The Awesome List of Awesome Things

This is my Awesome List of Awesome Things that have happened in 2014 thus far.

• Winter shows: Dolphin, Play About the Baby, Gallows Humor, Next to Normal, Cloud 9, Querido, SASA, Cat's Cradle, Animal Style, The Transition of Doodle Pequeno, A Wrinkle in Time
• Watching Doctor Who and Starkid with S&A
• Nights spent talking with S, J, & A. Spontaneous hangouts.
• Dance Marathon
• Yonderland
• The Wrong Mans
• Dolphin Opening night: show, gala, after party
• Dolphin Company Bow at closing
• Hearing the first reading of S's play
• Alumna friend visiting and the birth of the StuCo Expat Commune
• Walking with friends on streets and by the lake
• Thurday Cookies
• Teaching a lighting workshop in my favorite venue with my favorite people
• Building a fort and just existing in it for many hours
• TSWA workshops
• Finishing my thesis
• Getting a perfect score on my theory midterm
• My birthday
• Having friends who text me every day and ask how I am and check on me when I'm sick
• Hanging with friends in the light booth during SASA tech, talking about life and being sassy
• Thursday lunches with Team Alpha (and everyone else who has joined over these last few months)
• Pocs
• Plex with N
• Rediscovering Tumblr
• Realizing how comfortable I am in my dorm room
• Incandescent light bulbs
• Running jokes: TI makes choices, clear sneak enter, here hold this
• Pigpen Concert
• Chatting with the band after the show behind the venue
• S making photos and poster signing happen in that chill time behind the venue
• Talking about my hometown with the band who were heading there and telling them where to eat
• Executing my design for my piece in the dance show at the beginning of spring
• When Skittles told me I was the welcoming upperclassman during Dolphin 2012 and working on first and last shows together is meaningful to her. It is to me, too. Probably going to cry about this. 
• Fake petitioning theater boards as a senior
• Getting a job
• Teaching drama for brilliant sixth graders

That's all I've got for now. Anticipated greatness comes from my upcoming con and five tech weeks and commencement. Will post another one of these as more awesome things happen. Or just blog about them individually. Just kind of going with the flow over here. 

Today is awesome because my sixth grade student made an analogy about putting jungle animals in a zoo by comparing it to putting a human in a forest clearing with a bed, a lamp, and a minifridge. And the lake looked like glitter when I went out there this morning. 

On Growing Up and Becoming "An Adult"

It's my last quarter of college. What?!?! I literally started this blog in the first quarter, and while I have left a lot out from my senior year, I have so many wonderful memories that are going to make it into an Awesome List of Awesome Things post in the near future. I just keep adding to the list, so I haven't decided when I'm going to publish that. But that's not what this post is about. Now that student life is starting to turn over into the capable hands of those who will be at this university next year, I've been thinking a lot about what comes next. What happens after college. 

College was the end goal through my entire education to this point. First it was a matter of getting here, then going through the system to get where I am now. I will graduate. I even have a job secured for after I graduate. But all I have ever known is how to be a student. This post-bacc life is a completely new role for me, and, through the media I consume, I think it's also a confusing time for my contemporaries. There are so many pressures on people in their early twenties to both enjoy these years of youth and also behave like "adults." But what does it mean to be an adult? There's an entire YouTube channel dedicated to answering the question "How to Adult?" There really seems to be no answer. 

In my musings, I have concluded that I am living in a society with a very strong youth culture. This has been characteristic for decades: think of the twentysomething hippies of the '60s, the disco dancing and bell bottom wearing youth of the '70s, and the strong trends before and after those iconic decades. I am part of the generation shaped by the internet, Harry Potter, 9/11, rising technologies, and unlimited access to media. My youth culture is centered around fandoms, nerdiness, loving things, and sharing that love IRL and online. I am connected to my contemporaries via phone, text, e-mail, facebook, blog, tumblr, YouTube. My generation are bloggers, vloggers, writers, musicians, artists...and everything can be self-produced and distributed online. It's a great time to be young. But how can I maintain the identity I formed within this culture as I age?

As a sociologist, I'm going to theorize. Looking at the way my parents still use language from their youths, the way hippies never really stop being hippies, the way my elders still have a strong emphasis on family and country (relics of the first half of the twentieth century youth cultures), and the fact that there are people decades older than me who still engage in fan culture, I predict that the platforms my generation use will grow and change with us. I don't foresee an end to self-producing music, vlogging, blogging, tumbling, and connecting via facebook. I don't think an Exploding TARDIS poster is necessarily going to be lauded as valuable and mature wall art, but it will not be outlandish for it to hang in my apartment. At least I hope not; I really like that poster. 

I have formed an identity through the culture of my youth. I don't want to give that up to become a "proper adult."I don't think I have to, and that's pretty cool. Sure, I'll have to start being responsible for myself in new, adult ways, but I'm realizing that the perceived pressures to have everything figured out and behave in the ways people two or three times my age are modeling as "adulthood" are not necessary or even real. I may not carry my TARDIS mug into work on the first day, but I will certainly continue to use it. (All my examples are TARDISes. I have 11 of them. It's the most relevant fandom item.)

I guess there's no real conclusion here. I can still be me and an adult. Just the employed, independent version of me who goes to the grocery store and tests the waters before publicly carrying her button collection (There. It's not a TARDIS. Well, not exclusively.). And I think that the things that define my generation are going to grow with us and be replaced by new things for the next generation of youth. There is going to be a youth culture after mine. I have no earthly idea what that will look like, but I know that it will be identity-forming for those who live it. 

Today is awesome because I'm back to blogging, I have a JOB, and I'm starting to ease the cognitive dissonance of identity that comes with graduation. 

(shhh. I know it's 19 days into BEDA. I'm obviously not participating this year. I have a con and five tech weeks coming up.)

The List of Things I Hate

I find that when I'm driving, I think/say "I hate that" a lot. Here's the list of things I hate. 

I always hate:

• Squirrels
• Geese
• Hairdryers
• Parking Garages
• Traffic Lights
• People being stupid

This next list is more specific. I definitely hate them, but it's a milder loathing that the above list due to the conditionality of the situations. 

• Commercials on the radio
• Commercials on TV
• Traffic lights turning green when no cars are there
• Funeral motorcade
• People being stupid while driving
• When people use "that" instead of "who"
• When people have strong opinions about things that don't affect them
• When people force choices on other people
• When people negatively judge others for legitimate, personal choices that differ from their own
• Mustard
• Raw tomatoes
• Hulu Plus. What is actually the point? You pay the same as Netflix and they still show you commercials. 
• When people say, "breathe from your diaphragm." The diaphragm is a muscle. It controls your lungs. It does not store air. ANATOMY!
• Traffic circles. Especially traffic circles with traffic lights. 
• People who chew loudly, especially smacking their lips but also clicking their teeth. 
• Airports
• People in airports
• Babies on airplanes
• People who travel with animals
• Being sick/injured

I think that might be it for now. Today is awesome because the list is up to date.