Misc

     I took one of those BuzzFeed quizzes today, "Which 2000s Disney/Nickelodeon Character Mashup Fits You?" The answer I got was "You’re a combination of Ron Stoppable and Eliza Thornberry. Like Ron, you will do anything for your family and friends, even if that means putting yourself in danger. And like Eliza, you have a massive sense of adventure. You are strong, courageous, and passionate."
     From reruns that I've seen of Kim Possible, I can live with being Ron. That seems kind of accurate, actually. I've never seen The Wild Thornberrys, but Wikipedia says that Eliza gets along with animals very well, which also sounds accurate.

     Four years ago I posted the following Facebook statuses:
     "How to find Ross Hall: It's pretty easy. Go all the way east on campus, and then it's the only dorm with a bathroom stall parked in front of the building."
     This was part of some prank in a war two of the fraternities were having at the time. (GREEKS ARE STUPID.) But it fit life in Ross very well. Which is why I mentioned it. 
      "Can I write like some combination of Agatha Christie, Brad Paisley, Mark Twain, Philip Gulley, Keith Urban, Jan Karon, Harper Lee, Miranda Lambert, Leonard Kessler, Taylor Swift, William Goldman, Edgar Guest and Lucy Maud Montgomery, please?"
      I think my style has incorporated a lot of these writers since, along with Wendell Berry, G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O'Connor and others I can't think of right now.

      The CVS Scotch Tape Incident occurred six years ago today. It's really weird how often that night pops up in my memories. "The porch swing silence was my favorite part," Sam commented on the original Facebook link. That was a good part of the night. "'Dylan blandly buys the tape, likely wishing he didn't know any of us' is my favorite part. That's him all over!" Paige commented right below Sam's comment. What can I say? I know my friends.
     Marie's arm was fine after the Red Rover mishap, just really bruised. Last anyone heard she got married a couple years ago, has a 2-year-old son and is currently pregnant with a daughter. Last anyone heard of Sam she was about to get married.

      Courtney's visiting this weekend after working most of spring break, it's been nice to see her. We saw Black Panther again last night with Caleb, and I still didn't like it. I mean, it was fine, but 12th-15th in the MCU rankings. Courtney liked it a lot, which we figured she would. We went to the AMC theater in Tulsa Hills, first time I'd ever been there. It's really nice.
     Caleb and I have been playing a lot of basketball in the driveway recently. In sports, Loyola-Chicago somehow made it into the Final Four, and the NASCAR Truck race at Martinsville this afternoon was postponed due to a blizzard. 
     We were just talking about how much Grandpa would've loved Courtney going to C of O, how he'd always be running up to Branson to see her. He always said one summer he was going to find work up there instead of at the river, live in the RV. She'll be working over the summer, which is good. He would've enjoyed the play, too, I think, and he would've been proud that I wrote it, anyway.

     While they aren't as entertaining as Keith and Nicki's hijinks, Luke and Katy work well together on Idol. On Agents, FitzSimmons' wedding was spectacular, and the episode overall was incredibly emotional in the best way possible. Recorded a cover last week of Rascal Flatts' "Stand" because Amanda asked me to; mostly I've been playing a lot of ukulele recently. 

     Yesterday was National Puppy Day; which the dogs didn't really care about, but Rags and Timmy have been especially needing lots of attention this week. That can be kind of nice.

Remembering Will

     The weather's been gray, cold, sullen and thoroughly wet for the last several weeks. That's usual weather in our part of Oklahoma for late February/early March. It's made me thankful I haven't had to walk through it back and forth from classes to my dorm. But it's made me wonder what Will is doing.

     Will was the resident Jehovah's Witness missionary at NSU. He was a friendly, soft-spoken, obese, middle-aged guy who had to retire early because of severe back pain after thirty years of working in publishing/printing in Colorado. He has a grown daughter in Denver and several grown sons in Georgia. His wife ran the quilting supplies shop downtown just past Felt's Shoes, where he occasionally helped out when his back allowed. The rest of his time - probably three days a week, on average - was spent manning the table of JW fliers halfway between Seminary Hall and the Fine Arts Building.
      Most of the time he was ignored, accepted as part of the scenery, except for the folks from CCF, who would aggressively attack his theology whenever they had a couple spare minutes. The BCM folks were kind of scared of him.
     I would stop and talk with him for five or ten minutes if I had time; if I didn't I'd always wave and he'd holler a wisecrack about my speedwalking setting the pavement on fire.
     We didn't talk about theology much. Sometimes we would ask each questions about various points about what the other believed, and then we'd try to answer those questions as best we could. I would occasionally take some of his literature to talk over it with him later, and he would occasionally read the online articles I mentioned. Since I was a MassComm major, and he'd worked in journalism, we would usually talk about those kinds of things. Local news, the merits of coffee, campus gossip, what we'd been reading lately, observations about people-watching. And sometimes we'd just sit and people-watch together, since a college campus is an excellent spot for doing that: one girl he always called Pirate Boots, because he didn't know her name and she wore boots that looked piratey nearly every day.
     If I was running down to Morgan's Bakery, I'd once in a while ask if he wanted me to get anything for him. If his health was especially good for a few days in a row, he'd usually go on a baking spree, and sometimes would bring the extra cookies for me that he and his wife didn't eat the night before.
     One day we were talking and he frowned in midsentence and gave me one of those curious, hard stares for a minute. "Y'know, Wes....you're different." I must have looked surprised, because he continued: "I know we don't believe the same things, but you don't try to ram it down my throat like those other people do. You just treat me like a person. I can't remember meeting a Christian who ever did that. Thank you."

     That's always stuck in my head ever since, and often replayed itself while working on homework late at night. I didn't think of it as anything special; it was just something that needed to be done, so I did it, just like guiding my blind classmate Russell back and forth from Dr. Fuller's psych class freshman year. Will was discouraged, everyone ignoring him like that. It doesn't take much to brighten somebody's day.
     Hope he's doing okay.         

Olympics and Life

     The Winter Olympics begin tonight, which I'm thrilled about. Last time that happened I was in the middle of my sophomore year at NSU. Olympics, because they happen roughly every two years, are a good time to stop and reflect on life.
     For my speech class that semester, I recounted a history of the Winter Olympics, because it sprang easily to mind. And also I could watch Cool Runnings as research. And the Arctic feel of Ross Hall made watching the events much more authentic. 

     The other day Jessica asked for help on picking a wedding dress. (I knew watching Say Yes to the Dress reruns would eventually pay off...not that I did that or anything. It's an unexpectedly enthralling show.) Sure, it felt like she was asking basically everyone she knew for advice, too, but still, that meant that she trusts me. And that means a lot. 

     Skyped with Courtney today, school's keeping her busy, but it's going all right.

     Super Bowl LII was Sunday, and it was an amazing game. Philadelphia beat New England 41-33, and I think it was the first time I'd watched the entire game in ten years.

     Budweiser won the commercials this year, which were especially lame. Bud's ad was, when you think about it, classy and yet self-aggrandizing at the same time, highlighting their water-donation efforts during the hurricanes last year. Also, for an NFL ad, Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr reenacted Dirty Dancing, which was pretty hysterical. 

Thanks

     The acknowledgements are one of the best overlooked parts of books, because while writing is a solitary act, the creation of a book involves a lot of time and a lot of people. So does getting through college. There are far more people who ought to be on this list, probably, but it's been a (very long) journey full of twists and turns and rocky places, so I can't remember everything.

     First, thanks to Mom and Dad, Courtney, Caleb, Trevor and Amy. You guys are awesome. And thanks to Grandpa and Robbie for being there while I was in Tahlequah. And Harry and Louise, and Nano, for being themselves.

     Thanks Ashland, Amanda, Daniel, Dylan, Jessica and Jon, for your friendship, prayers and encouragement throughout this whole process, for being there to listen when necessary, tease incessantly or trade insults or excited movie-news speculation with, get advice from or work with on projects.

     Thanks to the GBC people who prayed for me throughout the journey, particularly Steven and Jamie, Scotty, the Gundersens, Fergusons, Steeleys, Wilsons and Dugas. I'm sure there are lots of others, too.

     Thanks to fellow SGYC counselors like Brother Larry, Miss Kathy, Mrs. Boyer and Ryan, for their caring about the kids. Plus they're all good to work with. Grateful for friends made at camp that I still hear from once in a while, like Derek and Shari.

     Thanks to Alton and Maddie for offering encouragement about life at key times, and outside-of-school writing pals Cassie, Julie, Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Hollis.

     Thanks to Sport, Sunny and Copper, for being great dogs, and Sunny and Copper for helping me get through that first year. Thank you, Rags, for being a fantastic cat, and helping me get through the rest.

