Category Archives: Daniel Wolfert ’16

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Daniel Snapshot #4: Aca-mmunity

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In which Underground Sound unites one final time after a semester of delightful struggle.

            When the movie Pitch Perfect was introduced to me, well after it had left theaters, my initial reaction was that of confusion, dismay and irritation.  The cinematic adventures of an all-female a capella group in the face of comical sexism was not, as I had thought I’d learned from my one semester of being in an a capella group, accurate.  Underground Sound, the school’s only mixed a capella group, was not capable for a riff-off, did no choreographed dancing, and had almost never been attacked with projectiles of Mexican fast food.

            Yet going through this fall semester with the group has been an adventure that made me reconsider my previous judgment.  There was, after all, chaos, competition, stress, poorly executed dancing, friendship, and, at the end of the day, Mexican Food (which was not thrown, thankfully, by anyone), and I had to admit that, although the movie was a remarkably poor depiction of the technicalities of operating a musical ensemble and vocal pedagogy, it was very correct in showing hardship and triumph bringing a group together.  Two of my favorite memories from this semester have been due to Underground Sound, the first being when we sang for the Board of Trustees and the second being when we had lunch together after a rather ineffective flash mob.

What’s that you ask?  The Board of Trustees?  Why yes, we did sing for them – at their fancy-shmancy retreat, I may add.  One early autumn afternoon, after a confusing car ride through the suburbs and overgrown himalayan blackberries of Western Washington, we arrived at the winery at which the Board of Trustees was having dinner during their annual retreat and sang for them WHAT?!?!?  We were given a tour of the winery, a very free and very delicious dinner, and a gracious hug from our school’s president Ron Thomas.

And then when I sang my solo of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”, I kind of got a standing ovation.  From our Board of Trustees.  It’s no big deal.  STOP BRINGING IT UP!

In contrast, Underground Sound’s final performance was a flashmob in the piano lounge of the Student Union Building, which, due to how soon it occurred after we had all woken up and how very tired we were from schoolwork, was rather on the tired and lazy side.  But did we care?  NO!  We had fun!  I cuddled with the handsome Eric Sculac during one of the songs!  And afterwards, we all bought lunch from the cafeteria and spent a good hour singing our songs as we ate, but changing the lyrics to “cats n’ poop”.

Classy?  You know it.

Our final adventure came almost as a shock to me, caught so unawares was I that the fall semester was truly ending.  After driving to, and subsequently leaving, an overfilled Red Robin, we ate at a Mexican restaurant (as I mentioned earlier) and shakily ventured onto an ice rink, where we collectively fell only once – a victory, I do believe.  But there was a delightfully self-indulgent, Kodak-camera moment when we all were skating at different speeds and, as if in clumsy coordination, held hands to form a chain of Usound – a momentary collection that would never again be together in exactly the same way with the same people.  It was only for a moment, of course, for then one of the basses slipped and the chain was broken.  Stupid basses.  But still, it was a beautiful moment.

So who are these wonderful people I’ve struggled so valiantly with, you ask?  Here is the briefest description of each:

Lisa Hawkins:

-Current Co-director

-Nickname: Silent Killer

-Voice Part: Alto

-Spirit Disney Character: Mulan

Sarah Brauner:

-Current Co-director, stepping down for next semester

-Nickname: E. Nigma

-Voice Part: Soprano

-Spirit Disney Character: Belle

Kyle Erickson:

-Nickname: Lief

-Voice Part: Tenor

-Spirit Disney Character: Lumiere

Bryan Soto:

-Nickname: Prince Abubu

-Voice Part: Bass

-Spirit Disney Character: Doug from Up

Chynna Spencer:

-Nickname: Japan

-Voice Part: Alto

-Spirit Disney Character: Copper from The Fox and The Hound

Kaylene Barber:

-Nickname: Curly Temple

-Voice Part: Soprano

-Spirit Disney Character: Rapunzel from Tangled

Daniel Wolfert:

-Co-director beginning next semester, Nickname: 34DD

-Voice Part: Tenor

-Spirit Disney Character: Mulan

Eric Sculac:

-Nickname: White Cheddar

-Voice Part: Bass

-Spirit Disney Character: Wall-E

Sophia El-Wakil:

-Nickname: BP440

-Voice Part: Alto

-Spirit Disney Character: Peter Pan

Austin Michael-Harrison:

-Nickname: Philosoraptor

-Voice Part: Beatboxer

-Spirit Disney Character: I don’t know, but something weird.

