CollegiateTimes.com - He said, she said: Fall back into routine
Through a campus walkabout of sorts, Laken Renick and I give our perspectives on the first week of academic life.
(This column will adopt a new topic each week.)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
International Collaborators: Jane Vance, Amchi Tsampa Ngawang
CollegiateTimes.com - Crossing cultural bridges
Jane Vance, Virginia Tech professor and artist, has split her time between the U.S. and South Asia over nearly three decades. A more recent friendship with Nepal native Amchi Tsampa Ngawang has sparked the production of a documentary film "A Gift for the Village" that is centered around a spectacular lineage painting Vance completed for Ngawang.
Click here to watch Vance dish about her artistic style.
Jane Vance, Virginia Tech professor and artist, has split her time between the U.S. and South Asia over nearly three decades. A more recent friendship with Nepal native Amchi Tsampa Ngawang has sparked the production of a documentary film "A Gift for the Village" that is centered around a spectacular lineage painting Vance completed for Ngawang.
Click here to watch Vance dish about her artistic style.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Q+A with architecture professor Hans Rott
CollegiateTimes.com - Students help to design and construct the house of architecture professor
My involvement with the Collegiate Times will likely curb my personal posts heavily. Still, I hope the articles I offer will be of interest to some. On Fridays, I'll have a column that should contain some giggles.
The link above is a Q+A story with an architecture professor whose unique Blacksburg home had a lot of student involvement during its construction. Check out this next link for a multimedia snippet of the interview. Hans Rott is absolutely chillin', smoking a cigar and rapping about his design.
My involvement with the Collegiate Times will likely curb my personal posts heavily. Still, I hope the articles I offer will be of interest to some. On Fridays, I'll have a column that should contain some giggles.
The link above is a Q+A story with an architecture professor whose unique Blacksburg home had a lot of student involvement during its construction. Check out this next link for a multimedia snippet of the interview. Hans Rott is absolutely chillin', smoking a cigar and rapping about his design.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Minimum wage with minimal effort.
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Oh Mickey, you're so fine.
I’m in the hallway between basketball gyms 141 and 125. I’m stationed at a very long table more suited for the Last Supper as opposed to my 15-inch laptop (dong dong dong dong!). Specifically, I’m sitting in an office chair with a cock-eyed back having only one of four screws in place.
Every so often I will slide a Hokie Passport through a CBORD card scanner, see a green light and say Thank you, or a red light which I follow with Thank you.
We run a tight shop.
A tight shop with no air conditioning. Each summer day I emerge from the doors feeling as though I’ve mowed a lawn and washed the clippings off with urine.
To my left, an industrial box fan sits stoic next to two sets of open double doors.
The propeller belt rolls endlessly over a central red pupil, the iris translucent as the maniacal blades twirl a dark haze. I half expect the eye to glow orange, shooting forth a Mario fire ball, bouncing along shimmering tiles to meet my face with a splat.
Fans! yells a girl no older than five.
Don’t go near it, missy. You will surely melt. And I’ll have to use that weird body fluid powder to sweep you up. I will hand the biohazard bag to your father who will return home where his wife will see the red bag from afar and say Oh, you went shopping! to which he’ll sadly reply No, this is your daughter.
Truly, my face already feels caked in lava. What I think is mop sweat could easily be skin departing my forehead. The 90-degree air drenched in humidity is tumbling, punching the fan's thin metal shell (and it’s wearing brass knuckles) before oozing forth. It’s a brawl. A monster truck rally in nine cubic feet.
I’ll endure this incessant rattle for four hours.
But today it will only enhance my focus. I’ll perceive it as white noise, Enya playing softly in a hyperbaric chamber. Blissful, really.
And to what (or whom) do I owe this meditative perspective?
Cheerleaders.
Hundreds of cheerleaders.
And let me immediately differentiate between the two species. There are those that soar through the air like catapulted Slinkys, provoking Ooos! from a predominantly obese, flightless audience. Then there are those that sit on bleachers, the vibrations of their not-quite-in-synch step stomping harassing my taint. My taint did not want this. Nor did I wish to be given a spelling test of my school’s acronym many times over.
Ess go! Ess go!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldpost/2884299149/
Last week, the gyms hosted the latter: the UCA (Utter Cochlea Annihilation) Cheer Camp.
A sea of 12 to 17-year-old girls in matching clothes (or lack thereof) whose collective scream sounded like a colossal banshee wail born of Lucifer’s asshole.