     Thanks, Josh, for helping get through freshman year. Congrats to you and Sara on the wedding in a couple weeks!

     Thanks, Sam, for helping me get through that first semester.
     Thanks, Mallory and Cheyenne, for always being ready to joke about how awful Deiter's horrendous Comp I class was.

     Thanks, Bob and Deb, for showing what following Christ looks like in your lives, in your marriage and in your ministry while leading the NSU BCM.

     Thanks to the SWAT crew, particularly Samantha, Elizabeth, Susan, Jacob, Ja Li Si and James. It was fantastic to work with you guys, and I appreciate your friendship so much. Other BCM people who should go here: Daniel P., Annie, James Hoover, Stephen, Zach, Jocelyn, Bucky, Amber, Ashleigh, TJ and Drew. All of y'all also brightened up sophomore year quite a bit, whether that be working on the worship team, Bible studies, vollleyball/basketball, or planning miscellanous things like the Friday Lunch Bunch gatherings or Thunder watch parties. Finally, a special shoutout to Elizabeth, Stephen, Daniel P., Bucky, and Mom for introducing me to the residents of Pawnee, Indiana. (In other words, for getting me hooked on Parks and Recreation.)
     Thanks, Randall and Lacey, for your efforts leading RSU Chi Alpha, and showing how a young couple can serve Christ through their marriage and ministry.

     At NSU - Thanks to Cassie and Dr. Eversole for teaching in the MassComm/Media Studies department, and to Professor Semrow and Dr. Faulds in the English Department.

     Thanks to the Galdemezes and DeSpains for being there when needed, and allowing me to feel like part of y'all's families - including crashing the couch and raiding the library.

     At RSU - Thanks to Dr. Mackie, Dr. Dial-Driver, Dr. Marrero, Mr. Williams, Tip and David for loving your subjects, and being amazing teachers. Thanks especially to Dr. Mackie for explaining how to write poetry, and to Dr. Mackie and Dr. Dial-Driver for trying to teach me how to use an academic tone in essays. Thanks to David for teaching scriptwriting and directing theater projects, and all three of them for encouraging me to keep writing.

     Thanks, Brittany. It was great to work with you and spend time with you this semester

     Thanks to Cody, Kinze, Lauren, Brian, Coale, Debra and Jenny for being frequent classmates/coworkers/friends. It's a privilege to work with you guys, whatever that work might entail - acting, writing stories/poetry/nonfiction/essays/stage plays/screenplays/radio copy, arguing with each other about edits in our work or about the merits of works studied, mutual panicking over deadlines, whatever. Hopefully our paths will cross again someday.

     Thanks for Youth Tour pals for understanding what college life is like, and being willing to laugh along in gladness or sympathy with one another's triumphs and trials. Adam, Lorene, Ravi and Tauri immediately leap to mind, but I know there are others, too, from that trip. It's been really cool how most of us have kept in touch over the years.

     In short....

Overheard in the Classroom, Spring 2017

     This is the fourth or so of a series of strange quips overheard in classrooms, mostly without context because that would zap the humor out of them. There weren't that many humorous quips this semester, mainly because we were working with a lot of serious material - most Capstone class reading selections dealt with slow death and torture, Dr. Marrero's psych class was studying serial killers and a variety of other lowlifes, and Gothic lit is heavy. (Besides, me, Kenzie and Dr. Mackie could only think of so much to say about the works between the three of us.)

     I found this one while going through old notebooks to see what I could throw out, from 3-25-13, in Comp II -
     Someone mentions Taylor Swift during class. "Who's Taylor Swift?" our graduate-assistant teacher Jason asks in all seriousness.

1-17-17, Creative Writing for the Popular Market -
     "Text in class, I'll eat your phone." - Dr. Dial-Driver.

1-21-17, Pop Market -
     "Aah!" Dr. Dial-Driver yelps. "I have errant coffee!" Her drink had spilled.

1-25-17, Psychopathology of the Criminal Mind -
     Apparently lions and hyenas naturally loathe each other.

1-30-17, Psych -
     "Guys, in general, aren't as good at nonverbal communication [as women are]. What evidence do we have of this?" Dr. Marrero asks. (Crickets chirp.) "...Divorce rates?" a middle-aged man named Lewis asks hesitantly.

2-1-17, RSU Theater -
    During the second night of auditions for Tom Sawyer, a Comm major I don't know very well named Brittany arrives late, slips into a chair. As soon as she sits down, Eric finishes his monologue onstage and David scans the room. "WES! BRITTANY! You two try running Tom and Becky's engagement scene!" It was a funny but awkward first meeting. I get cast as Tom's insufferable little brother Sid, and Brittany is hired as assistant director.

2-2-17, Capstone -
     "Everybody ought to be a mother. It would help with all the selfishness in the world," Hailey muses.

2-15-17, Psych -
     "Sometimes you land on Omaha [Beach], sometimes you land on Utah [Beach]." - Dr. Marrero's philosophy on tests.

2-16-17, Capstone -
     Saige walks out of Shakespeare just as I'm about to go into Capstone when she spins around suddenly. "Can I take your picture, Wes? You are like, THE image of the Distraught College Student right now."

2-21-17, Pop Market -
     While we're debating the limits of historical fiction - "So the American Revolution with elves would count?" Dr. Dial-Driver asks. "Christmas elves?" Debra tries to clarify. "No, Keebler elves," somebody else answers. (We couldn't quite decide on that one, but reached a tentative hypothesis that it must be at least twenty years in the past to count as historical fiction.)

3-2-17, Pop Market -
     "They probably have strong hearts - and weak arms," a high school football coach grouches about his new team in a flashfic from Kara.

3-9-17, Pop Market -
     "Okay, a tragedy, that's fine, but - Damn! Why'd you have to kill the dog?!" Dr. Dial-Driver asks me after Kara and I read my flashfic play of a couple's elderly dog being euthanized. This was the general reaction afterwards. Kara wrote about a grandmother with dementia, who I played. That was odd. And Vito and Shane wrote about gangsters who were trying to torture the Easter Bunny by tickling him.

3-28-17, Pop Market -
     "If you're really drunk when you die, are you still drunk as a zombie?" Debra wonders.

4-11-17, RSU Theater -
    During dress rehearsal for Tom Sawyer, David and assistant director Brittany are huddled over a review script, giving notes as necessary. "So, Aunt Polly, here you're praying, remember-" David slaps the book, an inch away from Brittany's nose. The scene comes to a screeching halt as we all stare in horror, making sure she's okay. "There was a bug...." David explains lamely.

4-15-17, RSU Theaterish -
    "Sid Sawyer is the Eddie Haskell of American literature." - Derek Steeley says on Facebook. He's right.

4-18-17, Pop Market -
     "I've got the attention span of a dying gnat." - Dr. Dial-Driver.

4-19-17, Psych -
     We're all sharing how the various departments do their Capstones. After one horror story, Joanna says, "That sounds awful. I bet the whole room wanted to throw up. Like, for her."

4-20-17, Capstone -
     "Remember, all of y'all, no matter how badly it [the Capstone presentations] go tomorrow, no small children will die." (Dr. Dial-Driver suddenly remembers that most of us were in Lit Traditions together.) "And no cats will be murdered, either!" (We howled over Poe's "The Black Cat" in that class.)

4-21-17, Capstone -
     "So you're saying that [Rebecca's] De Winter solves the problem by loving the narrator," someone on the Committee asks Madison," "and [Jane Eyre's] Rochester solves the problem by attempting to save his first wife from the house fire, but what about [Wuthering Heights's] Heathcliff?" "Heathcliff solves the problem by dying," Madison answers, straight-faced. Argument about Heathcliff occurs here between Committee members. "See, now I was gonna say that murder was the red flag in relationships with all of these guys..." Dr. Ford says in his deadpan way.

Mud Soccer and Thank-You Notes

    I was going to email Bob and Deb this morning to say "thank you" for all that they've done during their time at NSU, but I couldn't find their email addresses anywhere. But then I remembered that I'd been meaning to email Professor Semrow to say thanks for the encouraging speech to keep on writing during Intro to Lit my sophomore year, and to tell her that I ended up as an English major at RSU. That made her day - apparently former students don't usually send thank-you notes very often. And apparently it was a rough day, so that encouragement and appreciation was especially welcome. "I'm glad you trusted me and pursued a degree that I knew you had the talent to do well in. Please know that my very difficult day was lightened beyond description because one former student took the time to say thanks. You were a blessing to teach years ago, Wesley, and I'm proud of you."

