#34: Visit Graduate Friends

I’ve experienced a considerable amount of change in the last few weeks, and I’m starting to conclude that this is the nature of Fourth Year.

We’re at the end and the beginning of a lot of things at the same time, and every day we seem to be pulled like a tug-of-war rope between the past and the future. Everything is fluid. Nothing is permanent. It’s hard to find things at this stage in life that stay constant, and that can be extremely scary.

But, at the same time, what makes life fun to live is the fact that we don’t know what lies around the bend. It opens us up to every possibility. We are relatively young, intelligent, privileged and uncommitted, and we live in a society that allows us to freely choose our path.

I think that these can be the absolute best years of our lives, but it takes an incredible amount of mental discipline. We need to be true to ourselves, and what we want out of life, and be bold enough to not listen to those voices of disparagement and just GO FOR IT. Because we can. Because we should. Because life is too short to not do what you want with it.

All this being said, it was very nice to get a chance to feel young again. This last weekend I hopped in the car and left the Charlottesville scene for a spell with two express purposes: 1) to see some of my friends who have graduated and gone off to face the real world, and absorb some of their wisdom, and 2) To take their money.

The evening started with a dinner, which was surreal on a lot of different levels. I met up with my friends at some straight-up sketchy-looking Lebanese restaurant in the suburbs of Virginia. There were mustachio’d older dudes all around speaking foreign languages and smoking hookah and playing cards. And then, right there in the middle, a table of UVA grads.

And the meal just kept crossing cultural borders. I was munching on my chicken shawarma, listening to bagpipe-centric Scottish folk music, watching a televised broadcast of 300. The foreign tongues, the tough looking dudes, the exotic food, the hookah. It was kinda like the cantina scene in the first Star Wars movie. Less blaster shots, though.

Following that we took our show back to TR and Pat’s apartment and played a rousing game of poker, with a mix of alternative hiphop and comedy drifting in the background courtesy of the Roots and Saturday Night Live.

I made a solid six bucks. Granted, it was after I blew my first ten on a terrible bet and bought in again, so, yes, I made a profit overall, but it was definitely more out of luck than skill. I loved that game, though, and I love the people I saw. They did a lot for me without even knowing, because life’s been pretty hard on me lately. Nothing I can’t work through, I just needed to escape, and I couldn’t’ve picked a better crowd for that.

Poker was followed by videogame after videogame. In the immortal words of Pat Neyland: “When I feel sad, I play Smash”. And Super Smash Bros. we played. Followed by Scott Pilgrim. Followed by the new Halo.

Eventually I took my act back to Charlottesville, but I can’t say enough good things about the time I had this weekend. Life goes on after college, and it’s whatever you want it to be. That’s one of the most empowering lessons I think anyone has ever taken away from a night of poker.

#10: Play a Competitive Sport

In the past I’ve found team sports to be more nerve-racking than fun, in large part due to the fact that the universe has not graced me with terrific coordination. I’m large. I’m clumsy. I can’t get behind the wheel of a car without corrective lenses. And, on top of that, I have a hard time relaxing long enough to make decisions on the fly. I worry that I’ll choke. And so, naturally, I choke.

All that being said, I had a blast last Sunday when I donned the puffpainted white Thetafrizz t-shirt to represent APO in intramural ultimate Frisbee against some ragtag team of med-school students.

Probably wasn’t a good idea to pregame with half a Mellow Mushroom pizza and two pints of Guinness. In fact when I hit the field I almost immediately regretted it. But by God if I was gonna let that get in my way. I have a list to complete. Pass me that Frisbee.

Oh. Haha. My bad. I’ll run over and get it out of the tree…

The clock was ticking as the game drew near. I was finding myself drifting towards that sea of sinkin’ thinkin’. Frankly, I’d be happy if I could just walk away without accidentally scoring for the other team. That’s happened to me before. Second grade. It was extremely traumatizing.

But as it turns out the powers-that-be wanted me to play with a calm mind. The med-school student team didn’t have enough players, on account of them being med-school students. So technically we one.

However, when we decided to play a casual pickup game anyway, we even more technically got our butts handed to us.

But I fought tenaciously, running up and down that field with the force of a freight train, the pizza in my stomach reluctantly along for the ride.

At one point I totally accidentally checked this guy I was defending only to see, to my amazement, him still catch the Frisbee AS HE WAS ROLLING UPSIDE DOWN ON THE TURF IN BETWEEN MY LEGS.

I had my own moment of coolness though. I don’t score. I’m not fast enough. But I am big enough to scare potential catchers away from the Frisbee, and that’s what I did. One of the opposing players chucked it, and I ran down field, fast as I could, grunting and growling to look extra intimidating. My glasses flew off. I didn’t care. No time for that.

