Posts Tagged ‘the real world’

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Rend It It’s Yours

Wednesday, March 8th, 2023

Campus is a-changin’. Jesus Christ on a stick, I just got here. Deep breaths.

Every time I see something about some change happening here, I generally roll my eyes really hard because it’s 2023 and we’re still in the middle of the “2018-2020″ phase of this whole “master plan” they’ve got for campus. Thanks, COVID. Thanks, recession. And thanks, university administration, for your persisting zeal, which is fascinating to observe. The shiny new map of campus they plastered up on the first floor of the library has their projected business building on it, even though I have seen “it” from a distance multiple times and “it” is nowhere close to even being considered an unfinished building. I’ll be able to watch the construction up close next semester since it’ll be right next to Verder Hall, where I’ll be cooping up without a roommate or AC. I literally thought that building was supposed to be demolished this year.

The final result of Big Business Hall (actually Crawford) is supposed to look something like this, with creepy prison-drawbridge bunker White Hall apparently totally unchanged to its left:

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Tree City, amirite? I love how quaint campus is.

Anger inducing sterile boring grassy fields aside, a headline from our own Kent Wired about campus evolution caught my eye in that it was very distinct from any superficial flex of size, power, or fleeting modernity. It was actually based on changing the curriculum itself. It was about the First Year Experience course that help the adorable freshmen-I should know-acclimate them to campus. Next semester, they’ll be rebranding it as Flashes 101, which I’ll admit is a pretty adorable name.

The thing that sticks me out about this new version of the class is that, this time around, students will be able to choose between sections that are specific to their area of study, like the section I had to take, or general sections that include peers with a mix of interests. In my experience, being grouped with students within my major’s college ended up only benefiting me on a personal level, not a social one. My FYE professor was actually the dean of the college my major was located within, and it was really beneficial having such direct access to her and her enthusiasm as I considered different options of what it even was I wanted to do with my education.

I did not have the same lasting effect with any of my peers who were taking the class with me, however. That’s no one’s fault, but it does confirm my belief that defining people by and grouping them together based on one loose and pretty much non-defining factor doesn’t mean they’re all going to be best friends forever. Facts of life, you know. I also ended up changing my major twice last semester, though I was located within the same college every time. Had I been even more questioning and veered off into another college or area of discipline entirely, I might have felt like I didn’t belong alongside everyone else.

Part of what excited me most about college was meeting people different from myself. And by being fascinated by what made people different from the rest, I was able to find the people I’ve clicked with most so far. I hate interacting with humans, but when you find someone you’re actually excited to allot time out of your schedule for, it’s the best feeling in the world. And then maybe on another day you overhear someone in your Media, Power and Culture class say that he doesn’t pay any attention to the news or politics and that he only pays attention to football, and you can’t believe how anyone could live life like that. And it makes you feel a little more confident in a part of yourself you might’ve questioned in a world gone mad.

College is inherently fucked up, and it can be oddly isolating when schedules don’t match up or disintegrate entirely. But that’s why it works. It gives you the superficial comforts of “You Belong Here” posters and tag along friends from high school (unless you’re me), and then it throws you into the arena of self reliance, self confidence, and self advocating. You will find community and solidarity, and you will also find spontaneity and the people who you strive to be the exact opposite of in every way possible. And the beautiful thing is that here at Kent State, we all have our own ways of being “the worst kind of people we harbor in America”, as per one Governor James Rhodes. The good and the bad are definitely both teasing away at my comfort zone at any given moment. The mindless bus rides, the hard walks through rain and snow, the late night study sessions, the frat parties, the emphasis on legacy, the gentrification. The supposed fact that downtown apparently needs two goddamn smoothie bowl places for some reason. Humanity in all of its facets is at both its dimmest and  its brightest in College Town USA, and that will never cease to wow me.

College is all I wanted it to be and everything I didn’t think to dread all at once, and I just might love that.

