2012 in Review

Who's up for a recap of the past 12 months?

January

- Tony, Erik and Spencer visited us in Northfield. My calves hurt like a mofo for a week after they left, so there was probably a double-dutch tournament or a lot of jumpy dancing. 

- Ernesto and I flew to Miami for Debby and Yuziel's wedding, where Luis managed to set something on fire during the reception.
- Also in Miami, I learned that car eyelashes are a thing

fake eyelashes aren't just for guidettes

- The Current played "We Are Young" and I texted my brother that fun. is getting famous (there were several exclamation points). we r hipzturds. 

February

- Ernesto and I ate at a Chinese buffet and I opened a fortune cookie that had TWO FORTUNES.
- I took the GRE in Edina/Eden Prarie. After walking out of the Prometric center in tears, Ernesto bought me a sandwich at Subway and I ate my feelings.
- The amazing Hannah Jensen directed her cinema comps film, Last, where twentyish dancers performed her choreography in the Weitz Center. It was beautifuuuuul, watch it.

March

- I finished studio art comps and dayum it felt great. This was my studio by the end of the term:

je t'aime toujours, boliou

- I finished my Insomnia audiobook and was pretty disappointed that the Stephen King novel had nothing to do with the movie with Robin Williams.

- We spent spring break in El Paso.

- I joined Pinterest and have been wasting approx half of my life on it.

- March to the Reub happened, where I ate more than the appropriate amount of buffalo wings.

April

- Quality Bakery put up the freaking creepiest Easter bunny in their window shop on Division Street. I practically peed my pants every morning on the way to class. Bunnicula is real and it lives in Northfield.

Enjoy your upcoming nightmares. 

- Ernesto gave his comps talk, "DNA, I Hear You're Single.. Molecule Replication"
- We went to our first baseball game in Target Field with Natalia and Francisco, and watched the Red Sox demolish the Twins 11 to 2. Happy birthday to me!
- Ernesto and I tore the apartment apart looking for his Spanish passport.
- We celebrated his birthday in Chicago with Jenny and Tony (who somehow didn't know about the metal bean that everyone visits). We stayed at the (HAUNTED) Congress hotel and it was a good time.We went to a bunch of museums and whatnot, but my favorite part was seeing Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, this pretty cool experimental theatre place where the price of admission is whatever you get when you roll a die.

May
- We went to Madison and woke up to this beauty the morning after Mifflin:

Nothing like the smell of burnt couch in the morning

:(  

- The senior studio art majors had our final show, for which nobody could agree on a title, so it was called Untitled: For Reasons. It was dumb and I hated it UNTIL one of the juniors brought the following snack to the show opening:

Untitled (Four Raisins)

So good. Art in its truest form. 

- I had my final show with Whoa! Hip Hop Dance Co, which was emotional for obvious reasons. It was by far the best show we'd put on since I'd been at Carleton DESPITE being zombie themed, which is saying a lot. There were technical difficulties at the beginning of the show which delayed it about 20 minutes, which was great because my family was running 20 minutes late (shocker). 

I choreographed two dances for the show, but this one was by far my favorite. And it's not even a Justin Timberlake song!

June

- Ernesto and I graduated from Carleton College WOOOOOOOO it was great. 

- The day after graduation, we went to Mexico with my family and spent a week in Cabo with Tia Laura. Ernesto got a minor injury while diving after his sandals on the beach.

- Haley Johnson had her Rochester baby shower and I not-so-discreetly ate half a dozen cupcakes. 

July 

- I cried a lot on the road trip from Rochester to Dallas (where I saw a double rainbow for the first time!)

- Ernesto and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary with his parents and with Gustavito's family in Atlanta, where we ate Spanish food and danced a ton.

- We went to the Dali museum, which was crazy.

- I took his family to the art galleries on Lincoln Road that my family used to visit when we lived in Miami. 

- Luis changed our lives by introducing us to Breaking Bad on Netflix. 

August

- I kept finding different aspects of our Ikea furniture hilarious. Like.. look at these Poker Face Planks. They're adorable. Obviously I was a less-than- efficient furniture assembler. 

Poker Face Paulina hanging out with Poker Face Planks

- Ernesto and I lived the all-american summer camp experience that we'd never had during childhood at his med school retreat. 

- I taught a bunch of M1s the soulja boy dance and the lyrics to 'Call Me Maybe' for a contest that we later WON. You're welcome, future doctors.

- Ernesto officially started medical school.

- We caught up with Breaking Bad and started watching the latest episodes at Angelika Theatre.

September

- I officially started working at Onesimo Hernandez Elementary, and instantly fell in love with all 22 of the kids in my classroom. 

- Ernesto got an iPhone and WE DISCOVERED SONGPOP. 

- I heard this song for the first time and have had it stuck in my head ever since. 

- We went to a waterpark with Ernesto's family, and he lost his sandals. 

- It took me like 5 minutes to realize that the ticket booth guy at Angelika Theatres wasn't kidding when he said that Breaking Bad was over until July. 

- Dr. Mark Sloane died in the Season 9 premiere of Grey's Anatomy, and I had a minor meltdown.

October

- We went to the Texas State Fair and stumbled upon this..

Nicholas Cage: Rock Star Demigod

This alone would have been worth the trip. We also ate 4 different kinds of fried food.. it was a great night overall.

- I sent in a MN absentee ballot so that my vote would count for the prez election.

- We got to Ernesto's white coat ceremony 15 minutes late.

- On Halloween, Ernesto dressed up as Mona Lisa and I dressed up as zombie Dr. Sloane to get $2 burritos at Chipotle. 

November

- My classroom went on our first ever field trip, and I learned that a bus filled with 5-year-olds is the best kind of bus.

- Obama FTW! We celebrated. 

- The beautiful Kristen Vellinger came to Dallas for a conference, and we had her all to ourselves for a Thursday night! She introduced us to a place that has like 5 different kinds of pazookie. Friends let friends eat way too much dessert. 

Just like old times! Minus Jon and pajamas and overall Carleton-related misery.

- We spent Thanksgiving in Rochester, where we sang tons of karaoke and ate tons of food with my family and spent time with some of our dearest friends (e.g. Perkins ). 

December

- Ernesto took his last anatomy exam which is GREAT because now he won't spend as much time showing me gory pictures of people's faces that are 50 shades of terrifying.

