College Playlists

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Before coming to UPS, I read about this little self-project that you could do throughout your college years. Basically, youmake a playlist or folder with all the songs you downloaded in a certain semester or year. For example, I’ve added every song I’ve downloaded since orientation week to “Freshman Year: Fall Semester”.

The idea is that you’re able to see how your tastes in music change over your college career. I really loved this concept and have downloaded 57 songs since starting. I’ll probably add a few more before finals wrap up. Here are some of my top picks:

  • I’m Just a Kid by Simple Plan – Starting off strong with some good old fashioned teenage angst. Everyone can relate to this song. We’ve all felt lonely or felt like the world was completely against us or like we don’t fit in. It’s just a good song anyone and everyone can relate to.
  • You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift – What’s a playlist without some T-Swizzle? This song is a simple and catchy tune from earlier in Swift career, when she was in between Country and Pop. It’s everyone’s guilty pleasure song. Admit it, you’ve rocked out to this in your room when no one was looking. I have.
  • All Star by Smash Mouth – It’s a classic. I mean, that’s really all there is. It’s the epitome of the late 90’s and early 00’s.
  • Hey Ya! by OutKast – Like All Star, this is a classic. If you don’t like thissong , I’m not sure if we can be friends.
  • Never Forget You by Zara Larsson & MNEK – When you first listen to this song, you’ll think that’s it’s Rihanna singing. Zara is actually this teenage Swedish girl, possibly the furthest from Rihanna you can get. I promise you, this song is worth a listen
  • Roses (ZAXX Remix) by The Chainsmokers and ROZES – This remix is a fresh look at Roses, which the Chainsmokers dropped earlier this year. It kicks up the beat and makes the song great to work out or dance to.
  • Coming Over (Filous Remix) by James Heresy – Kygo may have brought the world’s attention to the Tropical House genre, but producers like Filous are keeping people listening, it’s definitely kept me in the genre.
  • I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! at the Disco – What kind of person would I be if I didn’t finish off this list without some more angst?

So that’s my list. It looks like I’m an angsty little raver that’s stuck in 2005. I’m really looking forward to what the next few years will do to my tastes in music. Maybe you should try it out. It’s never too late, the next semester is just around the corner.

Not Slytherin, Eh?

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In which it’s all here in my head; there’s no doubt about that.

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To my dear reader,

One of my earliest memories is not of a sight, but of a sound; namely, the sound of Jim Dale’s voice reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. My cassette tapes of the Harry Potter audiobooks were precious treasures to me, and listening to them brought me endless pleasure. The lilt of Jim Dale’s voice, the character he drew from the dialogue, and variety of voices he was capable of fascinated me, inspiring my love for stories and the human voice.

The Harry Potter series has deeply shaped my generation, and like so many of my peers, I asked myself which Hogwarts house I would be sorted into – brave Gryffindor, loyal Hufflepuff, wise Ravenclaw or ambitious Slytherin. Like so many of my peers, I assumed myself to be a Gryffindor. This was, in retrospect, a foolish assumption.

Let us not be too harsh on young Daniel; in those first books of the series, the world seemed so black and white. Gryffindors were the protagonists and heroes – who wouldn’t want to be among them? Gryffindors were courageous and noble – who wouldn’t want to have those qualities?

But as I grew older, I realized how goal-oriented I was. I loved completing tasks, making plans and being in charge. Being in Gryffindor was the stuff of chivalrous heroes, and I had proved myself much too irascible and irreverent to be chivalrous or a hero. Well, I thought, Slytherin seems to fit me like a glove.

It was not until an activity in my current Education 419 class, American Schools Inside and Out, that I questioned this assumption. This was because of a short quiz the class took provided by the company ViaStrengths, which analyzed fairly typical questions about daily organizational habits and work-related practices to give a list of ranked personal strengths. As the list, now posted to my bedroom wall, dictates, my number one was “Love of Learning.”

This quality as my greatest strength explains a great deal. It explains why I identified with the character of Hermione Granger, why I enjoy libraries so, and why I rarely enjoy anything that doesn’t intellectually stimulate me. Lucky me, the professor of this class – Dr. John Woodward – informed us that this trait is considered highly desirable by employers. But this is not why seeing this result pleased me so.

