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This week tends to be a funny week for Carnegie Mellon students.
(Someone pointed out to me recently that most situations I describe as
funny aren't really funny at all, just cruel in an agonizingly ironic
sort of way. I'm not sure I can disagree.) Students' attendance starts
becoming spotty, and the ones who DO show up have their eyes glued to
their computer screens like moths to an LCD.
This is the ineffable, undeniable, and occasionally despicable magic of registration week.
At some point in the latter half of a semester, you get an e-mail that
pairs the last two digits of your Student ID Number (more often than
not, your SSN) with a timeslot, ranging anywhere from the coveted 6 in
the morning to the despised 4:30 in the afternoon. Starting at your
designated time, you'll be able to log into the Online Registration
(OLR) system and start selecting your classes for next semester.
Some pitfalls to look out for:
-WAITLISTS. There really isn't a sensation quite like having to sign up
for a waitlist where you'll be the sixtieth student to get in if
someone drops. Except maybe the feeling of having someone shotput a
railroad spike through your left lung. Okay, so there IS one. I lied.
If you're high up there on the waitlist (and by high up, I really mean
#1 or #2), you stand an okay chance of getting in. Depending on the
class (like, is this a class everyone has to take?), you might even
make it in with a lower number. Going any lower than that, though,
generally doesn't bode well. And there's always a healthy probability
that you'll walk into the class and the instructor will kindly ask all
the waitlistees to vacate the premises. It's happened to me (and I'm a
creative writing major, for crying out loud), so just know it could
happen to YOU.
-VANISHING CLASSES. Much like magicians, the X-Man Nightcrawler, or
your comb minutes before the interview, classes are known for
disappearing without warning or provocation. This doesn't get REALLY
funny until it's a class you need to graduate. See, there I go
doing it again...
-TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. While this year's registration was relatively
smooth and painless for me, I've had years where the website either a)
goes completely haywire or b) just decides to take it easy for a while
and process requests at the speed of molasses going uphill in January.
Usually, both problems are fixed in a jiffy, though, so just stay
vigilant and restrain yourself from taking your monitor outside and
shooting it. Which, during registration time, can sound pretty tempting.
So what classes did I end up with? Let's have a look-see:
Intro to Professional/Technical Writing
Style
Sociolinguistics of Style
Literary Journalism
Process of Reading and Writing
StuCo: Intro to Dance
Man, that schedule's pretty stylish. Heh heh. Get it?
Yeah, I know. Not very "funny".
Volleyball.
Like most other athletic activities of its ilk, its tournaments involve
loud screaming, uncomfortable bleachers, and unforgiving spheroids
hurtling through the air at disconcerting velocities. I am not a
tremendous fan of any of these components singularly, so you can
imagine my sentiments on experiencing them all at once.
But as fate would have it, a good friend of mine was playing her last
home game for the volleyball team on Saturday, and my attendance record
of her games prior was slightly less than stellar. So I told myself I'd
make the effort this time, drag myself over to the gym, and at least
pretend to enjoy the spectacle.
Some questions I now have (which anyone with the answers can feel free to comment):
1) Are volleyball players trained in how to roll and tumble as part of
practice? I wasn't expecting the teams to get so downright calisthenic.
They would dive to hit a ball, then roll on their shoulder and pop up
right back on their feet, like elite volleyball ninjas or something.
2) What are coaches writing down on their clipboards? I imagine there's
a lot to be said for the team planning and tactics and volleyballology
and whatnot, but sometimes it looked like the coaches were attempting
to write short novels in between rounds. NOTE: If what goes down on the
clipboards is classified information, send me your comment in
Wingdings. I'll decode it.
3) What's with all the referee hand gestures? I think I managed to
decipher a pointed hand, which indicates which team got the point
(right?), and the rolling of the arms rhythm-bag-style means a player's
going to be swapped. Any of the other gestures just became this sort of
alien sign language to me.
Anyway, despite all my griping, bellyaching, and associated kvetching,
I'd be lying if I said some of the plays didn't make me raise an
eyebrow. In fact, a couple even made me raise BOTH eyebrows. Which is
saying something.
I didn't end up staying the whole game through, so as much as I hate to
end an entry on this note, I actually have absolutely no idea who won
the game. Just recently I sent a message to my friend on the team to
ascertain the victor, but she has yet to get back to me. I'll amend
this entry as soon I as I hear the news.
So here's a shout out to Julie Ng and her team of deeply motivated,
fiercely determined, professionally trained elite volleyball ninjas.
