Monthly Archives: October 2015

The Process of the Future

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After arriving on campus for my junior year, I had thought I would be in a very different place than I am currently, roughly a week before Fall Break. Like, not physically, obviously, but mentally. “eye”* had thought I would be more prepared for both Nanowrimo and for my semester abroad in Prague this spring. Alas, I am still in the throes of the visa process, and in the planning process for my novel.**

I had (foolishly) thought that I would be finished with my visa right now; however, the most challenging part of the study abroad process is, well, challenging me. However, I comfort myself with the knowledge that as difficult as the process is, in roughly four and a half months I will be sitting in my dorm in Prague, plotting out where I am going to explore in the city next, along with people who I will be exploring with. It will be sad to leave my friends here for a semester, but I will meet new people and have so many new experiences. At least, that is what I tell myself to keep from panicking.

All this goes to show that the future? Is something that everyone occasionally struggles with. The future is made up of our perceptions until it becomes the present, as corny as that sounds, and therefore it will literally never be how we think it will be. In other words, the future is a process, and is what we make of it.

Haha, this sounds a lot more serious than I normally am. I guess midterms and heavy thoughts about the future will do that to a post! But seriously (like, even more seriously than this seriousness? Which is pretty serious, tbh), for people who are going to have their midterms, or their own semesters abroad, or are on their semesters abroad, or are deciding what they’re going to do after college, whatever– don’t despair! You will do absolutely fine, and things will go well. Study hard, don’t forget to relax, and definitely make time for friends and other things! Good luck! 🙂

Geez, reading over that last paragraph, I feel like I should be handing out popcorn or something, there is just SO MUCH corniness there. Perhaps even candy corn, given that it is seasonally appropriate right now. Oh well.

*This is the first of many bad puns you will be hearing from me. I would say more and better right now, but my brain is still in the Midterm Head Space, so. Sorry about that.
** By planning process, I mean that I have one character thought out and the vaguest semblance of a plot, which, if I were smart***about it, I would be working on developing more.
*** Actually, if I were smart about this, I wouldn’t be doing Nanowrimo this year in light of all the other things I have to do. But, writing is fun, and I feel really good about this November, so not only will I do it, but I will also update you with my progress, because I can.

Blood Moon

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I’m a “Look at the moon!” type of person.

(Equally, I’m a “Not you! You’re driving! I’ll tell you what the moon looks like!” type of person.)

I am also a “Look at that sunset!” type of person, a “Look at Cassiopeia!” type of person, and a “That’s an interesting cloud formation,” type of person. Instead of feeling small or insignificant when I look at the stars or the skies, I always feel more present—not necessarily important, but more like—

I, too, exist.

On September 28, when the lunar eclipse + supermoon + harvest moon + blue moon + werewolf moon occurred, I decided that there was no way I could avoid making that moon an experience. And, luckily, I had that most useful of college resources: a friend with a car.

Because it was a Sunday night, and, like most students, we had neglected our homework until the aligned stars and sheer panic coincided appropriately, we did not have much time to go out and experience this once in a lifetime lunar event. This took driving to the middle of nowhere off the table.

Instead, we drove down to the Chinese Garden and Reconciliation Park, which is right on the water. The road lights cast a faint glow over the path, but the darkness that emanated from the water created the sense of being in an area with much less human habitation

The moon did not shine at all—instead, it just hovered in the sky over the warship (name and technical class of ship unknown) by the Park. It was a deep dark red, not the orange fire I was expecting but a color that looked much more like dried blood.

The smudge that you think is on your computer is actually the moon.

The smudge* that you think is on your computer is actually the moon.                                                    *my camera is so so so bad it’s horrible

We watched the moon for about half an hour; the normal glow of the moon slowly began to crawl across its surface, breaking through the dark shadow. The wind came off the Sound, cutting through the seams on my jeans and chilling my feet. The stars glittered faintly overhead.

The moon, in all honesty, was smaller and somehow less grand than I had expected. A once in a lifetime lunar event should feel like a once in a lifetime lunar event.

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A friend sent me this photo later. This is what the moon looked like in person, instead of a minuscule blackish dot.

This felt more like a nice evening by the sea, watching the moon rise and the stars come out and the lights of the warship twinkle. That was all that mattered to me.

Then we returned to campus to continue our homework.

Thesis Mutation

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In the process of writing my thesis, I got a ten page literary analysis, a one-hundred and thirty page novella, and a ton of cookies. My thesis presentation was today and I had a small group so there were a lot of cookies left over. They were good cookies too, dark chocolate with white chocolate chips. More importantly, however, my thesis helped me become a better writer.

