does this blog SUCK?

We are not too adamant about writing, so we apologize. I assume that you check the blog everyday and are disappointed when you see we've been neglecting it.

From Slog, our daily Muppets:


Updates:

Bianca and I will share a sink next year! This is the closest to being roommates as we can get. I tired to make a diagram but it didn't show up on the blog. To describe, we have two singles that are connected by a sink room.

Cool huh? We're living in forest hall west: http://www.middlebury.edu/campuslife/commons/cook/facilities

Beside that, we've been chugging along. I went to a frisbee tournament last weekend, sectionals, and all of our teams did very well. A boys and the girls teams won the tourni, while the B boys defeated all the B teams they played. Very good job Prankster's Ultimate.

Bianca got called pasta hair yesterday.

I'm in the middle of reading Maus by Art Spiegelman, who I've recently become obsessed with. I dreamed the other day that I was a Jew confined in the Holocaust; I hope to never again have a nightmare like that. Scary stuff.

Things we've done to occupy our time:
-Bianca received a poster from the Believer, a art/pop-culture magazine that pictures a whole bunch of stylized and unnamed faces. Our new pass time is attempting to name these faces, and then place sticky notes under their faces. Surprising finds: Smoosh, G.I. Joe, Emma Watson?
-We discovered creative club and shanghaied it from its founders so that it now takes place in Bianca's room instead of Hepburn lounge. Bianca has been doing a lot of moon journaling and I've been doodling.
-Homework and/or not doing homework/hanging out with Lucas in Bianca's room on a Monday afternoon while Bianca does her homework and Lucas and I help her.
-Deciding classes for next semester. I am not sure about Bianca but here's one possible schedule:
-American Landscapes (Geography)
-Chinese 101
-Natures Meanings: Farm Stories.
-?(Calculus 0121)(French 221)(Philosophy of Law)(The American Political Regime?)

Spring has arrived!
Welcome to the flowers! Smiles and Bounces!

auf Wiedersehen,
Carson

P.S. Funny photo from Spring break.

read this NOW:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-different-kinds-ofpeople-that-there-are/Content?oid=1206006

one passage that we find paticularly applicable to middlebury:

People Who Don't Watch TV

Symbolically not doing something for the sake of not doing it is almost never evidence of sophistication. It is evidence of not knowing what you're fucking talking about. Are we really still having this conversation? Television is a part of the cultural landscape at this point—a lot of it is good. A lot of it is bad, some of which is also good. You know, LIKE ALL THINGS MADE BY HUMANS? Obviously it is also a good idea to go outside once in a while. But the presence of a television in your home does not make that decision for you. You make it. Feel free to still go outside at any time.

AND

People Who Are Pretty and Smart and Funny and Nice

You probably want to hate these people, but why bother? They are absolutely wonderful, and all we can do is deal with it and hope to be charming enough that they will some day mate with us so that our children can absorb some of their impossible magic.

My Life without Bianca.

I am in Georgia now, in a ridiculously nice house that my frisbee team rented on Jekyll Island. It's a weird place to be mostly because the island which were on reminds me of a giant sand dune with trees and lots of old people, and also because the island used to be a cotton plantation, slaves and all. They've built hotels everywhere and strangely designed complexes with grocery and convenience stores looking like strip malls. The sun burns it's soooo hot. Very good spring break weather. We're the pranksters and we're all having a merry time. Playing frisbee again feels great. It's my great athletic reawakening.

B team boys are staying at a camp site a little bit away from the ridiculously nice house. It takes 3 minutes to drive, 45 minutes to walk and about 1 30 hours to cruise. Cruisin' is a new lifestyle that I was explained to me yesterday. Life is just crusin'. Cruse life, that's a doctrine. It is hard to explain. Yesterday, I also learned that numbers were originally derived from the number of angles that compose them. Think about 1, the european way of making a one it looks like a droopy 7. One angle. Think about 8, but more boxy, eight angles. 4 is easy, a triangle and a line. Am I boring you? Sorry.