- Jon Sands talked to me at a Google hangout and I about died. 

- Todd Anderson said he liked a poem I wrote and I about died a second time. 

- We spent the holidays in Ft. Myers and Luis showed me Grand Theft Auto for the first time.

2012, folks! 

It was a good show. 

2013 has gotten off to a pretty good start ever since I was introduced to Killer Karaoke. 

November happened, and some other stuff

- I originally started writing this post like two weeks ago. It was a Friday night, mere seconds after I'd finished NaNoWriMo, which was supposed to be this really great moment and I had all these plans as to how I was going to celebrate (i.e. I bought a box of brownie mix) (like, quality brownie mix. Ghiradelli double chocolate brownie mix)..  aaaaand I got about 15 words with my Caps Lock on into this blog post before falling asleep on my sofa at 8 pm. #woooo #lastfridaynight

SO, I slept a solid 13 hours and woke up on Saturday not feeling lame at all. Maybe I felt a little bit lame, but to be honest witchu, a good night's sleep is what I've spent the last 4 years fantasizing about throughout college.

I'd wanted to write about Nanowrimo, but that train lost steam a loooong time ago. Suffice it to say, Nano'12 was a trillion times better than Nano'11, probably because I went into it this year with something vaguely sort of similar to a plot. Having something like a plot made this year's writing a lot more fun and significantly less terrible, but the terrible started to show towards the end of the month. That much is evident in this screenshot:

the not-so-glamorous writing process

Needless to say, I took a much-needed break after this really painful paragraph. It feels pretty to good to be done with the whole thing, mainly so I can spend all of my free time playing Song Pop again.

- Speaking of "literally".. I recently saw this tragic/hilarious Presidential Barbie at Toys R Us.

Barbie 2012 stands on her own. (literally)

I saw this and wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Just kidding, the only thing I could possibly do was laugh. A lot.

- Another hilarious thing I saw:

Annakeira Knightlenina.. how Uptown Theatre says "'Anna Karenina', starring Keira Knightley."

- I took this picture during my first night back in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, it was like a sign from the gods of the Midwest. "Welcome home Paulina. Have some awkward wordplay." 

Anna Karenina was a book that I really, really wanted to like. And I did like it, but it was sort of like reading The Jungle in American Studies (the real ending happens about a hundred pages before the author keeps going on about idealistic social theories). It took me like four years to actually finish it because I kept starting and stopping, but once I got to the end (IN NOVEMBER! This month was full of defining moments for me), I could safely say that I like it enough to endure 2 hours of Keira Knightley. Side note: Jude Law plays Karenin in the movie, soooo maybe he's the real reason I want to watch it on the big screen. All I want for Christmas is to live-tweet this movie, and for Jude Law to retweet everything I write. 

- I am physically incapable of talking about Keira Knightley without mentioning "Love Actually," the movie that I watch by myself every December in a locked room so that no one can hear me crying the entire time. Is this movie the worst kind of emotional pornography known to mankind? Yes. Is that going to stop me from continuing the tradition this weekend? No.

- MY BROOKHAVEN MATH FINAL WAS CANCELLED! BOOYAH! ChRiStMaS mIrAcLe! I didn't even know something like that could happen. Take note, Carleton College. 

After celebrating the fact that I never have to divide anything in different bases again, I started thinking about what finals time was like in Carleton, and most of what I could remember was:

1. not sleeping

2. not showering

3. eating Basil's pizza for a week

4. hating everyone in the library for getting up earlier than I had to find a decent desk

In conclusion..  Oppa Brookhaven Style!

- I recently found out that my phone hasn't been sending all of the texts I write, so that's inconvenient. 

- Daniel freaking Handler was on NPR the other day while Ernesto was in the car and I wasn't even there to geek out about it auuuuuuugh. Talk about pearls before swine.. he didn't even read TSOUE. Fun fact: Jude Law plays Lemony Snicket in the weird movie version of TSOUE. That and GATTACA should be enough to justify how much I like this guy.

- I really don't have that much more to say on here. I just spent an hour in the kitchen deciding whether or not I wanted to bake cookies for some staff dessert potluck tomorrow. I looked up how to tell whether baking soda is still good or not and I tested mine (no worries, our baking soda is working fine).. so yeah. That's how much I value my time. Obviously, it was all for naught because I'm sitting on my bed writing on here instead of licking cookie dough off my spoon. One day, I'll learn to make good choices. 

Hurray! and so forth

WELL 36 sleepless hours, 1852 words and one visual aid later, I'm done with finals. AND WITH CARLETON COLLEGE? Apparently? It's 10:26 p.m. on June 3rd and I've been up since 10:30 a.m. June 2nd, so everything's looking p r e t t y hazy, but I can say with like ninety percent confidence that this is real life and I actually turned in my last assignment and actually went to my last final and am about to actually close the last chapter of what has been a remarkable story in a remarkable place. It's getting reaaaal sentimental up in hurr, and it doesn't help that Prof. Appleman gave the entire EDUC344 class ACTUAL CDs with "Fast Car" on them.

Obviously, I'm listening to it on repeat and trying not to drown in my own sea of tears*. (not joking) (seriously though, this song should come with a warning from the Surgeon General)

* <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 

'       '     '     '      '

'   '   '       '    '   ' 

  '   '    ' '    ' '     '

'     ' '     '     '    ' 

I made this Love Storm emoticon the other day, it just seems so relevant for this moment. The heart clouds are raining a storm of tears over everything, and well you know. Feeling a lot of feels right now. 

gunna go 2 sl33p now,

sorry for this post.

Who Wants to Write My Essay for Me?

Fact: The last day of classes was on Wednesday.
Fact: I still have finals until Sunday.
Fact: It is gorgeous out. The kind of gorgeous that makes Carleton's board of admissions say, "Quick, get a camera and take some pictures of townies on the Bald Spot so that unsuspecting prospective students will get tricked into thinking that going to school here involves enjoying the cool breeze and the green grass and soaking up the sun!"

As a spring term senior, I've managed to have my share of rest and relaxation for the past 10 weeks. I took sixteen credits instead of the usual eighteen, and only six of these were graded on something other than a S/Cr/NC basis. Should I be complaining? Probably not.

