[brrring ringaling]

c: hello?

m: hey...! are you free? for about thirty seconds?

c: sure, I'm okay, what's up

m: well, well mmm. well, it's just that I just got out of my First Last Class of the semester and I'm feeling crazy about it.

c: your first laaa? first whaaat?? first laaab class?

m: no! no! my FIRST! LAST! CLASS. IT IS THE END. IT IS OVER. you know, cause it's Wednesday! it's the last Wednesday, and I just had my last class of Wednesday!

c: ohhhhh! wow congratulations! hahaha yeahhh nearing the end!

m: yyyyyyyyeah it's completely insane, right?! it's hitting me now, it's real, it's really the end, class ended and I was just standing there in the classroom and couldn't really move, like I just couldn't leave the class cause once I did it would officially be real and

c: wait wait where are you right now, are you still sitting in class?!

m: noooo! I leffftt!! and it was my Pavilion Seminar class, on the Lawn you know?! and as I was walking out it was like gooodbyyye, class! goodbye, Pavilion seven! goodbye LAWN, goodbye UVA, goodbye MY UNDERGRADUATE CAREER EVERYTHING IS ENDING!! IT IS REALLL AND TANGIBLEE AND IT IS FREAKING ME OUUUUTTT

c: hahaha it's good! good job and congratulations! hahaha

m: I just thought I'd call you cause you're my non-romantic significant other and all and this is what people do, right? they call their significant others when their heads are pounding with unbelievable reality and emotions are coming up the esophagus in excitement and insanity?!

--phone blips out--

m: helloo??!? helllo okay I think maybe my phone is freaking out and I can't hear you anymore but thank you for listeningggg! I really appreciate it!! okay goodbye now goodbye!!

--hang up; indistinct voices in background call out Sunnn? Sunnn! Sun!! SUNNN--

m: [turn around] hello?! I was wondering if those voices calling out for Sun were wanting for me to turn around!

herd of gcf kiddos: haha you guys have similar backpacks!!

m: haha yeah! where are you guys coming from?! why do you guys travel in herds? how is this the last Wednesday?! I just got out of my First Last Class!!! and man, the end is near and it's real and I am freaking ouutttttt because it is the end of ALL THINGSSSS!!!!!

[I join the herd and we travel in a slightly larger herd, me continuously asking why they are in a herd and where they are herdily headed to; we run into another, smaller, herd of gcf first years, all coming out of their Last Chem Lab of the year, on their way to celebrate with ice cream [adorable] and we all say hello hello hey aw congratulations ah! hahha ah! the end the beginning ahhh goodbye!]

--Calling: C--

m: hello??? hahaha sorry! my phone must have freaked out

c: no it's okay! 

m: well I just wanna say thank you! thank youu for being my non-romantic significant other! thank you for being the person I call when I am having a crisis-joy-fear freakout! thank youuu for these past four years! thank you, UVA! THANK YOU WORLD, THANK YOU GOD!!!!

--phone blips out in participatory overexcitement of all the fourth year feels; 

leaves me hanging, arms outstretched in absurdity and euphoria and bittersweetness of 

everything, everywhere, ever--

[end scene]

[begin: life]

how to be a hippie misanthrope:

• have beautiful thoughts about nature's bigness and oneness; how it transcends cultures and humanity
• foster beautiful relations in communities, in concert with nature
• ask beautiful questions to babies about what they would like their ideal playground to look like; really listen
• build beautiful structures that help humanity to be more aligned with its nature
• give beautiful lectures about your work, inspiring college students and the young-at-heart to think a little more about this transcendental nature thing, too. that it's bigger than us, that we shouldn't even try to conceptualize it, just accept and be in it and observe and seek understanding some-way-how
• after it's all over, answer questions curtly and dismissively.

PS you know, as much as I like his work, I feel like he's not a very nice person.
But I wonder how that can be possible, if he's so in tune with nature& its goodness.
yeah haha I could tell...
he thinks nature and its goodness is better/greater than humans
and thinks humans are in the wrong.
Wow. Makes such perfect sense. You can be a hippie misanthrope that way, huh
What a waste of beautiful thinking. Blehg

Oh eunoia.

a mug or a sidewalk or a person or a poem or some cherries

"The difference is that our whole LIVES are different now, well, can be different now with this theoretical knowledge. It's actually the most applicable, practical thing - just a matter of how much you want to apply it. For example, how is this mug now an actant in relation to me? What kind of action is its presence making possible, in conjunction with me, or in conjunction with the table it's sitting on, or the coffee it holds (or doesn't)? Or this sidewalk we're walking on. I mean it's making all the difference in the world! Why else would I be walking on this particular patch of the Earth if not for the sidewalk?"

ahahahahaahahahaha etc.

ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY

the title is kind of misleading cause it still seems confusing to me

but it's narrated by a very cute-sounding Dutch boy-genius

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN

FLAT ONTOLOGY

,not flat stanley

These are the things we learned today in that space-and-a-wall. Just wanted to document the academic mind-explode goings-on of the early semester.

This semester, I hope to:

• become more organized in my speech, to practice better explaining my thoughts without excessive use of non-words and "I just thought that was really interesting" as filler utterance.
• get used to environments in which I am surrounded by people infinitely smarter than I am but realize the limitations of that state of awe-struckness. That not everyone is an expert at everything, and to take the opportunity of being out of my element as an experience to grow from, not one in which I pretend to know more than I do or end up missing opportunities to contribute for fear of looking stupid. To learn from others without judgment or fruitless jealousy.
• remember lots of details and names of theories and well-understood concepts in my brain so that I have a stock of things to coherently share with others once I'm done with the semester - not just vague recollections of being mind-blown all the time.
• always and mindfully give people good gifts, not necessarily in birthday-present format.
• make sense of Latourian Litanies; make use of theories in productive and satisfying applications to real life outside of the brain.

Dear God, please help me to survive to thrive this semester.

"best of luck to you"

Wow, yeah I know exactly what you mean about English lit -- I'm actually doing my undergrad major in English, too.

Oh really! That's funny. Yeah so you know what I'm talking about.

---

Well, thanks so much for the interview! For answering my questions, too. And good luck to you with everything, after your English Master's and all.

Haha yeah good luck to you too! I guess we all need a bit of luck, huh.

Hahaha yeah... Well thanks! Have a good evening!

Bye!


Who knew I'd ever be wishing an interviewer luck. Lots of people are kind of lost - just in different times of our lives and to varying degrees.

Best of luck to us allllll

semi-fiction

m: I'm overwhelmed by how overwhelmed I already am about this semester.

c: Yeah there's just never enough time. This is going to get better once we're living in the real world, right? like working and stuff?

m: Yeah probably, I mean hopefully. Like we'll probably have busy times for work but they'll be more predictable and less terrible, like you'll never wake up one day and realize oh my gosh I have fiiive papers in twooo days!  hahaha

c: Yeah, but then I guess there will be family and responsibilities... Like how're you supposed to even begin thinking about childcare, and taking care of a house; like how will you make the trade-off? Make money and have someone else take care of your kids, make money and hire someone who cleans your house, or stop making money and do it all yourself? So many choices we're gonna have to make. I mean time is money.

m: Yeah so true! Time is money. So many trade-offs, so many opportunity costs. Yeah who is gonna care for my children and my carpet. WOw.

c: Haha well then right now we have infinite time. Since we have no money.

m: Dang. Good thing we have infinite time. I have so much to do tonight...for all my classes tomorrow.

mo' money no time; no money mo' time