The One-Month Mark

Yesterday, I started reading the book Ordinary People by Judith Guest, thinking that I could tie incorporate it into a project for my anthropology class; the more I read the more I realize it might suit a psych class better. I took the book on a whim from one of my high school English teacher who was giving books away to “good homes.” It had belonged to another legendary teacher, Dr. Allen, who had retired from teaching between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I recognized the title because saw the movie, one that my dad really loves, in health class. Anyway, I read this line:

  

“But he [Conrad] cannot relax, because today is a Target Date. Tuesday, September 30. One month, to the day, that he has been home.”

A few things stuck out to me:

1)      Yesterday was Monday, September 29^th, so today is Tuesday, September 30^th. The book was published in 1976. It’s 2014. If only I’d started reading the book today…Tuesday, September 30.

2)      Of all the 365/366 days in a year, Guest chose September 30^th, which I find personally amusing because it happens to be my birthday. I’ve never seen my birthday in a piece of fiction before.  

3)      Today, Tuesday September 30^th, like for Conrad, marks one month to the day...that I have been in college.

So not only does today mark the nearly two decades (what.) of my existence, but also a complete month of living at SLC, within close proximity to NYC, 590 miles away from Columbus, and with 1,300ish other young adults. I’ve failed at laundry. I’ve failed at going to gym class. I’ve gotten homesick. I’ve made new friends. Today isn’t necessarily a target date, but, in honor of being nearly credibly adult-ish, here are 20 things in summary that I’ve learned in the past month:  

1)      There’s only one person who is allowed to arrive on time for class: that’s the professor. If you want a particular seat, even in a class of 15 people who meet at a large round table, arrive at least 10 minutes early.

2)      When you run out of money on your “One Card”  to run multiple dryer cycles when doing laundry and decide to “air dry” some clothes, make sure the clothing really is dry before you put it in your drawer. Not because they will remain wet, but because it won't smell particularly pleasant.

3)      Me one month ago: “I’ll never get into the city.” Reality: I’m going practically every week. I’ve been in four times and I’m going in again tomorrow. This is totally fun and awesome, but taking advantage of free means of getting into the city, like the college’s “Met Van” will be good.

4)      ShakeShack is not worth it. Sorry, Althof.

5)      The New York Subway System is surprisingly organized and logical. The Times Square Station is like an underground village. Grand Central Terminal is quite conveniently located. Generally, as long can read signs and know what you want, in terms of which train, which direction (uptown vs. downtown), and at which station you want to disembark, getting around isn’t...as daunting I you might expect.

6)      Bagelville on Palmer Avenue in Bronxville is a classic, great, New York bagelshop. My treat to myself: a toasted, sesame seed bagel with lox and cream cheese. Not a birthday cake. A birthday bagel. I almost wish I had thought of the candle and match that I have in my desk drawer a few hours earlier; that would have made for an odd culinary twist.

7)      Swing sets make for great social locations. So does the Teahaus. As does the Blacksquirrel Lounge. Each as its perks: the Teahaus sells [good] tea and coffee for a dollar. The Blacksquirrel [good] sells milkshakes. The swing set is good for…launching oneself.

8)      “They” and “their” are acceptable singular pronouns here. Getting asked what your preferred gender pronoun is a typical introductory question, and you will be looked down on if you give a snarky answer. For the record, I prefer she/her, but my favorite answer I’ve heard is “I’ll accept anything said out of respect.”

9)      The exposed, mossy rock that shows up around campus, in central park, and at the Botanical Gardens (among other places, I assume) is all thanks to glaciers. 2 million years later, they make for good lookout/people watching spots.

10)   I’m told that I remind people of Ellen Page. This is a big compliment, as far as I can tell.

11)  Pistachio nuts make great snack foods. So does pasta that you can take home in Tupperware from the cafeteria and eat at two in the morning. My point: it’s super easy to eat [unhealthily] here. Too easy.

12)  I’ve just now started consistently remembering to take a towel with me to the shower; I used to always have to turn around after I left to take a shower so that I’d grab a towel. It reminds me of Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: don’t forget your towel.

13)  It is acceptable to stay up late doing homework because I don’t have to drive 30 minutes to school anymore. No commute. It’s a wonderful thing.

14)  I just bought my airline tickets to come home for Thanksgiving!...and given how that went, I should probably figure out how I'm coming home for winter break…now.

15)  I’m fortunate to have the roommate that I do. Hearing other horror stories from my friends, I'm perfectly happy to room with the creative, smart Irish step-dancer.

16)  Take your keys everywhere, even if you’re just “stepping out for a second.” Getting locked out is meh.

17)  Procrastination is good for the soul and whiteboards are handy.

18)  You have to do your homework when your classes have 15 people in them and you’re expected to eloquently discuss what you read/wrote.

19)  There are new students like me who I met one month ago exactly whom I still talk to, but several whom I haven’t seen since. On the other hand, there are first year students who have come out of the woodwork. They seem too cool and confident to be younger than juniors, until suddenly they talk about the FYSs and how much they hate living in Hill House.

20)  Don’t doubt yourself…even if you’re asked to sing in front of your entire acting class, in which case, you sing “Do you want to build a snowman” from Frozen.                           

I’m getting used to the routines, the friends, the professors, and the bookishly-nerdy charm of SLC. The daily college life is becoming “ordinary.” I only vaguely remember details from my first day here; reading the post from that day jogs my memory a bit. I’m impressed by how much we can cram into a week of class; my first paper’s due on Friday. Woot.

