Dear university students

September 4, 2014 - 4:14pm - by admin

enjoy yr first week back at school.

May your days be full of decent wifi connections, manageable schedules, and coffee that doesn't taste like it was brewed in a shoe.

May your early mornings and late nights be few and far between (and hopefully not within the same 24hr period).

Live-tweet all of your classes; I hear that's the best way to take notes and also keep us all entertained.

Create clever hashtags like #TrimbleLearns for your school year.

For the love of god if you have to do #JokeJournal please make sure the jokes are actually funny.

Don't let the winter, your midterms, your exams, or the fact that you're the only one actually doing work in your group for your group project that's worth a terrifyingly large portion of your mark get you down.

It's normal. You'll get through it.

And most of all, you'll miss the hell of it once you've graduated.

xox

yr girl Shaner

(University of Winnipeg alumna, class of 2013, already missing the shit out of being a student)

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had a dream about classes ending last night

April 1, 2013 - 5:13pm - by admin

and I always have weird dreams about school or vacations or my job or whatever I have looming right away in life.

in this dream I walked into my visual rhetoric class and my prof
-who of course isn't the actual prof that teaches the class because then it wouldn't be a dream-
was all

"okay we're going to have a term exam as well as the final exam so open yr books and two of the questions listed"

which honestly freaked me out (in my dream) because we hadn't been told about any term exam so I was freaking out a bit and my friend @JohnNorman was there and his wife also who is super smart and they both told me it wouldn't be an issue because I was smart, too.

except I didn't remember reading the books mentioned in the term exam questions

one of the questions asked about how the changing hairstyles of one of the secondary characters represented their internal conflicts (struggles?) and I was all

I have no idea how changing personal styles represent developing and resolving internal conflicts
wtf am I doing in university

and I was freaking out because johnny khemlab had already written two pages and I hadn't written anything yet and for some reason I was carrying around all these papers in my bag. like weird looseleaf pages from old homework and hand-outs and crap that I didn't need but had for some reason.

so I'm going through this huge pile of paper because I'm trying to find my lecture notes so I can answer these questions and not get an F on my term exam

stressing hard because it's almost the end of the term how could I be so disorganized and not be able to remember what the changing hairstyles mean at a critical moment?!

then the cats decided to walk on my face and yell at me which woke me up

so that solved that problem.

I also had another dream about a strange man who followed me around a scrapyard as I made art from sand but that's another story.

---

okay so we didn't watch solaris

January 16, 2013 - 5:00am - by admin

it's my fault, as are most things. I admit.

I'm working on this huge project of sorts which is sucking up a lot of time now that I'm back in school and tomorrow I'm having a pre-interview coffee with one of the former mayors of the city which I'm a bit freaked out about, honestly.

I'm sure she's super nice and she'll be charming and hilarious and I'll be this weird nervous wreck all hopped-up on coffee because we're meeting at Starbucks and their coffee makes me sick to my stomach, a little bit.

doing work for this project has been eating up a lot of my time but it's going way better than expected and I think my prof is impressed with it, which is always a bonus.

still doesn't make me less nervous to start interviewing people, though.

so basically I put off watching solaris because we needed to clean the apartment, you guys, and I needed to make sure I had all my shit together for these interviews I have coming up for this project. by the time I was done it was like 10:30pm and tyrone was all

we can't watch solaris. we'll fall asleep and jason will yell at us on the internet more for falling asleep during solaris again.

which is probably true.

so we hung out in bed and tyrone fell asleep and I read more of ham on rye which is just, wow, so messed up.

weird thing is that I've been having amazing dreams after reading bukowski. not fucked-up weird things, but these ridiculous adventure dreams where I wake up fully refreshed and ready to take on the world because I just finished kicking ass in my dream.

you know what I mean.

usually in the mornings I tell tyrone what I've been dreaming about because he never remembers his dreams and I feel bad for him. sleeping is one of my favourite things to do, mostly because I have really intense dreams and I feel like he's missing out by not remembering them.

the problem with dreams is that they never make sense. like, ever. so he kinda rolls his eyes or makes a weird face and then leaves the room without saying anything.

