Mary Versus the Trumpeting Legions of Apathy

This came from a whale notebook from last summer. I was preparing for interviews for the Scrivener. 1. Hi. How are you? 2. What are your duties? 3. What have you learned as a secretary? 4. What are your pet peeves? 5. What would make your job easier? 6. What do you love about working here?

This week I'm cleaning out my room and old notebooks. Everyday I'm posting some random things I've written. Today, from a book that must date to my junior high days (when I wanted to be called Penn-with-two-n's among my friends, I found some academic plans from freshman year of college). Very easy Every month submit something list of several BYU student publications The 2nd of every month Moderately hard Stay on campus 8-4 - study pants off -exercise (gym lockers) -read -study groups -listen to good music -walks with friends -International Cinema -Write letters A couple of pages of lists of my favorite Russian composers, a key to Morse Code the Greek alphabet. Probably missing the "Very Hard" title page . 3 alphabets besides my own 4 constellations in: Winter Spring Summer Fall 3 hymns may accompany Identify 74 birds Memorize 3 Shakespearean poems finally, in a different pen: Now is the time to be decent and kind Who are you? Must prepare to meet God today Qu...

Best moments of my graduate experience at BYU: + Holding up "Your Great" signs when Lynn Truss visited. + RSA Conference @ Penn State +Crashing Walter Benn Michael's dinner and getting him to admit that Dierdre McCloskey thinks his economist are faulty +Reading Wilkinson's personal (and extensive) files. +Researching identification in Divine Comedy audience members and RMMLA conference + Publishing my volume of poetry +Working on the Scrivener +Writing my novel +CCCCs with my mom in San Francisco

As part of the process that starts with my graduation and speeds up with my mom's disapproval, I've started cleaning out my bedroom. This includes starting to throw out half-used spiral notebooks. Flipping through these notebooks, I discovered useless musings, half-formed ideas and pointless lists: in short, hard-copy blog posts. So in honor of graduation, I'll be sharing something I found in the piles every day this week. This week, a gem titled "10 Million Dollars," probably circa 2004. And now, without further etc. 1. University hopping--never endingly at Oxford and Harvard & just collect degrees in things. 2. Make an orphanage in Russia after my own design, be benevolent dictator. 3. Arm a small revolution in a Central American country. Get Soviet Realist portraits made of myself. 4. Buy up the art from crowded, unair-conditioned European museums. Give it to BYU's Museum of Art. Get invited to galas. 5.Big old Chekov-esque orchard and let the fruit get...

It's almost 4:00 am. This is my fourth or fifth time up. I tried watching TV, a little warm milk, reading "The Metaphors We Live By," the works. It may be the Coke I drank tonight, but I think it's clear: I've got springsomnia. This happens every spring, especially when I'm not taking classes, not working. I lay awake at the end of the school year, thinking about what I'm going to do this summer. This sounds like a very prudent thing to do, but not at 4:00 am, not four hours before I'm due to give a final, and not when the summer plans tend towards the absurd. That's the funny thing about springsomnia--nothing seems to make sense in the morning. In the evening, though, you're thinking, "This is the year I'm going to grow corn in the garden...and take up bocce...and learn Italian...and write a tour guide to BYU bathrooms...and hike Timp...twice..." And by a decent hour, you're wondering how you expect to do any of this, especia...

Ah, the end of my BYUness. I haven't really thought much about it, probably because I'm prone to nostalgia, even in the moment of nostaling: I cried my last week of high school. I hate the idea of moving on, leaving things, forgetting things. I'll turn in my last paper of BYU. I'll clean out my graduate instructor cubicle. I'll have to prepare to live far away from all my friends and family, in a place where I don't know the age and ownership of almost every building. Sigh...

Wow. That was the worst BYU production I've seen in a long time. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that the director was able to enough unattractive, tone-deaf bad actors to stage As You Like It . How bad was it? Let me count the ways. 1. Muddled concept. According to the dramaturge, this production was inspired by Eastern European coups. And homeless people? And, judging by the costumes and accents, cowboys and hipsters and biker gangs. And the prologue told us that this takes place in the United States. What now? The hodgepodge was a mess, with no clear direction or theme. Instead, it was as if the director had suffered indecision and just thrown every modernization concept into one production. In the program, she admits that when someone asked her if she was going to portray this play as romantic comedy or political commentary, she replied, "Why choose one over the other?" The answer, Ms. Mellon, is well illustrated by this disaster of a play. 2. Terrible casting. I...