BUT here I am, and I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime! (!!!) While I go eat freezie pops and watch ARTech students breakdance on Division Street, I'm giving you the chance to help me graduate and perfect your writing skills and reinvent high school at the same time.

The golden ticket to your exciting adventure is just a click away. Just click here and type to your heart's content.

I know what you're thinking. Does Paulina really expect me to spend my weekend writing her essay instead of enjoying the perfect summer weather that surrounds me? Pff. I expect no such thing, which is why I've provided the following picture for you to print in 36x48in. Just hang it up in your workspace, and you'll forget all about the beauty that surrounds you on this lovely first of June.

So, just write a little ditty about a high school that is a positive site for adolescence, facilitates the successful construction of identity, makes learning relevant, does not ignore the important influences of popular culture and provides a just and equitable site of learning for all students regardless of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, native language and country of origin. GO!

State of the Paulina, Pt. 1

Paulina spots a look-alike:

1D logic: Zayn, you don't know you're Uncle Jesse! That's what makes you Uncle Jesse!  

OneDirection/FullHouse are straight-laced, wholesome boy bands/families that have ONE black sheep. As you can tell from this GIF I found on a 1D tumblr, the interchangeable black sheep is Zayn Malik/Uncle Jesse. THEY ARE IDENTICAL. I keep waiting for Mary-Kate or Ashley to come out from the water on this beach scene. 

Paulina is disappointed: Following the extraordinarily sexy 30-second "preview" (<- notice the quotation marks dipped in sarcasm, they're important) of JustinBieber's Boyfriend video, I spent over a week in eager, eager anticipation for Youtube to release the complete version of JB music video gold. After all, if the remaining 2 minutes and 23 seconds of the video were remotely related to the first 30 seconds of blue-filtered, icy-hot tantalizing scenery, Boyfriend was shaping up to be the most seductive coming-of-age video since Jesse McCartney came out with Leavin'. When fifty gazillion JB followers started announcing that the video was finally up, I jumped around, politely asked/ordered Ernesto to turn off whatever he was watching, clicked on the link on Twitter and took a deep breath before pressing play.  Things seemed like they were off to a good start when the video started with the scenes from the preview; the slightly frozen gears were turning (I can only assume they're a metaphor for the love machine within JB starting to awake), the two dozen hands were reaching from nowhere to grab JB's chest, the MJ silhouette was looking fine as ever, and THEN THE VIDEO STARTED OVER. It didn't smoothly merge with the next part, it just started over from the Orca mating calls. And a 2:53 minute long, warm-filtered, rooftop summer days story that has NOTHING TO DO with the so-called SNEAK PEAK took over. What?!! Do you know what "sneak-peak" means?!! You don't promise someone an ice cream cone and then give them a chili dog.


Paulina travels time: Apparently my house has Boomerang now? (It's not a question, but I'm just so stunned that I'm questioning everything now.) Natalia and I watched a solid hour of Cartoon Network shows from way-back-when, like Dexter's LaBOREatory and Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel. Oh man. Do you guys remember how NOTHING LOOKED GOOD IN THE 90s? I thought I had fond, fond memories of Cartoon Network, but it turns out there were just a bunch of shiny butts and gross-looking noses all over the place. 

Paulina is proud to be an American: Last Wednesday, President Obama became the first standing U.S. president to announce his support for same-sex marriage. AND I GLADLY STAND UP! NEXT TO YOU!  #lezbehonest #thatsprettyneat (p.s. did you know there's a groovy Beyonce version of Proud to be an American?! There ain't no doubt, I love that woman. )

Paulina is not trendy: What the heck does 'yolo' mean??

Paulina hasn't graduated yet: I'm going to just stop going on Facebook until June 9th because all I ever see are statuses and pictures of CONGRATS Class of 2012 at Anywhere But Carleton College and it's the most depressing thing. akfjlsjdlkfjdlsdkj whyyyyyy are there still 3 weeks left of school?! why why why why why? But the bigger question is how are 400+ students and their families going to fit in the grassy spot behind Olin?! I expect a miracle, Carleton.

Overall state: B/B+

22B422 Pt. 20: Notebook Excerpts

LIFE WRITING AT ITS BEST! Beat this, Anne Frank.
The first lines of each page in my school notebook:

- a model
- Do I know George well enough to write about this?
- turned into a commentary on effects of
- 4/10 is timeline invasion day on Facebook
- leaves with new understanding of people, generally normalizes them
- INVESTIGATIVE
- Autobiography/Personal/Psychology
- general journalism lecture: solve problem of SCENE first
- farm stand in high school (high school or old woman?)
- he wants to win the lottery/rob a bank/ change his name/ donate to charity
- ... therefore becomes a hero to win BUT
- ... therefore he successfully frames liked hero to take his spot, BUT
- Sotheby's, appraisal orgs
- antiques capital of Connecticut?
- rituals and benchmarks
- structure of schooling and the boundaries of adolescence
- (Rousseau) assumes people are innately good
- make every working man a scholar and every scholar a working man
- Milner: status determined by beauty/physique
- Erikson/Marcia's so-called universal theories don't consider the implications of race
- Louder Than A Bomb questions : poetry in curriculum?
- 2000 writers' collaborative
- Personal Narrative: what's the purpose of telling a story?
- Doug Foxgrover and posters
-The role of social networks on adolescent identity development
- retain the inalienability of status because status is located in other people's minds
- in high school could explore the two identities by creating
- Last weekend, Ernesto and I visited Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Oliver Sachs and how to approach life writing
- Salem's Lot 4:23:21 at 59:45
- scholars and leaders in professionalism
- low scoop/arms side/ knees low/ cries low
- legs take it out in stride

22B422 Pt. 18: Teen Anthems

Have you ever been in high school? Do you go to Carleton College? You should probably take EDUC 344 with Deborah Appleman, where you get to study high school and teen angst and all the other things that make life worth living. There's a slightly insane number of books that we read per week, but the class makes up for it by starting every day with a teen anthem. Our list so far has included:

- "Baba O'Riley", by The Who

- "No Such Thing," by John Mayer (not his best, but I freaked out enthusiastically regardless)

- "Jack and Diane," by John Mellencamp

- "Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman (I think I've described previously how hard it was not to cry)

- "At Seventeen," by Janis Ian

- "Maria, Maria," by Santana w/ Wyclef and a bunch of other people

- "Waterfalls," by TLC

- "Born This Way," by Lady Gaga

22B422 Pt. 15: Division Street Curse

I used to think Rochester was a teeny little midwestern town.. and then I moved to Northfield. Our downtown area is Division Street, our own little Champs Elysees sitting pretty between Carleton and St. Olaf. The cute, hustlin' bustlin' part of Division Street goes on for about 4 blocks of renovated hundred-year-old buildings that house yarn stores, used bookstores, LOVELY ANTIQUE SHOPS, and like five different ice cream places. The well-trimmed trees and baroque-looking street benches give Division Street a deceptive air of perpetual happiness, but those of us who've been here for over a year know that all the decorative street lamps in the world can't mask the Ghosts of Businesses Past who still haunt the street.