I experienced one of those rare moments in my life where everything falls perfectly into place. I leaped into the air, stuck out my hand at the precise right moment, and swiped that Frisbee out of the air with the force of a pizza-fueled warrior-god. You could hear the thunder crack.

We still lost by a lot but I was happy to play and happier to contribute and be there with friends. Definitely a great game. Though I can’t help but imagine what could’ve been if I didn’t have half a mega-veggie in me.

#45. Attend a Guest Lecture

As I was writing this list I pretty much had already decided how I was going to accomplish this one.

Ralph Nader. Author of Unsafe At Any Speed. The quintessential third-party candidate. One of America's most prominent modern radical thinkers, and one of the greatest wedge-candidates to ever grace the stage of the Kabuki that is American politics.

I am fascinated with politics on pretty much every level. As the product of a fairly rigid, strict parochial all-boys high school I have come to inspect figures of authority with a very critical eye, and have a pretty drastic case of Stickittothemaniosis. I still have my political biases but these days, especially as I get closer to receiving my degree in Social Studies Education, I see more of the hypocrisy and folly that exists on both sides of the aisle. Do politicians deceive and manipulate? Absolutely. But paying attention to politics is still important because it still effects our lives as American citizens in profound and far-reaching ways. It still determines, as they say, "who gets what, when, and how".

Of all the places to see him speak, UVA seemed perfect, since UVA has a considerable surplus of people, particularly politically-minded people, who believe that they are always right and can't wait to tell you why. There were bound to be crazies, and they were bound to bring drama. And from the political perspective Ralph Nader's story is fascinating; being both shunned by the right for his opinions and by the left for the conclusion that his candidacy was what kept Al Gore from winning the Presidency in 2000.

Imagine living with that every day. The guy who introduced him when I went to see him speak at the Newcomb Ballroom rushed to dismiss that opinion as a myth. I don't know enough to agree or disagree. Nothing in American politics is probably that cut-and-dry.

As I took my seat I made sure to pay attention to the atmosphere. There were smiling dudes up front with huge beards who looked like they knew a guy. There were scowling dudes in the back in polos who looked like they knew a good lawyer. Everyone organized themselves accordingly and enjoyed the musical stylings of "Trees On Fire", a local band.

Ralph Nader was introduced by a professor as "An advocate for consumers, the environment, and good government", and after a sufficient review of Nader's merits, the professor conceded and Nader took the stage.

He opened with two quotes. The first was from a former professor of his: "A lecture is to the intellect what a massage is to exercise". The second was a Chinese proverb, which I actually like a lot: "To know and not to do is to not know".

The title for the lecture was "Megawatts, Negatwatts, and You", and as one might expect the central topic was energy policy. As one might also expect, there were many digressions made, most being criticism of the "corporatization" of America. I didn't mind this too much because I feel like you can't talk about energy policy, especially fundamentally changing energy policy, without discussing corporate influence, lobbyists, legislation, political action committees, etc.

Not everyone was as satisfied with these digressions, though. One young man, a fine representative from UVA's politico scene, stood up about a third of the way through the lecture and said "I THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING TO BE ABOUT ENERGY POLICY"

Nader invited him to "open (his) mind" and "be patient".

Nader spent a lot of the lecture celebrating the power, exhilaration, and importance of civic participation. Among his more notable points, he argued that as part-owners of the government's public utilities and works, we should also be "part-controller". He pointed out that "anything that changes concerning justice is started by people with high self-respect who expect more out of their lot in life". he made the point, concerning energy sources, that amidst our troubles with oil and nuclear power that "the sun keeps shining down and the winds keep blowing."

He finished by stressing that if we want to take power out of the hands of energy corporations, we need to return to the practice of "community economics". Farmer's markets. Local businesses. And I will say I agree. It is, undoubtedly, the biggest way in which we as a country can immediately transform our energy policy. If demand and supply both aim at the local markets, then it would seem rational to conclude that a more efficient system follows; one which consumes less resources and, in turn, is better for the planet and for promoting local business and the quilt of diverse cultures which makes this country so innovative and exciting to be a part of.

All in all, I'm really glad I attended. this is exactly why you come to college. I am right on the edge of new ideas and revolutions, and that won't always be the case.

#3. Attend a Concert

My father raised me on classic rock.

I have fond memories, going back as early as the age of three, of being whisked off to the basement of my family's old house, where my dad kept his records and instruments. He would sit me down on a chair against one of the walls and the back-and-forth would go something like this...

Dad: "Okay, Will. I want you to hear something. See this record? This is a record by a man called Elvis..."

Adorable Young Me: "What's he doing?"

Dad: "He's dancing. He was very famous for that. And he made a lot of really good music and is very famous. It's important that you know his songs so just sit back and listen while I'll put this on..."

