Faking it as an English major

I'm considering taking this thing down until I have the time and the desire to put enough work into it to make it interesting. Eh, we'll see what happens.
posted by Patrick at 2:52 AM

Katiel: oh god
Katie: you and I think way too alike
Katie: I just was thinking that
Katie: and you sent it
Me: hehe, you're in my brain
Me: or I'm in yours
Me: either way it's scary
Katie: you're in mine
Katie: hey!
Katie: yeah it is
Katie: get out get out
posted by Patrick at 12:32 AM

My courses for next semester:
Group piano II
Jazz guitar II
Jazz composition and arrangement
History of Western Music
Modern British Literature
Screenwriting
I love college. Have I mentioned that before?
posted by Patrick at 10:38 PM

So I got into an arguement with nick over media bias. I believe the media has been unfairly labled as biased in recent years. I think this is mainly because it is easy, especially in the "either with us or against us" mentality of so many in our country. If the press presents information that's not insync with a person's view point, it is easier to lable the media biased than to admit to being closeminded. Take Nick for example. He first mentioned media bias when he was reacting to a piece about life in afghanistan. This was the quote he posted, "Afghanistan, ravaged by more than two decades of war, is one of the world's poorest countries, annual average income in a good year is barely $200." He accuses the media of trying to draw sympathy from him and asks what this has to do with the story (I guess he meant the coverage of the war). If you ask a reporter, they'll tell you it's part of the whole story. The media isn't trying to gain attention it's naming and describing all the players. The war has atleast seven, Americans, Islam, the Taliban, Bin Laden and his network, The US military and it's allies, The northen alliance, and the people of Afghanistan. In order to truly be objective the media has to describe everyone of the players. Nick only wants to here about the Americans, the military. He doesn't mind hearing about the other players if it is a story that lets him shout, "There! There's the bad guy! We're right to shoot him." The quote from above does not leave room for that. The only interpertation you can pull from the comment is that the people of Afghanistan are poor. So presented with information that does not have a place in his world view Nick resorts to declaring media bias.
posted by Patrick at 1:41 AM

We read four stories about failed or troubled relationships in class. Four! Is there nothing else left in the world worth writing about? They all run along the same plot line. X is sad, X remembers Y, X is still sad, X remembers the happy times with Y, X wants them back, X decides that won't happen, X is sad, X remembers bad times with Y, X wonders what happened, and when the story ends X is sad. You really know you're in for a painful woe is me tale when the author prefaces it with "this is based on a true story" or this actually happened. The class had one of those today. It was a five page overly poetic lament over the heartless bitch who dumped him over the summer. I understand that sometimes people need a way to express these feelings, but a creative writing seminar is not the place. It's just a waste of everyone else's time. 8 times out of 10 the author is to attached tot he piece to take constructive critism. They defend every decision with, "that's what happened". Today's author was a little better, he just spent 15 minutes explaining his sad history. Meanwhile I was sitting across silently asking god to make me black out until the end of class. It didn't happen.
posted by Patrick at 9:11 PM

One last post before I go to bed. I got my laptop back from the gateway repair center in Texas. My life is complete again.
posted by Patrick at 1:33 AM

Oh, and I've gotten a few requests to post my latest stories, which I plan to do, but first I have to rewrite them so they don't suck.
posted by Patrick at 1:30 AM

I'm starting to look for a creative writing graduate program. God help me, I'm going to spend thousands of dollars to learn to be completely useless. It should be fun though.
posted by Patrick at 1:28 AM

a quick way to drive writers nuts:
Tell them whatever they happen to be doing at the moment is "good writing experiece" or "good story material".
posted by Patrick at 9:35 PM

I got a D paper back today. Normally I don't worry too much about a low grade, but a D is a real blow to my pride. I've been trying to convince myself that I'm a writer for a while now. I was starting to believe it so the paper set of the usual wave of panic. "I'm not good enough. I'll never make it. I'm going to wind up as a bitter creative writing professor at some forgotten community college and that's only if I can fake my way through grad school." Basically, I'm quickly realizing that I'm more than halfway through college and it's making me panic.
posted by Patrick at 12:40 AM

Oh! and I bought an optical mouse! It's the coolest thing ever.
posted by Patrick at 5:19 PM