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Out Here

Tuesday, August 30th, 2022

I’ve been away from the homestead for over a week now adjusting to the trials and tribulations of college. I must admit, it’s a very liberating feeling being left to my own devices, mentally mapping out routes to dining halls and wandering around campus when I have free time. I’m already getting a lay of the land pretty easily, and I can’t believe I’ll be showing some out of state (and in one case, out of country) friends around this not-so-little old place in just a few weeks. (Seriously, DEVOtional cannot come quickly enough.) Maybe someday younger students here will be asking me for their way around, intimidated by the many routes of getting to Eastway or unable to not keep dropping their school issued ID cards. For now, I’ve been socializing with other members of my class who are in the same boat as me, though they happen to have friends from high school lingering in the area. I’ll always be an introvert, but talking to these brand new people has been strangely refreshing recently. It’s a nice, liberating feeling being a blank slate to a whole bunch of people who, like me, are also baby faced, weird, and anxious as hell.

Even as I make connections in the real world, I’m still checking my frequented sites and social media accounts. I expected I would do less of that as I transitioned into college life, but in retrospect I feel like I’ve been going through a mental transition regarding my time on the computer all along. Ever since I began making progress towards even attending Kent in the first place, I’ve been taking the digital world less and less seriously, and I didn’t even take it too seriously to begin with. Now I look at people getting into comment section flame wars sometimes and just feel a little bit sad. I feel sad that these people, apparently, have nothing better to do than insulting people on the internet for fleeting moments of manufactured superiority. They could be learning new things, opening their minds to new experiences, and actually engaging in the real world, but they aren’t. It’s frustrating sometimes, because it feels as if so much potential is being wasted on useless, stupid arguments when the participants could have been doing something more productive in the first place. (Hey, if me being a student makes me a vital part of the conscience of America, I gotta put my honest opinion out there.)

My year-long honors English course is centered around the theme of disenfranchisement, the act of being made into an outsider. But sometimes, strangely enough, I like to feel like an outsider. I like to look at inane arguments and know that I have no place there, that there’s something much better to be doing than fighting fire with fire. I’m learning that the type of fire that actually needs to be fought can be fought with words, expression, logic, truth. I’m really grateful to have the chance to hone these skills.

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Will Short Skirts Be Allowed?

Sunday, June 26th, 2022

It’s really great that, once again, society is proving that it doesn’t give one shit about the rights of human beings. Maybe I shouldn’t got those two sweet, sweet pairs of perfectly fitting, low-rise pants the other day. Maybe I should have instead capitulated to literally any other pair of pants in the tri-state area, all of which ranged from “high rise” to “super high rise,” the latter of which I didn’t even know was a thing until a few weeks ago. I’d assume such conservative garments will be more acceptable once our American Taliban really takes control around here. Will we all be required to wear those ugly button flies in the future to keep any midriff from showing? Will skinny jeans be deemed too show-y, and will ‘mom jeans’ be the soup du jour from those trying to skirt the burqa? At least there won’t be any more of those dumb factory-ripped holes.

Not that only the female will be effected or is being effected by recent events. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade may appear on the surface to be one that only effects one half of the country’s population—thee uterus-owners, thee whatever. In reality, considering how same sex relations, birth control, and desegregated schools now sit neatly in the court’s crosshairs after their big hit on Friday, it effects each and every American. Hell, it effects each and every person on this planet, considering the similar, anti-bodily autonomy pressure the Catholic church also has on countries like Poland. It effects anyone under the thumb of an oppressive and fundamentalist ruling class who just wants to live without said ruling class poking its nose in their business. That’s pretty much all of us, as much as some of us would like to deny it. It’s easier to succumb to the religious right’s reigning propaganda schemes—or to deflect the blame onto the entire male species, on the other side of the oversimplified political spectrum—than to unpack the weaving, intertwining tentacles of church and state in modern America. It’s easier to accept the reality of sending unwanted children to school in bulletproof backpacks and crossing your fingers, than trying to change that reality—especially when the so-called ‘representatives’ who promised to change that reality for you failed miserably at their one job.

