Monkey Fist

Meet Phillip Roebuck. One Man Band and musician extraoridnaire, he deserves a way better introduction than I could ever give him, so I'll let his music speak for him instead.

This guy is amazing. He is so brilliant, has an amzing voice and stage presence, and he is a totally nice guy.
Also, he's my boyfriend's cousin.
No biggie.

Hog.

This morning, as I walked, groggy eyed, out to the living room to take a quick peek at my easter basket before heading to church with my family, I was delighted to see two cute little buttons glimmering atop my basket of goodies. The pins, delievered to me courtesy of the Easter bunny, bore the image of my favorite animal- the hedgehog. I've loved hedgehogs since I was a little girl, so this throwback treat brought me great delight. I hastily fastened them to the front of my dress as we headed en masse out to door to church. As I swayed throught the stiflingly hot service, my mind, and gaze, began to wander, until my eyes rested on a shiny circle under the bench of the family sitting mext to me. Upon closer scrutiny, it became evident that it was one of my pins. It must have fallen off of my dress at some point in the Mass. As the service progressed, I became more and more nervous. The family above my pin had four small children, one of whom was destined to spy my pin and snatch it up for their own. I'm usually very generous to small children, happy to give them whatever little treasures I have on me, but I was not about to mess around with this pin. I started plotting ways to surreptitiously grab it- I didn't want to attract the attention of the family for fear that they would think I had taken something of their's, nor did I want to come off as a freak who interrupted Mass to hunt down a hedgehog pin. As the priest talked on and on and on, I began to lose focus on his voice, hearing only my own frantic mental prayer- Dear God, please don't let them take my pin.
What the heck is wrong with these kids? Don't they ever look down? Why haven't they noticed it? At least if they noticed it I'd have an opening, or at the very least my suffering would end! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. As we got back from communion I leaned over to my mom- I couldn't take the pressure. I needed to tell someone about this dilemma. "Mom, I dropped the hedgehog pin. It's over there by those kids. I'm afraid they're going to steal it." Wordlessly, my mom, a seasoned pro at Baby-toy recon, glided over to the other family, plucked the pin from under the feet of the potential-thieves, and returned it to me. As the church burst out in song around us, my mom whispered to me out of the side of her mouth- "Amateur."
Embarrassing. I'm never having kids.

Bounce.

I guess what's weird is that there's pretty much no way I couldn't have come out of this year a little disappointed. I'm sort of dreading going home, having to answer all the "oh how is it" questions about college, Richmond, VCU life. Every time anyone asks me how I like college, I feel a little guilty. I don't know what they're expecting- Yeah. I love it. I enjoy college in that I love sleeping in all day, eating whenever and whatever I want. I like not having to clean my bathroom, I like being able to walk around a city I didn't think I was going to live in and I like being able to hide in public and not have people know who I am. I didn't make a million and one friends this year. I didn't get drunk or high or laid. I didn't party, I didn't riot, I didn't fail any classes. I stayed in most of the time, I cultivated myself, became sure of myself, proud of myself, silently, in my room. I've never been to a club. I didn't go downtown or uptown and I'm nervous that, in shattering the expectations of the eager-to-reminisce inquirers, I'll lose their interest and their feigned support. I didn't do what anyone, myself included, expected me to this year. Didn't party, didn't declare, didn't recreate myself. I just sat this one out, observing. I feel kinda bad, but I think I'd feel worse if I'd done all those things. That isn't who I am this year- forcing myself to get wild out there would have been more of a detriment to my security and sanity then introversion and reflection, for sure. I feel lame, yeah, but if anything, I'm able to recognize that my time here isn't going anywhere. Friends will come and go, parties will have their morning's after, and I'll have gained the peace of mind to endure it all. I didn't do hardly anything I thought I would this year, but I think I'm better for it.

Solitaire

A list of things you can do alone.

Read a book
Listen to music
Explore the internet
Draw/write your dreams
Experiment with herbal teas
Spa treat yourself
Knit
Go for a swim
Take a walk on a sunny day, get lost, find your way back
Write a letter
Sing
Learn an instrument
Cook or bake
Garden
Play a video or computer game
Try out a new hairstyle
Go on an exploratory adventure
Go to the library, leave treasure maps in the books
Work on some art
Practice impressions
Invent a new musical instrument
Teach yourself a new language

Play Solitaire

VCU Foreign Language

Picking up language is pretty much my number one skill. Some people are good at math, some at science, some at sports- I'm good at language. I was so excited for my first college language class- I had gotten a 5 on my AP Spanish exam, so I was expecting great things from the higher level classes. So imagine my surprise when I attended my first spanish course and found that I was essentially the only person in my class who could even speak at a passable level of fluency. I was in a 300 level Spanish Conversation class- obviously, we were expected to only speak Spanish in class, no english allowed, and in order to reach the 300 level, you'd have to have experience with the language. At least, I assumed most people would understand that upon enrolling. Literally only three other people in the class could communicate efficiently in Spanish- and the teacher was really just awful. She's a native speaker, but a terrible teacher, completely unable to communicate the essentials of grammar, syntax, or cultural reference needed to achieve fluency in the language. Not only that, she commonly misunderstood student's questions, misinforming them and neglecting to correct their linguistic flaws. I thought, "maybe it's just this teacher, or just this language. Maybe if I try another tongue I'll see better results." Not so. I'm taking an elementary French class this semester and am seeing the same problems. The teacher, a French native, has a better handle on grammar then my former Spanish teacher (in fact, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable about French grammar) but is also a pretty rotten teacher. Not only is it almost impossible to understand him when he speaks so I miss almost all of the assignments he give us, he relies on the use of an online textbook that doesn't sync up with our lesson plan at all. He speaks French well, but he can barely teach it. I feel bad, because I was really excited to expand my knowledge of other languages at this diverse school, but that just isn't the case.
Have you had a similar experience here at VCU? If not, what made your experience more positive? Is there hope for students hoping to master a foreign language here at VCU?

