Alex

Final Thoughts on the Year

2008-04-24T13:24:00.004-04:00

For the past two weeks, I've been listening to Elliot Smith, smoking too much, sleeping too little, and wearing myself thin.

I'm sitting at my desk right now, buried in ink and dusty hardbacks, next to a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew and a box of Cheez-Its. I turned in twenty pages of research this morning and took a physics test at eight. Went to bed at two, woke up at five to study, but for now, I am done. What's more, that was the last push. I'm three exams and a portfolio away from falling asleep on a flight home.

This year has flown by, and I know people always say that, but it has. I've met so many people and started so many relationships that it will be strange to go home and not have any of them around me anymore. I've learned more in the past two semesters than in my four years of high school. I've written well over two-hundred pages for different classes/blogs/job applications and read...well, a lot. I've spent countless hours either on the phone or on Facebook with my friends from high school. And the time that I've spent purposefully not doing any of those things accounts for most of my college career thus far.

To those of you who are still deciding whether or not to come to UT:
No matter where you go, it will turn out in a way that you can't predict and don't expect. This is not to say that it's not a life-changing decision and you shouldn't bother about it. It's only to say that college won't change your life the way you thought it would, so if you are looking for the one place that will make you happy and give you everything you ever wanted, it doesn't exist. You have to get that from somewhere else. Choose a college based upon the one you think will give you the most opportunity to change.

To those of you who are coming to UT next year:
I'll see you then. I hope that, after a year, this university means as much to you as it does to me. I hope you meet people here who will change the course of your life forever. I hope you find who you are here, and, what's more important, find something or someone to which you can give your life. In short, I hope that you find contentment. Let me know if I can help.

To everyone else (Mom, Dad, brothers, friends, employers, and those UT students who are bored out of their minds and surfing the site):
Thank you for giving me a constant audience and a purpose in writing. I'll see you next year, unless you are my family, in which case I will see you in a week.

...And Answers

2008-03-28T16:46:00.005-04:00

Yes, I did steal this title from Joyce Carol Oates. This is my answer to Ashley's questions from "The List" post. I started typing and realized that it would be a little to long as a comment, and that other people might want to hear it, too.

Ashley,

Thanks for your questions, because they are good ones, and I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

Personally, I have barely even heard of Ignite. That might have something to do with the fact that the start of my college career was a bit crazy. I went to orientation after attending an entire term of summer classes. Honestly, no one I have ever talked to has either loved orientation to death or said anything about Ignite. Orientation is free. I would say do orientation, and get it over with in two days. It's not that orientation is unnecessary or poorly organized, but it's really awkward and lonely, and all I wanted to do the whole time was start school and figure things out on my own. It's pretty propaganda-heavy, and I just don't understand, because those students are already attending.

As for the teachers, I think UT is like anywhere else. They all put ads in their catalogs talking about how personal their faculty is, and how much help you will get, and how they invite you over to their house to eat almost every weekend. This is false. I think the alumni feed prospective students the opposite story, because they either want to think that they went through hell to earn their degree, or they buy into the other college catalogs and think that every other college is the University of Pleasantville. This, too, is false. The truth is, college professors are a lot like high school teachers, only sometimes with bigger classes.

I have had professors who don't care, and laugh off any questions anyone has, unwilling to give any serious help. I have had professors who have some serious rage issues and are downright vindictive. There are always those professors who just don't understand how much work they are giving or how much we are having to do to simply keep up. Those professors are usually fun in class, but you hate them after you get out.

On the other hand, I have had professors who show genuine concern for people who are doing poorly in their classes, asking them questions, giving any type of help they can. My psychology professor last semester gave me advice about what type of record player I should buy for my girlfriend's Christmas present. My American Literature professor canceled a week's worth of classes before the midterm and final papers were due so that he could spend however long we needed to go over our drafts and talk about the themes and characters of the novels we were writing about. He even went over my first couple of blog entries with me and gave me advice on where to go next. I've had professors recommend books for me to read, talk to me about my home life, talk to me about God, about my writing, about my plans for the future. I have had plenty of professors and TAs that felt more like extremely intelligent friends than they did professors, because they were so personable and helpful.

Some of these personable professors were the ones in my big lecture classes. Some of the worst classes I've been in only had ten people. Don't worry about blending into the crowd. If you don't want to, then you won't. Just don't be afraid to speak up.

Does any of this help?