     While waiting for afternoon classes to start, Brian and I talked for a while about the difficulties of cowriting projects and Shakespeare adaptations, and then without missing a beat launch into a sports-talk-radio-level dissection of the Thunder's season and weak areas. He's been a good guy to work with on class projects.    

     Capstone discussion was awful this afternoon - Jeff and Hayden both galloped out of the room entirely at points. (And when they can't handle conversations, that's saying something.) I wanted to leave, too, but my chair was awkwardly situated for quick exits. Topics included the obligatory course evaluations, environmental rants, the ethics of playing God with science, women's personal grooming, various body mutilations, torture, incest and funerals. I actually wrote a complaining Facebook status in the moment, things got so awkward to listen to. Since none of us wanted to be there in the first place, it was an especially disheartening day. On the other hand, it was the last class, so there's that.
     I showed up late to Pop Market this morning, because I overslept, and so wound up playing the role of office secretary ushering various candidates into the Shark Tank-style boardroom of executives. (We were wrapping up group projects and presenting them to potential investors.)

     Mingo Valley 's Eagles had a soccer game against the Wright Christian Wildcats tonight, the girls won easily, 5-0, while the boys lost in a hardfought 3-2 contest - where they were supposed to be Elma Big Green-level annihilated. Trenton made a couple good plays. Like last year, the rain started early in the second half, making things interesting. Not quite mud soccer, but close enough. It was really good to get to catch up with Steven and Jamie. And it made a nice symmetry in that one of the first sporting events I attended while in college (the second, technically) was an NSU women's soccer game in the pouring rain against a Texas school called McMurry. (Why do I remember the other team? And how?) I mean, it's not perfect symmetry - I was working that first day, operating the scoreboard, and at this high school game I wasn't even reporting, just watching as a fan. It was nice, though.

Late April Weekend Update

     Yesterday was extremely rainy and kind of cold. It wasn't very productive, but at least it was good weather to go for walks. (The thinking kind. The best thinking spot here is the front steps of the Will Rogers Auditorium. At NSU it was the third-base bleachers at the baseball field.)
     I prowled through the nature reserve and tried to do homework. Then that night caught a movie called Eight Men Out, about the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. I'd always meant to watch that one, so it was cool to finally see it. Saturday Night Live was a rerun from October where Tom Hanks hosted, the cold open was a Trump-Hilary debate. He has a new movie coming out next week called The Circle, it's kind of a thriller based on a Facebook-like company. And Guardians Vol. 2 comes out in two weeks, which is awesome.

     Woke up today at 8 a.m. with the thought "It's been too long since I went to church." So I ponder for a minute if there's anywhere possible to go to (downside of not really making any connections here). Then I remember that there's some kind of Pentecostal church across the road. That's better than nothing, I suppose. So I walk over to the Claremore Assembly of God, which was interesting. The people there were aggressively friendly in introducing themselves during the service (the guy in front of me shook my hand three times), but Sunday school was all right. The greeter pointed out various classes, saying it was an a la carte type of thing; everyone drifted to whichever study sounded interesting. So I see that there is a group doing First and Second Samuel, which seems hard to get wrong, as it's mostly narrative. (Revelation? Eh...not so much.) The Young Adult class sounded too intimidating and awkward, where a ton of "get-to-know-you" questions would be fired my way and everyone would be staring at me. (In theory, a Young Adults Bible-study group of some kind sounds like a great idea, though. But at least at Grace Baptist, most of that group was part of CCF, which made things awkward. Also I didn't quite trust the leader, though Ryan Galdemez said he was a good guy.)
     So the Samuel study turns out to be three elderly women and two elderly men, which is much better. They ask polite basic questions, then go back to their normal weekly discussion and banter. That's perfect for social interaction in a new situation. And old people conversations are the best to listen to. One of the women says about the Young Adults course, "We used to call it the Young Married Couples class, but, uh....then we sort of ran out of young married couples." The section of Scripture studied this week was from 1 Samuel late chapter 19 to the early part of chapter 22, where David and Jonathan make their arrow-firing pact in the middle of one of the many Saul-David clashes. And in chapter 22 a whole bunch of priests were murdered.
     The sermon was from 2 Timothy 3, the pastor emphasized the "these times are awful!" part and kind of skipped over Paul's  "here are my instructions for you, Timothy" bit. But he stuck to the text a pretty good amount, compared to other Pentecostal services I've gone to. The sanctuary was designed round, like at First Baptist-Okmulgee, so that gave a kind of familiar feeling to it. And the acoustics sounded very good. The worship team played a couple choruses, they were shaky theologically but pleasant to listen to. Then they played "Tis So Sweet," which was really good. The lady on the other end of the pew said she graduated from NSU with a MassComm major, which I thought was interesting.
     It was kind of nice visiting an unfamiliar church where you don't know anyone.

     Because voluntarily meeting new people is exhausting, I immediately take a nap after getting some lunch in the dining hall. So then I decide that since it's a beautiful sunshiny day, I may as well practice volleyball for a while. On the way back I run into some people getting an Ultimate Frisbee game started, they ask me to join. I've played with them a couple times, it's the same kind of thing as at NSU my freshman year. There's a group that gets together a couple times a week to play Ultimate on the soccer field, and occasionally I'll join in, because it's exercise. I played better defense than I usual, got a block or two, threw and caught a couple of touchdowns each, though my team lost three of the four games played.

Old stock picture I snapped freshman year, due to Ultimate Frisbee not being a very common photo subject. 

     The Rockets won today's basketball game, the Thunder managed to lose in their typical stupid way. (It's rough being a fan of a team at times.) The NASCAR race at Bristol was postponed until tomorrow because of rain. I need to wrap up readying a presentation over a serial killer named Edmund Kemper for Psych... And I need to finish an essay about southern gothic lit. It's been a long week. I'm tired.

Easter 2017

     It's been a restless and wandery day. There's a storm coming, the tension has been slowly building since morning. Called home, everybody's helping Amy hunt for Easter eggs, and then the traditional baseball game with them afterwards.
     The Passover dinner at GBC apparently went really well, there were about 110 people there, roughly twenty percent of them being visitors, in the sense that they aren't part of the congregation, but all were at one point or are well-known friends of folks who are.
     Dado's final living brother, Kenneth, died this morning. And yesterday would have been Grandpa's birthday, the first one since he died last summer. That was kind of hard to deal with, but easier than I thought it'd be. Maybe because I was distracted by the day's tasks. Mom, Courtney and Amy all went over to Tahlequah to Louise's Thursday, Trish and everyone are visiting, and Bob came over.

     GBC's not officially sending a group to SGYC this year, but there's a plan for an Oklahoma-based camp to start near Chouteau in summer 2018. According to an email I got from Mrs. Boyer, Steve Long will still be the pastor this year, which should be a good thing. I'm not sure if I can be a counselor this year, depends on how the job search goes. If I do go, it'll match the time I spent as a camper - five years.
     Amanda's been teasing me incessantly all week long. ("Rolling eyes") Maya's second birthday is in two weeks.

     Reading slowly through Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter, because he just can't be read quickly. And also, it's good to sit and think for a while on what his characters have to say and experience. Same way with Flannery O'Connor. I've mostly been reading her nonfiction work Mystery and Manners, which I would say is one of those books on writing that everyone ought to read, along with Stephen King's On Writing, William Strunk Jr's and E.B. White's Elements of Style, William Zinsser's On Writing Well, and William Goldman's Adventures of the Screen Trade. And, if you're into that sort of thing, the AP Stylebook.

     This week's movie of study for Gothic Film and Lit was Crimson Peak, which started well, but unraveling quickly into a horror movie that just didn't work - the harshest critique a story can have. Dr. Mackie and I hate horror movies, so there was that part of it, but Kenzie likes them, and even she wasn't a fan. Tom Hiddleston did well in his role, and there were some good ideas as far as storyline or plot developments, and it had a lot of the traditional Gothic elements (creepy mansion, ghosts, a secret, naive young woman, murder) but there was far too little backstory and far too many unanswered questions by the end. Also, all three of us vehemently wanted the heroine to die, which can't be a good sign.
     The Predators crushed the Blackhawks in game two of their first-round series, and in other NHL action today, Ottawa beat Boston in overtime, Toronto defeated Washington halfway through double overtime, and the Ducks put out the Flames. In NBA news, the Thunder start their first-round series against the Rockets tomorrow night.