Best of luck on the rest of your season!
Today I'll be endorsing a particularly awesome cause: the A CaPittsburgh Project, happening this Saturday at 8:00. The rest of this post has been generously provided by a good friend of mine, Michelle Mirabella:
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The A CaPittsburgh Project 10/25/08 The project is an a capella concert supporting a chosen cause in the Pittsburgh community. In the spirit of music, this year we have chosen to support the Pittsburgh Public Schools' Music Department because music is an integral part of a child's education. The concert will include performances by the following Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh a capella groups:
Counterpoint Pitt Pendulums Joyful Noise Soundbytes Deewane PGH Public School Children's Choir Intermission Sounds of Pleasure VoKols The Originals
The A CaPittsburgh Project will take place on Saturday, October 25th at 8:00 p.m. at the Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial (4141 5th Avenue). Tickets are now available outside of Doherty Hall and at the UC Info Desk on the Carnegie Mellon campus and will be available October 17th, 22nd, and 24th in the Towers Lobby on the UPitt campus.
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Bottom line? If you're free Saturday evening and are in Pittsburgh, you don't have a good excuse not to buy a ticket. Should you have any questions, any comments, or any ANYTHINGS relating to A CaPittsburgh, drop me a line!
There. No witty title this time, just a simple, declarative statement. Which is utterly true, by the way.
I've been involved in the Outreach program the past couple of weeks,
something I'll summarize briefly (you can go back a few entries to read
my more in-depth description): essentially, I hang out with kids.
There's a bunch of stuff on paper saying how I'll be teaching them
nonfiction, and poetry, and writing in general. But that's really not
the way I see it. Sure, if I can drop an "i before e except after c"
and more pearls of grammatical wisdom here and there, great. If one
child writes better because I was looking over his shoulder, even
better. But truth be told, I just really enjoy spending time with kids.
I get along better with them than I do most people.
One student, in the fourth grade, got into a discussion about
superpowers with me (EVERYONE does), and detailed about how he should
have pyrokinesis in the winter and cryokinesis in the summer (flame
control and cold control, respectively, for you
comic-book-uninitiated). That way, he could be just right ALL the time.
This guy's logic is nothing short of astounding.
Unfortunately, the only day I have the time to go is Friday (my
classless holy day). Other weekdays house an after-school program, at a
coffeeshop (I think>), where other CMU students help the kids out
with their homework. I'm something of a heavyweight homework helper
myself (as long as the homework isn't my own, anyway), so it's a shame
I can't make it to the after-school stuff.
If you have any questions about Outreach, please, LEAVE A COMMENT. If
you're in the area and/or a CMU student (or a prospective one!), please
give this some thought. The more people we have, the better. Besides, I
might even write you into a blog entry.
And then you'll be REALLY famous.
So two nights ago, I attended the latest in the series titled the "Drue
Heinz Lectures", where various writers come to the Carnegie Music Hall
to speak their piece about their work, their lives, and anything and
everything in between.
Monday night was scheduled
for Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-born writer with one of the most richly
intoxicating voices I've ever heard (or maybe I just don't hang out
around enough Haitians?). She started off the lecture with a couple of
stories inspired by the Haitian storytelling tradition, where larks
threatened to spirit away little girls and where a god and an angel of
death compete for a jug of water. In other words, right up my alley.
After
storytime was over (you could sense a palpable "aw, bummer" being
emitted from the audience), a prominent Pittsburgh fundraiser named Ian
Rawson sat down with Danticat and threw some questions her way. Rawson
had some difficulty speaking into his mic (and being up in the balcony
didn't help my auditory situation), and the range of questions directed
at Edwidge weren't exactly the most engaging inquiries you could
imagine.
Sure, there was stuff about
Haiti and about influences on her work, but most of the questions
seemed pretty stock. After their exchange was over, the floor was
opened up to the rest of the audience to ask any questions they had.
The best question was offered by a little girl somewhere in the
balcony, who, in the midst of all these people asking "intellectual"
things, unabashedly and unpretentiously asked Danticat where she got
her ideas from. I would have gone up to the little girl and shaken her
hand if it wasn't for the fact she had no idea who I was and I
probably would have scared her. It's been a little too long since my
last shave.
Anyway, I'd like to make a habit
of visiting the Drue Heinz Lectures, so I'll try to keep you posted on
the next one. I don't remember all of the names, but I DO know Will
Shortz is coming at some point. And HE edits New York Times crossword
puzzles. So HE is something of a linguophile's god.