So, in answer to your question, either the faculty has changed its tune in the past fifty years, or you are getting some bad advice. I know this is what you expect me to say, but keep in mind that my friends read this, too, and I would be laughed out of the dorm if I wrote anything that wasn't true. If any current student reads this and has had a different experience, feel free to let all of us know.

The Trip Back

2008-03-21T23:47:00.006-04:00

The week before spring break, UT's campus surges, almost comes alive, with the unspoken yet palpable excitement of scattering in every direction. It's the same way you feel after three hours of cigarettes and coffee: nothing matters so much as the people you love, conversation, and the freedom to move around.

Most of my friends went home to see everyone they have missed, to spend some time pretending that they won't have to start school again in a few days. Their drive is long and tantalizing, as when they were younger waiting for Six Flags or Disney Land, now they can't wait to get home. They will count the mile markers on the side of the road. "Only 46 miles to go; maybe I can go a little faster." Maybe parents or siblings are waiting for them at the end of the drive, close friends, a coffee shop, a street, a church. These things define home. It has very little to do with a building or a bed.

The smell of cheap cigars, for many reasons, always gives me the sense that whatever I was waiting for is here. My dad always smokes the same Backwoods. That's my smell, and I am incomplete without it. I suppose driving home feels like becoming more clearly myself, if that makes any sense. I am funnier/smarter/more with my brothers and with my parents. Home is exciting for this reason.
I've been excited for a month about the break. Last week was unbearable. I'd had too many cigarettes, too much coffee, and my hands were beginning to shake. I needed to get out. I almost skipped my classes on Thursday, but I figured one of my professors (huge lecture, hundreds of people missing on Thursday) would give a quiz, which she did. I tried to go to all of my classes that day and failed at this goal. I only got half-way through the last one before bailing and walking out mid-lecture, and I never skip class. The sun was just too bright to ignore. If they want people to go to class an hour before spring break, then they should put fewer windows in the classrooms.

My girlfriend, wonderful as she is, picked me up ten minutes later and took me to Nashville. I have some family there, so we stayed overnight. I flew out early the next morning to New Orleans and spent a few days with my parents, an honorary uncle, my brothers, and their girlfriends before leaving for a conoeing trip with my dad. The trip was amazing in both the conversation and the quiet, but six days and a sunburn later, I'm ready to get back to school.

The trip back to school is exciting in a different way. When you leave home for school, a part of you stays behind with your family, friends, and the city itself. It's hard to describe having your heart in two different places, but it's both splitting and fulfilling. In many ways, it's like falling in love. You don't forget your family, but your energy, your thought, and your time all go towards someone new. You begin to start your own life, become independent. You don't forget your family and past, though. It's still a part of you. It's what has made you who you are.

I know you aren't supposed to analyze things this much while you're on spring break, but I went conoeing for three days. All you do is sit there and paddle for hours at a time.

In My Hurry

2008-02-29T14:02:00.021-05:00

I feel like the world moves faster than I can perceive it, and even as a freshman in college, I am getting too old to keep up with it. Toni Morrison, in Beloved, says that a man can get "bone tired." He can feel a kind of fatigue that seeps deeper than muscle, into the marrow, and on, into the soul. Can't you feel it? Every morning it gets harder to step down from my bed, as I lay there thinking about all of the work I have in front of me, all of the people I want to spend time with, the books I would read if I had time, the movies I want to see, classes I want to take, trips, summer jobs, careers, relationships. It weighs so heavily some days that it's hard to sit up. Everything goes so quickly, and every once in a while, I just need to slow down. I need to be still, to let myself sink, fall to the bottom. To say, "Let the world rage around me, I am going to be here for a moment." Sometimes it's not until you let yourself be taken under that you can actually take a full breath.

I spent this past weekend at Fall Creek Falls state park at the RUF winter retreat, and if nature is good for anything, it's breathing. Fall Creek Falls is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I swear to you, the pictures do not do it justice. Half of the beauty is in the feel. Imagine finally crowning a peak in the trail, and hearing, for the first time, the sound of rushing water. Or, imagine picking your way down a dangerous slope for an hour, and legs shaking, exhausted, you step out onto a river bank, forests and falls in every direction. I had been there before this weekend, with my scout troop a few times, and then with two friends over the spring break of my senior year in high school. Every time I go, I see something new. Every time, there is something more for me to learn, and some deeper aspect of God etched into the stone or growing in the trees.