I haven't worked on my southern drawl yet, but I hear a lot of it. The B team boys went to a Goodwill last Sunday to pick up some "flair" to play Ultimate in, where we basically raided the womens section; the southerns gave us plenty of estranged looks and comments, in their drawl. I considered faking an accent, to fit in, but I didn't and let the lady at the counter comment southern-ly on every piece of women's clothing I bought. "mmhmm this one is nice, but I can't explain when you'd wear theeis." I had a slightly creepier experience the night before in Virginia. We decided to drive through the night from Middlebury to Georiga and made few stops along the way. At the rest stop in Virginia, I was walking out of the car toward the gas station, when a man in a carhart jacket trudges out of the woods carrying a jug. He comes up to be and says, in southern drawl, "She's dead!...She's dead!," walks inside, fills the jug and then head back in the woods. That scared me, a lot, so we left. We considered possible explanations. One: he killed her in the woods. Two: but why did he need water? maybe she was thirsty? Three: his car died. I don't know what to think.

At 4 in the morning we stopped to stretch on Lynches River Road. We parked at an empty gas station and closed motel. The crickets were chirping and the stars out. At the end of the road, there was nothing but darkness. The eerie south.

My car arrived at 7 in the morning at the fields in Georgia Southern University. People we just waking up and we fell asleep. Things that I really wanted to do there:

-NOT take a shower.
-Eat at Popeyees chicken.
-Practice my drawl.

Things I did there:

-Watched the A team boys and girls play their way through southerns, GLORIOUSLY.
-Tan
-Cuddled
-Ate nothing, but bagels and pasta.
-NOT take a shower.

Oh yeah.

What I said to Hannah day on Saturday: "Hannah, I find my self hanging out with febs all the time and I like it a lot." what withdrawal this is! I miss my febs, I miss BIANCA!

More to blogging come? Maybe. In summary, I miss my other half and am having good times. Good giggly, hilarious, crying my eyes out laughing times. Not much more to say.

Love,
Carson

bianca + carson = radio

ch-ch-ch-check it out now

speakradio.blogspot.com

Episode 2

you don't need to download it if ya dont want, unless you want it on your pod. just follow the link it'll play in quicktime

My Dinner with Middlebury

our quaker friend left for the weekend, he is the voice of reason and disaster ensued without him.
things i did this weekend: sewed my flare jeans into skinny jeans by hand. i had to redo a lot cuz i made them too skinny and couldnt get my foot through, but in the end it turned out swell with a little bulge at the knees to add character. also went rockclimbing, made it to the top of the wall and thought i had pulled my forearm. and in true middlebury fashion i played hackysack. also watched a the philisophical movie My Dinner With Andre, which really is entirely a dinner conversation.
school continues to be difficult, i have to read and stuff like that.
Things that can not be found anywhere in Middlebury, VT:
Hot cheetos
Obscure dvd’s

My goals, to be achieved sometime in four years at middlebury:
Have a professor write the word "brilliant" on something, anything i do
Find someones bookshelf that I have read every single book on

also, i pose a question about neckne: is it the scarves?

ive been getting super into working on talk radio, right now i'm working on a story about telemarketers and someone who clubbed fish to save the environment.
i want to go to the mountains for spring break so we'll see how that goes. tin foiling carson's room went splendidly and now we have a gigantic tin foil ball to play with. lucas and morgan say they're going to get back at me for moving all their stuff in a wild prank involving orange juice. its terribly suspenseful.
at middlebury, everyone is so damn cool it kills me. lots of people make literary references during regular conversation, and everyone else gets it. im not sure how cool that is. today i'm going to funcercise, and im a little nervy.
something to think about: instead of saying but, say and.
and now, doodles by barack obama:









It is true, Middlebury is cool. I'd say that I am digging my time here so far, because every day enriches me with experiences that turn into story that eventually turn into LEGEND. I am developing my allegory here, at college. Anyway, I've wanted to blog for weeks now but can only now find the time.