     Tom Sawyer went fairly well both nights; the audiences were mostly responsive and animated, and also fairly high in terms of numbers: maybe twenty-five Thursday, thirty-three Friday, and only about a quarter of those were comp tickets. It's kind of sad that thirty people is an enormous audience, but that's the way it is with the RSU Theater Department.
     I played the voice-acting role of Sid Sawyer, Tom's insufferable half-brother, who is, in the words of Derek Steeley, "the Eddie Haskell of American literature." And he's right; Sid is (shudder). So that's partially how I played him, although I was primarily thinking of Waldo from The Little Rascals. (Indignant shudder.) Most lines were voice-acted, as it was a staged reading, which meant only key scenes were acted out. My actual character was Doc Robinson, whose only purpose is to be the brutally-slain murder victim of Injun Joe in the graveyard. Cody played Tom's friend Joe Harper, Keirstine (Jennifer from last spring's "Tales From Tent City") was Becky Thatcher.

     Jimmy Fallon was the host of Saturday Night Live this week, and about half the sketches were really funny. For SNL, that's a good average. The cold open was making fun of Trump again, which was pretty snicker-worthy. - it features someone in a Grim Reaper costume, which instantly brought to mind Jacob's Killer from "Go With the Flow," one of our SWAT skits. (Our blooper reel still cracks me up. And MAN do I miss everybody....) Another good SNL sketch tonight was a date getting crashed in the most awkward way imaginable by the woman's ex, with the punch line stating that he was the one responsible for dragging the guy off the United flight the other day. And they didn't have the best reputation in the first place even before that - remember the (parody?) tune "United Breaks Guitars"? Another was a time-traveling version of Family Feud. 

     Haven't been able to get much work done today on essays and stories that need to be written, but that's part of why I'm typing this post - hopefully it'll kick-start my word output. Sometimes that happens. But anyway, it was time for an update.

Stormy Weekend

     It's been a stormy weekend; not violent, just there, enough to remind you that you live in Oklahoma, and ponder curiously how much the weather plays a role in our daily lives (even if we aren't storm-crazy, like Stephen, Justin and Ashleigh from the BCM.) Speaking of which, Justin and Ashleigh just started a photography business, so that's cool.
     So I've stood outside in the light misty rain and watched a lot of enormous lightning, which has been followed by the sizzling type of thunder.

     Spent most of the weekend retyping old essays, I still like the one from Comp II about fairy tales. The 2002 Spider-Man is on for background noise at the moment. The Manchurian Candidate, a 1962 suspense movie starring Frank Sinatra, was the OETA Movie of the Week, and it was really good. Also interesting was the 2001 movie The Others, starring Nicole Kidman as a paranoid overprotective mother in post-WWII England. It was this week's movie in Gothic Film and Lit, and it was a terrific ghost story.

     At the start of Wednesday's psych class, knowing most of the class was freaked out by the test on Monday afternoon, Dr. Marrero sits down on a stool and looks at us gravely. "What do you guys know about buffalo?" he asks. (I thought, though I didn't say, "DON"T PET THEM!" SGYC reference. Still no word about a 2017 edition.) Silence in room. "Well, what do you know about cows?" More silence. "When there's a storm, cows will go crazy, running this way and that. They try to avoid a storm when it's on the way. But buffalo are smart. When buffalo see a storm coming, they run through the storm, because they know they'll get out of it quicker that way." (Here my eyes light up and I figure out the point of this rousing inspirational speech, delivered quietly in a pleasant monotone.) "When you see an obstacle, just push back against it as best you can and try to move forward through it. I don't know, you guys might not think this stuff is interesting, but I enjoy learning about animals. Specially buffalo. And horses!" So, BE LIKE RUMBLE.

     Dr. Marrero's speech reminded me of what Professor Semrow said once. I'm using one of my essays for her Intro to Lit course as a Capstone artifact.
     I need to write a short story and rewrite my main Capstone essay and reflective paper, but other than that I don't think there's much homework at the moment.

     With it being the start of another month on Saturday, the list of stuff on Netflix changes. In April, almost all of the Whedonverse will disappear, which I am not too thrilled about. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is still safe, as part of the MCU.) I don't care about Angel, or at least haven't seen it, because I'm not a huge Buffy fan. (Though a Whedon-led show about a private investigator does sound good when you just hear that sentence.) And Buffy is really useful as resource material when you're an English major, due to the coming-of-age and Gothic aspects. And the impact on pop culture. Firefly is a bizarre mashup of Western and sci-fi, and it works brilliantly, particularly when it comes to snappy dialogue or character development. Dollhouse is fascinating because most episodes the main characters play several wildly-divergent roles at a time, so it's interesting to study from an acting perspective. (Also, most of the cast was either from Buffy or Firefly, or would be reused in Agents.)

Friday Night Thoughts

     Week after next will be spring break (which I doubt will be much of a break). But still, that's a pause from classes for a bit, which is kind of nice. The Thunder are losing to the Suns in Phoenix right now on the almost-silent TV, and Pandora is running in another window. I got a short story finished that's due next week, and a good chunk of another assignment mapped out. It's been a pretty usual Friday night - sort of productive, a little lonely, but with some effort at following a routine to give things some structure - that's why I'm typing this blog post, and why the game is on.

     Overall, this week was pretty average; last week was rough. Uploaded some overdue stuff to the writing projects blog, which I'd been meaning to do for a while. I need to work on the book-review blog, too.

     Texted Dylan and Jon earlier today, it was good to hear from them. They're both doing all right. Jon had some good advice, which is helpful. Ashland and I are counting down until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 releases in early May.  Her classes are going "fairly easily" this semester, she said last week, so that's good. No news about SGYC 2017 yet - if I can, I think I'd like to help out again.

     Trevor had surgery on his shunt Monday morning, and that went well. Caleb got Dad's old phone, so Courtney and I taught him how to use Spotify. That was fun.

     The MCU is currently at 14 movies (and an ever-widening array of TV shows) since 2008. That's amazing. I think it was right at the end of 2011 that we got into sucked into it. Anyway, Iron Man 3 released at the start of finals week my freshman year, which was a really great motivator.

     Capstone is extremely depressing. Which is slightly better than feeling depressed, anxious AND extremely pissed off, which was how I felt after every Seminar class let out last semester. We've been talking a lot about philosophy for some inexplicable reason, and most English majors don't understand philosophy, so our eyes glaze over while three people out of fifteen say anything. And so far the overarching topic during the immediate coursework has been Death. So if religion can't be used (and it can't, because this is a classroom), how else can you talk about or argue your way around its inevitability? Everything becomes a foolish waste of time.
     The highlight of yesterday was finishing a crossword puzzle in one sitting, which doesn't happen often. But it sounds pathetic that that was the highlight. I'm frustrated by my Pop Market stuff this week, considering that it was one my teaching weeks and the topic was sports. I could have whipped out a really good sports scene in no time, so why did I go with nonfiction, straightforwardly reconstructing myself at five watching Monday Night Football? And the discussion Tuesday morning didn't go too well, either - except for Brian (who was also teaching this week) everybody is pretty apathetic towards them. So their sports-set inclass assignments were full of really obvious errors; that drove me crazy. (I'm really persnickety when it comes to writing well, especially when it's about sports.) Still, there was at least some praiseworthy scrap from almost everyone's piece.
     There are a couple novels that I'll probably come back to from Gothic Film and Lit, but I've pretty much hated every single movie.
     Psych is going fine, and it's interesting, but you can only contemplate serial killers for so long before wanting to just wail at the evilness of their actions, and of sin in general.

     I really miss relatives at night. Grandpa, Mimi, Nano... I'd call Robbie to see how she's doing, but I lost her number when my old phone died. Mom was asking if I was going to order graduation announcements, but I don't think I will. Are college grad announcements a thing people do? And if they are, where would I send them? Almost all the extended family who would be proud is gone, and it would be weird to send them to non-relatives.
     Also missing the NSU BCM and having a place where I fit; where you knew where friends were hanging out and where you knew you were doing something useful, however small. The SWAT antics on the road and during practices, and the wonderful intensity of basketball/volleyball practices. Playing worship music with Daniel P., James Hoover, Ja Li Si and Annie. The Friday Lunch Bunch get-togethers. Praying collectively with other believers. If I could have stayed in Tahlequah I'm pretty sure Grace Baptist would be my home church by now. (I miss the Galdamezes, too.)

     Steven and Jamie are having another murder mystery tomorrow night, which should be amazing for those attending. I wish we could have done more of those during my generation's time in the youth group. GBC is a great church still when it comes to teaching and all, it's just....not so great when you're a single college student in a church full of older people and young families. And the downside of attending the same church for 14 years is that you remember so much. Too many ghosts in the hallway.