I started searching for a director for it almost exactly one year ago. I had just found out that my adviser wasn’t willing to do it. (Tip, before you choose an adviser ask if they are willing to help you with your thesis, if you need to do one). I had to keep telling myself take deep breaths and not panic. Eventually though, I found two great professors, Denise Despres and Laura Krugoff, who were willing to shepherd me through the process. Together we tackled issues like: “Is Mara (one of my antagonists) evil enough to murder William (the protagonist’s husband)? It was a pretty dark novella.

While I was writing it, my novella changed in all sorts of ways that I didn’t anticipate. Mara’s murdering William had been a catalyst for the rest of the plot and now I was learning that Mara wouldn’t do that. As an author my thought on that was “um, now what?” I thought I was in control; I wasn’t. My characters dictated the story, not me. If a character decided that she didn’t want do the action that starts the plot, I was just going to have to live with it.

The novella started out as a diabology based project and mutated into a police procedural, killing twenty pages of my research in the process. The original page count for it was supposed to be sixty to ninety pages but after I finished the first draft I realized that the story actually wanted to be 130 pages. So 130 pages it was.

In those 130 pages I learned a lot of things. I learned how to sit still and write (harder than it sounds), that every story needs a good villain (otherwise the hero is just sitting there), and how to give a story a life of its own. Stories are like children, sooner or later they start wanting to grow up and be independent. And as a parent/author, you’re bound to love them anyway.

Defining Home

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I used to see home as a stationary object — a house situated between the ocean and the bay in rural Northern California. Where redwood trees grew in saltwater clogged air and I knew everything, I grew up with it traced on the back of my hand. There was an ode of familiarity: our old parlor stove that spit up flames as we tossed in wood; the drawing I made in kindergarten that my mother refused to take down; my cat, who would be content sitting next to you until you tried to pet her; and the treadle sewing machine my dad brought home when I was eight.

I always knew college marked a time of limbo. We are in-between the stages of angsty rebellious teens and adults who know where their lives will take them. Everything is suspended in the current unknown, wherein we’re convinced that anything could happen. (Because anything can.)

I expected that for nine months out of the year we’d branch out. Explore a new place, learn things, gather all of these experiences which we’re told will define our life and then we go back home. Back to our roots, back to everything we knew from before. I forgot that our perspectives would shift.

On a cork-board in my childhood house, there is a pinned up flyer with a picture of campus that says, “HOME.” My mom put it there when it first came in the mail nearly two years ago and it has stayed there since then. When I went to Orientation and sat in the stands along with everyone else, students were counting how many times Ron Thom repeated the word. (I think it was 67, if memory serves correctly.)

Although I could tell you countless numbers of facts that I learned in my first year here, none of them are the most valuable thing I could say. Instead it’s that I’ve discovered home isn’t a stationary object: it is the way people make you feel. It’s the way I feel here.

It’s falling asleep at three a.m. with your friends talking and laughing around you. The morning the fountain froze, when we all gathered around it, taking pictures of the icicles hanging down. Making cookies on Pi Day and setting an alarm so you are eating them right at 3/14/15 9:26:53. Running in the rain. Being sung to by a barber shop quartet on a friendaversry.  Racing to the bus stop and managing to get there right as it pulls up. Going to Oppenheimer Cafe in the rain, right before closing, when the lights shine just so. Spending hours helping a friend with an essay, for a class that you’re not even in. Tight hugs, long, slow smiles. Playing Justin Bieber’s acoustic album and Nickelback, just because we could. Sitting and starring at the stars. Grabbing a cardboard box filled with packing peanuts and commandeering it. Bringing it into your room. Convincing people to come and sit in The Box. Seeing someone on campus and taking a “SPOTTED” picture. Walking to the Met late at night for The Cookie, just for them all to be gone. Curling up in a blanket, drinking tea, while watching a movie. Hanging a stray sock on a command hook, to see how long it’ll take people to notice. (Sixteen hours.)  Waking up early to meet people for breakfast, hours before your first class. And staying up with your friends, even though it’s three a.m. and laughing.

The fountain, the morning after it froze.

The fountain, the morning after it froze.

Gaea sitting in The Box, before she brought it back to our room.

Gaea sitting in The Box, before she brought it back to our room.

Going out to dinner for our last meal together before summer. From front to back, left to right: Maddy, Me, Gaea, Maggie, Emily, and Claire.

