I thought about not blogging today in remembrance of the Virginia Tech victims, and participating in One Day Blog Silence. Well, I’ve been silent long enough since the day’s almost over.

It was bit of an odd day. Of course, today I was a little more observant of the things going on around me — I didn’t want to miss a thing on my final day.

To start the day, I woke up an hour late, which gave me only 2 1/2 hours to write an entire article on One Day Blog Silence for my Feature Writing class and finish my Tiger Cub journal.

On to the odd things. The first odd thing I noticed was at about 10:45 this morning. A guy is walking between the Haley Center (where all my classes are) and the library. He’s walking right into the sprinklers. After being sprayed for about 10 seconds, he looks around and finally noticed he’s getting soaked.

About 20 minutes later, I’m walking back to the library from class, and a guy walking ahead of me is wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt, camouflage shorts, and running shoes. I know I’m sometimes behind in the new styles, but I don’t think this one will hold. So, I’ll take my chances and not flee to the nearest retailer.

While in the bathroom, you know, doing my thing, I notice there’s some new writing on the wall. The old pictures and words had been scribbled over with a black marker. Today, I saw a drawing of a penis dubbed “Glenda” and written beside it was “I Corinthians 15:33.” Obviously, I looked that up as soon as I got to my Bible as Literature class. The quote is:

Do not be deceived:
   Bad company ruins good morals.”

I read a little more of the chapter, which seems a little interesting. Paul, the author, is a fairly exciting guy at times.

I actually finished Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat. I’ve been reading it since late December or January. Today was the first day in the last couple of weeks that I’ve had the time to sit back, relax, and do some extracurricular reading.

Our Tiger Cub program had a end-of-the-year party. Afterward, I worked out with Scotty, actually letting him pick what type of workout we would do.

I also received an anti-hate flier today — my last flier I’ll probably ever get while walking along the Concourse. It was a response to the hate crime committed against an Asian student on April 19. I haven’t really looked into that, so I won’t make any comments about the event right now. It’s kind of odd that I got this on the same day that I wrote an article related to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Overall, it seemed like an ordinary day — aside from the weird things I noticed. I did get a halfway decent parking space this morning. Yes, on a Monday! That’s something to be thankful for. I’m not saying it was a great space, but an acceptable space.

There are a few other things I would like to share my thoughts on about my last day, but I’m trying to get this post up before the end of the day. I just feel like it has to be finished by 11:59 p.m. So, I’ll try to share those thoughts at a later time. However, I’m sure I’ll forget them when the time comes.

Mostly, I need a moment to reflect on what this day means. Maybe that’s something I need to do personally, something that I can’t put into words just yet. I finished my last class at 12:50 this afternoon. That’s something I definitely need to think about.

I just started reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë for The 19th Century British Novel. It is such a relief to get away from Jane Austen. I don’t know what it was about Emma that I didn’t like. Maybe it was because I was reading not for pleasure, but only for work. I wanted to like the novel, but I never settled into it. I’m sure I would’ve liked it more if I could have read it at leisure. Brontë’s novel is exciting though. I can’t wait to pick it up again and continue the story.

I can already see now that this post is not going to be centered on a single thing.

My Feature Writing class did start our Tiger Cub program today. We will go to Loachapoka High School every Monday afternoon for the remainder of the semester to guide their journalism students. Today, we were paired with one of the students. Throughout the semester, we’ll help them with the story they’re working on for that month’s paper. It’s supposed to be a learning experience for both us and them.

I think I’ll enjoy the program. Plus, this replaces our Friday class period. So, I don’t have to go to class until 11 a.m. on Fridays now. That’s the best news I’ve gotten this year.

Now, it’s time for me to go to bed. I’ve only got a few hours before I’m up-and-going again.

Interview With Aspiring Author
Justin Tadlock On Writing

Why do you like to write?
I guess I have to go way back to fully understand this. When I was growing up, my dad wrote songs and still does. I have a very musical family that goes back for generations. I remember writing tons of songs when I was younger and continuing do so throughout high school for fun. My dad is still looking to sell his first song (he writes country music). But, he may never sell a song, but he does it anyway. Probably because he must do it in order to understand life.