It pleased me because it made me realize that I have always been a Ravenclaw. Trivial or foolish as this realization may seem, it has been of great benefit as I begin the search for that elusive adventure, Adult Life. I can see now that, whatever I do with myself, I can only be happy if I am always learning. As Jim Dale once told me in an audiobook, “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest pleasure…”

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With all due respect,

Daniel Wolfert

My Thanksgiving Tacos

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Holidays can be a great reminder of what you have. A couple of New Years ago my family and I all drank Martinelli’s and sang Auld Old Lang Syne. Then when I kept singing after midnight my sister threatened to hit me. I was genuinely moved by this. But the holidays can also be stressful. Just watch one of the gazillions of movies about estranged Dads trying to connect with their kids on Christmas. Or ask whoever does the cooking on Thanksgiving.

For the past few years my family has kept Thanksgiving simple. My freshman year we had tacos. Sophomore year it was pizza. Last year we went to a friend’s house, so someone else was cooking. And this year we went back to tacos. This was a good thing because by the time my family was ready to make dinner I was ready to eat the table. And when I’m that hungry I start to mutter under my breath a lot and the situation deteriorates from there.

But the tacos were delicious and easy to make. I think it took about half an hour. We ate on the couch in front of the movie Hot Fuzz. It was about a cop having a shootout with the village benefit society which, as it turns out, is actually kind of a cult. Nothing says Thanksgiving like hearing a bunch of people in medieval-ish robes murmur “the greater good” in perfect unison.

That Thanksgiving we watched a total of three movies. We saw the second part of Mockingjay, Hot Fuzz, and Coherence. Mockingjay was depressing, lots of explosions and dead kids. Hot Fuzz was hilarious. And Coherence blew my mind. It was about people meeting versions of themselves from different realities. I ended up really confused but I did get to learn my family’s strategies for what to do if this happened. My mom would hop in her car and not stop driving till it was over. My sister would just stay in whatever reality she ended up in. As for me, I’m not sure what I would do but it would probably involve swearing. And possibly tacos.

How to Make People Think You Are A Wizard (When Really, You’re Just Good at Mixing Colors Together)

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One of my interests that I listed in my biography is hair dye. In the interest of ignoring all of the work and research I have to do in the next few weeks*, I’m going to tell you about it.

A picture from when I redyed my hair a few weeks ago.

A picture from when I redyed my hair a few weeks ago. Notice the paper towel underneath it so I don’t get pink everywhere.

I’ve been dying my own hair for a few years now, and I’ve recently started dying some of my friends’ hair when they asked — they think that I’m magical or something because it always turns out stunning but really, in the interest of full disclosure, hair dye is just guesswork. The actual dying part is easy, because all you have to do is paint it on the hair with either a brush or your fingers**. So is mixing the dye. You choose either a color or colors, and maybe some white conditioner if you want to make it lighter, and mix them all together before dumping it on someone’s head. The proportions are what’s difficult though. It’s choosing the proportions of colors to put in the mix that involves the most guesswork.

Do I want one drop or two of the reddish-purple? Do I want to put a little or a lot of purple into the blue? It all depends on what color you want, and, potentially, whether you mess up and put more color than you were expecting to into the mix (sorry Rachel. I did not mean to make your hair reddish purple instead of orchid).

It’s a pretty simple thing, actually. I might make a post about bleach later, because that is much more difficult and can be legitimately dangerous if you do it wrong. But dying hair? Is just painting. And, if you do it enough and speak confidently enough about different colors and stuff, people might just think you’re a wizard when their hair magically turns purple.

* I am definitely going to do it, and I am pretty well prepared for it. Sometimes it’s good to take a break though!

** I would definitely recommend using disposable gloves if you’re going to do this at home though and especially if you’re going to use your fingers instead of a brush to paint your or your friends’ hair — no one wants bright blue hands for a week. No one.***

*** I may or may not be speaking from experience about that.

Victoria, British Columbia

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Sunset in the marina

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The good ol’ maple leaf

Alright, you got me.