     Tried to shoot some baskets this afternoon, to take advantage of the nice weather, but that didn't go very well. Missed about 85% of my shots, a mix of not practiced in forever, it being a really windy day, and the clear-Plexiglass backboard. Those are always really hard to play on, because there aren't any spatial clues about where the backboard is - it just looks like it's hovering in space, which is really unsettling.
    Last night I played Abby Lee for about an hour, mostly playing along with my 90's Spotify playlist. (NSYNC does not work on an acoustic guitar, FYI. Jars of Clay, however, sounds excellent that way.) It didn't go great, but at least it was playing. Usually here lately there's a desperate run through my hymnal/worship-music-songbook about once a week, because it's hard to know what words to pray a lot of the time.
     Missing Rags, too. And Sport. Creek and Firefly and Klipsey and Shadow, Rocky and Swifty. Sunny, and Copper.  There are a lot of animals.

     A classmate named Cody was presenting a reading of his capstone screenplay Tuesday night, so I read a minor role as the minions of the school bully. Hopefully he'll get a good grade on the project.

     Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500 last Sunday, which was good. The college basketball conference tournaments are starting, which has a flickering excitement to it.

     Been flipping through old posts this week. I started this blog one February afternoon as a high school senior, and in December 2014 I wrote a long post about honesty in social media. When it comes to writing, I'm not sure how much truth and honesty are intertwined, though I kind of think they are separate things. It's a muddy area. But mostly I think I've kind of glossed over what this college experience has been like, mainly because of the monotony - at some point there aren't any more ways of saying "I went to class, I did homework, I wish this were over and I had a clear idea of what happens next." I don't know how much I'll post here once the summer comes, but I'll probably keep writing in some way or another.

Inauguration Day

     Man, "Inauguration" is a terrible word to spell. And it reminds me of Tolkien's dragon Smaug. Anyway, Donald Trump officially became the 45th President of the U.S. late this morning. I watched the swearing-in ceremony for the same reason that I watched the results on election night - because that's what you're supposed to do, because it's respectful.
     Do I think he'll be a very good president? No. But Hilary would've been worse. I watched on CBS since that seemed like the most legitimate of the networks, occasionally flipping to CNN.

     When Obama was inaugurated in 2009, we'd been in Grandpa's trailer for about a month after the fire, and we were in the middle of clearing out the house, sorting through what could be salvaged and what couldn't. While watching George W. Bush exit and Obama enter, I was reminded of a line from the tail end of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause." (I remember this from the novelization, which I think has Bail Organa saying it. The movie has Padme Amidala saying this line. Doesn't matter who said it, it still worked well. Also, Star Wars movies have REALLY long titles.)
     When Obama was re-elected in 2012, I was reminded again of this line, and again saddened. NSU, or at least the freshmen I knew slightly from classes, were extremely vocal about their liberal tendencies. Not being very experienced with dealing with this, it was one more factor to deal with in making that first semester so hard. RSU is more extremely liberal in the overall atmospheric viewpoint, but at least NSU allows differing views to be presented for consideration, thus "liberal" in this case being occasionally positive in the sense of "open to new ideas." RSU has more of a "If you disagree with this, keep your #$%ing mouth shut" vibe.
     Anyway, back to January 2009. It was raining, and I hadn't started college anywhere yet, because it was the middle of my freshman year of high school. I was fifteen, and the Okmulgee County homeschool drama group had just wrapped up a musical re-imagining of the story of Joseph as a This Is Your Life-style talk show. Cody was the host, and I played Joseph the interviewee in the present day. (Most of our best improvised lines in rehearsals were cut for not passing audience standards.) Roy played Joseph in flashbacks. Quinton played my assistant Stew.  While a bunch of us guys were playing basketball in the gym during the wrap party, I was on defense when a pass deflected off my hand, breaking my left pinky. It was almost healed a month later while watching the Obama inauguration, which I remember mainly because we were watching the CNN feed, and the Tahlequah Cable people had just installed the equipment earlier that morning. Having cable was An Event, since we never had it before or since. (As a family, I mean, that I can remember. In Missouri when I was a toddler we had it, and then in Tquah and Claremore I've had it while at college.) But I'm rambling again.
     Things that hadn't happened yet: Marie's incessant pestering finally convinced me to create a Facebook account four months later. I didn't know Jed or Jon, though I'd met them. I hadn't met Jessica or Amanda, and Josh and Marie were about the only people I felt safe hanging out with from church, since the Soukups had quit (the older guys in the youth group seemed to enjoy making our lives miserable, though I think part of that was just us overthinking.) Dylan hadn't moved to Tulsa yet, and neither had Samara. I hadn't yet been to Washington, D.C., though occasionally I would spend a couple days in Westville taking care of Nano. Sport and Sunny were still alive, and Sunny's daughter Eclipse had just died. I was just starting to dabble with guitar, figuring that it would be a good way to keep myself busy during the downtime (ha!) of the remodeling.

     But being in Tahlequah meant that I couldn't be part of the Okmulgee County spring drama production, The Hysterical Account of the Trojan War. It was really weird to watch as a member of the audience, sitting in the balcony of the First Baptist-Okmulgee sanctuary with Quinton, Alton and Brenna. There was a new girl named Jessica who moved from Florida who joined the group that semester, and to tell them apart Jessica Ashley became Little Jessica while new-girl Jessica became JB. She was best friends with Annette (they would write a play together called Tinker & Bell and the Fight for Neverworld) and eventually Alton and JB fell in love, becoming the target of many jokes, and they got married a couple years ago at Trinity Baptist in Morris.

     The Boy Meets World sequel series Girl Meets World had its series finale tonight. Just like Alton-JB were the couple of our Okmulgee homeschool clique, Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence were the couple of late-90's TV, which I knew well, being the child of youth pastors during the late 90's. I was more a fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and 7th Heaven, so I never really got into BMW, and not having cable, couldn't catch reruns to get into it. (I discovered MacGyver when I was about 13 and Full House in college, so that covers all of the 90's between all those shows mentioned.)
     But one day, while sick, I flipped the TV onto the Disney Channel (ack!) and a Girl Meets World episode was on. It wasn't good, but it was better than most Disney Channel shows are. So I would occasionally watch whenever there wasn't anything else to do. It was horribly written, and not realistic at all, but there was something that it did really, really well - and I never could quite put my finger on it.  The plot features the adventures of Cory and Topanga's daughter Riley, her best friend Maya and their friends, with occasional appearances by Shawn, Eric, Mr. Feeny, and pretty much everybody else who ever had an important role on BMW. These adventures reminded me a little of what me, Sam, Dylan, Marie, Jed, Jon and Manda got into during high school.
     Did the Tanners of Full House do a better job of parenting than the Matthews? Probably, but sitcom parenting is a little iffy at the best of times. (I would vote Nate and Beverly Jackson from Doc as the Best Parents on TV, though the Camdens of 7th Heaven and the Taylors of Friday Night Lights are also good candidates.) Is it as well-written as Parks and Rec? Certainly not. But GMW has that "....Well, whatever IT is, you've got a lot of it" (to quote Michael Jordan in Space Jam) stuff that both of those shows do. All these shows may be ridiculous, but viewers care about those characters. So, it kind of worked.

     Will Friedle played Cory's older brother Eric in both BMW and GMW, but there was also an ABC Saturday-night TV movie he was in called My Date With the President's Daughter. He played the pretty-average-but-quick-witted teenager Duncan. At the mall, when he meets and awkwardly asks out a pretty girl named Hallie, she asks if he's into sports. "Oh, yeah," he nods. "What kinds?" "The usual - bungee jumping....karate....rock climbing. Y'know, the basics." It was part of the Wonderful World of Disney that created such not-exactly-classics-but-they-sure-stick-in-my-mind-that-way as the Tony Danza-led Trash Pickin', Field Goal Kickin' Philadelphia Phenomenon; Slam Dunk Ernest; Angels in the End Zone (starring David Gallagher - Simon from 7th Heaven - and Matthew Lawrence, who played Jack on BMW); Angels in the Infield, the 1999 version of Annie (which is the best) and the 1997 reboot of The Love Bug (which stars John Hannah - Radcliffe on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - as the villain.) There was also a movie called H-E Double Hockey Sticks that also starred Friedle that I really wanted to see, but we had to go somewhere that night, and so until I learned the title just now it's bugged me forever, since I didn't know how to search for it. (Update: Found it on YouTube!)
     Anyway, between those two events, they reminded me of My Date With the President's Daughter, and it seemed like a great time to rewatch it. (Plus I didn't feel like studying.) The verdict? This movie is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be, and the writing and acting isn't top-notch, but it gets the job done. And it unfortunately could never happen now, because of social media and cell phones. And it is much, much funnier now than it was when I was five. Dabney Coleman(WarGames, Principal Prickly in Recess) is the President, and basically everything that could possibly go wrong on his daughter's first date does. Coleman makes a good fictional President.
      The next Monday at school, Duncan's friends give him a hard time about missing a dance, asking what he did instead. "Saturday night....I had a date with the President's daughter, got chased all night by the Secret Service, my dad's car was stolen, got into a brawl at a dance club, put on a magic show at a biker bar - that was pretty cool - uh....was on television, and oh, right - I kicked Steve Ellenger's butt!" That pretty much sums up the plot.