Singin' in the Rain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjXQ-MRmROQ&feature=related
(ignore the french bit- the actual song is in english.)

and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmCpOKtN8ME&feature=related

and possibly my favorite,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW02c5UNGl0&feature=related


I don't think I could ever express just how much I love this movie. If you've never seen it, I really recommend it. It's essentially the perfect American Screen Musical- funny, charming, upbeat, and a little bit ridiculous. But it's not just your generic feel good movie- the acting, first of all, is PHENOMENAL. Secondly, the script is pretty much perfectly crafted- all the characters are true to form in their dialog while remaining dynamic, a difficult feat in a comedy. Third, the entire concept is framed in such a way that the hugely self indulgent song-and-dance bits are still pertinent to the overall theme, culminating in the final scene where the movie advertises itself, breaking the "fourth wall" like it kind of did in the beginning. \
MOSTLY. Cosmo Brown. Lena Lamonte. That's all I have to say.

Wat Pomp

This is pretty much the greatest thing I have ever seen in all of my life

EVER.
Die Antwoord is without a doubt my favorite band. They're from South Africa, made up of the Ninja (crazy looking tattooed rapper,) Yolandi Vi$$er (blonde, eyebrowless, inbred lookin girl,) and the mysterious DJ HI-TECH (I guess he's the other guy.) I listen to this song every cahge I get- it's just a huge embrace of the bizarre. I definitely encourange anybody who's interested to look up the rest of Die Antwoord's music. Enter the Ninja is pretty great. Evil Boy, another single of theirs, is TOTALLY NSFW, but a banging song nonetheless.
Go forth and conquer, music lovers.

Riot Grrrl.

http://vimeo.com/21868232

I’m not a huge fan of VCU Basketball, or really sports in general, but I happily tuned in to the past two games. I was really excited for our team to make to the final four, so even though we lost to Butler, I was still proud. However, I was not proud at all of the idiocy that went on in the streets afterwards.

I understand being excited that we won. Last week, when we made the final four, I, like many, flooded the streets in celebration of our awesome achievement. However, once the crowd got so massive that we were blocking the streets and the authorities had to be called in, I took that as my cue to leave. As I tried to make it back to my building, I passed crowds of people chanting “fuck the police” and lighting things on fire, and when I got to my dorm, I was unable to cross the street because the police, wielding cans of mace, were blocking the way. All this because we won a game? Again, last night, I went out to get a bite to eat. I was unable to even get onto Broad Street, because people (again) were destroying property and being violent. The police let off tear gas, causing a huge flood of people to come racing back down the street in a mass panic. I managed to duck away inside before the chaos got too hectic, but it was really terrifying. People were being arrested and getting hurt. VCU’s reputation is under attack because of the antics of some over-privileged fuck-the-system stoner white boys who just want a fight, and not justice. I’ve had my fair share of strained encounters with the police. I used to be a real trouble maker and vandal, until I realized how idiotic I was being. What was I fighting for? In this video, there’s a shot of a girl standing in front of a line of police, arms outstretched in peace signs a-la Tiananmen Square. I’m sure she thinks she’s valiant, brave, revolutionary, progressive. Probably lots of people who saw her think the same. But really, she’s an idiot. This isn’t a war protest, this isn’t a struggle for civil equality, and this isn’t a fight for human rights. This is a bunch of drunk, angry, stupid teenagers acting like fools in the middle of a street, destroying things and becoming so violent that the police had to be called in. All this because we won a few games? Because we lost a few games? I don’t see riots like this happening any other times we play. Let’s be honest- most of the people out there weren’t thinking about the VCU Basketball team or even VCU at all. They just wanted a riot, and a riot’s what they got. It makes me sad that everyone was out there last night, protesting nothing, hoping for nothing, just looking for violence, when there’s so much more to hope for in this world. Where are all these students when we’re declaring unofficial war on Libya? Where are all these students when American legislation fails to represent American population? I would take tear gas for political reform. I’d gladly take rubber bullets to end human suffering. Would I do that for Shaka Smart? Absolutely not. So why the hysteria?

There’s another shot in the video of the policemen in their masks- maybe the viewer is supposed to feel fear, intimidation. Maybe we’re all supposed to get greased up in the paint of war, screaming Fuck the police and Remember Kent State! The police aren’t the enemy here- they’re heroes, who have to be away from their families on a Saturday night, facing hundreds of angry people who want nothing more than violence, praying to God that they don’t have to do what they have to do. Last night, I was ashamed to be a VCU student. I only hope that future experience leads these young people to understand how serious their actions are, and that they will learn to act when it really matters.