Division Street Businesses That Have Closed Since I Started College


1. Sweet Lou's Waffle Bar, in business from 2008-2009. This was a fun place to visit now and then, and the business was owned by (and named after) one of Carleton's own Religion professors. People could order sweet or savory toppings to go on their waffles, but at 7$ per waffle, the closing really came as a surprise to no one.

2. River City Books, in business from 2002-2009. The store had been a branch of the Carleton Bookstore, but specialized in books that people actually read rather than Organic Chem textbooks that end up serving as doorstops.

3. Tea Creations, in business from 2011-2012. This place had bubble tea and regular tea and mango smoothies an egg rolls and I ONLY CAME HERE ONCE because I didn't realize how yummy bubble tea was until the year was basically over and I went back to Rochester. I think I had a bubble smoothie, which is basically a smoothie that has gummies at the bottom. The best part of bubble drinks is that they come with the fattest straws in the world. :(


4. Pan-Pan International Cafe, in business from 2010-2011. Ernesto and I ate here pretty often because they had an enormous peanut stir fry that always comes with tons of cilantro and because they sold Jarritos. This place sold Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Mexican food (weird combo? yes. delicious? yes.) and had sort of awkward waiters. It also had Saturday breakfasts that I never tried. 5 dollar huevos rancheros, you're the one that got away..


5. Digs, in business from 2001-2011. Digs was a yarn and fabric store that left Northfield right when I started doing soft sculpture for my senior year art classes. I ended up driving to JoAnn's in Rochester like every other week to get satin or zippers or polyester fluff or blue thread and whatever else I needed for mah artz. Speaking of which.. does anyone need fabric hamburgers? Fabric shotguns? Fabric pretzels? Fabric syringes? Fabric rifles? Fabric cigarettes? Anyone? Anyone?

6. Tiny's, in business from THE BEGINNING OF TIME - 2011. Tiny's sold hot dogs and indie soda BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY its ads were literally the best part of The CLAP (the edz got free hotdogs every Friday for making them). So now that Tiny's is out (and Andreas Stoehr graduated), 1. There is no way to save America and 2. The CLAP just has a bunch of rehashed look-a-likes and Asian mom emails. And soft porn.

Someone else's photo of the Tiny's bumper sticker.

22B422 Pt. 12: Why Can't I Write This Stupid Essay?

Why Can't I Write This Stupid Essay?


- I'm too busy yelling at Ernesto for trying to throw away all my precious memories that are stacked on the coffee table

- IT IS SO HOT EVERYWHERE AAAAAHHH

- Daydreams about eating Krispy Kremes keep coming into my brain unannounced

- Everytime I start to type "Furthermore," I automatically start saying "And furthermore Susan..." in a really indignant voice

- Anne Marker (whoever that is) keeps putting beautiful things on Pinterest that make me swoon.

- Each time I catch a glimpse of myself typing, I get distracted at how cool my nails look now that Ernesto painted them. YOU DA BEST, ERNEST.

- I'm negotiating this inner battle over whether or not it's okay to eat yet another box of Peep bunnies. My body's saying "Let's go," but my heart is saying "No."

- ^ what the heck ITUNES, I've definitely had "Genie in a Bottle" in my music library since 2004. Where did you put my song?? Even my things lose my things.

- It's senior spring term and literally all I care about is using my birthday coupon for Supercuts. After that's over with, I'll probably sit on the grass drinking Coke Zero until graduation.

- Speaking of sitting on the grass, who's playing at Spring Concert this year? Obviously I can't write this paper until I know all of the obscure bands that I'm not acquainted with enough to be able to sing along to (last year RJD2 came but well how do you sing along to "Ghostwriter"? You can't.) (still though.. RJD2!)

22B422 Pt. 7: Ernesto's Comps

Today, at approximately 8:00 p.m. in the Weitz Cinema, Ernesto Llano gave his comps talk with 6 other chemistry majors.

Ernesto giving his DNA replication explanation across the nation (but actually just to the Weitz Cinema)

And an hour later.. da whole famdamily! 

Here's the list of Chemistry-related sleazy pick-up lines that I thought of during the presentation:

- "Are you coming to my comps talk? It'll be a chemisTREAT."

- "Girl look at that prime ase" (?)

- "I'll let you trigger my loop release."

- "Did someone break your heart? I can tape together your okizaki fragments."

None of these are funny. Well, I think the first one is okay, but you know. I'm sorry this is such a lame list I'M SORRY OKAY. To my credit, I was prompted by the comps title, which was something like "DNA, I hear you're single.. molecule replication" (more or less).

I've spent most of today stopping myself from logging on Facebook because I didn't want to see my newly enforced TIMELINE and it's just been a downer overall. You're a jerk, Facebook.