One of the people that I think probably influenced me, and some of the things that I write about a lot, is my grandfather, my dad’s dad. He and my grandmother used to baby-sit me and my sister in the summer. And paw-paw used to tell me all kinds of stories about growing up. He never had a lot, he was poor, but I think he represents to me what growing up in the rural South feels like. You don’t get a lot of opportunities, or you don’t think about them. Because people don’t expect much from you. They expect you to keep being poor. They expect you to work down at the sawmill until you’re too old to do it anymore.

I don’t exactly know when I wrote my first story, but I do have a story called “Claws” that I always call my first story. It’s at least the oldest thing I still have. It’s one big, long paragraph, and it lacks mostly periods, commas, and any kind of logic or structure.

So, why do you write?
I don’t really know for sure. I like to, I guess. It’s a challenge. I could’ve stuck out Software Engineering, Hotel and Restaurant Management, or done many other things, but I probably wouldn’t be challenged in the way that writing challenges me. It challenges me to look inside of myself for answers. It challenges me to look at the world for answers.

It’s just something I’ve always done. And I couldn’t imagine life without writing. I’ve always said that I would write a novel one day, even when I didn’t think I’d be an English major. It’s part of who I am, and who I’ve always been.

So, why do you really write, Justin?
Probably because I have to. There’s no other choice for me. Writers, such as myself, must write or we might go crazy or something. It’s a sort of release. Like going to the bathroom or something. We have to do it because we don’t need all that stuff building up inside of us. It will eventually come out on its own, and that will be a huge mess. Okay, probably not the best analogy that I could come up with, but I was thinking that it was a little funny and maybe a little gross.

What do you enjoy most about writing?
First, writing is dang hard. I mean, sometimes I wonder why I torture myself in this way. But, sometimes, just sometimes, I come to this spot (I guess you can call it a click or a light going off somewhere in my head), and when I get to this spot I feel relieved. It’s the moment when I realize where I want to go with a story, how something is going to unfold, and that is a (for lack of a better word or phrase, come on Justin you’re a writer!) magical.

I don’t know how to describe this feeling any better. I just feel that the story I’m working on is somehow complete because I figured out what to do. Then, I can truly enjoy the writing process even more because I do know what I want to do.

What is your writing process like?
I used to think that paper and pen was the best way to go for me. Stick me in a room with four walls, a roof, and nothing but those four walls and roof besides my paper and pen, and I could create whatever world I wanted to. No limits.

Now, I’ve been slowly moving over to the computer over the last year or so. But, the transition didn’t go all that smoothly. I get too distracted with other things, like that Internet Explorer icon. I think it’s evil, asking me to forget about the writing process and explore the online world.

I have done something to counteract that though. Music. I found out that if I play music, I can ignore everything else. So, I pop in, usually, that Alanis Morissette CD, “Jagged Little Pill,” from like the mid-90s and start writing. (If being pissed off at the world starts popping up in my writing soon, I may have to switch CDs.) But, I don’t really listen to the music. It helps me block out the world. I can’t hear the cats meowing. I can’t hear other people if they’re in the house (although I now live alone, and this isn’t as big a problem). And I don’t think about the evil Internet Explorer icon. I’m simply engaged in my story, and that’s where I want to be.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to use this technique for writing, but it seems to work when I use it.

I do often try out different techniques. I might write laying on the bed, sitting on the couch, going back to the four wall one roof technique, sprawled out across the floor. I might try writing in the afternoon, at night, or in the mornings. I have found that in the mornings is a great time for me to write. My mind is fresh from getting some sleep, and I there are less outside distractions. There’s this calmness that’s in the mornings. However, I don’t have as much time to write in the mornings, and my time blocks are shortened considerably compared to writing at night.

Any influential authors?
I read a lot of different stuff. I like to have a variety, so that I can know what kind of writing interests me more. Currently, one of my favorite authors is Joss Whedon. He’s the guy that did the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. He wrote the screenplay for Toy Story. He wrote comics in the Astonishing X-Men series. Plus, he’s got some other work under his belt.

I like that he really focuses on creating characters. Even in his unbelievable worlds, his characters are still believably human. They mess up. They laugh. They cry. And people our age can really relate to the things in these characters’ lives. Even with the world in peril constantly, they still have to go through the things that we have to go through. Like love (obviously the most important thing), growing up, the horrors of high school, the horrors of college, finding out what you really want out of life.

I always say, “If you haven’t experienced Joss, you haven’t lived.”