I went to Washington D.C. two weeks ago to attend the powershift, climate change conference. The bus took almost 10 hours, during which I sat next to Savannah. She bores easily and I didn't do much homework. Our route to D.C. confused me because we went west the south, so it this type of crazy driving/route system that further proves to me that East coast road ways are very confusing. I'd say people have lived here to long and have paved too many short cuts and 'alternative' routes for their own good. The powershift conference itself wasn't that enriching. Mostly because my group and I were often tardy and couldn't make it to panel/workshops that were actually interesting. On the first day, Morgan and I listen to a panel on hip-hop and the environment. I quote their keynote speaker:
"We was hyphee like 10 years ago...I was the 22nd best tennis player in the bay area (clapping)..then I got shot...Music is positive to real life...thank y'all"
Their was some message in there that I didn't get; I found myself being critical a lot of the panels I went to. I am critical of unorganized activism, un-channelled aggression. But, I enjoyed the state wide meetings that we had on saturday, where we discussed issues about washington state. I love Washingtonians. The small group is what did it. There wasn't a inexperienced public speaker screaming at the crowd: "you are the future! get out their, youth, and change the world!!!" I wrote: "how many times can they tell us that we are the 'future.'
In the nighttime, my group (quaker, Coloradoan, bread maker, with special appearance by fish killer, I Love Mackenzie, Joni Mitchell and Oh canada (all these names are fictitious)) stayed with my friend lucas' (quaker) friend, Kevin, with whom Lucas biked across the country, in Takoma, Maryland, 15 minutes out of D.C. Is that confusing? Kevin took us one night to a classic diner, where we met a robust waitress named roxanne. she claimed to make the best milkshakes in the world, so Savannah (Joni) order one. It was delicious. We needed to take a picture, so we asked Roxanne's mother, who surprisingly also works at the diner. She took the picture after moving the camera around three or four times, then saying "got ya!" She didn't 'get' us, she 'got' about half the group at a titled angle. hilarious. Plus did I mention that it was snowing this entire time?! Yes, the climate showed the world that it needs our help. we are the future?

Moving on from powershift (the last day I lobbied the US house of representatives and went to my first protest!), I got home from D.C. and found my room completely covered in tinfoil, bianca's doing. unbelievable. i went to see a man named John Francis speak last weds, who didn't talk for 17 years and avoided motor vehicles for even longer. Plus he came from Pt. Reyes, CA and knew tom baty, a man I admire! Things I learned/pondered:
-what is living for?
-we are the environment (the future?. change yourself first of all, to a life of balance, and then you will incidentally, affect the environment more positively.
-Busking works!
-don't drop out of school with out telling them, or all your grades will turn to fs.
-a black man with a banjo can make a difference.

vermont deceives me. just yesterday it was warm and sunny, I played frisbee outside, walked to the library in flip-flops and now! it is snowy again, like winter never ended! has it yet, I am not really in the know?
School goes well. Two positive things: I met with my adviser the other day and talked about my progression thus far and I feel grounded and more comfortable, and the other day in socio-anthropology, I experience a "educational Epiphany", realizing that I enjoy my 'learning.' Bianca and I decided that we are now in a band and that is why we are always together. we get asked this questions a lot, so there's the answer. band music to follow.

also, rewatching my dinner with andré was a good choice. uncertainty appeals to me. is it such a bad thing?

doodles and toodles,
bianca and carson

Don't you find this interesting?