     I've pretty much tried to stay off of the internet, given all the tension and stress about the inauguration and all. Unfortunately I can't completely hide from people in general, but that level of tension is pretty thick around campus, too. Also, the power went out all across campus this afternoon, which happens with some regularity, just like in Morris. That didn't help anyone's mood. I had some time to plot out a fiction project a little more, and work on this post once the power came back on. Maybe tomorrow will go easier.

Help. Another semester is upon us.

     I really, really, really loathe college. That isn't news. It's just reality....and I didn't expect it to change at all. Granted, it's only Monday, and I just moved in Friday, but this is going to be a tough semester. Tougher than the last one, which wasn't that surprising, either; given that each one has just seemed to get progressively more unpleasant since I came here. Sure, the play last spring kept me busy, and around people, but it was just like another class: You came in, did your job, endured coworkers, then left. Haven't slept well at all, which is nothing new, except that it's maybe a change from most of summer, where it seemed like I was sleeping too much.

     Children's Lit will be my favorite class this semester, I think. Not sure what that says about me. Especially since it's an 8:30 a.m. class, just like all of Dr. Dial-Driver's. I've read through three and a half schoolbooks already, and I haven't even been studying that much. I have been hiking in circles, which always feel ridiculous around here, because there isn't anywhere to go, so I'm not sure what it accomplishes. Half the time I was downtown in Tahlequah I was stopping by Morgan's Bakery. Here? I have no desire to get smushed by a car on the highway like Louie the cat in Bill Wallace's Upchuck and the Rotten Willy(which is a children's book, by the way). But that can get frustrating, too, being marooned on an island-prison of foolish ideas in the midst of a vast ocean of sky and prairie, with the only way to escape being large obnoxious cars.
     In Greek mythology, Pandora's opening of her box let all kinds of horrors into the world. As wonderful a town as Tahlequah is, there are all kinds of reasons - most of which are too inconsequential to even be defined - that NSU was not the greatest school ever. Much of this could be due to being trapped by tradition - CCF certainly was, at any rate. Maybe part of it was knowing so many people who had gone there, I felt like I had to do even better than they all did, maybe. At the bottom of Pandora's box, the last thing to fly out was hope. Hope of leaving isn't much of something to hang on to, but you hang on to whatever you can to survive. The BCM and SWAT were amazing to be involved with. And I did leave, which was good, I guess. I feel like I'm getting a better education here, I think. RSU doesn't have all the traditions that NSU does; it's possibly the newest university in the state, as compared to the oldest. But there doesn't seem to be any room for hope here. And that is very concerning at the least, dismaying and alarming the rest of the time. Because if you don't have hope - of something, anything, really - then what good is there in going through the motions of living? Filling out the mindless assignments of busywork to be turned in, dealing with stupid foolish authors writing drivel.

     I tried to play guitar some earlier tonight, finding a halfway-decent spot on the theater steps. Couldn't seem to play right, and then I got thoroughly cussed out by a large red squirrel to invading his space. Or for playing badly. He was the right size of squirrel to be a bouncer. And I thought I read somewhere a long time ago that squirrels sometimes had rabies, so I didn't feel like sticking around and maybe getting bitten. It just seemed like a perfect encapsulation of my college experience.

     So I'm typing away in my apartment as the laptop lights up the darkness of night, working on a blog post. A couple, actually, since besides this one I'm trying to work on the recap of this year's SGYC experience. And I'm still just as clueless about what the future holds as ever. But maybe more miserable, which is saying something. "Don't be sad, little Joshua. God has a special place for those who feel left out," says Abigail the Cow in Max Lucado's book The Crippled Lamb(another children's book!) I know that at some point this time will prove to have been useful in some way, but this sure isn't it. I'm not sure how I can do this for another year.

Events of Early Summer

     We went to Okmulgee Saturday night to see Captain America: Civil War at the Orpheum. It was very good, but very hard to watch, seeing the bonds which have built so strongly disintegrate. The new Tom Holland version of Spider-Man is awesome; much better than Andrew Garfield.
     Amy's been getting birthday cards from all over, which she has been thrilled by. It's really fun to watch. Mom, Courtney and I started a book-review blog called Dust-Jacket Judgmentalism, check it out!

     In NSU BCM news, Mallory, Jacob, Bucky and Amber all graduated last week, which was cool. Lots of Youth Tour folks graduated, too; so there was lots of posts on Facebook. Justin and Ashleigh's wedding is tomorrow, which is awesome. Susan got an internship as an assistant stage manager in Indianapolis for the summer, which sounds interesting.

     Grades came in Wednesday night; I got three A's in Fiction Writing, Studies in Poetry and Scriptwriting, and a B in Topics of Advanced Comp. So that's a 3.75 GPA this semester, which is way better than I was expecting. Kelsey's documentary turned out well; as did this highlight video that Andrew Nichols put together of the last several seasons of RSU Theater shows.

Infinity Dreams Award

     Just gonna be honest: I have no idea what "Infinity Dreams" are. (But it sounds like it would be the title of an Owl City song, which is a good thing.) Anyway, Susan tagged me in this, which is kind of a blog-based version of those Facebook-chain-notes that were so popular in high school. Because, as always, there is a handful of rules which must be adhered to in things like these, they are:
A - That banner photo must be used. (It is a nice picture.)
B - Thank the blogger who tagged you. (Makes sense. Just out of common courtesy. Thanks Susan!)
C - Tell 11 facts about yourself. (Unless your name is Ron Swanson. My name is not, so I shall find facts to tell about myself.)
D - Answer the 11 questions asked of you.
E - Tag 11 other bloggers. (If possible. I can't think of anyone.)

FUN FACTS ABOUT WESLEY
I can quote the entire script of The Princess Bride from memory.

After NSU BCM friends talked me into watching Parks and Recreation occasionally, I watched season 7 as it was airing, and then turned around and blazed through all seven seasons in six weeks last spring. (And then I began again, tracking the best quotes and quips. Currently at the beginning of season 4 with this massive project.)

I cannot drive due to bad eyesight, as I am blind in my right eye, very nearsighted, and have basically no depth perception or night vision. That can make life interesting.

I've never seen The Lion King all the way through.

Two of my screen crushes as a kid were Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) and Space Jam's Lola Bunny.
Speaking of Space Jam, I will still dance like a maniac if I hear the soundtrack playing.

Dogs and cats are usually much easier to talk with than people are. Also, I have a completely irrational fear of cows. They're almost as scary as dinosaurs.

I once gave an end-of-semester PowerPoint presentation on "The Art of Making Peanut Butter Sandwiches" for my basic computers gen ed, which received a perfect score.

If milk is even close to its expiration date, I'm not drinking it.

I have nine toenails.

I love cleaning. (Just call me Danny Tanner.)

Hunting has never had any appeal for me. I understand that it's sometimes necessary, but it's just not for me. It sounds unpleasant, tromping around in the cold darkness for hours while waiting for a target to show up. I think this comes in large part from loving The Fox and the Hound so much. (Highly-underrated Disney classic.)

NOW FOR THE QUESTIONS
What is your favorite time of the day?
     I can be highly productive between 10 p.m.- 2 a.m., and also late mornings. So I guess those would be my favorite times of day....I can't remember ever actually thinking about this question, so I'm not sure how to answer it.

What is your favorite book genre?
     I really enjoy cozy mysteries. I also like regionalist writers, I've discovered, and I've always pretty much loved work set in small towns, in addition to plots that are very character-driven. I'm not sure any of those is exactly a genre(since I'm terrible at identifying them) but I'll try just about anything. 

What song gets you super motivated to accomplish anything?
     There are a lot of motivating songs. But one of the best is the theme song from Hoosiers. Also the theme song from the Air Bud series, that's good, too.

If money was not an issue, what is the first thing you would do?
     That's a good question. I'm not sure. Maybe go exploring all over the country if I could find some people who wanted to take a cross-country trip for no reason. It seems like it would generate good material for a novel; in addition to being useful from a travelogue-writing perspective and interesting from an adventuring and prowling-through-history standpoint. 