Home is all of the memories I’ve made here and all the memories to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Wayne Pioneer Trail

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Back in the day, my family and I lived in a small, cute suburban home on the outskirts of the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. The neighborhood was nice and safe and we loved to get out and bike around. My brothers and I each had those little Wal-Mart ‘BMX’ fixed gear bikes and we’d often set up piles of dusty garage wares and practice our bunny-hops or see who could get down the alley the fastest. At one point, we even tried the infamous bike swap, which wound up with us all laying in a bleeding, scraped, groaning heap in the middle of the alley, complete with handlebar bruises and torn up jeans. Ah, the good ol’ days.

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In the morning, low clouds rolled in on our path, making for damp trails and some mysterious looking power posts.

Now, whenever I’m on my bike, the feelings of those days return to me in my mind and in my heart. Biking is still just as fun now as it was then, except now I can go faster… a lot faster. Most of my new homies around campus like biking as well, so naturally, when PSO announced that they were taking a bike day-trip out into the Snoqualmie area on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail, I grabbed my pal Tyler and we signed up ASAP.

At the turn-around point of our journey, we caught a few glimpses of groups of climbers ascending a couple faces right off of the bike path.

At the turn-around point of our journey, we caught glimpses of a group of climbers ascending a face right off of the bike path.

The section of the John Wayne Trail that we traversed was around 10 miles (we rode the route out and back for a total of around 20 miles) beginning at the Hyak Trailhead. It included many sweeping mountain views, ample fresh air, multiple railroad trellises, and, oh yeah, a two-mile long, unlit, stone tunnel that literally goes through a mountain. Let me just say, it was cold in there. The trailhead was around an hour and fifteen minutes from campus and was nearly empty when we showed up there on that beautiful Saturday morning.

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The foreboding entrance of the Snoqualmie Tunnel just up trail from the Hyak trailhead.

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The eastern end of the tunnel, complete with a massive, wooden header.

The John Wayne Trail is interesting in and of itself because its surface is a graveled over, two lane path that rests upon what used to be an old railroad grade for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad until it was converted around the year 1980. Its total length is around 300 miles and it claims to be one of the longest rail-to-trail bike paths in the country.

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Brock, a fellow Minnesotan, slaying the stone like it’s his day job.

With all of that being said, I would highly recommend the John Wayne for either a day-trip or an extended camping endeavor. Due to the fact that it used to be a railroad grade, the topography changes overall are extremely gradual, in fact, the trail oftentimes feels essentially flat. Remember that if you’re going to leave a car parked at the trailhead you need some sort of paid pass that will ensure you don’t turn a free trip into an expensive one due to the ever-so-unfortunate parking ticket.

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The most natural group photo I’ve ever taken.

So, until next time, make some time to get out and enjoy the glorious fall weather!

& Happy trails,

Colton Born

Rainier

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Driving the streets of San Francisco in the morning, I see fleeting fragments of the Golden Gate Bridge pass in and out of view between buildings and the leaves of low-hanging trees. Shrouded in fog, the bridge is like a spectre, continually appearing and disappearing beyond the city.

Mount Rainier is a similar ghost, overhanging Tacoma like a mirage, its white crown hidden between shadowy clouds that trap sunlight and don’t let it go. Walking up Commencement Path from the library to a class in Wyatt Hall, a hood pulled over my head, I catch glimpses of the mountain between the ivy cords that cover the façade of Jones Hall and between the lachrymose clouds that cling to the bluing hills in the distance. The ghost of Rainier is as evanescent as my breath, materializing and dematerializing in the cold air. My breath passes away.

At a clearing on Todd Field, where Mount Rainier is visible between Commencement Hall and Regester Hall, several students stand with cell phones in their hands, desperately trying to capture images of the ghost between drops of rain. Others stand and only watch, knowing that a ghost is not a ghost if you take a picture of it.

As I climb the stairs of Wyatt Hall, I peer out of the east-facing windows and watch fragments of Mount Rainier pass me by.

Your roommate gone? Try these out

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It’s happening again. My roommate is gone for the weekend. That means I have our room ALL to myself. What do I do? What don’t I do? The possibilities are endless! Play video games all night? Watch Game of Thrones? Go out and come back obscenely late? Have a girl over? Hah, who am I kidding? Any high school graduate knows that girls have cooties.