So we finally had a our first weekend on campus, and there are stories to tell. Nothing too crazy. It all started Thursday, because classes were canceled on friday for Middlebury's winter carnival. The point was we got the day off to go and watch the ski races, which we replaced by not going, sleeping in and an afternoon on the town. There were many scheduled activities for CARNIVAL, all for which you had to buy tickets. Lots of friend forgot to buy tickets which made going from event to event as a crowd harder than it could have been. My schedule for the weekend follows: Orange Crush, a 80s cover band Thurs, The Wood Brothers Friday (STORY: the wood brothers are musical artists, named Oliver and Chris Wood. My friend Oliver Wood has a brother named Chris. Just like the musicians, Oliver is older than Chris. Plus, the concert was on Oliver's birthday. I told this story to the Wood brothers themselves, and they found it amusing, but not enough to give me a free CD, as I intended), the Middlebury Carnival Ball Saturday and the Ice Show Sunday. The Ball was a production. Colorful lights lit up Nelson gym, transforming the place I practice frisbee into a crazy-party-winter-techno party. Party Party. I exchanged 13 text messages while dancing, trying to get Margo Cramer to come dance with me, which she didn't do. I danced on stage, a first. The Wood Brothers, coincidence aside, put on a fantastic show. Bianca and I left the ice show after 3 mins, because of the opening act: a troop of 6 year olds in santa outfits and their mothers singing the Polar Express. Orange Crush was also a dance party. They gave out free plastic Rayband-like sunglasses in many colors, which detracted from my originality here at Middlebury; I am colored Raybands kid, but now, so if everyone else. On another note, it started to snow here again and hasn't really stopped since Friday. The ground is covered and my feet are suffering. BUT my sneakers aren't. In fact they are getting a nice polish and each time, upon return for outdoors, I notice cleaner sneakers.

I find myself waking up in the morning and wondering where I am. Maybe I am having dreams about home I don't remember. Today I started the process of becoming a lucid dreamer, by carrying around a piece of paper that asks me "Are you dreaming?" I say, No. But the point is, one of these days, I'll dream about the paper, notice I AM in fact dreaming and control my dreams. First plan of action: dreaming I can fly, dreaming I am a student at Hogwarts...which leads me to my last side note. NO ONE likes wizard people here and I am seriously deprived. "Hideous *&#$^%*!"

Song lyric I am currently hearing, and transcribing: "Like a fool I am willing to take that fall again and don't let me fall too fast. I wanna fall slowly, I want my fall to last, I want my fall to last." --The Wood Brothers.

Bianca speaks:

My words have been pilfered by Carson, mostly. I was hippy dancing to the wood brothers, and enjoyed their lyrics "gonna keep my skillet greasy." not to be unnecessarily vulgar, but the only way to describe the bass solos is orgasmic. they clowned a lot on middlebury students outside carving ice sculptures in the night. couldnt decide if i should go to DC or not next weekend. couldnt decide if i should get bangs or a nose piercing. i had my first sleepover, on the floor in a tshirt next to an open window and maybe got hypothermia.

bianca and carson are taking a really long time getting back from the gym. i was worried, but i just got through to bianca and they are a-ok.

you guys shouldn't worry either. i'm looking after your favorite bloggers.

love,
tess

p.s. the hillel welcoming committee just barged in our room to welcome me to hillel. they said it's cool that i'm only half jewish. also, they were slightly disappointed when i told them my roommates weren't here. they knew carson was my pseudo roommate.
bye

in the dining hall they serve something called "cold yogurt soup." this is a smoothie disguised as soup, with soup bowls next to it to trick you. also, they dont label any of the salad dressings for unknown reasons. i might have my parents send me my label maker, so i can at least just make fake names for dressings. i tried to join a hip hop dance troupe, but was rejected. then i tried to take a swing dancing class, but got too dizzy. recent discovery: the ginger ale flows freely in the dining hall at all hours of the day. also, we were informed our festive valentines day decorations are a fire hazard. we were given quite a scare on our FOO! trip, when our leaders girl friend came to surprise him for valentine's day by laying in the snow face down pretending to be dead. we came out to brush our teeth, saw her, freaked out, poked her (in mountaineer first aid fashion) and then after forever (30 seconds) she popped up and said HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! then she brought a creepy singing troll box and lots of candy!