Today’s not a target date, as Tuesday, September 30^th was for Conrad, but I wonder how much I’ve changed (if I’ve changed at all) in the past month. I’ve drastically changed in the past 20-ish years, obviously, going from newborn to young woman, which is still kind of odd to consider myself a “woman” just because that seems much more mature than I feel. But that’s a common theme with aging. And really, I’m not more than a day older than I was yesterday. Yet it's still fun.   

On a final note, it’s really encouraging when I go to write a post and I see that the blog has gotten 1,181 page views ever, not just for the purposes of posting about my life, but for overall encouragement to for the daily go. So, really, thank you a million times over. I hope this is as entertaining for you as it is for me. 

I'm really about 10 years old on the inside. 

The Aspiring Hyperpolyglot attends an ASL Class

Yesterday my roommate and I were discussing the “eight different types of intelligences.” Going to an independent high school, I heard various educational/intellectual theories that surrounded this idea. Here’s the gist: there are eight different types, ranging from logical to natural, and everyone is a mixture. I like to think that I qualify for the “linguistic and verbal intelligence,” which means “I’m good with words.”  Just because I like writing? Sure, but also because I like foreign languages. My sister jokes that I pick them up overnight. Some people geek out about math; I geek out about syntax. I’m not a hyperpolyglot¹, but I get kind of nerdy about cultures and foreign words. Au lycée j’étudiais français. Quiero aprender español.²  今は日本語をべんきょうします.³ It’s always been academically and intellectually rewarding. My next pursuit: American Sign Language. I want to learn ASL. Last night I put my money where my mouth(/hands) is: I went to an ASL club meeting.

It was a last minute decision to attend with my friend. Hipster College doesn’t offer ASL as a credit-earning course, so students formed a club that meets on Thursday evenings. My playwriting class ran twenty minutes over, so my friend and I showed up to the meeting about five minutes late. After garrulously chatting in the echoing hall I was startled to walk into practically silent but filled classroom. An instructor was signing as we failed to slip in unnoticed. Her hands moved swiftly and easily from one word, or letter, or number, or gesture to the next. I might as well have been in a Hungarian language class. I had no clue what she was saying.

I know various ASL phrases thanks to Vacation Bible School. “Bible” (and, therefore, “book”). “Jesus.” “Idea.” “I love you.” “Girl.” “Mother.” “Father.” “Fuck you” (that one wasn’t from VBS). I didn’t know the alphabet, which is hindering because the alternate to not knowing a sign is to spell out what you want to say. It was startling but refreshing, since it’s been awhile since I’ve been in a language course where I haven’t been able to dominate. I sat and watched kids around the room sign in response, those who had been coming to meetings for years, or even those who made it to the meeting last week.

Suddenly the instructor, a blond, zealously communicative woman turned to me and signed with a deeply quizzical look on her face. Before this she taught us the sign for “New York”⁴, but it wasn’t in the thing she just signed. I turned to my friend, then to one of the four student facilitators and shamefully asked for a translation. I didn’t feel bad that I didn’t know how to say it; I felt bad that I didn’t know how to sign “what did she say” so that the facilitator would know what I was saying as I asked someone else for help.

The question: “Where are you from?” From that I learned how to sign “I’m from Ohio.” I also now know the letters “O” “H” “I” and “O.” The facilitator was immediately excited by this; apparently there are three deaf retirement homes in America: one in Boston (or was it Baltimore?), one in Arizona, and one in Ohio. Columbus, actually. Westerville, Ohio, where I lived for about a month prior to moving to college. Ohio for the win.

That was just the warm-up question. The next question was far more articulate: Why do you want to learn ASL?

How do you sign “Because languages are cool?” Was that a legitimate reason? Was curiosity a reasonable enough excuse? Luckily for me, she started receiving answers on the other side of the semi-circle. Lots of students had deaf friends. I picked up on the sign for “to learn.” Finally it was my turn. My attempted sign: I [points to self] love [the sign everyone knows, ASL fluent or not] to learn [left palm flat like a plate, and the right hand traveling from the left hand to the forehead like…a jellyfish…for lack of a better explanation]. That felt like a  nerdy and pretentious answer, but I went with it.

The instructor laughed this joyful, cackling laugh. So did the student facilitators and other more knowledgeable students (not quite as idiosyncratically as the instructor).

I actually signed  “I I love you to learn.” Brilliant. It followed the best language-learning method I’d ever known; make mistakes and learn from them. I relaxed much more after that.

The rest of the hour was spent going over numbers and emotions. Apparently, the middle finger is essential when discussing feelings. Most kids were “feeling tired,” so much so that the instructor started refusing that answer. Facial expressions are also essential when communicating via ASL for context reasons. Smiling when signing “no” is unacceptable and confusing.

There were a few other surprises: clapping/applause is signed by doing jazz hands and smiling. “Yes” is shaking your fist as if it’s a head. The nuances and details are important; it can mean the difference between “fuck off” and “thank you.”

I walked out of the room thanking the instructor and worrying that I’d forget everything I had learned. ASL probably aligns better with “body movement/kinetic intelligence,” or maybe “interpersonal intelligence.” I think I intellectually identify with the latter well enough; the former’s one that I’m less certain about. But my delight, I was able to whip out the numbers, places, and a few phrases with my friend who’d invited me to the meeting as we sat on the north lawn enjoying the temperate, beautiful September day. It’s officially autumn, now that leaves fall and black and brown squirrels scavenge for nuts⁵. The forecast for this weekend is lovely, too, great for going into the city…for the second time this week.

A black squirrel searching for nuts

In reality, this is what squirrels do to "Buckeyes."

[the human proceeded to wash its hands]

Rodent Spy

I promise. I’ll write about New York City soon.    

