Cold Front Coming In

It snowed yesterday. It was almost apocalyptic looking out the window at the flakes flying nearly horizontal, and whirling around in the winter wind. By the time I went to bed it had calmed down and there was a peaceful quiet to the evening air. There had been plows out clearing the main roads and parking lot, as well as people clearing the sidewalks leaving a clean path to the campus and our apartments. I went to bed dreading the morning coming, but for the reason that I had to get up early to get ready and make it to my 8 A.M. class, not because of the day's weather.

I woke up this morning dissatisfied with the 6 hours of sleep I had gotten. I snoozed my alarm for the precious 5 minutes I could squander laying in bed wishing I could somehow slow time to a crawl, but alas my alarm shrieked 5 minutes later sending me out of bed onto the cold floor. I hurried and got ready, putting in minimal effort to make myself as close to presentable as possible in as short a time. I decided as I was zipping up my "dead of winter" coat to grab my gloves, which resemble mittens before heading for the door.
I opened the door expecting the cold to slam into me like a tidal wave, but found myself standing motionless mouth wide open for a different reason instead. There was no longer the clean, clear path from my apartment to campus, but instead stood several feet of snow. A large drift had developed in front of the door, much like town homes near the beach, waiting to come collapsing through the front door. After my moment of hesitation, I stepped out into the drift of snow, and I didn't look back. I walked through the knee-deep snow all the way to class watching cars spinning out, girls falling down stairs, Eskimos running dog sled teams into town, and possibly the extinction of some large species of reptiles, all the while carrying my illustration board which had inscribed upon it my previous evenings work of hours of charcoal attempting to mimic Blackbeard the infamous buccaneer.

Arriving at sculpture class dripping wet, with an inch-thick coating of snow covering my backpack, I took a moment of silence for all those desperate souls surely lost in the morning's weather that would no doubt soon be forced to turn to cannibalism...

I made a wolf today in sculpture class. It somehow seemed fitting. It made me feel slightly better about being so terrible at crafting Abraham Lincoln's dignified face. I doubt I'll ever be able to look at a 5 dollar bill again. Pennies will likely be okay, they are so much less judgmental. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Illustration class somehow got away from the teacher today and became story time. I heard about a man that shot his neighbor in the face pheasant hunting, apparently it can happen to more than Dick Cheney. Then there was the hillbilly kid and his bear stories, stories about growing up in Japan, stories about eavesdropping on other students for creative writing class, the list goes on. Needless to say I didn't need to bring my illustration board with my project that was due today to class. This was slightly irritating because I carried it all the way in the crazy snowstorm, kept it through sculpture class, and it was supposedly due. But it was worth it to hear that a grown man wet his pants after opening his kitchen cabinet that was rattling, and having two baby raccoons jump out at him. I feel a cold front coming in.

Dreaming Out Loud

I found out today that I have bronchitis. I also found out today that I don't like strawberry flavored hot chocolate, although one would think that would be obvious. I thought I would be adventurous and try something new, but as is sometimes the case my sense of adventure left me with a terrible taste in my mouth. Today I also realized what I've already known for quite some time, I'm starting to really get old. I believe the best defense against such feelings is pure unadulterated denial. This semester is really wearing on me more than any semester I can remember. I had to arrange my schedule in an unfortunate array of classes that would appear more like a sinisterly designed torture session than a final semester of classes. Wednesdays by far being the worst, with a morning beginning at 8 with an early morning sculpture class followed by illustration class from 11-2. Then I rush off to work from 2-5, at which point my evening class begins going from 5-7. Needless to say, I feel like an exceptional student at a first-rate university getting a fulfilling education, even if the truth is something completely different. This weekend I will be attempting the impossible, or rather improbable task of completing a sculpture of the magestic Abraham Lincoln, a value painting of a boring still life featuring cubes, a sphere, and single cylinder, and finally a graphite and then seperate charcoal drawing of the infamous Blackbeard the Buccaneer. If I can get all that figured out while coughing every other breath then I don't see how I can't conquer the world, one street corner at a time.

A Reluctant Student Body

It was an incredibly cold morning. The power went off at around 4 this morning to some great fanfare, as I had gone to bed without turning off my computer speakers and they were sizzling and crackling with the sounds of power cutting in and out until they finally went dead along with everything else connected by electricity in this town. Worse than being awakened by the strange otherworldly sounds being emitted from beneath my desk was to hear the sound of the furnace turning off, and knowing it would not be coming back on until someone, somewhere, somehow fixed the town's power crisis this frosty morning. Having been bedridden all of yesterday, I was reluctant to even try and attend 8 A.M. class this morning. That reluctance began long before the power outage and the following crusade of cold air that marked the morning's events. Fortunately for all involved, I was soon flooded with a flurry of irritating text messages, alerts, and phone calls all spawned from the same twisted source, the school. Now for the sake of journalistic integrity, I will just go ahead and admit that I for one have always been of the firm belief that whenever your school is trying to get a hold of you it is bad news, and you should avoid this at all costs. Perhaps this is the paradigm the school was working with when they decided a single text message was unlikely to reach students so they would instead send a flurry of messages, emails, calls, voicemails, and since I haven't checked today perhaps even postcards and letters all in the hopes of reaching a reluctant student body. The irritation I would normally have felt at someone "blowing up" my phone so early after a miserable night's sleep was greatly lessened with each new message. The first was an alert that not only was I without power, but the same fate befell the town and yes, even the school. The next message was an improvement, it went on to say that classes would be postponed until 10:15 as a result of the power outage. This was great news for me with an 8:00 class. I tossed the blanket over my head in an attempt to expel the colder air gathering around me and perhaps magically drift into a peaceful slumber. It was not to be, no sooner had I done so when another flurry of messages arrived. "Alert, students! If you are cold in your apartments come to campus  for shelter." Several robotic voiced voicemails later saying the same thing I became aware I could retreat to campus if I got too cold in my apartment. How walking out into the sub-zero temperatures and snow to find my way to a spacious building with no power or heating to stay warm would help me I was unable to understand. In the end the power returned before severe rioting broke out or any survivor colonies could firmly take root in any of the larger buildings on campus. It was a miracle of modern ingenuity and technology that anyone could appreciate, except perhaps for my 8:00 A.M. sculpture class instructor.

MIT Video - The World is Flat 3.0

MIT Video - The World is Flat 3.0