History as Fiction -- Elizabeth

Have you ever walked into a classroom and suddenly remembered how many other classes you’ve had in that same room, and how each time it was a slightly different version of you that existed? Like in room 218, today you’re a senior typing essays for Nonfiction Writing, but three years ago you were in here falling asleep during Mr. Butler’s slideshows, and a year before that, you were in world history. Each time you were different. Or maybe you’ll be in chorus and suddenly a song will take you back to the same risers but four years ago, and suddenly you’re engulfed in the unexplainable feeling of remembering the person you were the last time you sang the song. Everything around you is the same, but you aren't. I think it's because I'm a senior now, and it keeps getting more and more real that soon I'll be leaving Uni forever. I keep thinking about how Uni is (relatively) permanent, and all of us aren't. When I graduate, Uni will have been the static backdrop of

                 I was glad not to take the PSAT yesterday, but I realized today that one thing I will miss about it is the memes. It’s a little sad to suddenly, after two years of being included, find yourself on the outside of such a massive inside joke. It makes me wonder if this is what it’s like to become an adult and watch the young whippersnappers’ pop culture get more and more unintelligible. It also made me think about memes more generally. When I was younger, I used to be one of those infuriatingly self-righteous people who refused to ever use internet slang and corrected people on their grammar at every opportunity. I thought internet memes were at best pointless and juvenile and, at worst, intellectually damaging. But today I have a different view.                  I think memes and, more generally, internet slang, have started to serve a really interesting cultural purpose. When talking with friends, a meme reference is often useful to convey a specific meaning that any

            Once upon a time, on a pool deck not so far away, there lived a large spiky cricket who wished to live a long and happy life. Unfortunately for him, the chlorine-infused teenagers governing his fortune had other ideas. No sooner was he spotted hopping along the tiles when, with one fell swoop, his back leg was crushed by a black croc birkenstock sandal wielded by a shrieking member of the Uni swim team. Still, our valiant warrior persevered.  He continued his journey, slower since he was dragging half his body behind him, but never giving up -- even though the freedom of the outside air was at least fifty meters, four doors, and countless stomping feet away from him. As we watched his noble struggles, we argued about whether or not to put him out of his misery with another hit with the sandal. One brave chlorinated soul decided to take the responsibility upon herself, and hopped out of the pool to retrieve the poor six-legged adventurer. But instead of ferrying him to the

               Last Friday was the Uni swim team's last day of practice at the Urbana Indoor Aquatic Center, and we were all incredibly happy about that because UIAC is an excruciatingly disgusting location to have practice at. The water is never a normal temperature, the items lurking at the bottom are not limited to items a pool should normally contain, and there’s a particular scent, indescribable but distinctively nauseating, that permeates the entire facility. Not only can you smell it every time you take a breath, you can almost feel it, too, seeping into your lungs and hair the entire time you’re in the water. The second you get out, it’s a race against time to get home and be able to wash off the crust -- of chlorine, that aforementioned mysterious smell, and other things it's best not to contemplate -- that has plastered itself onto you. You might be tempted to try and grab a shower in the pool locker room, but don’t: that’ll only make it worse.              Before

               It was supposed to be. I’ve been screaming at myself to write some kind of a draft of that essay since August and until this Monday I had literally nothing. Making it into a blog post gave me a deadline, which is what I needed. Now I have 1200 words written in a Google doc, which, if you do the math, could be two complete iterations of the eventual essay. But really it’s still a mess: two introductions, both of which were richly, eloquently, and unnecessarily embroidered and thus 250 words long and had to be cut, and seven body paragraphs when only four could possibly fit in the real thing and none of them remotely make sense. There’s no hint of a conclusion yet. I keep hitting 650 words halfway through the story and without making any of the point I’m trying to get across.               This is the story I’m trying to tell. During the first shift I ever worked as a lifeguard, I failed three consecutive VRTs -- “victim recognition training,” or practice saves -- whic

             I was tempted to choose the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana , or the overture from  Marriage of Figaro , because whenever I think of the St. Pat's Youth Orchestra I think of those first. Almost three years later, the opening notes still pull me immediately back to the very first rehearsal I went to: Judah’s band room at 9:30 at night, sitting in a roomful of musicians who I didn't know yet but already greatly admired, and laughing at the conductor's truly wild mid-conducting anecdotes. Unfortunately I could barely read the music for either piece: we were playing from grainy pdfs printed straight off imslp. By the end of the first concert, though, I was hooked. Church acoustics are addictive.               My second idea was the first movement of Beethoven’s 6th symphony Pastoral . I remember practicing over and over again the idyllic opening lick that floats through the strings, and then catches two oboes, whirls around, settles down, and flies up aga