       

ENDNOTES

1.      From the book Bable No More by Michael Erard, a “hyperpolyglot” is someone who speaks (or can use in reading, writing, or translating) at least six languages (p. 12).

2.      I took one year of Spanish II (for whatever that’s worth) in high school. I should’ve paid more attention; Spanish is spoken all over the place here, not just in New York, but also on campus.

3.      I translated this sentence myself, where I omitted the subject “I” because I assumed it was clear that we’re talking about me…this is my blog, after all! (Haha)

4.      Left hand: make a flat surface. Right hand: hang ten sign. Rub the right hand back and forth over the left hand. There! You’re signing New York…I think.

5.      You have not seen a cute squirrel until you’ve seen one with its mouth full of acorns. It was a cute, uncaptured experience at the Botanical Gardens.

RELEVANT WEBSITES

-The 8 Intelligence Types: https://www.srpl.net/the-8-intelligence-types-which-ones-fit-you-best/

-One of the three deaf retirement homes in the United States: http://www.columbuscolony.org/history.html

A Firsthand Account of The People's Climate March

The following would probably be worth of what my high school history teachers used to call a “primary source.” Essentially, this is a first-hand account of a marcher in the People’s March for Climate Change. I'm excited about it because: 

1)      I was one of 400,000 marchers/screamers.

2)      This was my first political march in college…as well as ever, unless visiting an occupied Zucotti Park counts. Does Pride Parade in Columbus count? Both had overlapping vibes with my experience today. Regardless, today’s political march was my first as a college student, and I haven’t even been one for a month.

Last night I did a quick google search of “The People’s March” to find that similar marches were happening in cities all over the world, including Sydney, Melbourne, Jakarta, Istanbul, Paris, London, etc. I suppose the internationalism made sense, since these marches are all leading up to a United Nations climate summit. And so I kept asking myself “Why am I getting involved? I’m not particularly passionate about the environment.” My own answers:

1)      This is part of the college experience! Or the New York experience! Go to a rally and get arrested¹, right? I didn’t have to go to Oberlin to be an activist!

2)      How much control do I have over climate change? How much control do 400,000 people have over climate change? How much control does Obama have over climate change? Where might I find these answers? By talking to the thousands of activists lined up for blocks and blocks and blocks!

3)      My dear friends from high school, NYU and AU were gonna be there. So was my long-lost (as far as I’m concerned) second cousin². Ditto for my uncle and his friends. Maybe I would get to catch up with some of these people.

So those are some of the reasons why I dragged myself out of bed [not really all that] early and met the other SLC kids by the science building so that we could all ride the Metro North line down to Grand Central Terminal together. There were maybe 60 of us. Between the station and the march on 69^th street/West Central Park Avenue  we lost more and more student, dwindling down to maybe 20. They had a solid crowd. I ditched them from the subway station on 72^nd to hang out with NYU on 69^th. I fast-walked down some avenue, counting down the streets as I passed them. After a brief stroll around the upper west side I found the mob.

SLC'S Banner with our fearless leader.

No. Mob’s too gentle of a word. The sea of protesting, sign holding, screaming, elated college students waiting for the march to commence at 11:30. I found NYU among the crowd, thanks to mobile phones, around 10:50.

That's right, Kenyon College! Don't Frack with Ohio!!

There were lots of Fracking puns. 

My friend NYU's sign. 

This is the first time I’d seen NYU since we had moved to the city, and seeing as we were pretty close in high school, you can imagine how happy I was to have 45 minutes to stand around and talk to her. While the march officially started at 11:30, 400K people in one place don’t move very fast, even if they’re all going the same direction. We didn’t really get moving until about 12:20. NYU had a friend from Middlebury who hung out with us, too.

Note the girl dressed up as a planet. 

At one point a boy, maybe 10 years old, tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted a baby-pumpkin. I write baby in the sense that it was little, like hand-grenade size, I imagine. I skeptically-jokingly asked him if the pumpkin was gonna blow up. He looked at me like I was crazy. When I brought up the idea of drawing a face he adamantly disapproved: “You can’t deface the pumpkin.” I didn’t. The pumpkin turned into my sign, since all I had otherwise was a black and red cardboard sign that someone made that read: “ONE PLANET ONE LOVE.”

Aside from talking we took part in all of the chants, cheers, and screaming. Normal-case indicates one person screaming while uppercase indicates hundreds of people screaming.  

FAVORITE CHANTS OF THE DAY:

            “What do we want?”

            “CLIMATE JUSTICE!”

            “When do we want it?”

            “NOW!” :||³

            “Show me what democracy looks like!”

            “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” :||

            HEY. OBAMA. WE DON’T WANT YOUR CLIMATE DRAMA. :||

            HEY-HEY. HO-HO. FOSSIL FULES HAVE GOT TO GO. :||

From time to time we would sing “This land is Your Land” and “We’re not gonna take it.” Whistles blew. Banners and signs waved. I held up my pumpkin. Helicopters flew back and forth over the crowd. Around 12:30 I decided to see if I could find my other dear friend AU, who came with her school and stuck to her new friend. So I abandoned NYU and Middlebury, promising I’d see her again, and I ran up to 63^rd to find AU and her friend standing on the corner. Yes, sweet reunion. So there was more catching up and hanging out. We hopped in the march at about 12:45.