As it turns out, I do occasionally make expeditions into cities; and I usually do so voluntarily. I’d actually say that I quite like cities. In the same way that you can come to understand the environment and geography of a place by getting out into its natural areas, you can come to understand the culture and the people of a place by going into its urban centers. That was what brought me to Victoria.

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Leaving Port Angeles, Washington on the ferry

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A statue outside of the legislative building

I had just found out that I was going to the Olympic Peninsula to spend Thanksgiving break with my grandfather when an idea crossed my mind: “Hey… that’s right by Canada.” And I was right. In fact, to get to Victoria, British Columbia––the capital of B.C.––you simply need to get to Port Angeles, Washington, which is only 30 minutes from my grandfather’s house. Then, you jump onto the Coho passenger ferry for a 90 minute trip complete with gorgeous scenery. Finally, passport in hand, you’re off on a whirlwind of new adventures that can only be found within the borders of our northern neighbor.

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Another parting shot of the Olympic Mountains

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Sunset on the British Columbia coast

Let me start out by saying that the city is beautiful. On a clear day, you can see the Olympic Mountains across the Straight of Juan de Fuca, as well as some of the interior topography of British Columbia. Within 10 minutes of downtown, you can see the province’s legislative building, walk the coastline, explore the marina, shop in Chinatown, and visit countless coffee shops. And, if you have a little more time for your visit, you could easily take public transportation two hours out of town and get into some serious, world-class outdoors in the Provincial National Parks.

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The legislative building at night

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The Empress Hotel at sunset

For me, this trip was kind of an eye opener. Even though I’ve lived in the northern end of the U.S. all of my life, I had never visited Canada. And even though I knew that Tacoma was merely a few hours away from Canada, I had never really considered Canada as a place that I could explore while in school. Man was I wrong.

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Sunset, the Olympics, and the marina

I would highly recommend making it a point to explore Victoria and the surrounding area at least once while attending Puget Sound. It’ll be a trip you won’t forget, and you’ll finally get to dust off your old passport.

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The Victoria marina

Happy trails,

Colton

 

How to Write 2+ Essays in One Weekend, More or Less

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TO MY PROFESSORS, MOTHERS, AND ANYONE ELSE WHO MAY BE JUDGING ME: this is purely hypothetical.

FOR THOSE IN NEED:

To begin, this is a liberal arts college. There are many many many essays. I am in the politics department (international relations), and in the next three weeks I have to write six essays, ranging in word count from 800 to 6500. Do not despair! for I know how to write these essays, and I can save you.

Theoretically.

To begin:

I know it says a weekend, but before the weekend hits, you will need to talk to the professors for whom you must write these papers. Not for anything like moving due dates (although if you have Accommodations, you can adjust the due dates), but for discussing your paper topics. It doesn’t have to been an in-depth discussion, it just needs to be a “Hey, this is kinda what I am thinking, what think?”

This will save you. You will look like you care and that you are putting a lot of time into your writing. You also will come away with feedback: it might be how to make your paper more significant, or giving deeper analysis, or it might change to framework of your entire paper. It even lets you go completely off-book: after talking with one professor, I am now encouraged writing a comparative analysis of international organizations in the Middle East, instead of the original assignment (which was to analyze how well a particular international organization handled a particular issue; being the Middle East, the answer was “Not well.”).

After this step, you may get to the weekend. Here:

  • On Friday night, outline both papers. Some people do really in-depth outlines, which is fine. I just structurally organize paper using section headings, notes on the most important information per heading, and rough word count needed for each section.
  • The word count per section really helps. Use it as goals to aim at.
  • I am a very goal-oriented type of person.
  • Pick whichever essay will be harder/longer. This is the essay to start on Saturday.
  • (If you are a nerd, start writing on Friday.)
  • Just write. If you can’t remember a certain detail, make a note that says “CERTAIN DETAIL HERE” and come back to it.
  • I don’t stop to cite. Ever.
  • I hate citing with a fiery passion.
  • A proper system of citation would be to just say, “It is known,” for every single fact.
  • Write to your word count goals.
  • Reward yourself with chocolate/exercise/a new t-shirt/three hours of Parks and Recreation. It is Saturday. You still have time.
  • You have less time on Sunday.
  • Write the other paper today. It is easier and/or shorter.
  • Lock yourself into a room at the library. Or equivalent
  • Turn off your phone. Allow no distractions. It is best to carry snacks.
  • Remember what your professors told you: make the analysis deeper. Talk about why your essay is important. Try to sound intelligent.
  • I use a lot of adverbs. In general, I would recommend editing those out.
  • Finish your other paper. Stay in the zone.
  • You can take short breaks if necessary. Really short though. Basically only bathroom breaks + one game of Candy Crush.
  • Okay, cite now.
  • If you don’t cite, you will get failing marks on your paper and, at minimum, you will be mercilessly mocked. Cite your paper.
  • I hate Chicago style, but it’s the only one with class.
  • You may be really bad about editing your paper at this point, but it’s okay. The words are probably starting to blur together. It happens.
  • Just call it good.
  • Go eat a snack and go to bed.

Please note that these steps are not necessarily in strict order. You can write more on Saturday, or on Friday night (if you are a nerd/somehow not exhausted from the week). I also didn’t include time stamps: hopefully, you’ll be done before midnight. But if you’re not: just keep writing.

Thanksgiving

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(Or, more accurately: my thoughts following Thanksgiving break)

I went home again this year.

I always go home, because my family lives in Portland, OR, and because my family is very close, and because, in my family, we take food very seriously.

We had six pies this year, for 12 people. This may seems excessive, but understand that Thanksgiving in my family starts Wednesday evening and ends when the last piece of turkey has been eaten (a process which takes days, because we cook a turkey specifically for leftovers). In other words, we go hard.

It is always difficult, though, to switch back into family mode. I have compiled a brief list of Things To Remember when returning home (although I am moderately bad at remembering any of them):

  1. Although my immediate family may have taught me how to swear, they did not teach me how to swear That Much. I have taken to using Certain Words as punctuation, but I have learned that it is perhaps best to tone it down for my family. As it happened, at least four different relatives told me to watch my language.
  1. Many, many people asked me why I was not dating anyone. Someone also talked about certain things their psychiatrist friend and hypothesize about me accordingly (Hi, Mom). It so happens that the simpler, truer answers of “I don’t want to date anyone” or “I’m focusing on my studies” or “Did you know that the majority of terrorism in this country is committed by white men aged 18-45?” are not good enough in this case: it is best to respond by immediately diverting everyone’s attention to someone else. In this case, I turned to my cousin, female, age 19, at University of Montana, and said loudly, “You’re dating a Republican??!!!???” I have no shame about throwing other family members under the bus to save myself.
  1. There was an argument, actually multiple, about politics. I study politics. Many people wanted me to get involved; however, they only wanted me to get involved to blindly back them up or tell everyone else that they were wrong. The best response is to either point out analytical and logical inconsistencies on both sides—“That’s not how government works,” was one of my most used statements, along with my statistic about terrorism, seen above—or say, blandly, “I don’t study American politics.”
  1. Pet the cats.
  1. It so happened that this year my computer’s hard drive failed completely the day before Thanksgiving break. In a weird, twisted way, this brings me to my last point. I have a ton of work to do between now and finals. I have so many very very long essays. But, honestly, work is not for Thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving break is to relax (although Thanksgiving is not a particularly relaxing holiday). It’s to eat food. It’s to spend time with family and high school friends (okay, all 2 of them. The rest of the high school acquaintances are Avoided At All Costs). It’s to be grateful for the small pause—the breath before the rest of school.

Thanksgiving break is also to fix my computer

Thanksgiving with Strangers

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Today is Thanksgiving and I’m still on campus. While most of the school is with family, I’m just sitting in my room, typing away. But you know what? I don’t regret not going home.

I had Thanksgiving for the first time without my family in my entire life. My perspectives leader, Gwen, from orientation posted an open invitation in the “Free & For Sale” group on Facebook, inviting anyone on campus over to hangout and eat.