Do you know any scary stories?
     I suppose so...let's see. 
     "Once upon a time - it may have been a dark and stormy night - there was a four-year-old little boy who watched Jurassic Park for some unfathomable reason. He was haunted by nightmares of being ripped apart by raptors for a year afterwards, and  he lived in mortal fear of dinosaurs in general ever since. Eventually, he forced himself to watch it again one day his sophomore year of college, and found just as alarming, though he did applaud the way the story was told, and the mechanics of the movie."

Do you know any puns/jokes?
     Of course. But since there isn't anything to build puns off of from the phrasing of this question, I'm at a loss what to use. 

Should you be doing something else right now instead of writing a blog post?
     Of course I should. I ought to be working on an essay, rewriting another, and revising a handful of short stories and a play-script. Instead I'm thinking of taking a nap on this stormy Sunday afternoon.

What is your favorite color and why?
     Blue, green and orange have always been my favorite colors. I'm not really sure why. Orange is likely because I grew up in an OSU household. And there's a lot of good shades of blue and green, from darker shades like the navy blue of RSU to the dark green of NSU. On a much happier note, there are also lighter shades like sky blue or lime green. 

Have you ever been on stage? If so, what was it like? If not, would you like to be?
     Let's see....first define what's meant by "on stage." Okay, assuming it doesn't mean the musicals and short plays from middle school/early high school, or youth group semi-scripted murder mysteries. And readings of Shakespeare are just readings, though a really fun way to pass the time. 
     There was the NSU BCM drama ministry of SWAT, of course. Those times hanging out/rehearsing with everybody down in the basement or the living room are easily my favorite part of college. Coffee runs late at night with Elizabeth, Susan and Jacob. Even those times like when we nearly died looking for nonexistent churches in sketchy Sallisaw neighborhoods. And First Baptist-Tahlequah did have an actual stage, because we teased Elizabeth about how excited she was gushing about it once we got there. Park Hill was pretty nice, too. (As the archivist of the team, I made sure to upload videos to YouTube when we remembered to shoot them. They can be found here.) 
     Used in the sense of an actual full-length theater production? Yes, actually. The RSU Theater Program just wrapped up their spring '16 show Tales From Tent City, which was a complicated, emotional, ensemble piece about homeless teenagers, where I played the role of Crick, who was a dog-loving scrounger/thief with anxiety issues. It was a bit like if The Breakfast Club took place on the streets, with the group dynamics of the crew from Firefly. I wrote a promo piece to generate interest in the show for my other blog, You Keep Using That Word. 
     The role of Crick was very challenging to play in some ways, because this play had never been produced anywhere before us, so we were originating the roles simply from the script. But it was a good experience, though very tiring, it was worth it. The cast was enjoyable to work with, and we all got along pretty well. Part of my costume was a denim jacket, which was really cool, as I've always loved those. One of the things that was difficult once we actually got to production was not washing my hair for two weeks, since we were homeless. Another semi-entertaining fact, just because it's so strange: One of the major selling points that was used for advertising around the English and Comm departments was "Come see Wes drop F-bombs all over the place!" 

If you had magical powers, what would they be?
     Hmm. I've always thought invisibility would be cool, but teleportation would be the most useful. 

Are you an artist?
     Hahahahaha.....NOPE. Though Courtney and Trevor can both draw really well, so maybe if I had a chance to really practice I could. This is actually the second time in 24 hours that I've been asked this. I definitely admire those who can, like I admire those who can play piano or fiddle really well.  

Modeling Christlikeness in a Sitcom-like Stage Family

     The first assignment for Topics of Advanced Composition was for a personal essay. I was missing everyone from the BCM. So this was good(though tough to reexperience everything from this time) to write, and extremely easy to research. It scored a 93, and when I turned in a revised draft, Dr. Dial-Driver gave me a look like, "Really?" That version got a 100 points.

            Talking about the citizens of Pawnee, Indiana, Parks and Recreation’s Ben Wyatt says at one point, “You know, it’s weird. I’ve been to a lot of towns…usually people don’t care about anything. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re weirdos, but….they’re weirdos that care” (“Time Capsule”). For a while around the Northeastern State University campus, and to a lesser extent the city of Tahlequah or Cherokee County generally, if “the SWAT team” were mentioned, the speaker likely didn’t mean a squad of heavily-armed law enforcement officers. Instead they were talking about the drama ministry of the Baptist Collegiate Ministries, which was considered as somewhat of a loose cannon amongst the tight-knit community of BCM outreaches. But we cared about each other. And that was important.

            I was a loner growing up, for the most part. Not that I didn’t like people – it’s more just that I like a small group of specific people, and if someone is able to gain my trust in order to be called a friend, then that trust is nearly indestructible. I had acted in middle school musicals with our homeschool co-op and really enjoyed that, but in general, Oklahoma is rather lacking in acting opportunities. So there was just the occasional murder-mystery, and quoting good TV lines with my siblings. But in general, nothing, which didn’t do much to take my mind off a disastrous freshman year of college or the violent implosion of the sarcastic, witty and creative support group that served as our personal Buffy-type “Scooby Gang” for me and my friends in surviving high school.

            The project known as “Students with a Testimony” began when Samantha Hill transferred to NSU around the spring of 2012 from Carl Albert; their branch of the BCM had a drama ministry primarily used as a tool for evangelization, and Sam wanted to continue that work in and around Tahlequah. She obtained the blessing of NSU BCM directors Bob and Debbie Lipscomb, and then the project was off and running. So she set out to round up some team members through word-of-mouth.

     “I pretty much just had to go out on a limb, finding strangers who wanted to be a part of the BCM and say, ‘Hey, are you a Christian? Would you like to share your testimony?’” she said during an interview for an unpublished newspaper article in September 2013. “I was the crazy girl that everyone saw coming and, believe me, they’d run the other way, because they knew exactly what I was wanting to recruit them for.”

Sam tried to recruit me to immediately join the team when I came to Tahlequah in fall 2012, but I declined, since I thought I had better focus solely on schoolwork until I was more adapted to campus culture. Besides, I was more involved at the time with Campus Christian Fellowship, another ministry which has (though no one on either side wants to actually admit it) a fierce rivalry with the BCM. She got about a dozen people to sign up, though; and they performed a handful of shows in churches of various sizes, interspersing testimonies and Scripture with music and comedy sketches.

     Through a mix of gentle pestering by Sam throughout the year and knowing several other people who attended the BCM regularly, together with realizing that CCF wasn’t at all a place where I could grow spiritually, I started going to the Monday-night worship service, and gradually discovered that this was a good organization to be a part of. When fall 2013 started up and the SWAT sign-ups were passed around, I figured that I ought to dive deeper into helping out. It had been forever since I’d acted in anything, and besides, it was a ministry opportunity. The team was made up of mostly new faces this time around, with Haley Ritter co-leading the group with Sam for a semester.

     “I actually heard about SWAT when I first met Sam and Haley, they were telling me about it, and it seemed like a really, really cool way to do ministry,” said Elizabeth Hodge in an interview from September 2013. “I’ve been involved in theater most of my life, but never have done any kind of ministry like this before. It’s a really cool way to spread the Gospel, because you don’t have to go five thousand miles away and spend five thousand dollars.”

     Once we’d gotten the sketches memorized, life quickly turned into something of a sitcom: Friends was blended into Full House and the sketch comedy group Studio C, and then that combination was added to the YouTube series Messy Mondays, as I put it in a blog post simply titled “SWAT.” But we really did become like family. Sam was the mom of the group, Haley the drill-sergeant aunt. And together, they kept things running with a mix of strictness and sweetness. Jacob was the cool older cousin, while Elizabeth, Susan and I were like siblings. Neighbors included the spacey janitor James, four-wheeling Becca, obnoxious Scott (everyone hated him), couple Skylar and Ja Li Si (we gave them a hard time, of course), while Caleb and Holly were always sort of hanging out in the corner. New additions to the cast several weeks in were TJ, serving as the fiery deadpan snarker in addition to doing voiceovers, while Justin turned out to be a jack-of-all-trades, doing everything from locating churches to running sound equipment and acting.

     There were a lot of coffee runs to McDonald’s when someone had a lot on their mind –

“Random coffee runs late at night make for a gem of a night,” Elizabeth tweeted once – and there was entertaining improvisation out of necessity, and malapropisms galore (well-chronicled in my video “SWAT Blooper Reel”). Road trips to and from shows were also very…interesting, to say the least. As Elizabeth said, “The basic theme of all our road trips is, like once we get there, you ask: ‘…But did we die?’ And that sums up everything perfectly.” For example, there was that night we went looking for the invisible church in Sallisaw.