Or at least a demigod. Aside from him, Tolkien, Chomsky, de Saussure, and Dr. Seuss, the pantheon's pretty murky.
Elaztyk dropped from the ceiling to
the floor of the hallway without a sound.
Flicking
his head as to whip his black, conical cap out of his face, he sidled up to the
first door and noted the doorknob, made from a rusted metal. The doorknob of
the target’s room would be brass, or so he was told.
Footsteps
coming from the opposite end of the hallway spelled trouble. With an effortless
somersault, Elaztyk leaped back into the shadows of the high ceiling and split
his legs apart to root himself firmly up there. A flick of his wrist produced
his weapon, a spring-loaded two-foot-long straight razor that was usually
concealed along his forearm. He had been hoping to keep it bloodless until the
target, but now wasn’t the time to be picky.
An
unsuspecting guard plodded along, not even checking inside the doors to make
sure everything was alright. Elaztyk enjoyed the irony of how, as much as
everyone complained about the prevalence of assassins in Hommazide, the
assassins were really the only citizens that did their job right.
The
sentry stopped right underneath Elaztyk and put one hand on a weapon at his
side; he was nervous. Elaztyk raised his blade in preparation for the strike.
A
call from outside got the guard’s attention, who promptly left the hallway to
investigate the trouble. Elaztyk tucked his razor back into the holding
mechanism and dropped down to the floor once more. Hopefully, there would be no
more interruptions.
This
time, he spotted the brass doorknob right away; two doors down, to the left.
He
scurried up to the door and flattened himself against the wall. Gingerly
placing one, two, then three fingers on the doorknob, Elaztyk’s finely honed
senses detected no mechanical tension, no trap awaiting him at the knob’s
behest.
A
silent twist opened the door about three inches before Elaztyk felt the protest
of a chain-lock. Rolling up his baggy black sleeve, he poked his arm through
the gap, then contorted his elbow in such a way that his hand reached up and
slid the bolt across, freeing the door. His limb twisted back to normal, and he
waved his fingers thoughtfully as he pushed the door open with his shoe.
Inside
laid one of the least furnished bedrooms Elaztyk had ever seen, and in his
experience, he had seen quite a lot of bedrooms. Often there would be
paintings, or wall hangings, or some lavish touches of avarice dotting the
chamber. But this room was altogether different.
The
floor was hardwood, the walls were bare, and the target slept underneath a
blanket that looked more like a quilt than silk sheets, the standard trappings
of the merchant class. Elaztyk shook his head and came to his senses; he had a
job to do.
He
flicked his razor blade out once more and hefted it menacingly over his head as
he moved in for the kill. The moonlight was shining through the window, right
on the blanketed mass; Elaztyk couldn’t have asked for a more scenic moment.
Pulling
the quilt off, Elaztyk bowed his head in ritual respect to the target as he
swung his blade.
He
stopped his slice a fraction of an inch from the target’s throat.
The
target was a young girl, no younger than twelve and no older than fourteen.
Her
hair was golden brown, her skin was pale, and her breaths were even.
Elaztyk
took a dizzy step back; for the first time in a long time, he had absolutely no
idea what to do. He quickly pulled the blanket back on, and then off again, as
if some unspoken magic act was going to turn her into a soulless merchant, a
dealer of death that he could kill without question. Another blanket switch
occurred with no success. The third time, he left the blanket on. Maybe she was
about to die, but there was no reason for her to die cold.
Azidik,
a tall, gangly creature of a man with steel claws on his fingers, a ragged
shroud over his shoulders, and a feral glint in his eye tiptoed in and saw the
target was still breathing. He gazed at Elaztyk and crossed his arms.
In
response, Elaztyk pulled the quilt off once more to reveal their innocent
quarry. Azidik warily raised an eyebrow.
“You do it,” Elaztyk whispered across the
room.
Azidik
pushed his unkempt olive-green hair out of his eyes and just shook his head.
Elaztyk
sighed out a “so be it” before raising his blade yet again.
THUNK. The weapon narrowly swerved at
the last moment and embedded itself solidly in the bedpost.
Azidik
slapped an indignant hand over his face as Elaztyk pulled the blade out with a
little effort. Noises could be heard from below; guards were being sent
upstairs, presumably after discovering the handiwork of Zonoris and Zartoriel.
Locking
the blade back, Elaztyk shot his accomplice his best “well now what?” expression. Azidik jumped over beside the bed, produced a
damp cloth, and tied it around the little girl’s mouth, all in less than a
second. He proceeded to hoist her up into his arms, and then motioned his head
towards the window.