Of course I jumped on it, I didn’t want to spend the night in my room, watching my friend’s fish (I renamed her Ms. Fish McFish). By the time I got to Gwen’s house, there was Gwen, some of her friends from Lewis & Clark and a few other people. They had been cooking all day, so I contributed what I could by helping set the table. After that, I helped where I could and did my best not to seem like a freeloader.

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Mashed potatoes, gravy, dinner roll, turkey, green bean casserole, brussels sprouts and stuffing

To cut a long story short, I had an incredible dinner with a bunch of strangers that I got to know a little. I just had a ton of fun and really enjoyed myself. Also we played Settlers of Catan for all of 10 minutes before we got distracted by pie and pretty much abandoned the game.

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This just goes to show how awesome the people we go to school with are. Even though we’re all a bunch of strangers, we’re still able to come together over a nice meal.

I think that next year, I might just stick around during Thanksgiving and do this. I’m sure anyone staying would appreciate it. I know I did.

The Real Enemy

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In which the odds are never in our favor.

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To my dear reader,

If there is one rule of writing that has stuck with me from my high school creative writing class, it is “Show, don’t tell.” If there is one memorable piece of literature that broke this rule, it is Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy.

The rule “Show, don’t tell” is a way to elicit sophisticated description from writers, ensuring a more tangible world for the reader. If a character is mean, for example, describing them as “mean” sounds juvenile and imprecise. Instead, the writer should show the character making snide remarks about their younger cousin’s only bedraggled doll or framing their mother for second-degree murder. Have the character demonstrate their qualities, and let the reader decide what those qualities are.

Collin’s trilogy broke this rule countless times, much to its detriment. I clearly remember the character Finnick Odair in Catching Fire revealing its infamous President Snow’s murderous past. Rather than actually showing the reader Finnick’s words, however, Collins leaves us with a description of a web of vicious crimes too evil to believe.

Why don’t you tell me what Finnick said, Suzanne, and I’ll decide what’s too evil to believe?

And yet for all its faults, I commend the trilogy for its premise and themes, and more importantly, I commend the film adaptations as elegant, efficient narratives that clarified the relevant themes of the (all too often convoluted) books. With Collin’s heavy-handed, poorly paced narration out of the way, the contrast of extreme poverty in Panem’s districts against the lurid consumerism of Panem’s capital, as well as the trauma of violence on children, came into sharp relief.

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It is an incredible shame that the trilogy’s awkward prose, alongside the barrage of other youth-in-dystopia stories, have come between the public and the parallels between Panem and our world. As I write this, Chicago’s government and police department come under ever closer scrutiny in light of the case of Laquan McDonald, twisting ever harder out of systematized responsibility for the seemingly endless police brutality. President Snow would be proud.

But not everyone dismissed the relevance of Collin’s work. At the premiere of the Mockingjay Part 1 film, rumors of the Thailand government banning the film began to circulate. The reason, rumors went, was a scene in which the impoverished masses of one of Panem’ districts ban together in a suicidal mission to destroy the dam that supplies Panem’s capital with power. Fearful that the movie would inspire rebellion, just as Katniss inspired the districts, the Thai government removed the film from theaters.

I am not suggesting that the villain of our story is the government. It is not the president, or every policeman. It is not every white person, or every black person, or everyone that is neither black nor white. It is not Syrian refugees or Muslims or Russians or Chinese. It is the President Snows of the world, who make others’ lives their toys so that they never have to play in the Hunger Games.

Remember who the real enemy is.

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With all due respect,

Daniel Wolfert

Students in a Changing World

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I stopped to think about the world, about life abstractly the other day and I noticed I’m doing so more and more. There has been a lot of chaos and more media coverage of those chaos for us sheltered in the US to realize what is actually happening around the world. Americans seem stereotyped to only care about our country, our problems and our successes and that’s true but that mentality can’t continue in the world we live in today. This is a time of turmoil, and change for positive great change and equality and basic respect for all humans to be achieved, hopefully in my lifetime and I can look back and say I thought critically and participated in making change for the good, for seeing all the bad in the world and wanting to hear people’s narratives to be informed and support action to better the world.