Combined with the repetitive playing of Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” on a way-too-loud sound system, I’m amazed I didn’t have an aneurysm. Parents need to understand they are emptying their pockets to have their precious ponytails jerk their hips like a Viper’s pistons to the steel drum narration of a sex act involving misdirected man seed and sheet capes.
Maybe Clark Kent was into jailbait, I don’t know.
The thirty-five paces between me and the aforementioned box fan are littered with sequins, ghosts of jazz hands past. Jewels that fell from teen cheeks, arms and booty shorts declaring pom pom (one pom per bun). I didn’t view them so much as walking hazards. Rather, I saw them as mines waiting to detonate, claiming not limbs but confidence.
Boom! You are too fat.
Boom! Your toe-touch sucks.
For what are the benefits of such an experience?
Consider a basketball camp. Kids play upwards of 5 games a day. They are crushing their lungs, pumping their legs full of lactic acid, and facing faster, stronger, taller, better opponents. Their strength, endurance and skill increase as a result.
On the other hand, the cheerleaders could, for the most part, be seen sitting Indian style, shattering eardrums with support for the handful of those performing a routine; a routine that did not particularly challenge the human physique beyond maybe a double jump where legs had to show some ounce of resiliency.
Several herds did perform push-ups randomly, although they were absolutely pitiful, like they were plagued with osteoporosis. An entirely contradictory show of might.
Oh, and they also ran unprovoked pseudo-sprints through the hallways like wayward gazelles, yelping about all things inconsequential.
So, the physical gains are sparse. But how about wisdom imparted?
Ballers can dig in to their coaches’ knowledge, direct or abstract. There are the fundamentals: how can I improve the rotation on my jumper, read a pick-and-roll, better close out a perimeter threat?
And then the game extends into our social reality: reach-around defense my work’s procrastination, flopping a charge my white lie excuses, the backboard my wingman at the bar (I’m no Scottie Pippen; I always go home alone).
Cheerleaders have to refine some basics, too. You know, like how to make toes more pointy and spirit fingers more…spirity.
And obviously a side hurdler jump is akin to, I don’t know, a really good high five with a friend. And a hair ribbon is, say, a colorful Post-it.
Hmm.
But wait. I’ve got it. It’s all about camaraderie, right? Those Kumbaya moments during meals or before bed when BFFFF’s are made. And while I imagine some cheerleaders found pals, I couldn’t help but notice the competition extended beyond the pyramids.
There are large viewing windows overlooking the gymnastics room. The lights within were off, and the glass afforded a significant reflection. So often I watched girls stroll by, their heads craned to the side, hands atop their skull, obsessively sculpting their locks and tuning their bows like a fucking present was inside. They were inevitably on their way to the restroom, inside which I wouldn’t doubt they pulled mascara from their socks and touched up their soulless eyes.
Back in the gym: 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Step counts like an adaptation of robotic binary.
The whole idea seems conflicting. The camp encourages impressionable minds to unite! Bring apathetic fans to their feet with energy, exponential energy! Yet their eyes are also askance, darting from girl to girl.
Would I be cuter with shorter hair?
Glad I don't have her gut.
My ass is so flat. I can't "Crank That" quite like Christina.
I’d like to imagine summer experiences at that age would send youth home enlightened and optimistic, not straight to a full-length mirror. For something that ostensibly teaches the power of uniformity, there sure seems to be a hierarchy of ego and self-deprecation.
It’s just veiled by jet engine shrieks.
I mean, a campus cop approached me one evening concernedly and asked What is going on in there? We heard screams across the Drillfield.
The hobby literally convinces passersby that people are being murdered.
But as he walked – well, waddled – away, his rotund trunk was unavoidable.
Christina ain’t got shit on the fuzz.
Every so often I will slide a Hokie Passport through a CBORD card scanner, see a green light and say Thank you, or a red light which I follow with Thank you.
We run a tight shop.
A tight shop with no air conditioning. Each summer day I emerge from the doors feeling as though I’ve mowed a lawn and washed the clippings off with urine.
To my left, an industrial box fan sits stoic next to two sets of open double doors.
The propeller belt rolls endlessly over a central red pupil, the iris translucent as the maniacal blades twirl a dark haze. I half expect the eye to glow orange, shooting forth a Mario fire ball, bouncing along shimmering tiles to meet my face with a splat.
Fans! yells a girl no older than five.
Don’t go near it, missy. You will surely melt. And I’ll have to use that weird body fluid powder to sweep you up. I will hand the biohazard bag to your father who will return home where his wife will see the red bag from afar and say Oh, you went shopping! to which he’ll sadly reply No, this is your daughter.