     Having put together a silent project to go with the Lifehouse song “Everything” for a charity fundraiser/talent show, we were invited to perform it at a revival at Deliverance Baptist the next week. We didn’t usually do shows on Wednesday nights unless it was a special occasion, and this definitely counted. Thing was, though, we’d lost several key props between performances, since it was supposed to be a one-time thing. And several people were late, adding to the tension. So we nervously played ping pong to pass the time, then split up, one group racing to Wal-Mart for glass-bottled root beer, the other group flying to Dollar Tree for play-food money. We got to Sallisaw with a half hour to spare, more than enough time to find the church…..except that none of us can find it on our phones’ maps. We did find three other churches, which all turned out to be the wrong ones. So we finally talk Jacob into calling the pastor, where he’s given directions which sound straightforward enough: “At Wal-Mart, turn right onto Maple and then drive a ways, and then another right.” Maple is located, but it leads to a really sketchy-looking neighborhood….and none of us (ten people in three vehicles) had ever been to this city before, so we were completely lost. And by now it was pouring down rain. Susan and I ask for directions from some terrified construction workers at the Assembly of God, which turns out to be another dead end. (Also, we realized once we got back in the car that she was already in costume as Death.) We get a lead on another place it might be, which takes us several miles out of town and past three burned-out buildings which were at one point churches. The search has now taken an hour and fifteen minutes, all five occupants of our car vote for giving up and finding dinner. We relay this information back to the other two cars, and then eat and drive back home to Tahlequah, crying in frustration yet knowing the situation was hilarious. . This experience was recapped in far more detail in my blog post “Getting Lost.”

     Weather slowed the beginning of our spring semester’s schedule, but the execution of the performances was greatly improved, due in part to the addition of Drew and Ashleigh as tech crew and about a quarter of the cast dropping out. We banded together often to cover roles whenever necessary, and strengthened connections with the other BCM ministries, as the more musical of us joined the worship band. Organization-wide lunch hangouts were a staple of Friday afternoons, and watch parties during Thunder games caused much screaming and strangling of pillows. The overall atmosphere was much like working in Pawnee’s Parks Department, and when you enjoy your coworkers, coming in every day is awesome. Most of us spent nearly every nonclass moment in either the BCM’s basement, living room or office. Special SWAT events included Christmas caroling at a senior citizens’ center - three days before Thanksgiving - a birthday party picnic, and a game night featuring intense rounds of Catchphrase and Apples to Apples. An elderly pastor in Muskogee even gave a handful of us marriage advice after the show one night. (”If you live long enough to say ‘Yes, dear,’ you’ll live to learn everything else.”) Pretty good advice.

     After Sam and her husband moved once she graduated, the way everyone planned the leadership transition to take place was for Susan to take over the reins the next year, with me taking the second-in-command role which Haley had filled. But there were a lot of family problems at home, which meant that I had to leave for a semester in order to help out. Susan’s theater duties kept her too stressed to run SWAT properly, so it was absorbed into the worship band, where it limped along for the rest of the year before apparently being shut down sometime in spring 2015. And by then transfers happened – Skylar and I came to RSU, Elizabeth went to NSUBA, Caleb to Southwest Baptist, etc. And life happened, too – Justin and Ashleigh fell in love almost immediately, and their wedding will be held in a couple months. Jacob is engaged now, and Haley got married. Ja Li Si became Miss Cherokee last year, and began dating Sam’s brother. Graduations will begin proceeding in a couple months.

     We weren’t that successful at evangelizing, but we did do well at encouraging those who needed it – whether that was audience members, relatives, friends or castmates – through the spiritual valleys, discouragements, breakups, general insecurity and school panic of this life. We were a team, which doesn’t come up very often. You don’t really get that Parks and Rec vibe in real life very often. And when you do….that ought to be treasured. “A team isn’t a bunch of kids out to win; a team is something you belong to. Something you feel. Something you have to earn,” Gordon Bombay said in The Mighty Ducks. We earned that, and you don’t let those ties fall slack. So we still keep in touch, and have mini-reunions whenever possible. I may be allergic to college, but SWAT has definitely been one of the highlights.

Works Cited

Coburn, Wesley. “Getting Lost”. Blog post. Another Lover of the Blade. Blogger. 21 November 2013. Web. 17 January 2016.

--------------------. “SWAT”. Blog post. Another Lover of the Blade. Blogger. 9 November 2013. Web. 17 January 2016. 

-------------------. “SWAT Blooper Reel”. Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube. 29 December 2014. Web. 17 January 2015.

Hill, Samantha. Personal interview. 9 September 2013.

Hodge, Elizabeth. Personal interview. 9 September 2013.

------------------ (HodgepodgeEH). “Random coffee outings late at night make for a gem of a night.” 7 March 2014. Tweet.

The Mighty Ducks. 1992. Dir. Stephen Herek. Buena Vista Pictures, 1992. DVD.

“Time Capsule”. Parks and Recreation: Season Three. Writ. Michael Schur. Dir. Michael Schur. NBCUniversal Television Distribution. 2011. DVD.

2015 in Review

     Glory is helping me type this post, she's purring and half-asleep beside me on the bed I use as a desk while at the house. The year's almost ended, so it's time to think over what happened. Basically, it sucked. There were a couple bright spots, like how the entire internet celebrated Back to the Future in October, but in general, bad things happened. As Westley said in the movie, and Fezzik's parents said in the novel, "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

     People shot people often; in St. Louis and South Carolina and elsewhere. There were a lot of racial complaints; in St. Louis and on the OU and Mizzou campuses, among other places. A Muslim guy beheaded a coworker over the summer in an Oklahoma City warehouse. Terrorists bombed Paris repeatedly. The Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. There was the Bruce Jenner mess. Age of Ultron and Jurassic World ruled the summertime box office. It was announced that season fifteen of American Idol will be the end. Trevor tore his knee all up. Found a couple December 1941 issues of the Joplin News Herald at an estate sale. A woman murdered several people at the Oklahoma State Homecoming parade.It rained and rained and rained even more. Grandpa got cancer which turned terminal. Everyone was outraged at those Planned Parenthood videos and Starbucks changing the design of their holiday cups.

     In sports, the Thunder had an awful season, American Pharaoh was the first horse since 1978 to win the Triple Crown, and Jeff Gordon drove off into the sunset.

     I wrote in-depth pieces on AI and not driving, and there was the annual recap of SGYC '15 to get down. Watched all of Parks and Recreation, Friday Night Lights and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the first seasons of Agent Carter and Daredevil, and nearly, if not all, of Phineas and Ferb. 

     For me, I was stranded on the island of a hilly campus in a city where I didn't know anyone, which wasn't very walkable, with the irony that Claremore has several major highways running through it, allowing people with cars to pass freely wherever it is they wished to go. But it's just a place where I happen to be, not a town where I live. Same thing with RSU, it's just another temporary home where I happen to be right now. It was very good to get to see NSU people occasionally; Daniel, James, Bucky and Amber at Falls Creek in April, and then Daniel, Bucky, James, Jordan, Annie, Ja Li Si at Momentum in September.
     Had a roommate for about three weeks, before he freaked out about the roaches crawling around the apartment. (They weren't that bad.) He was cool, but it was kind of nice to be by myself again. Except when it wasn't. Got lonely often, and there was way too much time to think when I didn't want to. Classes forced me into all-nighters at least once a week, which took a toll. Learned that I sometimes enjoy poetry, though; and also that I can't handle the stress of broadcast news. Also discovered that I am extremely judgmental when it comes to literature.
     Occasionally heard from Daniel, Amanda, Jessica, Dylan, Jon and Ashland, they were all helpful in getting through the year. Became an uncle to Amanda's daughter Maya.
     Read a ton of horrible novels and plays for school, about a third of which was worthwhile.
     Spiritually, it was a tough year. I don't think I met a real Christian around the campus at all all year; and something is weird at GBC, siphoning the energy and congregation even more than in previous years.

     Watched a lot of Studio C sketches, trying to stay upbeat and press on. The Avril Lavigne songs "Everybody Hurts", "I'm With You", "Keep Holding On", "Mobile" and "Tomorrow" could pretty accurate describe most of the year. It just seemed like a year full of failure....and that's hard  to take. Most of the time I was exhausted, stressed out, panicked, worried or pissed off; generally a mix of all those. When I wasn't, I was probably sleeping.

     But now it's over. I want to say that the sun'll come out tomorrow and that 2016 will go easier, but the Irish and pessimistic parts of me say that things can always get worse. I don't see exactly how, but I bet that's probably true. On the other hand, it could be a good year. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.