So the screen on my beloved laptop is starting to die. It took me awhile last week, but I managed to get Gateway to agree to fix it, but that means I'll be without for two weeks. My dad reminded me that my old desktop from highschool was stillin my room and I could bring it back here after fall break. I thought this was wise so I installed an ethernet card, loaded it up in my mom's car and trcuked it down to Williamsburg. I have to say that it is very weird to be using a real keyboard and a mouse again. It's not as convenient as the little pointer nub thingy, but the computer is faster so I guess it evens out. I think I'll add some more memory a dvd drive and a new videocard and then I'll have a computer that was top of the line three years ago! woo!
posted by Patrick at 5:18 PM

Ok so by some bizarre circumstance the news directors of William and Mary TV and the Student information network (sin) have stepped down. I have been offered both positions. I accepted WMTV and then found out about sin. WMTV is actually a part of sin so I could merge the two posts, but the real questions is do I want to take that on. I mean I barely get my work done as it is. How is a slacker like myself going to handle that much responsibility. I should probably just take the job and find out.
posted by Patrick at 12:40 AM

The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City
By Dylan Thomas

The had that signed the paper feeled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand lead to a shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
that put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locust came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
the crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heeaven;
hands have no tears to flow.
posted by Patrick at 11:48 PM

Buttered popcorn flavored dum dums are just plain wrong.
posted by Patrick at 12:58 AM

Note for future trips to busch gardens, avoid the spiral hill (something like that) ride in Ireland. It's evil. Just stick to Apollo's Charriot and Alpengeist. mmmm 210 foot drop from the heavens...
posted by Patrick at 8:51 PM

So I'm supposed to put together a package on the hunger taskforce for WMTV with no help. I can a see a three problems with this.
1) I don't know how to run the editing system
2) I never produced anything before in my life
3) I have no time
On the plus side I'm going to Busch Gardens saturday, Woo! roller coasters!
posted by Patrick at 3:00 PM

I miss English and Irish beer.
posted by Patrick at 2:03 PM

Americans don't feel safe because of the attack.
Islamic Americans don't feel safe because of the attack and revenge hungry American bigots.
Since tuesday I've heard a few vague rumors about caucasian students turning their rage towards William and Mary "students of non-western descent" (the words of Sam Sadler, our vice president of student affairs). My friend James told me that his ex-girlfriend (who is half Egyptian) has been accosted several times. I don't know any of the details of the incidents on this campus, but I can be essentially 100% positive that no William and Mary student is affiliated with a terrorist group. James's ex-girlfriend is born and bred in Philly girl, a graduate of Georgetown University and is currently attending law school at Penn. Both of her parents are doctors in Philadelphia. Can anyone justify making her feel unwelcome in her hometown? I can't. Americans are Americans. It doesn't matter what part of the world their family came from. We are all in mourning for the thousands of lives lost on Tuesday and we are all angry, but we must not allow ourselves to give into blind hate. If we do, then I really am afraid of what is to come.
posted by Patrick at 5:02 PM

Also, it amazes me that the caf can screw up lettuce.
posted by Patrick at 2:37 PM

Everyone should listen to Wyclef's Perfect Gentleman

Just cause she dances gogo
It don't her a ho no
Maxine put your read shoes on
we're going to the disco
We're going to elope
to Mexico
Called up my mama said I'm in love with a stripper yo

hehe
posted by Patrick at 2:34 PM

By the way, I still haven't finished my story
posted by Patrick at 1:29 AM

Random Qustion for the night:
Don't you hate it when every song on a CD sucks except for the single?
posted by Patrick at 1:26 AM

It occurs to me that I should explain the previously metioned dillema. I want to play detuned power chords, but everything I'm learning this semester tells me thats wrong, but the music industry has been telling me it's ok since the early days of the grunge era. I'm torn between the intellectual side of music that William and Mary has shown me and the pop music of my middle school days. Eh, I'll just write my story for creative writing instead.
posted by Patrick at 9:40 PM

So this semester I'm studying piano, Jazz guitar and tonal composition and all I really want to do right now is tune my guitar down a half step, crank the distortion on my amp and spend forty five minutes beating on power chords.... I blame Nirvana for my dillema.
posted by Patrick at 9:28 PM

Oh I've also discovered that I should actually spend most of my time sleep deprived. When I'm actually well rested my brain and function at full capacity. That's a bad thing. When I'm well rested the normal flat line that runs through my brain is replaced by things like "I wonder what it would take to make the muffin shop explode." and "I bet I could use the radio station to create an evil army of brainwashed minions." Part of what makes the problem worse is I have an annoying habbit of vocalizing these thoughts, which scares the hell out of my friends. I mean I have no real desire to blow up the muffin shop or to have a brainwashed army... although my own personal army would be kind of cool... Anyway the point is I need to sleep less before I give i to my super villian urges.