This weekend reminded me constantly about one of the better aspects of starting a college career. It's not anything physical, but it's not an experience either. It's more of a change in perception, and your perception, your construal, changes the actuality of everything around you. I have no clue when I started to change, and I almost missed it in my hurry. I didn't take the time to notice my mind shifting.

I'm not the only one who has changed since high school. Some people become better students. Some stop working, others work too hard at too many things. Some dodge from vice to vice to avoid noticing a change. Some, like me, admit to confusion and little else. All of these reactions have the same driving force behind them: in the latter part of high school, and in college as well, people begin to see things, not only with their eyes, but with their souls and minds as well, and on this newfound level, very few things make sense. Very few things fulfill.
As I sat there, on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, I didn't see a waterfall, some woods, and whatever else was physically there. I heard a song in the fall, and whispers in the water. I don't know if what I heard made any sense, but it felt clearly profound. I felt the water make sense, and it related to me things that no one else knows and that I cannot explain. You have to go. You have to hear it for yourself.

This weekend was oddly spiritual for me. I was too tired out by the hike and several smoke-thickened conversations the night before to make any sense of the sermon that night. I even closed my eyes for a moment, and felt his words wash over me. I leaned back, and breathed them in.

Katie Burriss, once again, has been so gracious to supply the first photo in the post. Many thanks.

The List

2008-02-05T18:41:00.000-05:00

On a personal note, firstly to all of my friends at Union, and to everyone effected: you are in my prayers, and I will see you soon.

I know that many of you who read this will be deciding where you go to school pretty soon, and I want to help you as much as I can. I know how it feels to have every adult you've ever talked to ask you where you are going, how you are going to pay for it, and what you want to do afterwards. There was this one guy from my church that asked me for an update, literally, every week. And the guidance counselors at the school. Teachers. I always hated "the list," with everyone's name on it, and a big fat blank space next to mine right between "Alaster Bennet--Boston" and "Caleb See--Ivy League, thank you." Shoot me. I wanted to pull a Winona Ryder, take a drag on my cigarette, look my counselor dead in the face, and say, "I'm not going to college." I never did it, though. Who knows why not.

I did the whole "educated decision" thing, where I looked up the statistics of all the schools I wanted to go to. For a while, my junior year, I even answered ALL of my college mail. Every last letter, asking for more information. That's a bad idea. Trust me. Just say no. I know this advice is overdone, but it really worked for me: get a college catalog (a reputable one like The Princeton Review or something), read it, choose a few that you like, ask them for more information, narrow it down to something like five or fewer, apply to the school, apply for every scholarship in the world ever, and decide. You don't want more information that you can handle.I'm sitting here in Hodge's Library typing this up, and a tour group is walking by. What are they thinking? Where are they coming from? And, why are they here? They are the smart ones, though. Go on tours, because they make you fall in love with the idea of college. There are so many people your age, so close, doing so many things all of the time. You get to sign up for classes that you want to take. You get to distinguish yourself, or blend in. It really is a breathtaking experience when you first walk onto "your school's" campus. Don't just dream about a place. Go check it out.

I know, I know. I'm making everything sound like everyone makes it sound. Easy, right? That's all you have to do. But it's so hard, and everyone knows it. They just don't tell you because they don't want you to freak out about it. Just decide, right? I mean, who cares, anyway? It will just irreversibly change the course of your life forever. It's a hard thing to do, this "decide" word that everyone throws at you. "Have you made a decision?" "Did you decide to apply for aid?" "Why haven't you decided yet?" Yet you have to, or else the opportunity passes and you are a struggling screenplay writer living in Jersey and smoking three packs a day next to the vent in the community bathroom. Or something like that. I try not to project or be specific.

I guess the real question is, how do you decide? Honestly, I have no clue. I tried my hardest to go to Saint Louis, but just couldn't pay for it, even with a pretty substantial scholarship. Money is a true factor, I think, but not all of it. To be straightforward about it, I think God put me here because it is what's best for me. Beyond faith, I really have no advice on how to choose. I'm sorry if that seems silly or unsatisfactory, but I still don't know any other way.

I want to end this post with a desperate plea: help me help you out. Post some comments with questions about ANYTHING you want to know, and I will answer them as quickly and as well as I can. Don't be afraid to ask anything, and, as always, I am going to try to be as real as I possibly can be. I can't wait to hear from you.

My Singular Rebellion Against Academic America

2008-01-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, happy birthday, Mom. I love you and hope today is exactly what you want.