Truly, my face already feels caked in lava. What I think is mop sweat could easily be skin departing my forehead. The 90-degree air drenched in humidity is tumbling, punching the fan's thin metal shell (and it’s wearing brass knuckles) before oozing forth. It’s a brawl. A monster truck rally in nine cubic feet.
I’ll endure this incessant rattle for four hours.
But today it will only enhance my focus. I’ll perceive it as white noise, Enya playing softly in a hyperbaric chamber. Blissful, really.
And to what (or whom) do I owe this meditative perspective?
Cheerleaders.
Hundreds of cheerleaders.
And let me immediately differentiate between the two species. There are those that soar through the air like catapulted Slinkys, provoking Ooos! from a predominantly obese, flightless audience. Then there are those that sit on bleachers, the vibrations of their not-quite-in-synch step stomping harassing my taint. My taint did not want this. Nor did I wish to be given a spelling test of my school’s acronym many times over.
Ess go! Ess go!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldpost/2884299149/Last week, the gyms hosted the latter: the UCA (Utter Cochlea Annihilation) Cheer Camp.
A sea of 12 to 17-year-old girls in matching clothes (or lack thereof) whose collective scream sounded like a colossal banshee wail born of Lucifer’s asshole.
Combined with the repetitive playing of Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” on a way-too-loud sound system, I’m amazed I didn’t have an aneurysm. Parents need to understand they are emptying their pockets to have their precious ponytails jerk their hips like a Viper’s pistons to the steel drum narration of a sex act involving misdirected man seed and sheet capes.
Maybe Clark Kent was into jailbait, I don’t know.
The thirty-five paces between me and the aforementioned box fan are littered with sequins, ghosts of jazz hands past. Jewels that fell from teen cheeks, arms and booty shorts declaring pom pom (one pom per bun). I didn’t view them so much as walking hazards. Rather, I saw them as mines waiting to detonate, claiming not limbs but confidence.
Boom! You are too fat.
Boom! Your toe-touch sucks.
For what are the benefits of such an experience?
Consider a basketball camp. Kids play upwards of 5 games a day. They are crushing their lungs, pumping their legs full of lactic acid, and facing faster, stronger, taller, better opponents. Their strength, endurance and skill increase as a result.
On the other hand, the cheerleaders could, for the most part, be seen sitting Indian style, shattering eardrums with support for the handful of those performing a routine; a routine that did not particularly challenge the human physique beyond maybe a double jump where legs had to show some ounce of resiliency.
Several herds did perform push-ups randomly, although they were absolutely pitiful, like they were plagued with osteoporosis. An entirely contradictory show of might.
Oh, and they also ran unprovoked pseudo-sprints through the hallways like wayward gazelles, yelping about all things inconsequential.
So, the physical gains are sparse. But how about wisdom imparted?
Ballers can dig in to their coaches’ knowledge, direct or abstract. There are the fundamentals: how can I improve the rotation on my jumper, read a pick-and-roll, better close out a perimeter threat?
And then the game extends into our social reality: reach-around defense my work’s procrastination, flopping a charge my white lie excuses, the backboard my wingman at the bar (I’m no Scottie Pippen; I always go home alone).
Cheerleaders have to refine some basics, too. You know, like how to make toes more pointy and spirit fingers more…spirity.
And obviously a side hurdler jump is akin to, I don’t know, a really good high five with a friend. And a hair ribbon is, say, a colorful Post-it.
Hmm.
But wait. I’ve got it. It’s all about camaraderie, right? Those Kumbaya moments during meals or before bed when BFFFF’s are made. And while I imagine some cheerleaders found pals, I couldn’t help but notice the competition extended beyond the pyramids.
There are large viewing windows overlooking the gymnastics room. The lights within were off, and the glass afforded a significant reflection. So often I watched girls stroll by, their heads craned to the side, hands atop their skull, obsessively sculpting their locks and tuning their bows like a fucking present was inside. They were inevitably on their way to the restroom, inside which I wouldn’t doubt they pulled mascara from their socks and touched up their soulless eyes.
Back in the gym: 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Step counts like an adaptation of robotic binary.
The whole idea seems conflicting. The camp encourages impressionable minds to unite! Bring apathetic fans to their feet with energy, exponential energy! Yet their eyes are also askance, darting from girl to girl.
Would I be cuter with shorter hair?
Glad I don't have her gut.
My ass is so flat. I can't "Crank That" quite like Christina.
