Simple Solutions to Boredom at the U

"Whadduya wanna do?"

"I dunno man..."

Sound familiar? Of course it does. This happened all the time back home and you can bet your bottom dollar that it'll happen to you when you get to college - even in a place as allegedly cool and unrelenting as Miami.

To some extent boredom is necessary. It gives the mind a chance to wander and maybe explore some previously untraveled avenues of thought. In fact you should be grateful for boredom every now and then; it's a luxury of modern living. A long time ago you would have been too busy trying to stay alive to ever be bored. A great many brilliant things have been sprung from the seeds of boredom, like the skateboard, CSPAN, and the international space station. Neiztche even went as far as to say that, "To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar."

Alright fine, points taken. But why does boredom have to be so... BORING?! And how do I get rid of it?!

The first things you could do is wrap yourself up in enough responsibility that you never have time to be bored. That's one option but in my opinion it's a bad one. If you don't have time to stare helplessly into a Facebook profile for at least 15 minutes every couple of days or so, then you may as well ask yourself why you go on living. You're life as a college student shouldn't be akin to that of a worker bee, droning on and on until you finally kick the bucket under the sole of some unforgiving shoe. Assure yourself some free time so you don't go mad but if that free time leaves you asking the question "What the hell should I do for the next half hour?" give some of these ideas a try.

1. Go for a walk. Yeah, that's right. Walk. Maybe it sounds more boring than the aforementioned Facebook scenario, but suck it up and kick the pavement. Leave your dorm and just start walking. I've found more "secret" study places and hang out spots on this campus by just getting bored and walking around than any other way. Keep an open eye and don't deny your urge to walk straight across the quad even though it looks like treading on the grass will earn you death-stares from the landscaping staff. And try to get off campus! The area around UM seems a little too bland with its cookie cutter industry and the rather tasteless jaunt along US-1, but if you walk long enough in one direction you might find yourself at the coolest little park you never would of found if you hadn't gotten up, said "Screw it" and walked off in an arbitrary direction.

2. Get something to read and go some place you like (i.e. sunny patch of grass, physics quadrangle, lake). Read whatever you brought there. You'll feel all nostalgically college and maybe learn something in the meantime. Reading is fun kids!
2a. Try the Miami Hurricane, the college paper. It's more like a tabloid than a real piece of news media, but it's worth picking up from time to time.

3. Go to the pools. Yeah, we got two. One inside, one out. You can't lose either way.

4. People watch. Park yourself in front of the Towers or maybe at the Rat and just watch people. Hilarious, ridiculous, gorgeous, pathetic, juiced-up, fashionable and sometimes crazy people will walk by. And they will never lack variety.

5. Climb a tree.

6. Go to the UC. I don't know... if you're really desperate there are always people yelling and trying to get you to do things when you walk through the UC. Maybe you'll find something you like.

7. Knock on adjacent dorm rooms. Most of the kids on your floor will be just as bored as you. Maybe you could round up a whole gang of bored kids, stand in a circle and put your fists together to see if you can summon Captain Planet. "When your powers combine..."

8. Bury your boredom in the delicious flavors of Jamba Juice. There's one on campus. Awesome.

9. Play a prank. You didn't hear it from me, but if you're not stealing one from each pair of your roommate's shoes or sticking all his underwear in the fridge then you have no business being enrolled.

10. Do your homework. I know. It's hardly a cure for boredom, but if you do it now you won't be prevented from doing something really fun whenever it pops up.

Obviously this isn't an all inclusive list. The more time you spend here the more ways you'll figure out how to stave off boredom. The best thing to do is never rule anything out right off the bat. Always give things a try.

*Oh, and if you want to try one surefire solution to boredom that you can start right now at home, download the StumbleUpon app for Mozilla and start Stumbling!!!!

Spring Break

You might be wondering why I haven’t written anything in so long and the answer is SPRING BREAK! I had the past ten days with no school and was trying to make the most of it.
This might leave you asking, what’d you do? Well, I flew home for about half of the week and got to enjoy home cooking and the company of my family. Even got to see some friends from back home. The mediocre Pennsylvania weather aside it was a pretty good trip. With half of the break still remaining, I then met up with my girlfriend from UM on Sanibel.
Sanibel if you’ve never heard of it is a lovely, very unspoiled island on the Gulf coast of Florida, about two and half hours west of UM by car. There is virtually no corporate influence on the island with the exception of maybe one CVS and a small family owned grocery store. All other business is essential confined to restaurants. It’s a really cool place to go if you’re main goal is to unwind and check out of society for a while – this isn’t where you want to be if you feel like clubbing. I spent most of my time there –wouldn’t you know it – on the beach. But something particularly neat about Sanibel is the fact that since the human presence there is so low, the area is chock full of all kinds of wildlife. And of course the scenery is amazing. Kayaking on Tarpon Bay or watching the sunset on the beach was probably my favorite part of the trip.
When I got back to UM on Sunday the campus was much quieter than usual. Throughout the day though as people came trickling back in I found out what others had done with their time off. Road tripping was a popular one. Two of my friends made a spontaneous decision to visit a friend in Houston. Lots of people I know went to other cities around Florida: Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Sarasota. And a bunch of them, for good reason, just went to the beach. Of course if they had the money to spend, kids took trips to Cancun and the Bahamas, but it’s nice to know you don’t even really need to escape Miami to have something to do. A group of girls I know stayed on campus the whole break and said they were basically able to do whatever they wanted. They did ridiculous things like build a fort out blankets in the dorm study room and sleep outside one night on the student commons. Substances might have been heavily involved in these activities but I think they had fun either way.
Spring break is way too short. A week off isn’t as much time as you think. Especially when you have three tests the week you get back…

Ayyyy! Thought I’d take a minute to mention some of the weekend’s highlights!