Recent criticism of the blog make us self-conscious about ourselves, which is a problem, because MIDDLEBURY makes us self conscious about ourselves. I wrote in my journal the other day about how much attention people seem to pay to me. They are good at pinpointing certain attributes of mine, or identifying the reasons behind me actions. My classmates are so perceptive. This translates into the classroom, where I find people talk, talk, talk with interesting things to say. My classmates are confident too. I find myself tired a lot because I stay up late, by my own doing. I spent all of today outside of class hanging out, almost working but NOT doing it. I realize that college is all about space between classes and prioritizing things that need to be done. I am working on balancing. I joined a lot of different clubs at the activities fair the other day. I went to meditation club yesterday and the head yogi-dude-man talked about hole in ourselves that we attempt to fill from the outside in. Yet, we will find the best fillers for our gaping self emptiness within our selves, or something like that. We learned the prayer to shiva and then were invited to go smoke pot in his honor next monday. Maybe I'll do that, but then again maybe I'll won't because my homework is piling up on my like a unstoppable mound of doubling yeast. yeast, I say because it was the first thing that came to mind. I am trusting the process, the creative process, because I just switched into a class--yes the same as a bianca--dedicated to the study of creativity. wonderful. Today we walked around the room with our eyes closed and then had to find a partner. I found my partner and couldn't stop thinking about the Lord of the Rings and how we were like Frodo and Sam, scrambling to find the ring or something. Then we had to face each other and stare into each other's eyes. this was awkward. then we drew each other, and examined each other. Like Carlos Casteneda in the books "tales of don juan," we practiced different types of seeing--basic seeing, landscape visualizing, surreal seeing--all trippy shit. like it is. I now, late, late into the night have to complete my loads of work for tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. Thanks for tuning in.

here is a list of things bianca wanted me to say while I was blogging/what tess and bianca did while I was bloging:
-bianca wanted me to mention her parrot, which hangs precariously over her desk, is attached to the wall by tape and is nameless.
-we went to the ben and jerry's ice cream factory and bought a tye-dye t-shirt; now our vermont dreams are complete.
-tess and bianca played a guessing game of "which brand is this shirt" with tess' clothes.
-tess unplugged everything then plugged it back it.

goodnight to everybody and their mother.

love,
carson and bianca

Quaker's oats

the creative process class im in is chugging along weirdly. we had to do something with a piece of paper, and i made a large, 3-dimensional piece of toast. then i gave it away to someone who is planning on getting a toaster oven. my friend wyatt and i applied to have a radio show called biancwyatt (pronounced beyond quiet). things to do: find a large stick so that i can build a makeshift closet under my bed, a small stick so i can build a perch for my fake parrot, and learn mandolin.

I got 12 hours of sleep last night and I feel spunky. I am relaxed except for the homework assignments looming over my head for monday. I am planning to switch out of studio art, but have to find another class. American Literature? On Wednesday, in studio art, I tried to complete my valentine to Yoko Ono, but my first idea looked to much like a penis and the second attempt came out looking like a regurgitated organ. Not good valentines gifts. The teacher also showed us two videos: one of a guy sexually soliciting the camera and the other a video interpretation of sending and receiving an email. Artistic. I have turned in my first official Middlebury writing assignment. I have two books to read by monday. Frisbee is fun. Team name: the Merry Pranksters. They are having a party tonight called AFAB (Anything for a Buck), which us febs are not invited to because we'll get scared. I am getting over the sickness that consumed me this past week. According to Bianca's spanish personal ad, I am a bad dancer. We're also on the same FOO! trip leaving tomorrow. We're staying in a cabin somewhere in the green mountains. I keep meeting Febs I didn't know existed; like a Quaker we met the other day, who Bianca didn't know was Quaker and said " My friend is in Pennsylvania. He is living in a Quaker community. What the fuck?" He responded "Oh, I'm Quaker."