I've thought about keeping a dream diary and maybe making a book out of the amalgamation of my stupid dreams and becoming a bazillionaire off the profits. I mean is twilight and 50 shades of grey can be bestsellers why can't my piece of crap novel?

but then I wouldn't have time to blog here because I'd be doing pressers and tours and stuff, so fuck that shit I guess.

---

there's a spot on campus where I like to sit

January 10, 2013 - 11:11pm - by admin

I come and sit here whenever I can. it's a four-person table but it's always just me and like most of the tables in this little seating area in Lockhart Hall the chairs are attached to the tables by metal poles and swival a bit.

like being in an academic mcdonalds.

I like sitting here because I can watch everything. to my right is a window

(and I always sit with the window to the right and my back to the wall. I don't like when people walk behind me)



the window overlooks boring stuff. a surface parking lot and the Booth College across from that and some sidewalks but because it's sidewalks around the school there are always interesting people walking by or driving by in cars that look like different kinds of dinosaur heads.

if I don't look out the window I eavesdrop and watch other students while pretending to write on my blog (like now).

I like listening to other people but my earphones are in playing a quiet BNL song so I'm sort of in my own world but not really. this way only the people worth paying attention to, the loud or obnoxious or angry ones actually catch my attention.

for example two girls at the next table over were having a discussion about horoscopes which meant the volume went up. another friend showed up and started talking about how her mom thought she was an alcoholic because she brought a bottle of vodka in her purse to class.

headphone volume down.

I spend a lot of time here studying and writing and listening and watching people. in three years I've sat here more times than I can count and it never stops being interesting.

what it's taught me is that people are infinitely complex with really dramatic problems that usually have simple solutions.

that there are some really well-dressed people who walk by my school.

that more students have imacs than anything else.

that boiled eggs are not okay to eat in a public place (smelly).

that lots of people are unhappy in their relationships and would rather complain to their friends than to their partners.

that we all drink too much coffee.

and that an unbelievable amount of women have the exact same voice. wtf.

---

wait for it

September 11, 2012 - 12:19am - by admin

it's worth it, I promise.

can't hang long today guys

I've got a whole shit-ton of schoolreads to do

because I got my ass handed to me in a quiz today

on the second day back, no less!

bloody university

bloody 3000-level courses

bloody the odyssey

(okay maybe not that last one, it's a good read)

but damn

I've gotta pull my socks up

I can't be caught not-remembering the particulars of Nausicaa and Odysseus meeting

or Ong's thoughts on what's wrong with 'oral literature' are

eugh

feck off, studying.

---

Aloe Blacc is making my day

September 6, 2012 - 3:22pm - by admin

was under-dressed today by accident.

wore a dress & suit-jacket to school thinking I looked posh but what I actually looked like was cold.

it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella but I didn't care because I was just going to class to sit and learn, anyway.

I was the only person smiling at the crosswalk

everyone else was frowning under their umbrellas or hoods and wearing jeans and sneakers and I was getting drenched in my dress and grinning like a maniac

because why the eff not?

life is good, damn the rain.

a boy looked at me like I was crazy but I just grinned at him and he smiled, too

and asked if I wanted to share his umbrella

I said no, thanks, but you're a peach for offering

and splashed in a puddle on my way across the street.

