first floor of Swem, at 1am on that same Sunday night. All those busy, bustling people burning the midnight oil...

Academic obsession never sleeps.

Oh, Swem. How are you so pretty despite keeping so much anxiety within you?

The sundial in front of Swem in November

I've always loved how the flowers around the sundial change with the seasons, but always remain so lovely.

Can you tell I'm avoiding a paper that's due in a few days? I only ever post when I'm avoiding a paper. (It was Oedipus last time, remember.)

Maybe the paper will be less frightening tomorrow, after some sleep. That guy in the Info Commons probably had that same idea, surely. Or should have.

Goodnight, all.

Finals, Spring 2010: Mon night to Tues morning

So, it's been three-some-odd months since my last entry, and campus is no longer snowy. Not in the least. Quite the opposite. As a matter of fact, Sunday's temperatures had a high of 100-degrees. Seriously, Virginia? The second day of May and we get a high of 100-degrees? Ridiculous.

But with spring and warm weather (or hot weather, as the case may be) comes a beautiful campus, because the flowers have bloomed.

The sundial outside Swem, sometime around April 12th-ish

Spring and warm/hot weather also means that everything is covered in a layer of yellow dust (read: pollen) and aggravating everyone's allergies, but that's for another entry.

All the red tulips are gone now, but the white ones are still hanging on. Of course, we students don't get to see this lovely view anymore, because we're never outside Swem. We're in Swem now, because it's finals.

Ah yes, finals.

I myself am in Swem right now, procrastinating on a paper that's due in less than sixteen hours (not that I'm counting or anything). As a consultant of the Writing Resources Center, I choose to do my library holing-up in the WRC, since it's basically empty when we're closed (except for the other consultants who've holed up in here as well), and it's quiet. Also, it's nice to feel as if you have your own space in the library that's just for you. Makes you feel special.

Of course, even though I'm in Swem, which should inspire me to work most diligently, I'm procrastinating. The chosen outlet for procrastination this time has been alphabetizing the magnetic poetry on the filing cabinet. (Really, magnetic poetry [different link], it's lots of fun.)

Alphabetized words (and necessary suffixes) in columns on the left,
bits of poetry on the right

Impressive, I know.

Of course, when going through so many words, you can't not create some poetry -- even if it's in the form of magnets.

My own magnetic poem took this form:

Magnetic poems have no titles, of course.
They are too avant-garde for such conventional conventions.

And Shelly Holder (poet, authoress, and fellow WRC consultant who's been keeping me company tonight) created this magnetic masterpiece:

Shelly paid attention to the aesthetic structure of the poem.

Very modern. I'm sure cummings is proud.

At least Shelly's in a poetry class and therefore can justify this poetic diversion as a potential addition to her portfolio for the class final. Me? I'm just avoiding that theatre history paper. I'd have created a magnetic poem about Pre-Sophoclean Oedipus, except this magnetic lexicon doesn't include "incest," "patricide," or even "incredibly irritating."

O Cruel Deadline! Why dost thou loom o'er me?
I have not the focus to vanquish thee.

Even rhyming couplets would be preferable to lost epics. All idle musings of "What if I had chosen a Classics major instead?" are gone.

I think I'll go make some Zombie Blood Orange Tea to bolster myself against the zombification of this essay. (Thank you, parental units, for the care package that included this awesome tea!)

Oedipus Zombius? That would be SO much better than Oedipus Tyrannus... Instead of killing his father and sleeping with his mom, Oedipus could eat them! Patriphage instead of patricide? Well, I guess it'd still be patricide...

Okay, I'm going now. Really.

Sleep well, non-finals world. See you in a week and a half.

Frozen Precipitation

Also known as "snow".

View of Brafferton from outside the President's House,
looking very picturesque.

Virginia, meteorologically challenged as it is, is a temperate climate (a humid subtropical climate, to be exact). That means that we get snow, but not often. So it's not unheard-of that we get snow, usually once or twice per winter and just a few inches at a time, but it's a rare enough occurrence that Virginia has no idea how to handle snow.

In the case of Northern Virginia ("NOVA" to those who live there, and are pretentious), just whisper "snow" into the open air and schools will close. Following that, every family rushes to the grocery store to buy milk, bread, and eggs, because apparently when it snows we have a biological need to make tottering stacks of French toast. Must be a survival instinct.

A snowy Wren Building,
courtesy of Ryan Minnick, the W&M Apple Campus Rep.