12:58 was a particularly anticipated moment. This was the moment of silence, intended to last until 13:00. Right on time the silence dropped on the march and thousands of pairs of arms raised in the air. The silence started in the front and moved back. We heard chants in the back suddenly halt. The wind blew. The shocking-noise antithesis was stunning. Suddenly from the back we heard screams. At first I thought it was some sort of siren, like people were running from something in pain and suffering. The noise quickly traveled through to the front, and I thought, “Oh god. Something’s going wrong.” The media’s training us to imagine the worst. But suddenly it occurred to me that it was just people screaming to scream. So I screamed, because I was one of 400,000 people. Then we carried on towards Columbus circle.

A bleak view of Columbus Circle.

Getting around Columbus circle was the bottle-neck, and probably the cause of the start-and-go traffic. But as we waited and waded, giant TV monitors showed just how overwhelmingly large a mass we were. I didn’t feel like I was part of something big from within the crowd, but looking at it from a bird’s eye-view hit home for me that this wasn’t some little parade: this was activism on a level I've never seen it before.

Around 2:00 we had made it to 44^th street on 6^th avenue, and AU, her amiga, and I were ready for some food. We tracked down NYU; she wasn’t far behind us. We decided to head west towards AU’s bus stop. Yes, the marching was fun and cool, and it was certainly weird to just abandon it, but we parted, taking our signs, megaphones, and pumpkin with us.

Before AU and her friend had to go back to D.C, the four of us got some food, wandered past Broadway and Times Square, adventured the subway system, wandered about Union Square, made a stop in the incredible Strand Bookstore, and dropped NYU off in her unbelievably stellar, suit-style, more-like-a-pad-than-a-dorm room dorm. NYU walked us to the subway station before we split.

Spotted in the aforementioned incredible Strand Bookstore.

I happily walked back with AU and friend back to their bus stop on the corner of 34^th St. and 11^th Ave. The march ended around 11^th. About two blocks away from their destination, I saw a vaguely familiar face headed in our direction on the same side of the sidewalk. I quickly discovered this was my second-cousin, who I knew would be at the march. But tell me, what’s the probability than in the biggest city in America, at the site of one of the largest political marches, that I would walk past my second-cousin, whom I haven’t seen since I was 13, on the same sidewalk? My plans to go straight to Grand Central for my train ride home quickly dissipated . I had a lot of catching up to do. It was delightful; I may be making a trip up to Boston soon.

So then I did have to come home at some point, since I had a short play to finish⁴, so I took the C (or the A?) up to the shuttle train to Grand Central just in time to get the 18:54 train back to Bronxville. From the window of the train in Harlem I saw my favorite view of New York City: at sunset. I would take a city sunset over a beach sunset any day.   

Students I talked to ahead of the march claimed that they were, “going to be part of history.” This march, according to them, “is something my kids’ll study in school, and I’ll say, ‘I was there!’” Given the number of news reporters, I thought this would be a fairly well covered ordeal. Yes, lots of new channels had a story about the march, but nothing all that significant. Nothing that I would notice if I were browsing the news in Columbus. It did not evoke the same monumental importance that I anticipated. That’s not to say it didn’t have its impact. It might have had a stronger unity effect than anything else. 7 year olds and 70 year olds walked side by side. College students with college professors. The common man and Al Gore.

We’ll see how much coverage it gets. We’ll see how the politicians react. We’ll see if New York submerges and the ice caps melt. We’ll see if historians point to today as an important moment in climate change history. If so, cool. If not,  I can say that I’ve was in a massive political rally in New York. And my brain is fried from walking all day. I should really stop typing now; it’s okay if blog posts end abruptly sometimes.

I hope it doesn’t go that way for the planet.  

ENDNOTES

1.      One of my friends made this point to me as we were walking to the train station. In reality, the NYPD was heavily invested in helping the marchers. I thanked them every time we passed a pair.

2.      She’s my dad’s cousin’s daughter, who’s about nine months older than me. The last time I saw her was at her cousin’s [another one of my second-cousin’s] graduation party.

3.      Repetition ( :|| ) was vital! So was volume!

4.      See The New Friday for context.

The New Friday

Thursday is the new Friday.

My only commitment on Fridays is a Japanese Language Tutorial at 9:30 in the morning (yay.), so the day is mine to…do homework, which is particularly critical when I have social plans on both Saturday and Sunday. One’s a trip to the Botanical Gardens (which, when Googled, look stunning). The other is a march for Climate Change in the city. That’s right; I haven’t even been in college for a month and I’m going to my first political march. Here’s to being young and “powerful.” We’re powerful in large numbers, maybe.

Dad, if you’re reading this, I promise I’m getting my homework done before I attend either event…Rest assured; my Don wouldn’t let it go any other way.

TANGENT ALERT because this is too important to me for an endnote:

A “Don” is SLC speak is really just an academic advisor; we stole the term from Oxford (or was it Cambridge?). I had an advisor in high school; he was my Sophomore English teacher, as served other roles in my high school experience¹. He was my advisor for my entire four years in high school, even when I didn’t have classes with him. My entire grade bowed down to him because he was an honest, comparatively young, sarcastic, observant, amusing figure who knew how to talk to teenagers². My point: he was greatly respected by the student body, myself included. In our “advisory sessions” in the middle of the morning on Wednesday, the 10 of us students in his advisory would sit around, eat Chex Mix, and complain about school. Sometimes we’d do the assignment set out for all of the advisory groups; often times not. He left with my graduating class.

My new advisor, er, Don, also teaches my playwriting course. In class she treats us like writers; to my astonishment, we don’t need to prove ourselves. She’s published and produced all over, and I remember reading about her before starting school and thinking, Ohmygod, I get to work with her? She’s probably about five feet tall with a very straight posture. She speaks deliberately, and watches you with deep, dark brown eyes that read your soul. When your talking, you know she’s listening. Her attitude is undeniably supportive and enthusiastic. As was the case in high school, she’ll be my main advisor for the next four years, “good lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”³

Back to Thursday night being the new Friday night.