Tell me more Justin.
Well, I can’t think of more right now. I’m sure there are other things that I could talk about, but I’m running out of time.

I had a presentation today also. My group focused on cell phone GPS devices, and the positive and negative viewpoints of this emerging technology. We did a short comical video on each side of the argument. I’m planning on posting it on the site as soon as I can get a copy from my partner and compress it to a reasonable size.

I’ve also been reading The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis since last week. So, plan on getting a full review of the set of stories sometime in the near future. It might take me a while to finish it though. It is 700+ pages, and I’m only pushing 300 right now.

That’s a little bit of what’s been going on in my life recently. Now, all I have to do is make it through the rest of the week, and I’ll be almost free. This weekend is the Auburn/Georgia football game, and I’m having a big Halo 2 bash on Friday night. That should give me some kind of a release from the stress of this week.

Tomorrow, I have to meet with my Techonology, Literacy, & Culture group to work on our video project, read Chapter 3 of The Singularity is Near and post twice on the WebCT discussion board about it, write a rough draft of a short story for Fiction Writing I, and start on my new NaNoWriMo novel. Yes, that’s a full day’s work alone; and I can’t even start on it until after I get off work at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Now, I must get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.

He inches slyly toward me, hiding something in his hand. I am sitting on the floor of the living room, leaning against a recliner. Bending slightly at the hips and knees, he lowers himself enough to slip me a $100 bill. Then he smiles.

“We bought Kenny and Amber school clothes,” my grandfather mentions, explaining why he and my grandmother are giving me money. They always like to give their grandchildren money and other gifts to show their love.

“Papa,” as I’ve always called him, has always been around for me. Going to my school events. Cheering me on at football games. Helping with bills, now that I’m a college student and in need of constant cash flow.

Two years ago, I realized that he won’t always be around to do these things. I got a call, letting me know that he had been hospitalized with a heart attack. After losing my other grandfather a year earlier, I knew I needed to spend more time seeing him. I decided to do so even if my grandparents told me to stay at school that week because I had tests.

I have never celebrated Grandparents’ Day until this year. It is the first Sunday after Labor Day. Governor Arch Moore of West Virginia initiated the holiday in 1973. This year I called my grandparents and wished them a happy Grandparents’ Day. However, I called them on the wrong day, not realizing the actual date of the holiday. They were happy nonetheless.

Papa built most of the house he and my grandmother live in. It is on a dirt road that they have lived on for 35 years. The locals call the area Frazierville because most of the residents fall under the long line of Fraziers living on the 3-mile stretch of road. My grandfather is a Frazier.

The house, originally a four-room shack, had holes in the wall and lacked parts of its roof. My grandmother refused to live in it when Papa first bought it. He wasn’t about to let $1,000 go to waste, though. He set out to work on the house and eventually made it livable. Now, years later, he is still working on it. Together they have turned it into one of the only places that I still consider home.

Not making it past elementary school, he spent his life building projects with wood. He’s built cabinets, tables, bookshelves, doll cabinets, chest-of-drawers. Many that sit in my bedroom now, Christmas gifts that I begged him to build. Chest-of-drawers I’ve had since I was a child. A bookshelf overflowing with books.

I spend every Thanksgiving in the home that Papa built. I’ve watched countless football games with Papa, sitting next to him arguing over the Iron Bowl. He wears his Crimson Tide hat at all times. We’d argue even with the game still months away. I usually sit with something Granny has cooked, he with a coffee mug and a cigarette rolled with Prince Albert. We don’t talk much, except about football.

The first time I connected with Papa, saw that he cared deeply about me and would always take care of me, was my first year attending Auburn University. “If you need anything, just let me know,” he said. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. It was in his voice and without the urging of Granny. He knew that I was not going to be around every week to watch football and argue over the Auburn and Alabama matchup.

Three years later, I realized the same thing he did when I left for college. He wouldn’t always be around. For him, there were no more school events, no more football games. For me, there was a chance of no more Papa.

I don’t let that inevitability change our days together. Although his health seems okay now, I still see him every chance I get. I still enjoy our talks about football and the occasional game we get to see. I take pleasure in now having my own bedroom in when I visit, a recent addition to his house.

To him, I’ll always be that kid wanting to stay the night at Granny’s and Papa’s.

To me, he’ll always be that man with his coffee mug and Prince Albert. He’ll always be a diehard Alabama fan with a grandson attending Auburn. He’ll always be cheering me on at school events. He’ll always be Papa.