In other distressing news, today we listened to "Fast Car" during my Ed Studies class and I had to grip my seat with both hands to stop myself from bawling up a storm. Maybe it's the song's deceptive grooviness, or maybe it's the fact that I can't understand half of what Tracy Chapman is saying until the lyrics are handed to me in a powerpoint, but I'd never realized what a depressing song this was.

seeyuh comps

I should start out by preemptively apologizing for what I am confident will be a ranty, lame fluff post that mostly consists of stolen APPROPRIATED images, non-sequiturs and enough caps lock to feed a third world country (see what I mean? You should probably close this tab now). BUT I am running on very little sleep AND just finished all my work for the term AND just opened the following letter in the mail:

Hogwarts, you can keep your owls at home because this piece of paper has made me happier than any wax-sealed acceptance letters you could send me. In case you can't read the line inside of the appropriately placed color wheel of arrows (yeah SMart major yeah), this letter confirms that I, Paulina Lopez, AM DONE WITH MY COMPS and can now proceed to enjoy the rest of my senior year at Kawlton. COMPS refers to Carleton students' undergrad thesis, which is supposed to represent the culmination of their education blah blah blah. At some point, I thought it was an acronym for something, but maybe I made that up.. Carleton's Ominous Misery Project for Seniors. Chronic Overt Miserable Person Syndrome. Can Only Make People Sob. Chill Out Man Please Son. Don't worry, I'll submit these to the dean. 

The responsible, authorly thing to do at this point would be to show you the professional-quality pictures of my body of work and its accompanying artist statement. For now, suffice it to say that I made and wrote a bunch of things that speak to the processes of my memory. Also, I vaguely remember promising Ernesto that any artwork in my comps would be titled after Nickelback lyrics, so there's that. 

At Carleton, it's really cool for people to martyrize themselves over their comps, which (depending on the major) can consist of super long exams, group research projects, 60 page papers, so on and so forth. There's a widely accepted 'It's not comps if you're not bleeding from every pore' mentality, which gets old pretty quickly for people who aren't compsing. I definitely complained too much about comps, but I felt justified because the entire process basically dunked me face-first in alternate buckets of ice and boiling water while pumping my blood with self-doubt and squeezing out any remaining drops of optimism. I don't even know. There were a lot of moments during this term when I felt like throwing all of my comps work into the Cannon River and Cannonballing (GEDDIT) in right after it. But I should be mature and recognize that comps pushed me to develop personally meaningful work of which I am moderately proud, etc. So.. come see my exhibit in May! Or maybe don't. All I actually want you to see are the following images, which portray what it feels like to have just passed comps and be done with this entire term:

Adventures in Interviewing Myself

It is a typical February afternoon here in Northfield, MN. The floor of Paulina Lopez's studio in Boliou ( the neglected warehouse that functions as Carleton College's art building) is covered in newsprint, chalk dust, plastic curlies from her relief blocks and the Death Blanket that she made last week for Advanced Sculpture. Much like Bill Watterson's Calvin might spread his peas around his dinner plate to make it seem like he has been eating, Paulina has spent the last 8 weeks of Winter Term spreading her crap around her studio space to give the appearance of passionate art-making. Is it working? Why doesn't she just work on comps instead of writing about comps? Will she ever finish the "It" audiobook she's been listening to since last year? The answers to these questions and more are revealed in this exclusive interview.

Paulina 1: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm running out of ways to put off my ever-increasing mountain of homework, and this interview has just made that so much easier. 


Paulina 2: I'm happy to oblige.

P1: Let's get down to business, shall we? Tell me, how exactly does it feel to be done with the GRE?

P2: I'm so glad you asked. It feels GREat. .. I've been sitting on that one ever since I walked out of the Prometric place at Edina/Eden Prarie (what's the difference, right?) but I didn't want to say it until I got my scores back and could say with a fair level of surety that I wouldn't be retaking it soon. WHICH I WILL NOT BE DOING. BECAUSE I GOT MY SCORES TODAY AND BOY DOES PASSING BY WITH BARELY ABOVE GROUND COLORS FEEL GOOD.    ..Wouldn't you aGREe?

P1: How many more terrible GRE puns do you have?

P2: I could only think of those two. Forgive me, I was too busy recovering from all the PEMDAS review to go crazy with the wordplay this time. Sooo anyway, I'm done with the GRE. Booyah. .. I bet you're GREen with envy. (Sorry, I just thought of that one now.)

P1: Are there any other recent accomplishments you want to share?


P2: Oh man, YES. I recently found out that Carrie Underwood and Colbie Caillat are two different people. Who'da thought? (not sure whether I spelled that right) But seriously, consider my paradigm shifted. All this time, I'd been skipping over Carrie's tracks in Pandora because I thought she'd be singing about cute bubbly gingerbread dreams or whatever the actual Colbie Caillat sings about. Two weeks ago I was off my game (thank the lord) and "Before He Cheats" started playing before I saw Carrie's name on the computer screen. Have you heard that song?!

P1: Well, it came out in 2007, so.. 

P2: I know, I'm still recovering from the fact that I've gone 5ish years (yeah GRE math!) without knowing this song. It could've come in handy for all those times I wanted to ruin someone's pretty little souped up 4-wheel drive! Which add up to about zero, because Mark Irish's twenty year old Explorer wasn't pretty or souped up, and besides, the only car I've ever envisioned beating to death belonged to the Northgate Driving School during my second (and last) practice driving hour in eleventh grade and wasn't pretty, souped up, or a 4 wheel drive. It was one of those cars built with an extra set of brakes in the shotgun seat, which I'd always assumed were fake and just there to give the student driver a reassuring sense of security. Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you that the extra brakes are actually very, very functional.

 No, but I was actually really impressed with myself for knowing what a Louisville Slugger is when Carrie mentioned it in the chorus. I've gone to the Louisville Slugger museum/factory, so I think I'd know exactly how to use it on a couple of headlights. And I still owe Northgate four practice driving hours, soooooo you know.

P1: I still don't get how you could think Colbie Caillat and Carrie Underwood were the same person.. 


P2: Don't get judgy, anyone could've made the same mistake. They're both blonde. They both play guitar.. I think. Anyway, the good news isn't over yet! Because apart from discovering "Before He Cheats," I also learned that Carrie Underwood is the voice behind "Jesus Take The Wheel," which I have loved half-sarcastically, half-sincerely ever since Karen K. showed it to our seminary class in 9th grade.


P1: Any other music-related accomplishments? 


P2: Duh. Well, no. This next one isn't an accomplishment as much as it is an opinion.. but here goes. The Spanish version of Shakira's "Rabiosa" is way better than the English version with Pitbull. I KNOW, WHAT?


P1: But it has Pitbull!

P2: I knoooow but trust me, the non-Pitbull one is better. It may have something to do with the music video, which is the same for both versions and doesn't show Pitbull at all, so you're just watching Shakira flirt with this guy who is obviously not Pitbull while Pitbull is singing seductively.. it's weird. Like, bad weird, not freakyhawt weird.