---

first day back at school and I almost didn't blog omg

September 6, 2012 - 1:37am - by admin

to be honest I was a bit stressed that all my books wouldn't come in on time
especially the odyssey which omg I have to read six sections of by next monday and a bunch of chapters from the book about
orality and literacy
both of which I am quite good at
omg
jk
(not kidding)
neways
I know everyone loves what they're taking in school or at least likes it to some extent
because why else would they take it
but I seriously love being a rhetoric student because language and communication is so, so
important
and fascinating and weird and I come out of my classes all jazzed up about it
which I guess makes me into one of those over-zealous students I used to make fun of
(and still kinda do)
keeners
omg
I'm a keener
I've gotta start making better binder covers

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I haven't edited my photos from the Festival du Voyageur

March 1, 2012 - 4:14pm - by admin

which is just another thing to add to the pile of things I haven't done that I need to get around to, such as

transcribe my Thomas Dolby interview
write two term papers
edit all the photos I've taken over the last month
get my notes together for tomorrow's MEME 2012 meeting
hit the gym so I can indulge guilt-free in wings and beer with Tyrone and Will tonight
file my taxes
find a summer job (wanna hire me?)
buy a bday gift for my mum
get my picture taken for an article in the The Metro
make more time for more sexy rumpus

among other things

if I were a responsible student I'd be more on top of these things but honestly I think I manage to keep my shit pretty much together while working and partying like a rock star on the weekends (not pictured due to laziness)

which is pretty good considering all I want to do these days is have Daft Punk dance parties and drink whiskey and have 'play dates', Elmo stylez.

---

I can't always listen to the Arcade Fire

January 12, 2012 - 5:11am - by admin

it's not that I don't love them, I do. I love them like a fat kid loves cake. like sixteen year old girls love Justin Beiber. like Britney Spears loves Taco Bell. like Mitt Romney secretly loves universal health care and the gays.

it's that as a student I spend a lot of my time writing papers. a lot. more than I care to talk about on this here blog and since I have to spend so much time inside my own head working and re-working what I want to say as though I am a true, professional rhetor. as a result I usually write in complete silence so I can get my thoughts in order.

except when I listen to my two "paper soundtracks", The Social Network Soundtrack and for some reason The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire. don't ask me why because I'm not sure how it worked out that way for if I spend four hours writing a paper it means I'm either working in silence or have one or both of those albums on repeat/rotation.

I don't get it, either.

the problem is that because I always listen to The Suburbs when I'm writing papers when I listen to it in a non-paper writing situation I'm brought back to the hours I spent sloughing through Heidegger, lying through my teeth in my man-hating sociology class, or perfecting my papers in my English classes.

not stuff I want to be thinking about in my hours outside of campus.

but Alyson I hear you saying there's more than one Arcade Fire album, you dummy and I'll say yes I know but The Suburbs is their best in my opinion even though I have much love for Neon Bible it just isn't as polished or as catchy or as awesome so it's not the same.

it doesn't get as much rotation as The Suburbs and as a result I'm stuck thinking about being in school, at school, and working on papers for school which sometimes is like agony for me because I just want to get the fawk out of there sometimes, you know?

but I keep listening to it because it's so good.

in fact I'm listening to it right now, as I'm writing this.

and now I'll go to bed thinking about Kierkegaard. damn.

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here is what being a Rhetoric student has taught me

January 10, 2012 - 5:19pm - by admin

nothing I ever say will convince you and I'll talk to you till I'm blue in the face but even if you say
okay Alyson, I agree with you
you probably won't because though my job is to convince you almost nobody is ever truly convinced
which makes me sad.

everyone is always arguing with each other, which means we're having an argument right now and we don't even realize it
you're probably saying
stfu Alyson and get on with the post
and I'll say
okay just this once
because I don't want to fight anymore.
let's not fight, okay?

everything I say to you will fade & become irrelevant
which is the worst for a writer because we like to trick ourselves that our words are Dickens in waiting, but rhetoric is limited to the language of the day and what I say now may not even make sense in 10, 20, 30 years
I'll be an old lady and whippersnappers won't care what any of us had to say about anything
kids these days.

everyone can do rhetoric
so why am I studying it?
to do it better than you?
can I?
who knows, it's all subjective
so I'll never know.
damn.

mostly I've learned rhetoric can't solve all of our problems
which comes back to nobody being convinced by anyone else
so we only use rhetoric when we know we can persuade other people
so am I persuading you, now?
or are you still mad at me from before?

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