My first trip to UT as a prospective student was one of the most ridiculous experiences of my life, and I don't think I will ever forget it.

A few months beforehand I had received a letter in the mail asking me to come up to campus for some scholarship orientation and an interview for further support. I was devastated. I didn't want to attend UT in the fall, and I certainly did not want to cancel plans I had already made to attend a scholarship orientation at my safety school. At my parent's urging, however, I packed my bags, warned my teachers, canceled on my friends, and slouched down to the car, far from excited about the six-hour drive.

About five hours into the drive, my dad realized that we had neglected to factor in the time change between Memphis to Knoxville. He began to speed as I changed and shaved in the back seat of our minivan. We pulled up, an hour late, right as the buses were pulling out from our hotel towards campus. I ran one down and got on in front of everyone, waved awkwardly, and grabbed one of the standing poles, all of the seats taken. I quickly noticed that I was the only individual (apart from the uniformed driver), male or female, not wearing a suit. Sudden flashbacks to Office Space, "Did you get the memo?"

No one wanted to be associated with the kid who had already missed his chance at the scholarship within the first five minutes, and after trying to begin a few conversations, I decided to listen. The three guys sitting beneath my outstretched arm were from the same school, apparently, and were talking about a math test they had taken earlier that day. "I mean, derivatives and McLaurin series? Please! I can't believe anyone actually said that was hard! I almost fell asleep." Two girls sitting across from them, hair flawlessly pulled back into buns, mouths sunken into perpetual frowns, discussed their strategies for winning a scholarship and glared at the other passengers (particularly the late kid in khakis) hoping perhaps to melt them into irrelevancy with a single glance.

Standing in the middle of that bus, surrounded by these people--the best of the university--I suddenly realized that everyone on the bus was completely two-dimensional. They were stereotypes. If I had to read a book about the derivative trio, I think I might kill myself. I have nothing against math. My brother is a math genius, and for him, it is an art. He pours himself into it because he has a passion for it, and then he goes to dinner with his girlfriend, a movie maybe, probably some literature. He likes Lewis and Dostoevsky. He plays the piano, and sings.

My point is that a body needs more than school. I don't know why I choose today to talk about this, but I remember last year around this time being wrapped up in my grades and colleges and everything but the things that make me a complete person. I know that you have to be good at school to get a good job and be happy later, but if you get there and don't know how to dance or write, then where are you? What kind of life have you made for yourself? Last year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I went through a mound of college information before doing a few hours of homework.

Please, learn from me. Get out. Do something else for a while. Go see Juno, and buy the soundtrack, because it is amazing. I'm listening to it right now. Write a story. See a play, read a good book. Have a conversation. Years from now, or maybe only days, when life is nothing like you pictured it, what will be worth more? Knowing another statistic about your school, or a piece of the human experience?

Rain

2008-01-04T02:38:00.000-05:00

I feel like I owe you an apology. I haven't been writing anything, and I'm sorry about that. I got a little wrapped up in this paper I had due, in the excitement at the end of the semester, in exams, in the break, in life. My break was good but busy, going all over the country trying to see six different sets of people in six different cities, driving so much that I probably raised the earth's temperature a few degrees singlehandedly. I got to see mostly everyone I wanted to see, though, and spent some time with my family, which was nice.

Coming back to school was both exciting and overwhelming. The break was too short, as they inevitably are, but I wanted to see my friends. I got to hang out with them for a little while before classes started--some of them threw a party and got busted while the rest of us sat and talked about our breaks, watching the clocks change and willing them to slow (just this once) so we could keep talking and stay out of class.

My semester started off in possibly the most ridiculous way ever. I showed up for my first class about twenty minutes early, nerd that I am, and waited patiently for everyone else to show. About five minutes before class was set to begin, I began to freak. No one had showed. Not even the professor. I had either gone to the wrong room or they had changed it and I didn't get the memo. I had my computer with me, so I whipped it out and checked my schedule online, but something had changed. The building code and room number on my schedule for the class, sometime within the past twenty-four hours, had been deleted (bad thing). I went to the Circle Park office. They told me to go to religious studies. I went to religious studies, and they told me to go to philosophy. I showed up on the tenth floor of the cramped humanities tower (it smells like a strange mixture between decaying books and cigarettes) and my luck slowly began to change. The woman at the desk, Susan Williams, politely informed me that my class had been cancelled, and that none of the other sections would fit into my schedule. This conversation took about thirty minutes. She then offered to fit me into another class that would fulfill even more of my gen. ed. requirements (good thing). I thanked her profusely and went on my, now, merry way.