By the way, I have a shirt that says, "runs with scissors". I love this shirt.
posted by Patrick at 1:04 AM

Ok so despite the fact that the building that houses the biology and psych department in slowly crumbling into a large smoking pile of rubble and a major freshman girls dorm was declared unihabittable due to asbestos over the summer, the college chose to build a fancy game room in the basement of the University center. It's possibly the coolest thing WIlliam and Mary has ever done. They have free skee ball! My plan is to become a Skee Ball god and then head down to busch gardens and clean up. I'm already on my way I hit the 150 hole today. I did a happy dance and flexed on the machine. Then I realized I was a dork for being that excited over skee ball. In other news I'm taking another creativ writing class so there will be more stories posted here in the near future. I actually should be working on one now, but I'm feeling extremely lazy. I'm also soon going to be a DJ at WCWM, W&Ms campus station. I started on the path to becoming one freshman year, but I got caught up in the whole fraternity thing for a while and then kind of forgot about it. I decided to go back after A friend of mine told me they still had my trainee card and I could finish the last three hours if I liked. I have nothing better to do so I said "ok" and head to the music listening this afternoon. I was happy to find out that the station is moving away from the godawful RPM music that it was infatuated with my freshman year. Another big reason I left was I could never bring myself to play the A-list stuff without feeling dirty. Lets see any other updates... I'm throwing my hat back into the frat world again, but this time I'm rushing phi mu alpha. It's a music fraternity, the real fraternities make fun of it. I figure I'll be safe there and even if they do turn out to be psychotic, I've walked away from one frat, I can do it again. I guess that's it for now. I'm going to work on my story.
posted by Patrick at 12:42 AM

Can any one explain why my literature course required a book of engravings?
posted by Patrick at 3:18 PM

I'm settled safely in my dorm and am now enjoying the benefits of an ethernet connection. mmmmm audio galaxy mmmm
posted by Patrick at 3:17 PM

I just got back from a six week romp in the UK. The old suck ass machines at Christ's wouldn't let me blog. That explains the lack of posts for july and August. I don't have an excuse for June though. I'm just lazy.
posted by Patrick at 4:09 PM

Sorry for the lack of posting, I got busy with finals and moving out of my dorm and then forgot this page. I'll be back when I have something to say.
posted by Patrick at 10:51 PM

Why would any one pay $21,150 for that?
posted by Patrick at 4:02 PM

I'm not sure what to say about my grandfather right now so I'll post this article from the Washington Post
Friday, April 20, 2001; Page B06

James L. Snyder, 76, a broadcast journalist for more than 40 years who while working for the Post-Newsweek Stations directed landmark changes in the format, organization, and operation of Washington radio and television properties, died April 19 at Buckingham's Choice retirement community in Adamstown, Md.

He died of complications related to strokes and heart disease.

Mr. Snyder became vice president for news at Post-Newsweek Stations in 1968. His first assignment was to organize and launch the successful and immensely popular all-news format at WTOP AM radio, which at that time was owned by The Washington Post Co.

He became news director of WTOP-TV in 1969 and began building a news organization that became a pace setter in local television news. He paired Max Robinson and Gordon Peterson, and he was among the first to put an African American woman broadcaster on Washington television. Many of the people he hired in the 1970s are still with the station, which has changed ownership twice and is now Gannett's WUSA-TV.

In 1978, when WTOP was swapped by Post-Newsweek Stations for WDIV-TV in Detroit, Mr. Snyder moved to Detroit as news director there. He returned to Washington and Post-Newsweek corporate headquarters in 1982 as consultant to the news departments in the Post-Newsweek stations in Miami, Jacksonville, Detroit and Hartford. From 1969 until his retirement, he also was executive producer of the weekly news discussion program "Agronsky and Company," which became Inside Washington in the late 1980s.

Mr. Snyder retired in 1991 as a corporate consultant to news departments in Post-Newsweek television stations,

In 1991 and 1992, he traveled to Romania and Bulgaria for the International Media Fund, lecturing on American television news to groups interested in establishing a free broadcasting system.