Elaztyk nodded in
accord. “Right, kill her at home. No need to rush such a… delicate matter.” Elaztyk began using his blade to pry the steel
grille off of the window frame. This one was tough, and would require a little
more force. Azidik hocked up a vial from his throat marked with a
skull-and-crossbones, and gulped its contents without a second thought.
Afterwards, he clamped his jaw shut and held his breath, as wispy fumes began
wafting from his nose.
Just as the bars
were beginning to give way, three armed guards, with pistols and swords
simultaneously drawn, stormed into the room.
On cue, Azidik
exhaled forth a cloying cloud of sickly green gas, nauseating to smell and
stinging to the eyes. All three guards fell to the ground in a coughing,
moaning heap just as the grille popped free.
By the time the
gas subsided, the infiltrators, the target, and one wool quilt were missing.
Well, readers, let me know what you think!
This entry is for those of you out there who are wondering what exactly
comes out of these creative writing workshops. I'll start with a poem
(from my poetry class), and then I'll explain it from there. (And how
it ties into the story for my fiction class. I'm just THAT motivated.)
NOTE:
The blog software is being obnoxious and not letting me alter the font
size from here on out. You have my sincerest apologies in advance.
Warning on the Back of the Sign to Hommazide
Here lies the land that Good forgot,
Where morals and ethics come to rot.
Where day is dwarfed by mammoth night
And your life is naught if the price is right.
Stay off the streets and out of the way,
When the shadow things come out to play.
They roam the streets and roofs unseen
And just about everything in between.
Slashing throats and plucking eyes,
They all invite a dark demise.
Spurred on by the oily millionaires,
Who live but to sow their own despair.
A decadent city, a deathly town,
Who can only rise by spiraling down.
Remember that the knife’s attack
Won’t be at your face but in your back.
If you value your life
in any capacity whatsoever, turn back now.
If not, welcome to
Hommazide.
Sooo...that's the poem. Let me know what you think. For
those of you who are wondering what this had to do with my fiction
class, I'm planning to start my next short story with this poem. The
story will center around Hommazide (go figure), a darkly zany and
stylishly macabre city where night, for some reason unbeknownst to the
citizens, lasts twice as long as day. The land Hommazide was built on,
incidentally, was also resource-rich to the last acre, so the area
became a bustling burg of merchants and commerce. Things were going
pretty smoothly until one merchant ticked another one off, and an
assassin was hired and "imported" to the city to take out the
competition. In response, another trader hired ANOTHER assassin,
another one hired another one, and before you knew it, Hommazide was a
hotbed of killers and cutthroats who had the means to massacre and the
disproportionate solar cycles with which to do it in. The
narrative revolves around a trio of assassins who are unwittingly hired
to kill a young girl, and are tasked with protecting the girl while
asking themselves what exactly they were signing up for when they got
into the "business" in the first place. I haven't thought the entire
plot all the way through, but know that I've got some pretty bizarre
tools of the trade in store. Like giant straight-razors on switchblade
mechanisms strapped to someone's forearms. For
what it's worth, this is going to be an experiment, a trial-run, of my
brand of writing with my peers. I've never workshopped something with a
fight scene before, so I've got my fingers AND my toes crossed. My
poetry classmates were pretty big fans of the poem, so I'm hoping come
Monday (when the stories are due), the reception in fiction will be of
comparable opinion. Wish me luck!
Oh, and...um...everything I just described has been copyrighted. By me. Totally.
So here's the rundown:
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 200
companies, ranging from the little guys to the tech titans, your
Microsoft and your Apple and your Mozilla. Hundreds of students,
engineers, programmers milling about, clamoring for the attention of
recruiters that have only so many internships to give.
And then there's me.
I
managed to put a resumé together last night that compiled my writing
experience thus far, although the real challenge this morning was
teaching myself how to tie a tie. You'd think there'd be an easy
tutorial website already, but you've really got to look pretty hard.
Factor in my usual inability to learn simple motor skills (I learned
how to tie my shoes when I was like, ten), and I've got a serious
problem on my hands. I managed to get the hang of it eventually,
though, and I was on my way to print my resumé from the computer
cluster on my dorm's first floor.
I've got copies in my hand and
one foot out the door when I realize the Linux formatting has garbled
the alignments of the lines in the middle of the page, so now my list
of former jobs is all out of whack. So now I've gotta go back and make
MORE copies, but the line for the printer has regenerated and
lengthened by a factor of 5. Awesome.