The next day I had to wake up at seven and walk a mile in the pouring rain to my physics lecture, getting books ($300), calculator ($100), clothes, shoes, paper, and bag completely soaked. I have physics and biology in the same morning, and if I die within the next semester, arrest those two professors. They both look like they are going to be really good teachers, but the subject matter is going to be ridiculous. On second thought, if I die, arrest physics itself.

I'm sorry if I am boring you, but I just want to be honest. UT isn't always sunshine and Stepford. Things get messed up, it rains, classes are hard, life happens...and then it goes on.

Later that day, I dried everything out and went to my creative writing class. We talked about what our favorite music is, which cheered me up considerably. Right now, I'm listening to Love is Hell by Ryan Adams, and sometimes that's all I need to feel like things have some sort of continuity and everything will end up alright.

This beautiful photo was provided by my friend and artist, Katie Burriss. Many thanks.

Human Dynamics

2007-11-26T10:52:00.000-05:00

I remember my first day of high school, riding to school with my brother in our teal, 1993 Toyota Tercel. Was that me? Sometimes I feel like maybe it's not really my memory. Someone else must have lived it and given it to me to remember. Either that or it never really happened, but either way, I remember wandering through the unending, locker-lined hallways sometimes squeezed among the thousands, all taller than I was, who went to my high school, and then sometimes, always suddenly, alone. "That was the bell; get to class." "Oh, ok." I remember all of this, but I was so different then that I don't think it was me. I wore hiking boots to school, not Converse, and I hated UT. I was determined to get good grades, because all of my eighth-grade teachers told me that I should keep up my GPA, but what does that even mean to a fourteen-year-old? I went to church camp that summer, and they told me that high school bathrooms were covered with blood, seamen, and the glass of hypodermics.

Above all, I remember desperately cleaving to immobility. I remember wanting nothing to change, about anyone or anything. In that, I failed miserably. I am no longer that person, if I ever was. And now in the throes of college, where stasis is the paramount impossibility, I find myself, once again, scared and unsure of who I will be in four years. I'm writing about this because I had some serious problems with it while trying to choose a college. At first I wanted to go to Union almost solely because I knew it was a Christian school, and I didn't want to change into the classic collegiate drunkard, whose sole goal in life is to have sex with someone new. I checked out Wheaton in Illinois (where Billy Graham went) for the same reason. Stasis. That often-denied, irrepressible human desire to be still. I'm not saying that either of these schools are a bad choice, because they are both great universities, but I had the wrong motivation. I wanted to escape human dynamics, which is impossible for all but the closed-minded.I think I have changed already. I took this class about market-based approaches to environmentalism, so I've started hugging trees and the like. I've gotten bolder, maybe prideful, which probably isn't a good thing. I write more, sing more, listen to more and different music (Feist, right now), read stranger and better books (The Road by Cormac McCarthy), study more, sleep less, have more fun, talk to more people, love more, show it less, listen less, smoke more, show off less...the list goes on. I have a hard time keeping up with myself and have mixed emotions about expecting other people to do so.

The first canoeing trip I ever went on with Scouts was on the Buffalo River in Arkansas, and I had to cross the river to take a swim test in a pool on the other side. They strung a rope across and warned us that we would probably loose our footing, and to hold on tight. I could feel the cold before I even stepped in, and when the water hit my bare chest, I couldn't breathe. Standing out in the middle of the river, the water pouring around me, barely aware of my existence, I remember thinking that If I lifted my foot to take another step, I would crash into my safety line, and that I would die. The water was so powerful. I stepped, and the river swept the sand out from under my other foot. I may not have died, but it hurt like hell crashing into the line, and I wish I would have let go and let the river sweep me downstream.

Let go. I was headed here all my life, and no matter where I go, it will follow, this irresistible change. Stasis doesn't exist. Thank God.

Wasting Time: A How To

2007-11-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

I turned nineteen today, which really only means that I turned eighteen one year ago and will turn twenty-one two years from now. Not that I'm sad about it--I actually really enjoy my birthdays--it just seems like they should let me do some other previously illegal thing today. I don't know what. Maybe nineteen should be the trespassing year. "When you turn nineteen, you can go wherever the hell you want," the law would read. I would enjoy that.