The ‘Canes had their final home basketball game of the season against ACC opponent NC State. The game itself was a little scary with Miami ending the first half behind and McClinton – who if you’ve never heard of is described by Duke’s Coach K as “one of the best” – scoring less than 10 points. Things must have clicked on in the locker room though because about five minutes into the second half the game started shaping up for the Hurricanes and by the end they’d pulled out a 72-64 victory over the Wolfpack – McClinton scoring 24 on his own. The end was somewhat bittersweet, especially for the seniors who had just played their respective last games on home court. I personally was excited for the win but bummed out by the idea of basketball season coming to an end. So out of optimism I’d like to point out that only the home season has ended. The team still has the ACC tournament to look forward to, where a good performance will likely land them a bid in the NCAA tournament. But out of nostalgia for how much I’m gonna miss home basketball games I’ll just fill you in on what they’re like in the next paragraph so skip ahead if b-ball ain’t yo thang…

….Basketball is one of the most fun school related activities on campus, and in my opinion trumps football every time. Not only do I find the game faster and more exciting, the associated atmosphere is much more appealing. Entering the Bank United Center – “the Buc” – and heading into the student section gives you a real sense of school spirit that I haven’t found anywhere else. Football games for some are just social activities where the game itself is largely ignored, but at a U basketball game you can be pretty certain that everyone is there to really watch the game and be as loud and involved as possible to cheer on the home team, or at least disrupt the visiting one. It’s great! And even if you just don’t know what’s going on basketball-wise, it’s still fun to yell like crazy and diss players on the other team. Even more there are always silly little games like “basketball bowling” or the “half court shot” which give the fans something to watch during time outs and participating students a chance to win free stuff like FOOD!!!!!!!!!!! or BOOKSTORE GIFT CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh… and did I mention the Sunsations? Yeah… the Sunsations. ‘Nuff said. So when you’re down here next fall I SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND BASKEBALL GAMES! …

But back to the weekend update. This Saturday there were three really great concerts in somewhat close proximity to UM. Girl Talk and Modest Mouse played at venues roughly 30 minutes away, either by car or keen manipulation of Miami’s often archaic public transit system, but if you didn’t feel like leaving campus the much celebrated jam band Umphrey’s McGee gave a FREE concert from UM’s own Unversity Center patio. If you haven’t heard of them before, they play melodic, musically complex music, liberally permeated by piano / drum / guitar solos. Similar artist include moe., Phish, the String Cheese, etc. The show started at 8pm so at around 7.30 I walked from the freshman dorms past the lake and to the patio. The patio just to let you know, is adjacent to the campus’s University Center or UC and is decked out with lots of tables, umbrellas and chairs and even has a stage backed up against the lake. It’s a pretty sweet setup for a concert especially one at night with light effects. With maybe a late start the band kicked off and the whole set from then on was amazing. There was a big crowd and most of the songs had the more rambunctious of them dancing in the first 10 rows or so – mostly like flower children and superfans of the Beatles. Others they played inspired deep and pondering stares from awe-struck faces laced in smoke of questionable legality as the keyboards insanely melted over everything and the guitarists burnt their fingers on the strings. The band took a 20 minute break and then launched into another crescendo until in one gigantic cacophony they concluded for the eventual encore. I decided to leave for the encore because I saw the set list lying on the stage and knew they planned to play a song I didn’t like. So instead I left early to snoop around the merch table then head back around the lake home. I was exhausted but it was really amazing to hear the distant music and see the ripples of the light effects on the water and in the big shadows of the four twelve story dorm buildings. I thought the show was awesome, and gratefully remembered that it was FREE – thanks UM!
http://www.umphreys.com/main.php Umprhey’s
I hear of friends at other schools who get Girl Talk and Ben Folds, but thinking about the chance to see Umphrey’s I have to say that I’m really happy with the music scene at Miami. I mean, sometimes it’s a little unoriginal. Most of the club music is horrible, save a few notable exceptions and the spring music festival, ULTRA. And if you’re looking for the next indie hotspot this isn’t the place – unless it’s independent hip-hop. But there is a very impressive ska set, a vivacious reggae presence, and a tight assortment of jam outfits that love to throw in mixes of the former and latter styles. That’s something I can’t say about home or any other place but here – Cali maybe? Miami is such a vibrant place it attracts all kinds of talent. I had the chance to see Girl Talk or Umphrey’s by being here. Kids at those other schools I talked about don’t get that choice. That’s something really cool and something I never would have expected from this place.