At the end of the day, despite the lengthy and often exhausting rehearsals, the frustration of editing arrangements and the confusion of scheduling performances, Pitch Perfect was right in saying that getting involved in something like this can make you inclined to stay when so many other things make you inclined to leave.  Some days I just want to burn my homework and curl up into a ball beneath my sheets, but at least I’ll always have the joy of singing Taylor Swift with Chynna Spencer and the rest of the group, as you can listen to in the attached mp3: Lisa Hawkin’s Arrangement of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

So you’re looking for a great musical performance?  Looking for a fun and rewarding experience?  Looking for the sexiest group on campus?  And, most importantly of all, IF YOU ARE A MALE SINGER HOPING TO JOIN AN A CAPELLA GROUP THIS COMING SPRING SEMESTER, come hit us up!  That, after all, is what aca-mmunity is all about.

Well, that’s what the movie told me anyway.

Daniel Wolfert Snapshot #3: Holding Out for a Hero

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In Which the Man From Elsewhere ascends at last.

At the end of the spring semester of my frehman year, I was selected to become the Residential Student Association’s Director of Sustainability, a leadership position that wanted desperately but did not feel I deserved.  Little did I know when selected what adventures that would entail.  Along with four other sophomores – our down-to-earth, Frisbee-loving president Lucas Henken, the cunning and slightly conniving vice president/programmer Kaitlyn Vallance, the sassy Secretary Kaitlin White and lovable treasurer Scott Greenfield – and beneath the advisement of our glorious matriarch Assistant Director of Residential Life Jenni Chadick, we began the arduous task of assembling the Residential Hall Associations for each of the school’s residential halls.

There were barbeques is which I spilled hot dog remnants all over myself!  There were endless numbers of meetings to plan for other meetings!  There was the glory/suffering of Casino Night, for which I was entertainment chair, meaning that I contacted and arranged the night’s musical festivities, which included a school jazz combo, the student band Young Ones, and the school’s three a capella groups What She Said, Garden Level and Underground Sound.  There was laughter!  There were tears!  But most of all, there was PACURH.

What is PACURH, you ask?

The Pacific Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls is a ResLife conference held in the Pacific Northwest every fall, to bring together ResLife members from across the Northwest so as to share ideas, present programs and get NO SLEEP EVER.  It is a division of the National Association of Residence Halls (NACURH), which holds a national ResLife conference every year in the summer, and this year, it was superhero themed.  After weeks of preparation, wild essay writing, personality tests and the selection of our superhero names (mine being “The Man From Elsewhere”), I, the other members of RSA Exec Board, Jenni, and three other ResLife members drove through the dreary landscape of Eastern Washington, where on the beautiful and autumnally chilled campus of Gonzaga University, the rambunctious and sleep-deprived conference awaited.

I learned a great many things at that conference.  At a wonderful program entitled “Forming the Avengers”, I learned that the superhero that I am most like is Spiderman, due to my sensitivity and emotional intelligence, very closely followed by Iron Man because of my assertiveness and optimism. I learned that leadership should be defined by actions that actively better the lives of others, rather than by unattainable ideals of order and hierarchy, from a beautiful TedxTalk that can be found here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVCBrkrFrBE).  I learned that I know an insufficient number of Puget Sound cheers, and that dancing in a group of people that all look as stupid as you can be one of the most liberating feelings of your life.  I learned that Pacific Lutheran University’s sustainability programs are fantastic and excellently organized.  I learned the conference clap, and the PACURH stomp, and how to haggle for another school’s swag.  But what I cherish most of the things that I learned was, while sitting for the fourth hour in the van with all the delegates on the way home, how to harmonize with fellow delegate and all around beautiful individual Timothy Pogar on Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”.  I truly can think of few better moments in my life than when, as the last line of the song came to a close, Tim and I turned to one another and sang in mournful and beautiful harmony, “You wre-e-eck meeeeeee…”, to the delight of Kaitlyn Vallance and the chagrin of Lucas Henken.