P1: Tell a little bit about your position on the Carleton College Memes FB page.

P2: I was totally for this page before it existed, because I was tired of hearing crickets whenever I browsed month-old post after month-old post on r/carletoncollege. I thought, "Oh, a Facebook memes page will be so much more dynamic and colorful and fun." I had envisioned people investing as much energy into the page as they do writing incoherent, unfunny CLAP articles every Friday, only it would be even better because Facebook wouldn't have an 11 pm submission deadline OR pile up on my coffee table each week. I hadn't, however, envisioned 75% of the memes being THE SAME CONDESCENDING WONKA STOLAF JOKE. So.. back to r/carletoncollege it is. Which isn't so bad, really, because that's where this nugget of truth resides.

P1: What has been your most empowering experience in the past few weeks?

P2: You mean other than memorizing the "Before He Cheats" lyrics and singing it for two hours straight while I hammered away at advanced sculpture stuff? It's hard to get more empowering than that. Buuuuut there was that moment last Sunday afternoon during a church potluck when this 6 year-old kid named Connor maniacally piled my fruit salad onto his plate while yelling "This is my favorite thing EVERRR!" Talk about a self-confidence booster. Never mind the fact that 10 minutes later, I saw him telling a cherry pie, "Ooooh, Connor likes what he sees. Connor's gonna eat you all up." First of all, talking to food in third person shouldn't be so stigmatized. Secondly, Connor didn't say Cherry Pie was his favorite thing ever, so I'd like to think I still have that special place in his heart.


P1: This has certainly been enlightening. Any last words before checking out?

P2: You mean something that will bring inspiration, personal growth, love and/or happiness to people's everyday lives? Well, I'd like to second searchquotes.com in saying that you can't go wrong with any Young Money quotes. 16 out of the 29 inspirational Young Money quotes are all from Bed Rock, so you know that's promising. BUT if you're still skeptical, feel free to peruse this other source of inspiration/personal growth/etc. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Before I melt down and cry from the stress of finals/life..

haha oh wait, I already did that TODAY. On the way back from Econo Food carrying a ton of groceries. And then again in my apartment.The day I get to spend my life sitting at home eating blueberries and reading blogs and watching Justin Bieber's "Somebody to Love" music video will be the happiest day of my life.

Seriously, have you seen that video? I am currently watching it in the library and this kid just walked past my computer screen and gave me a LOOK. This next part is directed at you. All I want to do in life (this is not a joke. NOT a joke.) is spend every breath trying to recreate this video. There are approximately eleven dance sequences that give me major butterflies inside, including but limited to: 1) backpack dance sequence  2) impossible footwork by Usher 3) Beat Freaks dance sequence 4) the HSM-style All In This Together sequence at the end. And (approx) seven other sequences that make SYTYCD look like a hot mess. This video is the bomb.

Thoughts
1. Do you know how I'm officially a boring senior? Because I spent last Friday printing a 500 (500!!!!) page reading. On Head Start. It's actually sort of fascinating (I'm a nerd) but.. I mean it's 500 pages. It's a good thing Carleton's insane tuition covers all printing on campus. I had to tell this hurried-looking freshman she should probably use another printer because I was gonna be there a while. I was that person. Since this monster was too big for the butch heavy duty stapler (which maxes out at 60 pages), the librarian had to find me a binder clip. Call this mundane but I feel pretty freaking accomplished right about now. 500 pages! Also, there is no way I am doing grad school after this experience. You can only brag about this sort of thing once, not once a week for 5 years so...

2. More complaining about school: Is it just me, or is the author of the article on the left trying to kill all of its readers? It's 80 pages long and ALL OF IT is in yellow text with black background. It felt like one of those weird exercises where you stare at a thing and then stare at a blank wall and see Jesus or a happy face, only I kept seeing a purple wall of text about the environmental effects on IQ.

wth

3. Pros and Cons of my African-American lit class. Cons: Waste of approx ten hours per week. Pros: Get to watch the film adaptation of "Waiting to Exhale" starring Whitney Houston ("and IIIIIII"), the guy who plays Turk in Scrubs, and Adele from Grey's Anatomy. It's like the Ghosts of TV Shows Past are reminding me that I still haven't finished seasons 5- whatever.

S/Cr/Nc

On Carleton Moving its S/Cr/Nc Deadline to Seventh Week
Sooooo for those of you who have anything to do with Carleton College, you are probably aware by now that faculty voted with a 67-21 majority to make several nightmarish unpleasant changes to the beloved S/Cr/Nc policy that has saved us in our darkest hours. Previously, the S/Cr/Nc (pronounced 'scrunch'.. gettit?!) policy allowed students up until the last day of classes to designate a maximum of 6 credits (= one normal class) reviewed on a Pass/Fail basis. Students who anticipated getting a low grade in a class (or students like me who are anal about their GPA and cry every time they get anything other than an A-) could designate one class per term, six classes over all four years at Carleton, as S/Cr/Nc and receive either a Satisfactory (i.e. "Pass") , Credit Received (i.e. "Barely Passed"), or No Credit (i.e. "Faiiiiil!").

The new policy doesn't completely eliminate the S/Cr/Nc option, but is pretty radical nonetheless. For starters, it changes the S/Cr/Nc designation deadline from the last day of classes (end of 10th week) to the Friday of 7th week. It also requires the course professor to sign off whenever a student wants to Scrunch the class, whereas before the professor wasn't contacted about the student's decision until after all grades were submitted, and some higher power (the registrar's office?) changed Scrunched classes' A-F grades to S-NC grades.

I have beef with these changes. (Did I say that right, Jersey Shore Cast? Probably not. )

I think these changes suck. The new policy changes the Scrunch deadline to 7th week regardless of whether you've gotten enough graded work or feedback from a professor in a class to make an informed decision of how you're doing. Two of my classes (English and Political Science) this term didn't give me graded work back until 6th week, in part because they didn't assign anything until 5th week (wtf..). Ernesto's Biochemistry class schedules all of its TWO exams 6th week or later, and hasn't yet heard how he did on the first one. The 7th week Scrunch deadline would be a terrible indicator of whether it would be a good idea to Scrunch a class when we've only gotten one or two assignments graded by then.