It being my birthday, I want to talk about what there is to do here in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's really just a ploy to get one of my friends to take me somewhere cool and pay for it, honestly, but I think it's useful information as well. I can only talk about what I like to do, so if you are a die-hard polo player or something, and won't go to any school that doesn't have a team, and I don't say anything about it, that doesn't mean the activity doesn't exist, it just means that I would fall off of the horse and break my neck, and I fancy walking.

I guess the most obvious and popular thing to do is go to the games--football, basketball, soccer, polo?, whatever. And they're all free, too, which is valuable when you're in college. It especially feels good to walk into, say the Georgia game, for free knowing that you would have otherwise had to pay fifty bucks to go. A lot of the school-sponsored things are cool like that. Really, go to all of them you can.

If you are more of the artistic type, and nothing is happening on campus (which is rare) then you'll probably just be really pissed at the game-day traffic as you are trying to get to Gay Street and Market Square. Gay Street is like the Broadway of Knoxville. It's lined with theaters and little shops and cafes. It's a beautiful sight. Any band or show that comes through will probably be playing on Gay Street or close to it. Market Square is this great little courtyard surrounded on all sides by amazing restaurants and art galleries. They have all kinds of performances and random open-air markets. These two areas of the city have changed my entire perspective on Eastern Tennessee's culture.

For this next one, I'll have to be rather general, as it is not completely legal until my suggestion on making nineteen the trespassing year goes through the state legislature. There are some rather interesting places to swim around campus. I've heard legends of a few cliffs with a deep lake beneath them. I have never been, of course, but I hear it's one of the most freeing things in the world to push off as hard as you can, knowing, for the next few seconds of your life, nothing else matters but the fall and the cool water catching you in the end. In this same category, the mountains are right there. I mean, literally, right there. Go camping, go backpacking, relax, forget about life for a while. Be still; God reveals himself in creation.

I'm going to stop writing now and go play some raquetball in the gym across the street from Morrill, because it's my birthday, so I get to do what I want.

Searching for God

2007-10-23T18:21:00.000-04:00

I finished Blue Like Jazz this week and started reading Second Chronicles, which reminds me that I don't have a church here yet.

I started out going to Campus Crusade for Christ, or CRU (as in CRUsade--I apologize if you got that right away, but it bothered me for a while). It was cool and really relevant, but just not for me. Then my girlfriend, Brooke, and I went with a few friends of ours to check out the Presbyterian campus ministry, namely Reformed University Fellowship, or RUF. I was blown away by it and started going every Tuesday, and then every Wednesday, and then twice on Tuesdays...I may just drop out of school and go every day. The intern called me within a week, and we went out to eat together and talked about anything and nothing. What I like about RUF is that the minister swears when it's appropriate and the first time I hung out with some of the older guys in the group we were smoking pipes and dry cigars that should have been smoked months ago. Right now we are in the middle of a series on relationships talking about brokenness, insecurity, sex, and relating it all to God. This may all sound slightly terrifying, and it is, but I will keep going to RUF until we stop smoking, the minister stops swearing, and I feel like I have it all together when he speaks. My life is terrifying and abrasive, so anything else would simply be unrealistic.

My only problem is that RUF is not a church, and Brooke and I want/need a church. So far we've attended three different churches, and none of them seem to be...I don't know what. Right? Our church? Perfect? Collegiate? Part of my problem is that I don't even know what I'm looking for. The best churches I've ever been to have been like RUF and like people--none of them were perfect, but they served God in a real way and that was enough. We're still looking for an imperfect church. I will keep you posted.

A Season's Change

2007-10-15T13:55:00.000-04:00

I walked out of Morrill this morning with my head down, rushing, unkempt, not really talking to anyone. I felt slightly like Russel Crowe in A Beautiful Mind when he stumbles through the courtyard at Princeton yelling, "You're not real! You're not real!" Except I'm not at Princeton, and I'm like that every morning. Usually, I wallow in a kind of strange self pity for having chosen an early class that's a mile's walk from my dorm. It's gotten to be a part of my routine. Get up, shower, brush teeth, clothes, shoes?, no, sandals, iPod, Wilco!!, maybe breakfast, elevator, out the door, deep breath, and wallow. It's really quite sad, but today was different. This morning felt like fall, and I cannot describe to you how good that makes me feel.