Tess's mom sent her lots of chocolate, a valentines day gift well received by our sweet tooths.

open minds and firing neurons!

today i went to a really great fiction writing class that had 15 people in it and a 25 person waiting list (not including me). the teacher said we should go around the room and say our writing experience, and the kid next to me was all like, "well, in my first novel..."

carson were put in the same FOO! (outdoor ski trip), because the universe is always conspiring to put us together. i have found someone who brought an equal amount of neckwear to middlebury as me. today in creative process class, someone said "i dislike biting dry towels." its realllllyyyyy opening my mind man

i didnt realize i had spanish everyday, until i went the first day and he was all like, see you tomorrow and i was like, come again?

word glutton speaks:


Middlebury is beginning to scare me. My first year seminar teacher gave my class a writing assignment, 3 reading assignments (all lengthy) and three questions to answer for thurs. In between, I will scurry to finish my other work; french, social anthropology...studio art. OH, studio art. In our first class, my teacher showed us a performance art piece of a pigeon having its breakfast off his face. We are making valentines for friday for a list of people the teacher gave us. Yoko Ono will be the recipient of my valentine. For my so/anthro class, I attended a screening of the film "first contact," about the first contact of white men with Papa New Guineans. The group I watched it with has organized who will bring snacks to every screening, as it right before dinner. My roommate finally arrived, after five day of playing Ultimate frisbee in Las Vegas. I know now to call him Waldo, not Jon. I went with him to my first frisbee practice tonight; it is indoors. As we always do, Bianca and I have each other. 

schmollege

we just got back to our room at 12:45, and as we walked back realized that it was light out. like, dusk. like, i could see every detail in carsons beautiful face. today we got some advice from previous febs "say hi to everyone, even if you dont know them, because then everyone else will think you're popular." i learned to tap dance and salsa dance and im looking into buying tap shoes i can wear everywhere. 

we're sitting in our dorm, watching a video of girl crying about her lost jacket. we just played mario cart for about 15 minutes and the ate gold fish and talked about religion with some fellow febs. Tomorrow, classes start. What a crazy feeling. We ACTUALLY have to work and DO something tomorrow. All the febs are freaking out. I am sad to say goodbye to the feb orientation, and our 'feb' leaders. we're transitioning to actual college life, beyond our 91 person class and into our 58238434, as it seems, class of 'regs' or regulars. 

Update: NOW it is dark. A crazy transition from 4 minutes ago. 

We're in the midst of a INTENSE video chat with Tess's friends. our friend  count is growing nicely, it has reached about 4-7. our list of people we want to be friends with is a lot bigger (8). uhhh so far we have met

the best irish dancer in the country and 9th in the world

a relative of tom woolfe

someone who killed over 7,000 fish at yellowstone

lots of people i want to marry, because statistically that will probably happen

someone who lived in a styrofoam room for 3 months

a guy who might have lied about breaking his rib

a feb named seb

love,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,b&c

They don't say hella here, as we knew before, but it is REAL now. We've lost our familiarity, but we haven't lost each other. Let me explain: Bianca and I are put together whenever possible. We are in the same dorm, same commons, same FOO (February Outdoor Orientation) group, same orientation group, and today we drew the same RANDOM group name for Olympian Olympic Olympus Trivia night. We're in cahoots like we said. 

Things we have problems with: 

-understanding jokes about New Hampshire. 

-the cold and how bitter and piercing it is. 

-having the entire football team living below us. 

Things we like: 

-Tess, Bianca's roommate. 

-The How Down we danced in last night. 

-the class 2012.5. 

Bianca's turn: 

Carson is a word glutton, full of gumption, and I prefer to be concise. But I will say that my advisor/learning about learning teacher (now professor?) told me in the first ten minutes of class I should be a reporter, and he's jovial and looks like Santa. We calculated that 10% of the feb class is from Washington State! So far I have met: someone who has jogged a lap around the track with Bill Clinton, and someone who got a ride home with Tom Woolfe last week. 

"Time flies like an arrow. Poop flies like a banana."

Bianca and Carson made it.

"You have won a trip to Carson Dietz Hartmann in the beautiful country of Bianca Giaever." 

We've putzed around and now we're here. Yippy. 

BUT we DON'T believe it. 

...c and b.