For the first time since I’ve gotten here, I’m pretty sure, I went to two social events by my own will. One was a “Pick-Party” and the other was an Open-Mic.

To my great pleasure, I was not casted in a role for any of the Main Stage shows. SLC has a theater group called “Down Stage.” Instead of putting on shows on the “Main Stage” they find other venues to do productions, including in the basement below the main stage. Tomorrow night they’re performing “Star Wars Shakespeare.” Their next project is a 10 minute play festival. These 10 minute plays are written/directed/performed by students, and all of the prep time is in the span of a week and half. Writers got their prompts tonight: the scripts are due Monday at 9:00. Directors and actors start rehearsals Tuesday. The performances are 10/2, 10/3, and 10/4. The “Pick-Party,” the kickoff, sealed the fates of the participants. The prompts were selected, and the groups were formed  by picking names “out of a hat.” The theme of the “Pick-Party” was New Year’s Eve⁴ theme, which might seem bizarre for September until you remember that Rosh Hashanah is coming up.  

After class(es) I put on a red, black, and white dress, makeup, and large, square earrings, because I’m gonna write for this crazy-little festival⁵. WOOT.

I show up expecting to walk into a meeting room with chairs, tables, and maybe some pizza. Nope. When the theater department says they’re gonna throw a party, they’re going to throw a party. The room was a black wall/ceiling performance space with Christmas lights, a [student] photographer, loud music, red solo cups for sparking grape juice⁵, and popcorn. People were writing New Year’s Resolutions⁶ on the wall in chalk. Yeah. I showed up to what would qualify as a legit party with a legal-pad and pencil case. Cheers to Hipster College.  

A little while later we counted down to “midnight” and sang Auld Lang Syne. From there, the groups and prompts were “picked.” The names of all the actors who signed up were put in a hat. Prompts, which were cleverly pulled from the new year’s resolutions on the wall, were put in another hat. Directors and writers were already paired. When each pair was announced, the director would publically pick the actors, and each writer would pick the prompt.

The number of actors I have: 5

My prompt: “Call Mom more.”⁷

My project is pretty well cut out for me. I have basically a three-day weekend to write a 10 minute play for five actors. But never mind that now; on to the next social event of the evening.

Immediately after that I wandered over to a packed Open-Mic. I watched from a loft, right next to the spotlight. Best seat in the house; everyone in the lounge was sitting on top of each other. There were singers and poets. Then there was the guy who swallowed a strand of thread. And proceeded to pull it out of his eye. I left shortly after that.

People watched from windowsills, the doorway, the stairs outside the room, and up in the loft with me. We're supportive in masses here. 

So what crazy hour of the night did I get back? 22:00. If that. I was out later when I went and watched a screening of The Dead Poet’s Society. I still don’t feel pathetic about it. I like working at night. Well, I like writing and reading at night. It’s just now 0:00. The night is young.

But that language tutorial tomorrow is early. Laugh at me. I may not party hard, but I’m still a teenager.

Happy Thursday. I mean, Friday.    

END NOTES

1.      He was also the Journalism advisor, Conduct Review Board guy, and taught a Graphic Novel course I took at the end of my Senior year, but by that time I’d given up on caring about school work.

2.      I don’t know what it is, but some teachers don’t know how to connect with teenagers. That’s actually kind of critical when teaching high school.

3.      My grandma says that from time to time.

4.      One of my absolute favorite holidays, along with Thanksgiving and the 4^th of July.

5.      This festival isn’t unlike one that I wrote/acted in/organized while I was in high school. Our version was called “The Playwright SLAM!”, where the entire process of writing, rehearsing, and performing was condensed to a week.

6.      Mine was “read one book each week.” That would realistically be my resolution. With this anthropology course, it seems like it may be a reality.

7.      I don’t know how I feel about this yet. I don’t know how I’m going to approach it, other than much more carefully than I’ve approached any other prompt I’ve been given.

     RELEVANT LINKS: 

1. New York Botanical Gardens: http://www.nybg.org/

2. The People's Climate March: http://peoplesclimate.org/march/

My First Audition for Anything at Hipster College

Let’s talk about theater and things that aren’t supposed to happen.

If you sign up for an audition, even if it’s just “for practice and/or experience,” then you’re supposed to make it to that audition slot and not go to a women’s soccer game.

If you go to SLC, then the women’s soccer team won’t typically win 9-1; actually, the score might have been different, since I had to leave early.

If you have to reschedule your audition, then there typically won’t be another spot open, especially not at an acting-intensive school like mine.

If you walk in the theater doors having practiced your memorized monologue once in the shower, then the audition isn’t supposed to go well.

If you’re a first year in the Playwright’s Gym course, then you are strongly encouraged not to audition for big roles, because you have four more years to go for the spotlight.

If you’re a first year student who is a decent but not fabulous actor, who relies on your strong voice and energy rather than “acting technique,” since the only acting technique is what do you want out of your scene partner’s character, then you’re not supposed to get a phone call about anything.

But sometimes life doesn’t abide by the logical rules by which you constrain yourself. 

Today were the auditions for Hipster College’s fall semester plays, including The Green Dress, Peer Gynt, and six or seven other plays. You read that correctly: six or seven. My high school did two plays a year with a playwright festival in the spring. I’m not in high school anymore.