As someone used to humans being the most awful and abhorrent creatures walking the planet, the weirdest thing about times like this is how much the world stays the same. I went out for sushi with my family for dinner Friday night, and it was definitively the best meal out I’d had in recent memory. I wasn’t turned away from dining out due to my new low rise pants or my feminine wiles. It doesn’t look like I’ll be turned away from higher education in the already parasitic, sinister Buckeye State any time soon either, despite the likeliness of said state to crack down on abortion rights coming up. It’s a strange crossroads to be standing on trying to sow tiny sparks of hope for your personal steps forwards while society around you is chronically and rapidly regressing with the highest hopes of taking you down with it. But with studies on the horizon and the resurrected Kent State SDS on my side, I guess I won’t be fleeing the country any time soon.

What’s with all this country business anyway? All it does is fuel ugly jingoism in the first place. And if the systematically defined borders around my place of residence define my or anybody else’s ability to legally be a fully autonomous human being capable of exercising freedom to the fullest, safest extent, I just wish we’d consider some truly universal healthcare.

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Thinking The Children

Wednesday, May 25th, 2022

For my senior year, my first class every day was AP Physics, and my teacher had a small poster located in very close proximity to his classroom flag. The poster had a stock image of a velociraptor above text reading “Velociraptor = Distraptor / Timeraptor.” Classic physics joke. I always stood there silently with my hands by my sides looking at that poster during the daily pledge. When we were told to rise for the national anthem at my graduation ceremony last night, I thought about that poster.

It felt like any other pledge, and the majority of my preparations for the end of my senior year of high school felt like any other day. Final assignments, papers, and tests all felt like nothing I wasn’t used to. Sitting through my peers’ speeches was different that usual, but it was easy. I felt a few butterflies flitting around in my stomach shortly before rising to join the line of students waiting to receive their diplomas, and that was it. It was like I was a complete natural at the experience of high school, and in many ways, I guess I was. I wasn’t walking across that stage with three cords, two stoles, one medal and, lest we forget, a cap and gown for no reason. In some way or another, I think I won high school.

When I got home, I got to read updates about a horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. I had first read about it sometime before the ceremony when only a few children were confirmed dead from the massacre. The number had reached the teens and included teachers by the time I had gotten home after the ceremony. Today I got to read pleas from political pundits suggesting turning schools into heavily guarded, logistically nonsensical obstacle courses to prevent shootings instead of actually doing anything that would keep the weapons perpetrating said shootings out of the hands of the cruel and unstable. In August I’ll be moving into a dorm at Kent State University, known across the country as ‘that school where kids got shot’ if Star Wars doesn’t completely overtake your mental function every May 4.

Some things don’t change. But some things do, in small and subtle ways that will soon spread and explode into something much bigger than itself.

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Getting Farther Out Everyday

Saturday, April 30th, 2022

I have less than a month left of high school.

Last week was technically the last ‘normal’ week of classes before AP and state testing wreck havoc across the land. For me, it was the busiest week of my high school career. I had my final Model UN conference, which ended with a joke motion to “get rid of Ohio (via bulldozer boats)” (don’t ask). Guess I won’t be off to Kent State in August, for it had to be sacrificed to save America from the rapidly expanding, parasitic Buckeye State. On other days of the week, I found myself in parts of my school I had never seen in my entire four years of attendance there. The secret agent lurking inside of me adored that, though I still question why my school doesn’t use its perfectly preserved time capsule pool for more than the swim team and physics class boat races, or why I didn’t know they have a room full of iMacs.

All that aside, it gives me mixed emotions to know that the public school system I’ve been tethered to for the last twelve years will be soon be behind me.

It’s even odder placing my role as a freethinking high schooler in the context of our current culture. More and more attacks on critical thinking have been entering schools across the country thanks to concerned parents who would prefer their children remain ignorant to history and the world at large. Reading about book bans and threats towards teachers who teach the truth is disheartening and, frankly, terrifying. It’s a shame that we as humans, instead of encouraging nuance and intelligent analysis, have allowed for those actively promoting ignorance to have an increasingly large platform. Society is being rapidly dumbed down at the hands of these types, the ones who let their favorite political pundits and reality show stars—what’s the difference nowadays?—determine their every opinion instead of stopping to think about what they are consuming. They may be puppets, but they have power.