I had never before truly had to go on an adventure with a small group like this.  I had never before had my notions of what being a “leader” – something I had never felt I was before – challenged.  Yet returning from this trip, I felt for the first time in my life that I was now qualified, if only in the vaguest, most idealistic sense, to be called a leader.  Strange how a few talks on heroism, three days spent in the frustrating and glorious company of my fellow Puget Sound delegates, and the act of calling myself “The Man From Elsewhere” could make me feel so powerful.

Also, if you see any of the people mentioned in this blog, don’t tell them about any of these descriptions of them.

Daniel Wolfert Snapshot #1: Midterm Madness

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In which Daniel Wolfert is introduced to the reader, uses some choice vulgarity, and comes to a pleasing revelation about the university he attends.

Once upon a time, in a university that you or someone you know is likely to attend or have attended, there lived a sophomore music composition major named Daniel Jacob Flores Wolfert.  Daniel had two older sisters,two loving (and slightly intimidating) parents, an adorable, rather fat golden retriever named Cinnamon and a profound love for sitting in Starbucks and writing (as he was doing when this was written).  Daniel Wolfert, needless to say, is me, and on the morning of this short tale, Daniel Wolfert was also fast asleep.

I had spent the better part of the previous night (or very, very early morning, if you prefer) at the LiveGreen House studying with those house members that were in his Asian Languages and Cultures 310 class, “Death and Desire in Pre-Modern Japanese Literature”, for their midterm that afternoon.  Studying, in this case, was a word that primarily entailed rolling on the floor and eating ice cream while other students proposed potential answers to the open-ended, vaguely baffling questions concerning Buddhism, women, and Heian Japan.  I digress, however.

After such an intensive study session, lasting long into the wee hours of the morning, I was exhausted when I collapsed into my bed, thinking only of the Japanese Literature Midterm looming ahead and not of the Music Theory Test I had in only five hours.  When I awoke that morning seven hours later, I was therefore horrified to see the time on my bedside clock and leaped from my bed, employing some exceptional profanity that I shan’t repeat here.  I hurriedly opened my webmail so as to send an email to my music theory professor apologizing for missing the test and begging to take it with penalty.  I then dressed and went to my 11 o’clock class, my stomach churning as I awaited his response.

To my enormous relief, he replied an hour later, asking me to come to his office and take it with a 25% penalty,  I finished the short exam quickly and left his office, disappointed that, after having a somewhat less-than-satisfactory grade on a previous music theory test, I had missed this opportunity to ace this one.

I am not telling you this, however, to demonstrate my own ineptitude or inability to manage my time appropriately, and I certainly do not mean to represent the school as oversleeping poor test-takers.  On the contrary, I usually manage my time very well, and have never before slept through a class (let a alone a test).  What I want to bring your attention to is this: in a different school, and most of all in a larger one, I never would have had the opportunity to make up that missed test.  In a larger school, had I approached the professor about it, he might have genuinely asked “Do you go here?”  But I am fortunate enough to go to a smaller school, with a small music program where mistakes can be made without the world falling to pieces.

And so, after a somewhat terrifying week of midterms, I came to Starbucks with my laptop and wrote this post, drowning my sorrows in green tea and the Metropolitan Market’s delightful samosas as I introduced myself to you, dear reader.  Thus closes our tale of Midterm Madness, and begins the delightful, disastrous adventure of Daniel Wolfert as a LoggerBlogger…