In 1992, he became the first recipient of the Leonard Ziedenberg First Amendment Award. He received the Board of Governors Award of the Washington chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1977.

Mr. Snyder was born in Pittsburgh. During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

He began his broadcast career in the late 1940s when he was a college student. He worked for radio stations in Pittsburgh before relocating to Washington in 1959 as chief of the Washington bureau for Westinghouse Broadcasting.

In that capacity, he covered the final years of the Eisenhower administration, the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race, political conventions and the Kennedy assassination and funeral. In 1965, he became the Washington producer for the "CBS Morning News." Later, he was the Washington producer for the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite. Mr. Snyder left CBS in 1968 to join Post-Newsweek Stations.

Mr. Snyder was a volunteer reader for the visually impaired for Washington Ear, a member of St. Jane de Chantal Catholic Church in Bethesda and its St. Vincent de Paul Society, a golfer and a member of Kenwood Golf and Country Club.

Mr. Snyder, a longtime resident of Bethesda, moved to Buckingham's Choice in January 2000.

Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Anne Marie of Adamstown; five children, Mary S. Martin of Arlington, John P. Snyder of Frederick, James W. Snyder of Silver Spring, Catherine Snyder Charlip of Bethesda and Owen B. Snyder of Dedham, Mass.; and eight grandchildren. A daughter, Margaret Snyder Fugger, died in 1975.

posted by Patrick at 1:55 AM

My knee slipped out of joint on friday while bowling. I felt a pop and then I was on the ground, but I got a strike. It hurts to walk up and down stairs now. I hate being a gimp.
posted by Patrick at 9:19 PM

From the police beat in today's flat hat (william and mary's student newspaper): "Saturday March 31 - A non-student was arrested for indecent exposure and carrying a concealed weapon on confusion corner." I want to know where the weapon was concealed.
posted by Patrick at 1:14 AM

I wandered through Colonial Williamsburg today with Katie. While we were there a young couple asked us to take they're picture infront of one of the houses. I know they would have been happy with a quick snapshot, but I took a second to compose the shot anyway. It reminded me how much I miss taking photos and working in the dark room. Sadly William and Mary's dark room is a pit and I don't have time. I'll have to help James put his dark room back together so I can use it over the summer.
posted by Patrick at 4:50 PM

Here's story number five. It's based on "The Babysitter" by Robert Coover.
posted by Patrick at 12:44 AM

Sometimes I wonder if my roommate forgets I live here too. I have my music going through my speakers and he just turns his on at a higher volume. Last night his fan broke. One of the blades broke off so it doesn't spin properly and makes an extremely annoying clicking sound. Naturally I shut it off before I went insane. Andrew didn't like this. He started tapping out the rythm of the clicking on the bed. Then I sweat he threw a couple of mini tantrums. Eventually he crawled out of bed and turned the fan back on. I waited 15 minutes before shutting it off again. He had fallen asleep by then, but I couldn't get back to sleep until five minutes before my alarm went off. I think there's only four weeks lefts. I can make it...
posted by Patrick at 12:14 AM

My creative writing professor told the class today that we had to keep taking writing courses in college. We owe it to ourselves and the world. The scary part is she believes it.
posted by Patrick at 11:59 PM

I just made my schedule for next semester.
Monday
Piano
Tuesday
ethics
tonal composition I
British literature 1660-1744
Advanced creative writing
wednesday
Piano
tonal composition I
thursday
the same as the tuesday schedule minus creative writing
Friday
Piano
I'm also signed up for private lessons in Jazz guitar. I really do wonder if my dad thinks I'm wasting his money.
posted by Patrick at 4:48 PM

I think I've officially run out of patience for this semester. My roommate can't tie his shoes without me snarling at him for making too much noise. Granted he is the loudest human being I have ever encountered, but I'm just getting silly now. I think I need more sleep, but I'm finding that between a mild case of insomnia and my roommates morning routine (see here I go again), more than four hours is impossible during the week. It's an odd couple from hell scenario. One roommate never thinks he's being inconsiderate and takes offense if you point this out to him and the other is annoyed by everything. I guess we do get points for never coming to blows. Although I think the new fuck off attitude I can't seem to get rid of might lead to trouble. There's only a month left. I can behave... in theory.
posted by Patrick at 11:51 PM

I'm not sure if this is cute or disturbing
posted by Patrick at 7:56 PM