At least once every semester, snow is bound to dust the roof of the noble Wren Building, but every time it happens it seems to be a shock to all. Everyone gawks in horror and fear, then admires how pretty colonial architecture looks when accented with snow. (And therein lies the key to Colonial Williamsburg tourism around Christmastime.)

The winter wonderland from outside my window
(hence the overlaying mesh screen pattern)

Now I myself am a wuss when it comes to inclement weather. One look outside the window (as seen above) and I stayed inside, living on Diet Coke and a Guilt Pizza. The Domino's that serves campus was still delivering, to my great astonishment, though I made sure to spend the necessary half-hour of uncertain agonizing when it comes to ordering delivery in poor weather -- that is, make someone else go out in weather into which you yourself don't want to go. Also I made to sure to feel guilty for the shivering young man as I ate my warm, delicious pizza, and to give him a 50% tip.

Our TJ, looking exasperated at this weather cramping his style
(also courtesy of Ryan Minnick, the W&M Apple Campus Rep.)

So what's the outcome of this frozen tundra(-ish)? The College closed Saturday and Sunday, and a late-opening at 10am Monday. (Just like all those two-hour delays back in elementary/middle/high school! Aww!)

A New Jersey native who now attends the College couldn't believe the news when I told her. "I've never had a snow day in my life!" she exclaimed, and then made remarks against our honor as Virginians. I believe the word "pansies" came up. Our fortitude against weather isn't our strength. Go to Wisconsin for that sort of human endurance. We'll sleep in and eat our Survival French Toast.

And make tiny snowmen! Having only a foot of snow to work with presents a challenge when it comes to the height of your snowman.

A failed snowman outside the President's House


















An attempt with better structural design, also in Ancient Campus outside the President's House. This example is actually a single pile of snow tapering to the top and ridges dug in to suggest separate pieces. Clever. Only at W&M.

And notice the Cheese Shop bag in the corner. True Tribe Pride, there. Yum!

Welcome, Spring Semester 2010

How can you tell classes have started at W&M?

Play the game I fondly call "Count the Coffees".

Four Coffees (i.e. fifth class session of MATH 104 at 9:00am)

As any college student knows, those first few classes don't actually count. Professors are just reading syllabi, learning names, and half the students present won't be taking any the class by the next session.

However, when the coffee cups come out, the academic endeavors have started. One or two coffees are negligible because there's always that guy who can't even walk without an appropriate dose of caffeine, but once you get above "a couple"/"a few" and into "several" coffee cups appearing in a single class, the semester has begun.

(Exception to the rule: 8am classes. Either the students are caffeine-run, or "morning people", and the latter is likely just a myth.)

Friday morning, when I looked up saw four coffee cups without even turning my head, I knew it's time to actually pay attention.

Happy Beginning-of-the-Semester, W&M.

Fall 2009 Retrospect: Turkey Bowling

Logo of the Underdog Sports League of Portland's Big Turkey Bowling
(i.e. the least ridiculous turkey bowling logo I could find)

November 22nd, 2009: RHA Turkey Bowling

Anyone familiar with Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends: a love story will also be familiar with the noble sport of Turkey Bowling, as played by the Animals of the Safeway night shift. Pick up your 12-pound Butterball, line up ten diet sodas at the end of the aisle, and let the bird fly, so to speak. (The diet soda part is important. Diet sodas are easier to clean up than sugary sodas. The residue's not as sticky with diet sodas, so keep that in mind when you plan to make a turkey-related mess.)

Thank the Great Gobbler that W&M is just as nerdy as I am, because the Residence Hall Association held a turkey bowling championship.

Irene Morrison-Moncure, Class of 2011,
the championship winner, hurling her bird.

Held in the Crim Dell meadow, competitors could enter with a donation of a canned good for charity and bowl a fowl to win Wawa gift cards. And with finals only a few weeks away, Wawa gift cards are like gold. Thanks to the 24-hour Wawa on Richmond Road, W&M students live on Wawa foodstuffs, particularly during finals.

The pins, prior to their meleagrine destruction.

Competitors lobbed their birds down the lane at water bottles (decorated in Thanksgiving decor, of course), sending plastic bottles and frozen birds spinning into the frosty November grass, and fun was had by all.

However, just before I left at the end of the festivities, I discovered an atrocious deception made by these RHA representatives:

Oh, horror! Not a Cornish Broiler Chicken!

The birds were CHICKENS, not turkeys! So what if chickens are probably cheaper and definitely easier to throw? Their bird of bowling was inaccurately advertised! That's some heinous f*ckery most foul right there.

Happy Thanksgiving, William & Mary.

Strike!

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.