SLC is full of theater kids. The department is massive, with 20+ faculty members (speculation), 30+ courses (speculation), and hundreds of student actors (the most precise speculation thus far). As a tiny little first year, I went back and forth on whether or not I should audition. I didn’t really have a prepared monologue, except that that was a lie because I had a memorized (more so than prepared) monologue for my acting class tomorrow. My Don (academic advisor) warned us not to audition for major roles, since the work-load in her playwriting class would be too much coupled with line memorization. Then again, my thespian driven friend reminded me that gaining experience wouldn’t be a bad thing. “Audition practice,” if you will. That seemed reasonable. I could always turn down the role. But if I auditioned wouldn’t I be communicating to my prospective directors that I wanted a role?

I finally decided that my likelihood of getting a role, based on my lack of preparation in juxtaposition with the other well-trained theater students around me would be slim to slimmer. I signed up for an audition spot for today at 2:40.

This morning I woke up at the crack of 11:00 to find an email waiting for me from the softball captin, reminding the team that the van going to the women’s soccer game was leaving at 2:30. I’d completely forgotten. It wasn’t a vital commitment, but I wanted to support the fall sports since I’m playing a spring sport. Yet I had an audition appointment at 2:40.

Go to the game, part of me said. You didn’t want the audition anyway.

See if there’s an alternate time for an earlier slot; you still have awhile ’til the bus leaves, the other part of me said.

The other part of me was right; there was a 1:something slot. I seized it, went to lunch, and came back to fill out paper work. This was paperwork that I was vaguely familiar with: name, year, experience in theater, regular conflicts, one-time-event conflicts, etc. I half-seriously filled out this paper, under the impression that I wasn’t going to get a role, so it didn’t really matter anyway.

Confidence: it’s a good thing.

My paperwork was copied and, for the first time ever, someone took my headshot. This was serious business, much more than I thought. Should I get a headshot? How do you take a good headshot? What had I gotten myself into?

Each actor had two minutes for their audition. Multiple directors watched each audition would pick which actors they wanted/were interested in. Basically, I walked into a rehearsal theater, lights up and everything, to act in front of not one director to pass judgments on me, but directors, stage managers, and playwrights. My paperwork was distributed. Roughly 20 people went from loud chatter to silent focus the moment I entered the room.

An introduction: Hello! I’m Em, I’m a first year, I’m originally from Columbus, and truthfully, I’m auditioning for “experience”…

Laughter. I could loosen up. This was a good environment. “What’s your monologue called?” Someone asked.

“I ate the divorce papers.”

And I started. I ate them. That’s right, I ate the divorce papers, Charles. I ate them with ketchup. And they were good.

I felt good. I had energy. I planted myself. I could hear myself being heard. I took my time. I didn’t have one Charles; that was a problem. But things were great. Things were not supposed to be going great, but they did.

So I left the audition all bushy tailed and giddy, not that I would be getting a role, but because things that aren’t really supposed to happen happened.

I went to the soccer game with the softball team. At half time, the Gryphons were up 6-1; a nice surprise when you’re told that SLC athletics stink. Watching though, there were things that I, who know very little about soccer, could point out that the other team did wrong, like not running to the ball. There was one fabulous goal on our team made from way too far away to be realistic but somehow went in. That was great.

The game ended 9-1, but I didn’t see the ending because I got a phone call from “General Auditions.”

They told me to come back for callbacks at 5:00.

Some things just aren’t supposed to happen; that’s one of those things.

I had the urge to tell everyone, like I got some incredible, unattainable job offer.

There was still a slight problem: it was 4:30. There was no way that my ride, the “Fan Van” was gonna leave the game early.

By chance, just as I was walking back into the fairly empty student section, three Seniors were leaving. So…I did what only the brave first years do…

“Hey, are you going back to campus? Yeah? I just got a call back for 5:00; is there any way I could get a ride?”

And their response was only one that only generous seniors give: “Sure!”

So I rode back to campus with three seniors. The driving was probably questionable. One of them just left in the middle of the road. The other two kindly dropped me off on campus. I raced up to the theater auditorium: not out of time pressure, but out of glee.

As I sat in the callback session, it occurred to me that the best outcome of today would be to audition, get a callback, and then not get a part. That way, I could say that I got a callback, gain all of the “experience,” and then not have the commitment of having a part my first semester of college.

So I went to my callback, where I learned that I was called back for a surrealist piece written by a grad student at Hipster College. There would be masks. There would also be a small cast. The callback sheet for the play was two pages long, and most of the kids on the list had callbacks to multiple shows. No, this callback was not like some incredible, unattainable job offer, but it still filled me with glee. Getting a part would be like some incredible, unattainable job offer, one that I really didn’t think I could handle.

I believe my ideal situation will come to be, since I was dismissed from the session half-an-hour in. I wasn’t disappointed; in fact, as I watched other girls try scenes and roles, there were some who fit the glove perfectly, whom I look forward to watching when I go see this play. I think I have some experience to gain before I’m ready for surrealist work or Peer Gynt.

So am I excluded from the theater department then? No! I’m totally roped in! With my first year seminar course and my Acting Workshop, not to mention those 50 tech-hours, I’m getting my hands dirty right away. But it’s the good kind of  metaphorical dirty. 

ENDNOTES
I'm sure you're not disappointed by the fact that there are no end notes, since this was 3.2 pages on Microsoft word. 

Going a bit Nuts

The Residence Life Ferries granted me one of the most conveniently located dorms Hipster College has to offer. For one thing, my building is on main campus; a lot of Freshmen get stuck in an apartment-building-converted-dormitory known as Hill House. While it’s a 20 minute walk from Hill to Bates (the Center for Student Life), all of the rooms are suit/apartment style, which feels pretty swanky when you’re 18¹. The suit I toured was complete with wood floors, a kitchen, a living space, a private bathroom (for four-six other people!), and two bedrooms that serve as either doubles or triples. Maybe I’ll try Hill one year, but for now, it’s nice being up the [literal] hill from food. Even if my building has turned off the water temporarily.  