We live in a world of ever-increasing absurdity, plain and simple, and humans are basically just strange little animals trapped in an overcrowded cage. They do weird things and can seem very kind one moment and then be seen brutally mauling each other the next. Recognizing these truths is the only way to see the world for what it is. And when logical thought and critical thinking are placed at the forefront of this observation and emotions don’t blind us, work can be done and change can be made for the better—for all of us. When education devalues these qualities and promotes homogeny and close-mindedness in their place, you are learning nothing but a lie.

I’m genuinely grateful that I was able to receive a quality education throughout my high school career. And I’m miffed that the things that made those four years so valuable to me—the discussions I’ve had in my English and social studies classes, the documentaries I’ve watched and dissections I’ve done in anatomy class, the support I’ve received from my teachers—are being disparaged across the country. But then again, people still think that the Kent students protesting the Vietnam War on that crisp spring day in 1970—the anniversary of which is coming up rapidly—were the true agitators when the National Guard came to town. And that’s not stopping me any time soon.

As I enter the next phase of my life, I will continue to seek the truth.

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Some Kind Of Fifteen Minutes

Sunday, April 3rd, 2022

I just finished watching The Andy Warhol Diaries, a recent documentary series regarding the life and times of of that oh-so prescient artist. It’s a fascinating glimpse into his relationships with both the people that surrounded him and the world at large, and I’ve learned a lot from it. The series’ exploration of his life is based on his fascination with the line between the real and the fake, and it pulls back the curtain on a lot of Warhol’s persona. Yet learning of that persona’s origins has only made me more fascinated in the man, the myth, the legend he built for himself.

Warhol was obviously ahead of his time in how he allowed the media to define his identity. Today, you can hop on any popular “influencer”’s Instagram feed and see what is basically an exaggerated, warped cartoon of reality, albeit in “real life.” It’s the entire foundation of celebrity—we see a generated persona we jive with in the public sphere, we hit the follow button, and we become so invested that we’re willing to take sides when those personas clash or even crack. There was surely some clashing and cracking happening one week ago, and it surely caused the internet to descend into pure chaos.

I didn’t see the Academy Awards through last Sunday because I got bored, but I woke up the next morning to a Facebook feed flooded with memes about the slap. They were initially lighthearted and reveling in the absurdity of it all, but as time went on, I began to notice a shift incredibly reflective of today’s digitally powered social realm: people started to take it seriously. Too seriously. Sides were taken and stood for. I saw vows be made to never discuss hot topic debates on social media ever again after the resulting comment chains got out of hand. One of my most favorite Facebook pages, Blistering takes from every coordinate of the ascended political hyperspace, which is dedicated to the most insane ranting of the internet’s most deranged individuals, made this very ominous post:

The Slap discourse has changed me. Deleting page soon. Go save your faves.

Not even the satire pages could take it. (As of now, the page is still active.)

The airwaves are less clogged now that the hype has died down and we’ve remembered that things like the early days of World War III and the Supreme Court exist. The Grammys are on, and I wonder if some event there will cause a similar tidal wave of absurd discourse over the ‘net. That might happen; it might not. But people will still be talking about it nonetheless.

Warhol would’ve had a field day.

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News Flash: 02/24/2022

Thursday, February 24th, 2022
https://boingboing.net/2022/02/24/todays-most-dissonant-tv-news-transitions-ukraine-and-applebees.html

Yup.

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Ar[rrrgh]t

Wednesday, February 9th, 2022

Last week in one of my classes I participated in a discussion on whether or not art should be considered important during turbulent times. Unfortunately, it became a reminder of how warped some people’s interpretations of the world are. According to some, in times like these, art should give way to other, more important things. What exactly these “more important” things are was not elaborated on. Funnily enough, they also clarified that, despite its lack of importance, art is also a luxury, which is why it is not needed all the time. Hence, art both holds value and is lacking in it.

If these people had opened their eyes, they would notice that art practically suffocates us everyday. The clothes on your back, the car you drive, the building you live in and the buildings you wished you lived in, the fancy garbage can in the kitchen that has a foot pedal to flip the lid open—all of that had to be designed by someone. You can go to a museum gallery or you can go to Times Square—you’re getting an eyeful of art either way, and it influences the world in many ways. Life does imitate art, after all.