I’d like to imagine summer experiences at that age would send youth home enlightened and optimistic, not straight to a full-length mirror. For something that ostensibly teaches the power of uniformity, there sure seems to be a hierarchy of ego and self-deprecation.
It’s just veiled by jet engine shrieks.
I mean, a campus cop approached me one evening concernedly and asked What is going on in there? We heard screams across the Drillfield.
The hobby literally convinces passersby that people are being murdered.
But as he walked – well, waddled – away, his rotund trunk was unavoidable.
Christina ain’t got shit on the fuzz.
Friday, August 7, 2009
"I'm supertramp, and you're super apple."
Schmoozing in the Mummy Range 
Get her attention.
We hiked almost five miles in, camping near
Sorry with a not-really-apologetic smile.
(I’d start a forest fire to get a better look at you.)
A gesture returned (I think, I hope) by the citrus iris of the sun peering from behind the silhouetted crag. Fleeting as a wink.
Aw, shucks. … Shucks? Be cool, man.
We circumnavigated the water, sneaking glances, seeking access. Light caroming off the ripples like thousands of index finger Come here’s. A rattling snare, my heart.
Shoo – she split her evergreen entourage. No. Way.
Me?
Yes, you.
Gulp.
The clearest of paths but the steepest of approaches, no doubt. She knows only the pedestal. My vision narrows to photo negative, a wormhole vacuum (she’s reaching for space, after all). A pocket of loose rock an overturned sack of marbles on which I slip, hands down to prevent a face plant.
Fuck. What a tool.
I stand a bit straighter as though it will replenish my mystique, my man.
Atop the small ridge it’s just an introduction, still so far from her reality. Above treeline like the crowd broke through the floorboards. Pretty damn vulnerable now. The curling ribbon wind her leg-breaking scent, suffocating my words. Masochism ain’t so bad; incredible, actually.
My lungs allow no more than a head nod. A nod that really says Ohmygodpleaseletmedevouryou. But she sees hello and the still-clear sky suggests she obliges. I don’t care if it’s sympathy.
I’ve only thought this far. Shit.
Once a crumpled soda can, my diaphragm finally expands. I use the new, angel-hair-thin O2 to muster something, anything.
Nice digs, eh?
Ugh.
It’s the
She laughed, though, and the Indian Paint Brush seesawed in her sweet exhale.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blile59/2056362770/
A second chance, dick. Think. …
Eyes locked but silent.
I can hear the delay of game whistle now. The red zone’s escaped your grasp, playa. Go set up your E-harmony profile, dood:
Hi, my name is Ryan. Expect extensive pantomiming on dates. Try to decipher that I like wheat beer, spooning, music…
Wait. Music!
It’s like Anita Miller in Almost Famous: Listen to Tommy with a candle burning, and you’ll see your entire future.
Excuse me for a second. I’ll be right back.
I stood tip-toed at the DJ booth, and although I didn’t request The Who, I stayed in the era.
Piano boom.
Well there’s a light in your eye that keeps shining,
Like a star that can’t wait for the night,
I hate to think I’ve been blinded baby,
Why can’t I see you tonight?
Like I just slew some conversational dragon, I strolled back to her side, hand extended.
Care to dance?
Rico fucking Suave, right? A rabbit on the race track, feverishly scaling again.
The Bonham shuffle like hot coals on heels, and the delay of game whistle became the footloose cue on Fool in the Rain.
We merged like twist ties; spliced wire, surging with shared hertz.
But god, was her conquest merciless. Undulating, relentless boulders the confident hips refusing me rhythm, always adapting. Was I leashed?
The frigid winds her whipping hair, shielding her face from my nuzzle, my muzzle.
Leaning hands on knees, I’d disguise exhaustion as a retro Charleston
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Baker_Charleston.jpg
Ominous clouds slithered closer, inversely the creeping house lights. Make moves, son.
My persistence wore on her reign. I stressed my leash, the collar fraying. After what seemed like endless false summits, the sovereign cairn in plain view.
Truly animal now, all extremities clawing, racing up her tapering torso. The alcoves of her pointed shoulders filled with my hot breath, dotted with my sweat.
My final, sloth steps like careful nibbles on her obelisk neck.
Threads, threads, threads…
And she was coy no more.
But Fairchild was not simply an incendiary, 13,502 foot affair; a challenging catch and release told-you-so notch in my hiking bedpost. The subsequent descent confirmed a 17-mile relationship, complete with impassioned embraces and the dodging of thrown dishes.
