These are all photos taken during the spring of 2001. This is a view
of the city of Madison taken from outside a building near the docks.
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A jet skier rides the waves on Lake Mendota, which is on the north edge
of the campus.
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This is a building I used to walk by almost every day I went to class.
I don't know what it is exactly.
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This is the Red Gym. It was an armory during the Civil War, and the
design hasn't been changed much since then. All the registration
stuff happens here, I think. The picture is being taken from Library
Mall, near the Memorial Union. Library Mall is where a bunch of community
events take place.
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This is Lakeshore Path. During the fall and late spring, it's really
green and there is an abundance of plant and animal life, but it looks
like this during the late spring. I took the picture then because
I was going to take a later picture and compare the two, but I never got
around to taking the second one.
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These trees are by the Agriculture building. There are a lot of trees
here with purple blossoms that bloom during the late spring.
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I think this is the Agriculture building, but I could have sworn that was
on a hill, up some stairs. I see stairs behind the tree, but no hill.
There are more trees with purple flowers here.
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Still more trees in bloom. This is the Lakeshore dorm area.
My dorm, Bradley, is the one in the background facing the camera.
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This is the Earth Day event at Library Mall. There were people there
from different places, representing all sorts of causes. It was mostly
environmental advocacy, but there were also petitions to free political
prisoners in other countries and a group opposing sexual assault.
I went there in hope of finding out more information and maybe clearing
up some specific things I wanted to know, like the risks and benefits of
genetically engineered crops, but there wasn't much to be heard that I
haven't already heard before. It was mostly just sound bites and
pressure. Still, they're mostly all good causes, and it is an excuse
to get out of the dorms once in a while, so I think I'll go next year.
This time I'll try not to be so naive, and I won't let anyone take me on
a guilt trip like I've been on so many times at college. Late spring
always brings on the mass guilt trips. There were two at my dorm
alone, but I won't get into all that now.
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Several local bands played at the Earth Day event. I listened to
one for a while. The music was sort of like Rage Against the Machine,
with a very similar message. I think one of the lyrics went something
like, "I know most of you white people out there aren't racists, but that's
no excuse because you're sitting idly by as part of an oppressive system
and we ain't gonna take it!" There were other bands, and a few of
them probably sounded like Phish in one way or another.
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Right before finals, we had the Springtime Fun Jamboree near the Lakeshore
dorms. There was a bouncy inflatable padded cell for all of us loony
college kids, a dunk tank where we could dunk our Peer Learning Special
Facilitation Friends (the people who organized meetings and stuff in our
dorms) into cold water, and a crazy happy guy who sang songs. He
sang one about the future, where machines did all the work and people spent
their time pursuing fun. I think it was a song about the impending
future where we enter the Paradise Time, where we become a society where
only machines do the work and happiness among humans is strictly enforced
by the Happy Police, and if you're not sufficiently happy, you'll be Happycuted
in the Happylectric Chair, which is an actual electric chair for executing
people. After a few tumbles in the inflatable cell, I was sufficiently
happy and would not have to worry about being Happycuted if this were the
Paradise Time.
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This is the dunk tank. Here's how it worked: A Peer Utilization Integration
Director would sit on the dunk tank platform for 15 minutes, after which
they would switch places with another Peer Education Connection Partner
Magistrate. Students would take turns dunking them. They would
pay 25 cents for 3 throws or 50 cents for 6 throws, and they would throw
baseballs at a metal target connected to the platform. Then, after
realizing that the target didn't work no matter how hard you threw the
baseball, they would run up to the target and push it manually, dunking
the Peer School Management Helper, and then the next student would get
a turn.
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Here's the parking lot outside the dorms on my last day of college.
Goodbye, Madison, see you in a few months. Actually, I'll see it
the day after tomorrow, because I'm writing this on August 27. It'll
be good to be back, then. |
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