Throughout my entire life, art has been a defining force in shaping my worldview and introducing me to new ideas. Being trapped inside for months due to the pandemic only strengthened my appreciation for it. Art has whisked me away to weird and wonderful places that revel in the absurd and tickle the funny bone. It has also grounded me in reality and reminded me of the essential work that still needs to be done. It’s motivated me to express myself in my own ways and take action where it is needed; it’s connected me to likeminded people and pushed me to go places I never would have thought to go to otherwise.

I know from experience that the best art is art that serves as a call to arms, challenging the mind and encouraging action. It can do so silently or with immense fanfare. It can fight back against the boot that kicks the outcasts and inspired dregs of society with a bang; it can upend entire social orders momentarily without anyone knowing unless they stop for a second and think. Often times, art is the only force of true change in a world of stagnation drained of hope. It’s a refuge from the soul-crushing monotony of the daily grind to think, If that person has the gall to do that, maybe I can, too! It’s a healthy alternative to giving up. And that thought process can translate to true impact if one lets it; it can set off a chain reaction. If one person can change their outlook on the world or the way they go about their day because of a song they heard or a book they read, that’s great. If someone can pass that mentality on to someone else who can pass it on to more people who can pass it on across the globe, forming networks of connection and camaraderie, that’s incredible. That possibility is art’s greatest power. It only depends on how one uses it.

So, does art have value in these trying times? I argue an emphatic “yes.”

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No, We Kent

Friday, January 21st, 2022

It happened.

The Kent State Honors College finally decided to cut out my anxiety and send me the fateful email.

I’m accepted!

Actually, they sent it to me six days before I actually saw it, so it’s on me that I let the uncertainty persist for that long. I thought my radar scanner was in perfect condition—I guess not!

Despite that error, my hard work has paid off, and all my fantasies of exploring Kent’s annals on weekends and participating in the May 4th Task Force feel more concrete. I’m well aware that unexpected roadblocks will appear and unexpected opportunities will arise, but those uncertainties haven’t taken away any of my anticipation. It’s exciting to know that I’m considered a worthy candidate.

I’m still reeling from getting accepted, and I’m finding it genuinely hard to put into words all my pent up ecstasy. All I can say right now is that I’m truly honored to have the opportunity to attend a school with such history and contribute to its community.

Just seven more months.

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01/06/2022

Thursday, January 6th, 2022

A year ago today, I did not go to school. Due to our COVID-enforced hybrid schedule, Wednesdays were at-home days where no virtual classes took place.

In our living room, my mother had the news on in anticipation for the televised electoral vote count from the previous year’s election. I was interested to see how the event would play out, as I was well aware that protestors would be at the Capitol insisting that the loss of the previous president to the people’s vote was unjust. I was expecting to laugh at a gaggle of delusional, pathetic fools as one of this country’s final remaining tenets of democracy did its thing.

What I actually ended up seeing was a direct, effective, borderline killer threat to democracy itself.

I was practically glued to my television screen as rioters with their profane chants and absurd displays of red, white, and blue clumped into a boisterous mass eventually powerful enough to seep into the Capitol with very little restraint. I got to see a makeshift militia of brainwashed, blood lusted, homegrown terrorists, ordered by their chosen leader to protect their country by trampling on its foundations, stumble around those supposedly sacred halls of American institution, power-drunk and disgraceful. What did the popular vote matter when these once-marginalized, now-organized morons didn’t get their favorite flavor of Popsicle?

I knew right away that things would never truly be the same again.

The storm was ultimately unsuccessful at actually overthrowing the government. But it threw the doors wide open for those who cannot stand to think that we are all human. It beamed from the rooftops: fight for your belief in lies! Fight for inequality! You can do it! And these signals have worked, based on how many concerned parents have been putting up hands at school board meetings or opting for homeschool because their districts dare to teach children basic truth, or how many people are passing around cups of bleach flavored Kool-Aids about everything under the sun.

A lot of people love to cry “never again” at every big, culture-shattering event before excusing events of similar magnitude that do not negatively effect them or their favorite political pundit. But it’s true: deluding yourself has never been so cool.

Maybe it’s time we stop living in fear of the truth. Maybe.

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