I have scrunched one class* during my time at Carleton (science, physics-related, required a graphing calculator and a comfortable knowledge of high school-level math that I have tried very hard to forget.. you understand this). It wasn't an easy decision either time, mainly because whether to Scrunch or not depended on how I did on the second exam before the final, which typically got graded after 7th week. While I know that some students might be 100% sure that they'll Scrunch a class from Day One, most people wait until 8th, 9th, and even 10th week to make a decision based on graded assignments and returned exams.

Assuming that I pass all my classes and don't fail comps and eventually graduate in June, I'll be far, far away from this campus by the time these policy changes get implemented in Fall '12. So what do I care.  But it irks** me to think that what used to be a useful policy that gave students the flexibility to choose how a course was to affect their GPA, transcript, etc, is now essentially being rendered moot by an earlier deadline.
* Edit: I thought I'd scrunched two classes, I've actually only scrunched one
** I believe this is the first time I've ever said "irk"

This post was originally going to be about a bunch of other thoughts, but my stomach is pretty much yodeling right now, so I'm gonna go tend to more important needs.

Take-away point from this rant: Carleton has very efficiently been deteriorating since I got here, I just want to leaaaaaaaaaave.

Educational Policy

So I was doing what all the cool kids are up to these days and reading 70 pages on educational policy in Georgia. As it turns out, The Atlanta Public School Agreement of 1973 is not as page-turny as you might think.

And then, two thirds into the article, I got to the Tootsie Roll center of the Tootsie Pop:

        "The plaintiffs initially insisted that there had to be enough busing to raise the percentage of black students in every school to at least 50 percent. The Board of Education negotiators refused to budge. Back and forth the discussion went, with no one willing to yield on the point of principle and everyone eager to explain why he or she was absolutely right. 
       As the evening grew later, the talkers grew hungrier. At 9:15 p.m., they sent out for several buckets of fried chicken and a crate of Pepsi Cola. Their appetites were obviously as ravenous as their capacity for talk was great. Only an hour later, they sent out for more buckets of chicken and another crate of Pepsi. The meeting lasted until about 12:30 a.m., but they still had not reached an agreement on the question of student desegregation. They had met, talked, munched chicken, and guzzled Pepsi for seven and one-half hours with nothing to show for it. "
I don't know if Joel L. Fleishman had me in mind when he wrote his article, but I think I speak for all of academia/pseudo-academia/Carleton College when I say that I've never been so rewarded for doing late-night political science readings. 

Listeria II: Goodbyes

The past week has seen a lot of losses. You might want to find a Kleenex box and scroll to the bottom of the post to refer to my handy list of Top Ten Goodbye Songs before continuing. You could also just pop in a NOW! cd, because most songs I put on the list have been on those compilations .. no surprise there.

1. Goodbye, crappy white Macbook.

After 3.5 years of constant use/abuse, you might think that this computer is totally unusable. That's sort of true, because it was totally unusable until 2 days ago, when it was given a new hard drive, new battery, and sent to Mexico.

This computer has seen me through the thick and think of my adolescence. When I was in France, it was my connection to Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts in Newport Beach. It was also my connection to people I actually knew/ college acceptance emails/lots of music, but most importantly it endured hours upon hours of Californiaaa Here We Coooome.

At Carleton, this computer saw me through my linguistics all-nighter, my Latin American Poetry all-nighter, my Arrested Development all-nighter, my English all-nighters, and my many many many studio art all-nighters. The night I was supposed to spend writing an art history essay, I instead spent in the library trying not to cry as Ernesto did his best to salvage my waterlogged computer. I had walked in the rain for 7 minutes, and 7 minutes was enough to ruin the laptop.

NOT! Because my computer is a FIGHTER and on the third day (or the fifteenthth day) it was risen from the dead in glory and splendor and with minimal screen damage. Not to draw inappropriate comparisons.. but that MacBook could've come straight out of the New Testament.

2. Goodbye, Memory Card

So about 36 hours ago I realized that my camera was missing its memory card. Seeing as how the last place I'd left it was approx. 2 inches away from my trash can, and how I've searched EVERYWHERE, I'm assuming it fell in and is now sitting in a landfill next to a bunch of pizza boxes and old tires. It's unfortunate because the neither the pizza boxes or the tires have any way to enjoy the 594 pictures that were on there, so they'll assume that Mr. Memory Card is just boring and quiet and they won't bother starting a conversation when actually he's got 594 stories to tell if anyone would just say "Hey."

3. Goodbye, Yellow Sunglasses
I'd been waiting 7 LONG MONTHS for there to be enough sun that I needed to wear these. Two weeks into that long-awaited springtime, I found away to drop, step on, and break the sunglasses all in half a second. That makes these the fourth pair of glasses I've stepped on in the past year. Owning glasses = constant heartbreak.

My life won't ever be the same without the three of you. Even if I try to replace each of you with bigger and better products, a little bit of me will always be stuck saying "Goodbye." I hope you'll be saying it back to me.

Top Ten Goodbye Songs (dedicated to Crappy MacBook, Memory Card, Yellow Sunglasses, and all of the other possessions I will someday break or misplace):

10. All I Have (ft. LL Cool J) - J. Lo. For all the times you don't want to say goodbye. For all the times J.Lo is bouncin' and you can't do anything about it but rap to try to convince her to stay. 'Instead of beefin come hold me, I promise I'm not a phony.'

9. Closing Time - Semisonic This song is the kind of thing that everyone pretends to hate, they roll their eyes when it starts playing and shake their heads at the DJ, but they secretly know all of the lyrics and get sort of sad when it's over. Also see The Graduation Song by Vitamin C and Good Riddance by Greenday.

8. Cry Me A River - Justin Timberlake So Justin tries to act very strong and detached during this song, but if you listen hard enough, you can tell that it's hurting him to leave. He's mad, and when people are mad they act detached and cold, but the verses in falsetto give him away. He's crying himself a river, that's how hard it is for him to say goodbye.

7. Won't Go Home Without You - Maroon 5 I guess this is another song that's more about not wanting to say 'Goodbye,' which makes it close enough to a Goodbye song.

6. Bye Bye Bye - N*Sync

It's cliche, but it would be blasphemous to NOT have this song on this list. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the Bye Bye Bye Clap has replaced the Wave Goodbye.