###

This was an article I wrote for Newswriting. We had to write it for Grandparents’ Day, and we’re supposed to give it to our grandparents. My professor wrote something about how my grandfather would feel after he read it, but I forgot to mention that my grandfather can’t read, at least not very good. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the article because I honestly didn’t have anything to blog about once again.

After this week, I won’t be quite as bogged down. I have a mid-term next Wednesday, but it shouldn’t be too tough. Plus, I have a Photojournalism project due Monday, and I will be taking the pictures for it tomorrow night at the Lee County Fair.

But, enough about school already. I get plenty of that the rest of the day. Now is a time for quiet reflection. The sad, honest truth is that my reflections tend to lean toward talk of school.

Thinking of school, I was reading over my notes for my test in Technology, Literacy, & Culture, and I remembered I wanted to look up an argument by Nick Bostrom. Nick Bostrom argues in his paper, “Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?”

…that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.

To sum it up, Bostrom argues that we either will never have the technology to simulate our environment or that we are definitely living in a simulated environment at this moment.

It’s kind of an interesting theory. I haven’t read the paper yet, but we discussed this argument in class in relation to one of Philip K. Dick’s stories, “Precious Artifact.” It’s something to really think over. Could we be living in a simulated enviroment? Think Matrix all over again.

Anyway, that’s the best I got for tonight. Maybe when I get around to reading the paper, I’ll have something worth blogging about.

I honestly think I need 30 hours in a day. That would be ideal for me. Of course, if there was 30 hours in a day then we would be expected to work an extra two, go to class another two, and somebody, somewhere would try and take the last two free hours away somehow. I’m sure of it. In my ideal world, I would have those extra six hours to do with as I please. I could watch a little TV. Browse the internet once in a while. Actually cook a good meal for supper. Relax.

But, I don’t live in my ideal world. Somebody decided it would be ideal to for class to take up a certain amount of hours a day. Work a certain amount of hours. Leaving only a miniscule amount of time to spend at home. Now, I must go to bed and squeeze in the few hours I am allotted for the night.

What surprised me the most was John Cloud’s assesment that “the essay readers reward formulaic writing over original voices.” Well, I wasn’t that surprised. Original voices are not always heard. But, the people with original voices usually stand out in the crowd when they get out of the mechanical confines of high school. I’m not too worried about them; but I hope that one day high schools and test makers will look beyond the people conforming to standards and put more focus on those “original voices.” Not to say that conforming to standards is a bad thing, it’s just not the only way. They try to get you to do the same thing in college. Only then, though, will some professors notice what has gone unnoticed for many years—originality.

Cloud argues that formulaic writing earns better test scores.

Finally, I was right about one other thing: that the graders would reward formulaic, colorless writing over sharp young voices. The average essay score for kids who wrote in the first person was 6.9, compared with 7.2 for those who didn’t. (A 1-to-12 scale is used to grade essays. That score is then combined with the score on the grammar questions and translated into the familiar 200 to 800 points.) As my editors know well, first-person writing can flop. But the College Board is now distributing a guide called “20 Outstanding SAT Essays”–all of them perfect scores–and many are unbearably mechanical and clichéd (“smooth sailing always comes after the storm”; “they say that history repeats itself”).

“20 Outstanding SAT Essays.” How bout’ that? Anyone who actually wrote “smooth sailing always comes after the storm” or “they say that history repeats itself” in an essay I graded better have something a lot better to back that up. Those are two of the most unoriginal ideas I’ve seen in an essay since, well, high school. And I like the idea of first-person writing from high school students. I like to read it on any education level. It gives essays a more personal feel (this largely depends on the type of essay also).

I know what these essay-graders are looking for. They’re looking for the standard five-paragraph essay. You know, the one where the thesis statement must be the last line of the first paragraph, which is called the introduction; three body paragraphs supporting the thesis; and a closing paragraph, basically restating what you wrote in the introduction. Boring, “colorless,” writing.

I’m honestly just mad that young original voices are being graded poorer than the standard. This is because I am an English major, and I’ve read all types of writing. At least in my world, part of it anyway, colorful writing is appreciated. Forget some of those literature classes. The professors in those have a mechanical system too. I say keep writing from your heart with your voice to those kids whose voices are being smothered now. Someone will value it later.