Baby, you make me a better person.
I fucking hate the way you chew your food.
It was insightful that way, as only something simultaneously amazing and miserable can be.
At the trailhead, it was exciting to walk away from the car. We were escaping alarm clocks, inboxes, ring tones, bosses, board meetings, traffic jams, dog shit. Life became elemental: walk, breathe, panorama. I swear the air was fresher. The birds were personalizing their tunes for us.
No peel here’s and microwave cook times. It was pasta boiling over an open flame, a few slices of bread, maybe one (two) fun-size Butterfinger for my sweet tooth. (Apples and oatmeal in the morning.) Hearty nutrients that took weight from our gear, made the trek easier.
No network shows, so we read by lamplight or just stewed in our thoughts. It’s funny how reading and thinking have become somewhat taboo, certainly in youth. The whir of a stream downhill was our lullaby as we pulled the YKK midway on our sleeping bags.
Dawn light woke us like a motherly nudge.
Ahh. This is the stuff.
Then it was time to confront the stunning peak. Its mere presence managed to both galvanize me and crush me, not unlike that illusory woman. It’s so damn confident and so damn impossible. But I knew the glory of its apex, and we put our heads down for the slog.
That endless slog.
Lava in our quads and vises on our lungs, we were drained. But that’s easy to forget when looking out upon layers of snowcapped mountain ranges almost floating on a robin’s egg sea. Roadways like pencil strokes miles away.
Solitude.
But then a sip on our Camelbacks produced nothing. Our bodies again became vocal.
Why would you do this to me, you sonofabitch?
Beef jerky and
Why don’t they build ziplines here? Toss me that carpet, Aladdin.
The supposed ease of downhill was quickly disproven. Each step was like billiards for our knees, bones colliding. There was no doubt I was becoming wickedly dehydrated, my pulse ever-present in my temples, thro-thro-throbbing.
Alas, we met the Saddle Trail.
It was hardly a trail, more a carved hazard. Those fucking marbles again, pebble city. I slipped a lot, and this time around I forfeit cavalier for cursing. Leg up, flailing my arms like a tight rope act desperate for balance. Unable to control my body, I was livid.
Then the trail inexplicably disappeared. We had to bushwhack to reconnect with it. Neck-high shrubs with strong branches held our weight well. As I went for a step on a lone rock … drop.
My foot landed short of its destination. My left leg took a dip in marsh water up to my man bits. Syrup water. Turn-my-kaki-pants-brown water.
Step, squisssh, step, squisssh, step …
Sunburn, headache, noodle legs, cotton mouth, prairie dogging, and at least two more miles before camp.
Camp. Where I knew I’d be eating tuna fish pitas. And sleeping without a pillow. And smelling like an asshole. And waking up feeling like a corpse.
I wondered how much TNT would level Fairchild. Or maybe I could just decapitate a fox. Whatever revenge against Nature I could manage.
We eventually got water, the effects of which I inevitably didn’t feel until much later. The tuna tasted like a little more than nothing. I slept about as calmly as Emily Rose. My spine resembled a sine wave.
We booked it out that morning like the apocalypse was nipping at our calves. I nearly dry-humped the Subaru. We drove directly to Estes Park Brewery for a killer lunch.
As I annihilated a chicken sandwich, I began thinking rationally again. What was disdain morphed into respect.
Being a nomad must have sucked mammoth balls. Or how about the folks on rickety wagons rolling up to the
… Fuck. Let’s go around. I feel dysentery coming.
And I thought we persevered.
Mountains have a way of building me up and breaking me down, therefore lending me an incredibly balanced perspective.
Their purity highlights the extraneous in my life. Their detail is extraordinary; I try to apply that scrutiny to the common, bullet-paced day. Overcoming their stature makes other challenges, however immense, seem manageable.
They also show me their permanence and my transience; get arrogant and my head could be a Gallagher watermelon. I’ve got the warning scars. And quite simply, they are bullies, terrorizing my physical and mental strength. They’ve got a whole gang: sun, wind, rain, mosquitoes, grizzly bears.
But I’d like to think the broken are the most appreciative of victories. I recall an almost-drunk Brian Shelby rocking David Aames’s world in Vanilla Sky: Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and I know the sour. It was only when Aames mangled his face as the victim of an attempted murder-suicide that he understood the sentiment .
But, you know, I’m talking about mountains.
And speaking of sour, be ready to juke and jive on the trail. Horses drop the most wretched magic-eight-ball-sized deuces.
Am I going to vomit?
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