5. Let It Burn - Usher There's a fine line between a regular break-up song and an actual goodbye song. The typical break up song is mostly angry or bitter, and few are as emotionally well-rounded as this one. Or if not well-rounded, it's a little confusing as to who's leaving and who's staying, which automatically makes it DEEP. In a few days when I'm no longer procrastinating for my Modern Art final, maybe I'll do a post about how Let It Burn fits pretty well into the PostModern scheme of things. You're welcome in advance.

That's a joke, I hate postmodern things, postmodernism can push itself off a cliff please and thank you.

4. Ruby Tuesday - Rolling Stones This is the part of the list where things get serious. Like, I hear this song and I actually get sad, and it feels like the louder I sing the chorus the better I'll feel. I'm saving this one for the last Harry Potter movie - the credits will start rolling and I'll go, "GOOOOOODBYE, RUUUBY TUESDAY!"

3. You And I Both - Jason Mraz I have nothing snarky to say about this song, because it's very pretty and a little sad and a lot of fun to sing. It's also what plays inside my head every time I leave Rochester. One time I heard it in the HyVee gas station right before heading back to NoFo (that's right) and it made my whole night, because gas stations usually play more annoying things like "Lucky" or "I'm Yours", not good ones like this. I pretended to consider buying a bag of beef jerky so that I could stick around long enough to hear the whole song play.

2. I'm Gonna Find Another You - John Mayer Recently, I had a conversation with my brother about which John Mayer song he could play for me at the wedding, (since he's the best brother in the world and is willing to something like that for me) and after the third angsty anti-love song I suggested, we concluded that John Mayer songs might not be the most suitable for the event. They ARE, however, very suitable for So Longs and Farewells, and so this one made it onto this list.

1. Danke Schoen - Wayne Newton Remember that one amazing movie where the beautiful Matt Broderick wins over the city of Chicago with little more than a wink and a couple of dance moves? That amazing movie is the first thing I'm going to watch when I'm done with finals, and this amazing song is the first thing I'm gonna sing when I'm driving far far away from the cesspool that is Carleton College in about a year and four days. Because although Carleton is a terrible place, it's a terrible place that I somehow care about, and when I say "Goodbye," I want to do it right.

Pun o' the Day

Dumble-Door

April 1, 2010 at Carleton College

I'm not actually going to do a pun every day. Though it'd be really cool if I could. Heaven is a pun every day.

The Day I Met Sandra Cisneros

Two months ago, Sandra Cisneros came to speak at Carleton. I sat in the second row, took out a notebook, and didn't stop writing until she stepped off the podium. Well, that's not true. At one point I raised my hand and asked her a question. She asked me my name. She answered (looking at me! talking to me!) and I waited until she had broken eye contact to write down what she was saying. Here's what I have in my notebook:

_______________________________________________________________

Oct. 8, Friday 2010

Convo: Sandra Cisneros talk

Sandra is wearing a blue pantsuit with white polka dots, like something my grandma would wear. She has shoulder length, dark hair with reddish brown tints. She has huge thick glasses that take up a quarter of her face. Her nose sticks out like a beak, and her lipstick is the same color of her hair and glasses, a dark wine red. It's hard to tell her eyes through the glasses. I think her voice will be low and craggly.

Oh my gosh it's not, it's annoying like Karen from Will and Grace.

She says she's wearing her pajamas and talking about talking and listening to trees. She's using her birthday party to raise money for the screenplay for The House on Mango Street.

-Day of the Dead, "the people who crossed over are very present"

"maybe a more accurate translation of mija is 'I love you'"

- relearning superstition

She makes art! (?)

"When you are grieving, making anything will nourish your spirit, whether it is a cupcake or a poem. Making art is like going to a monastery and reflecting."

"... a language for the things we cannot say"

"When you die, it's like the library of Alexandria burning -- unless you write these stories. Write from the place that's only yours. Write 10 things only you know. Write 10 things you wish you could forget."

She says she's Buddhist now.

"If you're thinking about who's going to read, you can't write. The rules are:

1. Tell the truth

2. Don't hurt anyone

She told us how she meditates. She imagines the Teletubbies sun-baby.

at this point I raised my hand and asked something.

She's looking at me she's looking at me she's saying "... trust your heart (she's touching her heart), because anything that comes from there will be good. You have to forget your ego. You have to forget your fear."

_______________________________________________________________

I can't remember if she answered my question. But I remember she seemed very spacey and weird. Like the kind of woman who sells you snake oil instead of tylenol for your cold. No, but I felt lucky being there because someone who says pretty things and writes pretty things makes you believe the world is a pretty place.

Numbahz

4 days until I go hoooome

12 finished paintings

2 finals left

150+ images on the art history exam

2.5 hours of Harry Potta last night

1 Whoa performance Wednesday night

6 bruises on my knees from dance

1 hot/cold gel pad on my back

8 times I've listened to Electric Feel in the past hour

4 months until the MCAT (ha..)

12.50 dining dollars left in my account

3 slices of pecan pie this week, a vast improvement in my self-control

1 a cappella rendition of the prettiest song in the world by Exit 69

1 vital member of Exit 69 no longer at Carleton

0 word count for my American Studies essay

Lately

What My Life Has Looked Like Lately

1. A lot of this:


I'm taking a painting class, which translates into "I constantly have paint all over my arms, hands and face."


2. Some of this:


My campus job is to advertise terrible school events and make them seem not-as-terrible. Liiiike Screw-Your-Roommate (less commonly referred to as Set Up Your Roommate by boring people), where dozens of people go on awkward blind dates. No but sometimes it's not so bad. When I was a freshman, my date and I went to the chapel rooftop and complained about the meal plan.

This poster is actually my proudest achievement of this entire term, solely because Snooki turned out pretty well. If I say so myself.

3. A LOT of this:

Last week all I listened to was "Mine" and "Today Was A Fairytale". Then Brandi Branham showed me this song, and I have been listening to it nonstop. Because it is absolutely beautiful. I wish I could take a time machine, go back to 8th grade and attend a John Adams Middle School dance where THIS was the slow dance of the night (instead of this). I could be arms-length apart from Kellen Anderson and silently thinking about how the two of us would be young forever.