I've got my resumés now,
and I'm ready to hit the convention floor. I walk in with a spring in
my step and a subtly confident smile on my face. Time to go find me a
company looking for a writer.
Technical Opportunities
Conference? More like Trampled Optimism Conference...granted, this
isn't exactly a writer's element. In fact, it's pretty much a salt
mound for us writing slugs. To be fair, though, most companies didn't
spend a whole lot of time toying with me. It was either "Um...gimme
your resumé and I'll see what I can do" or "Writers? Are...are you
serious? I mean...uh...hey, take a free T-shirt!" I'd be lying if I
said I didn't see most of it coming, but even companies that said they
were looking for writers on the TOC website weren't too warm.
Still,
there were a handful of friendly companies who said they'd definitely
see my resumé passed down, so more power to them. I walked away with a
halfway decent sense of satisfaction, as well as a trove of free stuff.
The swaglist: --2 free T-shirts. --A thermos-type bottle, chock full of candy. Including Green Apple Airheads. --A soft football. Not that I'll throw it, but it's really the principle of the thing, the thing being something free.
So,
while the Technical Opportunities Conference may not have been prime
real estate for a writer, it was an eye-opener and a true learning
experience.
And when people ask me why I went, I can say I did it for you guys.
Gotta love journalism.
The Technical Opportunities Conference (TOC).
A sprawling
convention of the biggest names in the engineering and programming
businesses, where eager technology-oriented majors gingerly place their
resumé into the companies' respective trays, where the students hope
they'll be selected for scores of interviews, summer internships,
and...um...well, technical opportunities.
In most cases, we
liberal arts majors are generally expected to sit this one out. Not
that we're discouraged or warned against it; it's just, for lack of a
better turn of phrase, really not our thing.
Until now.
Last
summer, many of my computer science friends returned from their
internships with tales of companies desperately seeking writers to
document code and/or explain what certain elements of
products/websites/programs do for the users. The problem, according to
my comrades, is that these places hire ENGLISHY English majors, who are
good writers but aren't the best at making information down-to-earth or
easy to digest.
I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure if MY
writing is easy to digest. (You readers can get back to me on that
one.) But I figure, hey, it's worth a shot, and I've taken an
introductory programming class here, so I can make lame jokes about
for-loops and arrays with the recruiters and they'll think I know what
I'm talking about.
So here's my pre-TOC checklist:
1) Get a suit and tie. Check. 2) Shave. Gonna worry about that tomorrow. 3) A resumé. HERE
we go. This is the primary concern. I'll have my computer scientist
buddies help me out with this. Maybe I should put down the URL for the
blog as a reference... 4) Super-suave social prowess to make myself memorable to the recruiters. Er...um...we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
I'll let you all know how it goes.
So get this...remember that slice-of-life story I wrote a little while
back? The one with the dad and the son baking cookies? The one without
any fight scenes or superpowers or explosions?
My class actually
liked it. Whodathunkit, right? Maybe I'll stick with it for a while and
see where it takes me. If you're interested in some real hands-on
workshop product, drop me a line and I'll post the story on the blog.
Today
had another meeting in the Creative Writing Center; the good folks from
Wick Outreach came to visit, and recited some of the
children-inspired/children-written poetry they had collected over the
years. They were hoping to recruit some writing students to their noble
cause, where students visit public schools and work with students from
K-5 on writing and poetry.
I'm thinking about giving it a shot.
Honestly, I don't know I can do much to teach kids about poetry, but
MAN, is it easy to get kids excited about fiction. I did the mentoring
program at my high school for a few years, and it really doesn't take
much. Some insightful guy said "Imagination is the most flammable gas
on the planet; all it takes is a spark." I wholeheartedly agree. Just
ask someone if they could have a superpower, what would it be. I've
discovered this catalyzes creativity in a way unmatched by any
"brainstorming exercise".
Here's a quick question to my readers:
I asked someone named Joella today on how exactly one would play the
Name Game with Joella (i.e. Joella Joella bo Bella, or Joella Joella bo
Boella?), but she just mocked me and told me that's "a question only a
creative writing major would think of". Like I haven't heard THAT one
before. Real original. So I ask you, o wise readers, which one would it
be?
And in case you're wondering (which I KNOW you are), me and
the cinderblock are neck-in-neck. I've learned the first and middle
layers of the Rubik's Cube, and the cinderblock's figured out all of
the vowels. My one worry is that the cinderblock will realize it's
effectively blind and try to learn Braille. In which case, I'm toast.
Wish me luck.
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