Video Tour?

Ok if I walk around campus with a camera and record my strange perspective on the many isms of Whitworth and then post that on this blog, would you: A) watch it?; and B) Enjoy it?; and C) Learn something from it?

Honest opinions people, because if I am going to walk about campus like a fool, I want it to be for a good reason.

Home State Assumptions

Aw snap, apparently people who live in other states don't make any efforts to keep up on the many subtle -isms of Colorado.  How dare they be so presumptuous as to actually expect us to explain ourselves.  So keep in mind that, outside of Colorado, no one knows what you are talking about when you say these things:
- CSAPs
- I 25
- The Mountains (I mean, they'll know that you're talking about mountains but they won't know that you aren't talking about the hills in their state that they think qualify as peaks)
- The Res
- Menchies
- King Soopers (depending on the state)
- Pearl Street/Boulder in general
- Smash Burger
- Casa Bonita

Oh gosh, do you guys remember Casa Bonita?  It was so picking hard to explain how simultaneously amazing and sketchy that place was when I accidentally mentioned it in a conversation.  It went like this:
Friend: Check out that house with all the lights on it!
Me: OMQ! It looks like Casa Bonita!
Friend: "omq"? What the krap is Casa Bonita?
Me: oh... uh... sorry I usually try to spread my strange turns of phrases out but uh...  yeah, Casa Bonita is this restaurant in Colorado where this guy in a gorilla suit jumps off a cliff and ... the food is really awful but ... you know, you still go there because ... this guy in a ... gorilla suit ...
Friend: *blank look*
Me: yeah.

Watch what you say, little Peakers, because these peeps over here might totes goats not understand what you say and that is bad news bears because then you sound like a total Boulderite and you will be like "OMQ, I just fell off the stage".  Or something like that.

Impress Your Profs

We all do this.  Everyone loudly mentions that article from the academic journal that you read when a teacher walks by, or drops hints that you regularly peruse the unassigned chapters of the textbook.  Don't pretend you aren't a cheating little brown-noser.

So here are some ways to impress your profs and/or make them think that you spend your spare time buried in a corner of the library instead of watching back-episodes of Dr. Who for the fifth time.

Carry these things around and leave them out where your profs can see them:
- Walt Whitman poetry collections (your favorite poem is "Eidólons" because before you looked up that word (Greek for apparitions), you imagined all the different things it could mean based on the stanzas and you discovered a bunch of fascinating layers in the poem)
- Books by Jorge Luis Borges (extra points if they are in the original Spanish)
- Essays or books written by your profs (with key passages highlighted, of course)
- The list of fascinating quotes you have encountered in obscure books
- Really beat-up copies of the lesser-known Shakespeare plays

Mention these things when you know your prof can hear you:
- How the ending of Sense and Sensibility is too philosophical and ambiguous for your taste
- How Brian Switek's views on the Orinthomimus are completely unfounded and the Smithsonian magazine should really be peer reviewed
- That you still can't decide whether Lacan, Žižeck, or Freud make more sense when viewed as a whole or if they should be considered separate
- That your copy of the complete works of Rene Descartes should arrive in the mail any day now

Fight on, brave little soldiers, in your never-ending battle to trick your profs into thinking you can't get enough of their subjects.

Dressing Up

I think that this is isolated to Christian colleges (because at other colleges, you can party in jeans).

For some reason, people really love having an excuse to dress up, gather in some random common room, pretend that it is an elegant club, and mingle about for a while in your fancy clothes.  So far this year, we have had the following formal events: East Hall Ball, Baldiwn-Jenkins Mocktails Party (mocktails are cocktails that don't have alcohol in them), The Yule Ball, A Very Hipster Homecoming, and at least three other similar events whose names are totally slipping my mind.  It's almost like we sit around saying "Hey, wouldn't it be great if we all got dressed up?"

So yes, when you come to college, bring some formal wear (gentlemen, if you have a three-piece suit, you will wear it), practice your British accent, and get ready to sulk in the irony of the fact that once the dancing starts, they switch the music from the elegant orchestration of preliminary gathering to the sleazy dance-club music featuring Ke$ha and Beiber.  It's almost like everyone seems to think that unless you can appreciate a song when completely wasted then you cannot ever dance to it, even when sober.  I'm still waiting for the swing-themed party that will actually play swing music and not trick you by playing swing music until everyone starts dancing and then switching to "sexy back".

Fingers crossed.

Colorado's Flag

I have a Colorado flag hanging over my closet.  It is actually a long story about how the closets used to have doors but they sucked and were removed so most people bought curtains to cover their closets but I just really didn't care if people could see my clothes so I didn't but then I got a Colorado flag because it was cool and didn't have anywhere to put it because the walls in my dorm room are plastered with show posters and/or pictures of Thor, so I hung the flag over my closet and pretended that I had intended to do that with it all along.  Yeah.

Anyway, I have always liked the Colorado flag - it's sort of modern arty/graphic designy in a very hipster way.  Our flag beats the krap out of the Washington flag which, creatively, features George Washington's head.  Apparently, however, most people have been assuming that my Colorado flag is some kind of janky, off-color Cubs flag.  This sort of makes sense, ish, but really the comparison is pretty weak.  I mean, sure the Cubs flag has a big red "C" on it with something inside of it and the background is blue, but the Colorado flag totally has a stripe on it.  They only sort of look like 80% the same.

So consider yourself forewarned: if you bring a Colorado flag to college, people might think that you are a Cubs fan with a weird flag.

My 103rd post!

Apparently I am really bad at recognizing milestones.  Not only did I completely ignore my 100th post, but I wasted it on a rush-job post that was just plain annoying.  I wonder what that says about me...

Anyway, I went through the past posts and I think that about 76.4 of them are useful.  Which means that I am performing at 76.4% capacity - and  you know what?  I am completely ok with that!  You guys can deal with a certain amount of krappy posts.

So, yay!  I have 103 posts now!  Top that, you lazy Peakers!

Advicelett #2

When you bring music into the bathroom with you while you shower, the speakers will be louder if you put them inside the (dry) bathtub (if your dorm has one).  Something about the acoustics of small spaces...