What I like almost as much as being up the walk from mail, food, and class is being right on North Quad. This means I’m twenty steps from the Tea Haus², picnic benches, exposed rock, large trees, a swing-set, and large trees. Dead grass, too, but that’s almost overlookable. This is the ideal hangout spot for-end-of-summer days, when the sun shines forgivingly, the humidity has worn off, the sky looks big again, and I can wear jeans and sweaters. Today was a perfect day for learning monologues with my [relatively] new, one-of-my-best-friends-here-at-SLC, Val, in the shade of a very large tree. I’m not much on tree-identification. We’ll get there soon enough.

North Lawn

Val flawlessly recited the last lines of her ferret-killing monologue. Erika, Val’s best friend and one of my best-friends-at-SLC checked her words. I sunbathed, having spent the better part of an hour doing Erika’s job. After they finished, we all sat in the sun, in quiet companionship, until Erika said,

“This nut is huge; what is it?”

I’m as good at identifying nuts as I am at identifying trees. Campus is littered with acorns and pinecones; we feed our black squirrels well. I was still willing to go for the nut-conversation bait. So I was like,

“I dunno. Let me see.”

I reached my hand out, eyes still closed, expecting a nut with the mass of a pebble. What I got was what felt like a piece of wood with the mass of a paperweight; startlingly large. So much so that my eyes flung open and I kicked my legs in order to sit up. Erika and Val laughed. I analyzed.

Chestnut colored. Smooth. No points. Then I flipped the nut over: a light colored circle. My eyes widened. This could only be one thing.

A buckeye.

“YOU GUYS! IT’S A BUCKEYE!” I screamed as if I’d seen a beloved, long lost relative. Nobody batted an eye around us; zealous outbursts aren’t uncommon here.

The two Hawaiians looked at the nut. Then they looked at me. “What’s a Buckeye?”

Never in my life had I met someone who didn’t know what this nut is. Okay, I’ve met several people who didn’t know what Buckeyes were, but they were from either France or Japan. 

“Thisisabuckeye.Theycomefrombuckeyetrees.They’refromOhio.ImeanwehaveagazillioninOhio.OhmygodthisissuchanOhiothing.Whydotheyhavethemhere?Ican’tbelieveit!!!”

Erika, the scientist of our trio, had questions.

“Can I eat it?”

“NO! They’re poisonous, but Buckeye candies aren’t.”

“You can make them into candies and then eat them but we can’t eat them alone?”

“No, buckeye candies are chocolate and peanut butter. They’re a big thing in Ohio. We’re called the Buckeye State.”

“Are you serious? The Buckeye State? That’s so weird.”

“Yeah, like New York is the Empire State, and Florida is the Sunshine State…”

“Washington is the Evergreen State!” Added Val.

“I think Hawaii’s the ‘Aloha’ State,” said Erika.

“Yeah, so we’re the Buckeyes.” I took pictures of the closest Ohio-ish thing I’ve found here, for the purposes of this post. “Ohio has a lot of Buckeye trees.”

“Oh. I bet it came from that tree.” Erika pointed out the large tree casting a shadow over us. I got up and analyzed. I plucked an un-ripe Buckeye plant like it was an apple. Sure enough, the tree I’d been sitting under was a token of my homeland, and I had no clue.

Erika wanted to throw the Buckeye; I begged her not to. Sure, it’s just a nut, but it was a tiny connection to home that I found on the lawn of my new home. I’m still working on the “home” vs. “home” thing. I love frolicking around New York, pretending to have permanent residence here, but I still wear a silver Ohio necklace every day.

Later Erika threw another Buckeye at me. I guess these tiny links to my home aren’t hard to come by here.  

As I walked back to my dorm to fetch my computer to write this post in the company of my friends, I realized that, for whatever reason, I was, even if the intensity of sentiment was manifested in the size of a nut, nostalgic for the Buckeye State. I had a sudden urge to go to an OSU football game, though I’ve only ever been to one. I wanted to drive down 315, get Graeter’s or Jeni’s, sit on Tanya’s porch over-looking Lake Erie, wait in line for a ride at Cedar Point, take a walk down Franklin Street or my family’s farm, and go to the Delaware County Fair.

Ohmygod it occurred to me that my family was moving its farm animals into the Delaware County Fair as I type. I am missing the Delaware County Fair⁴. Last weekend was the [no longer] All-Horse Parade⁵. What’s stupid is that I’ve missed the Delaware County fair while I lived in Delaware County, but I only care that I’m missing it now that I’m 590 miles from home.

Amusingly, when I lived in Columbus all I cared about was not being an OSU Buckeye Fan. I didn’t own an Buckeye’s Football shirt and I didn’t claim any connections to OSU, partially because I didn’t have any. I was strongly discouraged from applying to THE Ohio State University; I even looked into applying to, God forbid, the University of Michigan⁶.  

Now that I’ve been here for two weeks, I’ve gone a little nuts about Ohio-pride and products. Here at SLC I have to explain the Columbus-wide Buckeye Fandom, and it actually fills me with glee. My college friends laughed at Brutus the Buckeye and the call and response: “O-H!”

“I-O!”

I notice that I’m comforted by the way Ohio looks when it’s typed.

Ohio.

What is wrong with me?