That was pretty much my weekend other than hanging out in preparation for the final week before spring break. Peace!

Videoblog on ULecture 1!!!!!!!

ULecture Series - Quality Time with Quality Professors

Last night I attended the premier of a new student initiative, the ULecture series.
The series was born after freshman Michael Kaplan saw inspiration for the idea in a class he had during fall semester. The specific class was called “Books that Matter,” a freshman seminar geared at involving new students to the U with engaged discussions on, well, books that matter. Special to this class though was the fact that various faculty members from all across the university would act as guest lecturers from time to time in order to really bring the subjects alive.
Kaplan really liked the idea of having these much more personal scholarly discussions and wanted other students not in the class to have a chance at the same type of thing. So, working with administration he initiated a string of lectures given by top-faculty in departments all across campus, discussing topics of all kinds, in an environment centered on dynamic, intimate learning – and maybe a little bit of fun…
The series, which runs every Wednesday night at 7 from now through the end of April, kicked off with a lecture titled Crossing the Digital Divide: Lessons Learned from the New Media Generation by Professor Sam Grogg, Dean of the School of Communications.
An amiable man, Grogg is very down to earth and very casual, though not at all sloppy. He started his lecture by asking the audience to show hands if they had a cell phone. After everyone in the room raised his or her hand, he flashed his own cell phone number on the PowerPoint screen and asked us to write it down. Then if anyone had a question during lecture, they could simply text it to him and he’d do his best to answer it. It became immediately clear that despite looking like just another old-school professor, Grogg embraces the usefulness of technology – his lecture aimed to extrapolate on that idea.
He started off by showing a Youtube clip, A Vision of Students Today. The video was created and researched by actual college students and points out the many archaic qualities intrinsic to our current education system: the most poignant facts perhaps including, “I will read 8 books this year… 2300 web pages and 1281 Facebook profiles.”
Something here isn’t right. There is a conflict between the then and now. When the average age of a tenured college professor is 55, there is bound to be reluctance, resulting from either nostalgia or fear, to accept the high tech fast paced world we not only accept, but demand. Today’s students, Grogg says, want freedom in everything – they want choice. We want customization, personalization. We expect transparency of information, and have no problem using the technological resources we’ve been given to find it. We want integrity, in all things corporate, political, and plainly just human. We expect to have fun with life. And we constantly demand innovation – bigger, better, faster, go!

Grogg then delivered the crux of his argument: "I am the immigrant. You are the native - you are the indigenous culture of the new digital world.” Essentially he is saying that we, today’s college students, have grown up in a digital world, something his generation still reels to totally accept. Grogg’s generation had transistor radios and Boys Life magazine. We have iPods and the internet. That thought alone is mind-boggling. Simply by growing up with these technological influences around us has instilled in us an innate ability to work with the gadgets and software that make modern life so much simpler, so much faster. And yet despite these realities, we continue to find ourselves in lecture halls which resemble the 2000 year old Theater of Dionysus while we hack away at Wikipedia to see if half the things our professors say are true.


Looking at the way in which we as an emergent culture organize and operate with comparison to the way of the “old world,” Grogg finished his lecture with a summary of the lessons he’s learned for life in the digital age:

1. We must adapt continuously. Expect change and do not fear it.
2. Time travel to some extent is possible; at least when it comes to watching your favorite TV shows… (Way back when Grogg only got ONE CHANCE to catch Leave It to Beaver. If he missed the air date he couldn’t have gotten on Hulu.com to see it later.)
3. Brick by brick is the wrong way to build. Our world is too dynamic and there is not enough time to follow paradigms. You must see the context and the specific at the same time.
4. Ethics and etiquette will be dependable paradoxes. You know how there are some friends you would feel awkward calling just to talk, but would spend hours online instant messaging? That’s an example of how we redefine our perceptions of ethics and etiquette within a technologically influence social environment.
5. Being digitally savvy is not the same as being digitally wise. Just because we can do something with technology doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do.
6. Natives MUST embrace the immigrants. We the tech-savvy kids of today absolutely need to help incorporate the old-timers.

He then thanked us for our time after about an hour of lecturing (even though lecture is probably a bad word to use, since its definition usually runs along the lines of: (n) a presentation in which most members of the intended audience invariably fall asleep) and then opened the floor for questions. All kinds of questions were asked about the presentation, his field of study, and even his opinions on out some outside matters. By the time it was over, I’d realized that another 40 minutes had gone by without my even noticing. I was completely impressed by how engaging, funny and generally enjoyable his presentation and subsequent discussion were. The guy was definitely having fun, and so were we.

All in all, the event matched perfectly with Kaplan’s original intention to create a comfortable, familiar environment for discussion. I was able to hear a presentation from a teacher I’d never even see within 100 paces of the engineering college, so in my opinion ULecture definitely met its goal of sharing otherwise unheard of topics with the general campus community. And I get the feeling that the UM faculty members involved aren’t there just to talk about points. They want to share their interests with kids who are willing to listen, and answer all the questions and follow all the tangents that arise along the way. It’s something I didn’t expect a school from a school so focused on big time research. I definitely plan on attending next installment of the ULecture series.