I’ll figure out something to do with my Saturday night, eventually, probably, hopefully. But what about you? What should you do if your roommate(s) is gone? I can think of a couple things:

  • Hang out with the people on your floor! Saying “Hi” in the hallway isn’t gonna cut it. If you haven’t already, talk to your floor-mates! Go grab some pizza at The Cellar, catch a show somewhere on campus or go off campus and check out Tacoma! We were all accepted for a reason, and that’s because we’re insanely awesome!
  • Netflix. No, not Netflix and Chill, just Netflix, and probably snacks. But if you’re down for some chilling, all power to you. Despite our university’s spotty wi-fi at times, we can still stream some of our favorite shows and movies on our second favorite website (first is Amazon). If you’re short on snacks, pop over to The Cellar for pizza, ice cream and soda, all part of a balanced college diet. Hey, you can even invite your floor-mates and friends over to watch!
  • ALL THE SNACKS. Just eat all the snacks in your room. You know you’ve always wanted to. Just tell your roommate a raccoon or deer or something beat you up and took all the snacks.
  • Mess with your roommates stuff. (Caution: Only do this if you and your roommate have established it is okay to prank on another.) Have you ever seen those videos where someone goes on vacation only to discover their co-workers have filled their cubicle with balloon? Do that. Wrap their stuff in tin foil. Rearrange all of their stuff. Completely redecorate the room without telling them. Put their stuff in jello. The possibilities are endless!
  • Enjoy the privacy. Most of us were used to having a room to ourselves before coming here. Then we got stuck with a roommate and have had pretty much no privacy since. How long has it been since you had a room to yourself? Enjoy it while it lasts.
  • Sit around and wait for them to come back. Admit it. Once they walked out of the door, you started missing them. For most people, their roommate is their best friend. If anything, you got used to having someone around. There’s no shame in staring at the door, waiting for that knob to turn.

The list goes on and on. I hope these help you overcome the boredom of not having a roommate for a little while. Have fun!

Finding Peace on Mt. Rainier..and other ways to practice Self Love College Style

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Last weekend, I went on a PSO day hike in Mt. Rainier national park. I found myself, on the last Saturday of September, which was resplendently sunny and golden-lit, 6,000 feet up and blissfully content.

We took a few moments before hiking back down the trail to meditate and write at the top of the world, and it was the happiest fiteen minutes I had enjoyed in weeks. I wrote a poem about mountains and God. I munched on vanilla almond granola. I felt beauty soak into the pores of my skin. I found peace.

This experience was part of a commitment to myself this semester, to practice self love in my own unique way. I encourage you to do the same, becuase this pact between me and me has made the bad days better and the good days extraordinary.

This does not have to mean taking long baths and buying yourself chocolate. It can, and maybe it does. But for me, self love means more than that. It means seeing as much nature as possible. Trees are a balm for aching souls. it also means sweating as often as I can. This means climbing walls and yoga studios and treadmills. It means putting off homework to go for a run. It means seeing my friends as often and in as many different contexts as I can, whether it’s 1 am on a Saturday night or a quiet Monday morning breakfast.

I also try to love my body by nourishing it. Last night, I went to the cellar with friends, and instead of being tempted by the ice cream, I found myself drawn to the new smoothie menu, particularly (strangely) the avocado one. When my smoothie came, it was creamy and thick and green and delightful. It was a beautiful color, and I wished I could paint my room with that shade. It was just what I needed.

I love my mind, by pushing it hard. This semester, i am working harder than I ever have.I  am reading more than I have ever been asked to read, about things that are complex and deeply challenging. I am thrilled with this.

Loving myself is about finding balance, about caring for all the aspects of my being.

The first few weeks of this semester have been difficult for me, in truth. They have involved a pulled tooth, a nasty cold, and a smattering of stress. But these small moments, these remidners that I need the same care and kindness I offer the world, have brought sunshine to them.

So cheers to mountains, climbing walls, and avocado smoothies.

And thank God it’s the weekend.

Print Progress: Photo Screen Print

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This semester, my upper level printmaking class allows for a lot more freedom and experimentation, which means new techniques! The first project we worked on involved a method of screen printing called photo screen printing. I designed an image digitally and then printed it onto a transparency, coated my screen in an icky substance called photo emulsion, and then exposed the image to my screen with a machine that uses concentrated light. It was basically a bunch of cool chemical nonsense that I honestly still don’t completely understand, but it ended up perfectly exposing my very intricate image to my screen! This method is super useful because of it allows for lots of detail and a screen that can be printed and washed many times. I decided to do some test prints with just black ink before I worked on my edition.

My reversed image and black ink, pre first pull

My image and black ink, pre first pull

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