While the Buckeyes on North Lawn triggered the Ohio-blues, I’ve been reminded of my friends and family in other means. Watching The Dead Poet’s Society did it for my dad. I called him immediately after the campus-wide viewing was over, sitting on the North Lawn swing-set at 23:30. I don’t feel pathetic about missing people and places, since I’ve experienced worse bouts of homesickness and recognize that it’s healthy. In fact, it’s kind of nice. First, you recognize that you’ve been reminded about the person/place. Then you take a moment to reflect on memories of them. Then the emotion settles in, love, sadness, or whatever. You have to recognize it, but then move on. You can’t get wrapped up in it. You can’t take the Buckeyes back to your room to put on your desk.

Even though that’s exactly what I did.

I show them off to anyone who stops by. The most common reaction:

“OH! So that’s what those are! Who knew?”

I knew. That’s what being from Ohio gets me: the ability to recognize Buckeyes anywhere.

I’ll have to learn to make those Buckeye candies; maybe I can get people to watch the Ohio State-Michigan game, where we could eat the “Buckeye candies.” The me from last year would shake my head in deep disapproval.

But the me from last year would be eagerly awaiting the gig I’ve got going now.

END NOTES

1.      You can make a white room in the basement of a building pretty swanky, too. See A Nook in the Recesses of SLC.

2.      The Tea Haus: a hobbit style, one room, “bungalow” that will sell tea…once it opens for the year

3.      An equally social and contemplative spot at Hipster College.

4.      The “All-Horse Parade” is a traditional parade, consisting of Delaware County High School Marching bands, 4-H clubs, horses, fair organizations, etc. The Brown Jug is a horse race in Ohio that takes place on Thursday the week of the fair. Kids at in the Delaware City School District get to miss school for “Jug Day.”

5.      That might actually be next weekend…but if it’s next weekend, the no-longer All Horse Parade is in two days.

That didn’t happen, though. I would’ve gotten so much shit for it though, both in Michigan for being from Ohio and in Ohio for going to U of M. I avoided the whole fiasco by applying to small liberal arts colleges…while having my heart set on another university. That’s a different story, though. 

Tiiiiiiiiiime is on my side. Yes it is.

And suddenly it was Thursday, 9/11/2014; at least it will be for the next two minutes. Where did this week go?

I did spend a considerable chunk of this week sniffling my nose, sneezing, and lethargically day-dreaming about my bed. Yes, I have acquired the obligatory, freshman, new-environment-with-new-people-walking-around-you-constantly/touched-the-wrong-subway-pole cold. My articulation will not be on point tonight. As for the lack of posts, being faintly-sick will distract you/me from updating blogs, I suppose. 

So will homework, FINALLY!  

But where did I invest all my energy this week? Where “did time go”? Time doesn’t necessarily fly here at college. Contrarily, what I’ve noticed is that there’s so much time. Suddenly I’m not constrained by the same obligations that I was in high school. I’m not in school for seven hours a day, and I don’t have to drive home afterwards. I went from having a 30 minute, highway-bound commute to having class in the same building I sleep in. I suddenly have a three-day weekend, since I don’t have classes on Friday.

This being said, I’m not bored! I don’t think I’ve gotten bored here once. There’s kind of a constant conveyer-belt of activities going on, like class, for example. Classes started this week, thank goodness. Order has reinvited¹ itself into my life. Registering for classes was a week-long endeavor; now I get to attend them. I made some good choices:

-An Actor’s Workshop: This will give me experience/credit for when I try to get into theater courses later. Monologue preparation. There are auditions for fall semester shows…tempting, but I’ll probably pass.

-Japanese 1: Hajimemashite! We’re reviewing hiragana. In high school French we didn’t heavily focus on writing; this is totally different than Japanese. In my first week of Japanese we haven’t done much speaking. It’s all repetition: A, I, U, E, O, KA, KI, KU, KE, KO…

-Global Kinships (Anthropology): We’re discussing a Dan Savage Novel: The Kid, what happened when my boyfriend and I decided to get pregnant. We’re expected to read it in a week! A book like this would have taken a month at my high school. I’m surprised how quickly I’m eating it up…

-Playwright’s Gym: Chekov. Journal keeping. “Brain maps.” The talking desk. 15 aspiring writers guided by a dramatic, well-produced and published playwright. This will clearly be another post.       

I was describing my workload to my friends at other schools. Their responses:

            “Lucky.”

I think it’ll get really busy really soon. I have to meet with each of my professor’s outside of class for thirty minutes bi-weekly. It’s a requirement. That’ll take some time, too. Softball practice will start in October. Hopefully I’ll get hired someplace. I’ll enjoy my reasonable workload while it lasts.

And when I’m not doing that, I’ll run away to the city. I got away from Hipster College to hang out with fellow New York transplants, skyscrapers, and Giant Piles of Playdoh.

I’m gonna leave you hanging, though, because my cold is dragging me down into ambivalence about whether or not I care enough to end this sentence, which is really just me saying that I don’t think my writing is on par tonight, but I don’t feel bad because I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately; letter writing, post-card writing, playwriting, email writing, journal writing (lots of that), but I feel bad that I’ve spent so much time this week being busy with school BUT WAIT I have to do my homework because school comes first, as it always has, and if I let that slip then they, the big bad administration (that really isn’t big and bad) will certainly kick me out or, damnit, what’s the word, take away my scholarship or something so then I WON’T be able to write about Hipster College because I won’t BE at Hipster College to write about; I mean, it’ll be here, but I hypothetically wouldn’t be because I would have been kicked out because I put a blog before my homework and is it hot in here or is just me?

Stay tuned: New York is super cool.

From hanging out on North Lawn. 

I suppose I've been doing a lot of that, too, but that's not all bad. 

END NOTES 

11.  I’m not totally sure this is a word.