I just got back from New Orleans, where I spent my fall break. I had a good time with my family--we went out to eat a lot, drove by my dad's school, went to a few small shops in the city, and watched movies. More importantly than New Orleans though, I just got back from the airport in Nashville. I think I could sit there all day; it's so interesting and busy. I had a great time listening to music (Adam Waddell), reading (Blue Like Jazz), and watching the people jogging so importantly to their flights, making up life stories for all of them in my head, trying to decide where they were all going and for what reason.

I wonder if any of them saw me and thought, "There's a kid who is going to a home he doesn't really know in a city he's never lived in before." See, my parents moved this past summer to New Orleans, because my dad is starting this really incredible school down there, and before that we lived in Collierville, outside of Memphis. I really miss my friends there. Even before I knew that they would be moving, I remember being really freaked out about leaving people behind in Collierville. I think that has been one of the hardest things about college thus far. You would think living within five square miles of 26,000 people all about your age would be an easy time, but it's really not.

Think about it, I've known some of those people from home since second grade, and it's hard to not see them that often. UT is big, and it feels big sometimes. If you go here, get involved in something and make new friends, because you can't always live with your heart in two places. I think if it weren't for RUF, people that I already knew before coming here, my roommates, and mainly God I would have gone crazy by now. I kind of feel like you are sitting there saying, "You just listed about fifty people." But it's a big void to fill. Yeah, that's been the hardest thing about college.
But then I woke up this morning and noticed it was fall, which reminds me that the seasons change, and fall is just as good as Summer. It's even better, because it changed, and the cool is so much cooler after Summer than in the Spring. Maybe college is the same, right? Even if it's not, the trees are pretty, and that's something, right?

Ruby Bridges

2007-10-04T13:29:00.000-04:00

This is to give a visual aide to the discussion going on in the comments section of "An Introduction." This is Norman Rockwell's famous "The Problem We All Live With." It's so powerful. Thanks, Cyndi, for taking such an interest in my family.

An Introduction

2007-09-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

My name is Alex, and I am a freshman at UT Knox, which I'm pretty happy about now. I wasn't happy about it before I came, because I really wanted to go to Washington University in St. Louis, but it's almost $50,000 per year, and frankly, I don't know anyone who has that much money. Then I wanted to go to St. Louis University, and I even got a scholarship to go there, but it was still more than UT and my dad said he wouldn't cosign on any loans, which I respect him for, because I'm crazy for wanting to go there anyway. But it sucked at the time, and I got really upset at him for a while, which was dumb, because it's not his fault that some schools cost more than our house. I had some other options, but UT gave me a scholarship for an essay I wrote them, and it's a great school, so I came here.

I think my boss in the admissions department must be reading this with bated breath, waiting for the part where I tell everyone to forget all the other schools and come to UT. They said they are getting students to write for them now because people our age don't trust anyone besides ourselves. I think that's because they get paid to get you to come here. I don't really care if you come here or not. There are already 26,000 people here, so I don't think they need any help from me. I will say, though, that UT is a great school--a lot better than anyone at my high school made it out to be--and if you rule it out because it's a state school, you're making a really important decision based on nothing. I could have gone to other schools, but I didn't. Don't you want to know why?

I would tell you about myself, what I look like and everything, but I think I'm going to put a picture up anyway, so you can see for yourself. I am allowed to put pictures up, but not say my last name. That seems kind of weird to me. On my facebook under the "about myself," I just put "I keep my kings in the back row." I don't really know why I put that, except that I like Salinger a lot and he defined a character with that, and I think it's incredible. That's something, then, about me. I like books. I'm reading one right now called, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. I'd never heard of him before and I would hate to have that last name, but his book is really good. It's about being in high school, so you should definitely check it out. Another thing you should know about me is that I think I may be the last guy in my dorm that likes CD's more than MP3's. I can't really explain why, but there is just something about being able to touch your music--having to bring it with you, making sure it doesn't get scratched--that appeals to me on some strange, deep level. Right now I'm listening to an incredible band called The Weepies. Despite the name, listening to them always makes me feel like my life is alright. Some bands can do that; most can't.

I just told you all that because I think if you are going to listen to me about what I think about stuff you should know a little bit about me. I'm kind of nervous that people aren't going to read this at all, so if you do, and you like it, write me comments and notes so I know I'm not just talking to my parents and my grandma and the one guy who really likes Salinger or the Weepies too and would read it just for that. I need to know what you guys want to hear. They hired me to make sure you get a student perspective on the school, and I won't lie to you, so take advantage. Anything you want to know, I'll talk about it. Try me.