And sit back I would. Though not for long. I have distinct memories of dancing and trying to sing Elvis' "Hound Dog". I also loved "Secret Agent Man", and laughed up an adorable little storm watching my dad play along on his saxophone, or on the seafoam-colored telecaster knock-off plugged into a thirty-year-old amp that is to this day still the nicest amp I've ever used. Elvis led to the Beatles. "From Me To You" was my dad's staple old-man-singing-in-the-shower-song. The Beatles would lead to the Rolling Stones. The 'Stones led to pop's favorite: the Allman Brothers Band. This went on for years. In fact it still does. To this day my dad will get excited about something he found in his old record collection, come find me, and say "Will! I have something you have got to listen to!"

Sometimes I go quietly. Other time I make a scene. Most times I stay much longer than I originally plan to. Every time I walk away glad I listened.

This ritual is the bridge between two of my father's biggest loves in his life: his favorite music, and his sons. it has, subsequently, been the primary influence on my own musical tastes, and has left me forever cursed to look nostalgically back at rock's Golden Age and wonder where things started to change.

And this, in a nutshell, is why I worship the 'Keys: they take a genre pioneered by folks who at this stage are either long-since deceased or knocking on Heaven's door and they bring it back to life. Not only that, but they make it cool again. They make the ancient tones and textures of classic grungy blues-rock sound edgy and innovative again. It is a revolution. A second coming. And it's led by guys like the White Stripes, Radio Moscow, and the Black Keys of Akron, Ohio.

On a scale of one to ten on giddiness, I was at a solid 28 during the entire show. The opening band, the Whigs, GOD they were great. Their drummer tied everything together so well, and their lead-man bounced around the stage like some kind of jam-spewing tazmanian devil. The crowd was totally cranked by the time Dan and Patrick took the stage. And right away they ripped into "Thickfreakness", which is, with their discography in consideration, nothing short of a classic.

The set progressed and Dan thanked us on four separate occasions for coming out to see them. You are welcome, sir. The whole time I grooved and sang along, feeling much cooler than I normally am. Essentially 90% of their songs are either about breaking hearts or having your heart broken, and it's all introduced in this very bluesish blue-collar sort of style. It makes for a sound and style that an entire audience can identify with. "Busted", "I'll Be Your Man", "Tighten Up", "Your Touch", and they finished with "Till I Get My Way", which made me squeal like a freaking groupie.

I was blown away. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe what I'd seen. I can't believe what I saw. These men are two of my frontmost musical idols, and I saw them win over an entire crowd of my friends.

I think I should add "Become a Rockstar" to my next bucket list. I want that. Always.

#52. Become an Ordained Minister

The Internet is an amazing thing.

In a mere 1 minute and 11 seconds I became fully ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church. In case you're wondering, yes, it is completely legit. In the eyes of the law I am now fully ordained, which means, yes, I can conduct religious council, give sermons, and marry people, among other things.

And all it took was a submission of my email address. No sweat at all. After all, I've given it out to far less-reputable firms and organizations over the years.

But despite the relative ease with which I obtained this status as a minister, I can assure you that I am not taking my position lightly. I am, after all, going for a Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies in one of the foremost religious studies departments on the planet. I consider myself a spiritual person and I enjoy being that friend for people; the advisor, the confidant, the healer.

And I really dig the message of the Universal Life Church; basically, regardless of creed, origin, ethnicity, preference, etc., we are all "Children of the Universe", and with that in consideration with all have the potential to aim for spiritual perfection and we all have the obligation to show each other respect as brothers and sisters of the universe.

The ULC even offers online courses (for free) on spiritual counseling and ministry, among other topics. It's an excellent resource for spiritual betterment, and they have a great message.

Check them out! And feel free to jon me in my ministry: http://www.themonastery.org/

Also, if anyone wants me to marry them, I will do it for free. And I promise you I will give a great sermon.

#17. Pick Apples

I suppose if summer was ever supposed to end autumn is just about the perfect way of easing us out of it. It's beautiful. Especially in central Virginia, where the trees explode with every warm hue imaginable. And from the standpoint of tradition there's much to be enjoyed. School starts back up but no one's super jaded yet. Football season starts up and Hoo fans get to enjoy a moment of hope before the cold grip of reality snatches that away. There are leaves to crunch. There are pies to bake. There are sweaters to wear. There are bonfires to dance around.

And of course there are apples to pick.

As it happens the first brotherhood event of the semester for Alpha Phi Omega, my coed community service fraternity, was a trek up to Carter Mountain Orchard to do some apple-picking. It's a lovely place. I sat on that very porch and stared out over Charlottesville, munching on an exquisite apple donut and musing on the many stories I hope to be able to tell by the end of this year.

Options for picking were pretty sparse. In fact the only thing in season at the moment are the golden delicious apples. I can never remember which ones I enjoy. And I really should, because apples are such a hit-or-miss fruit. Too often they can be too mushy, too watery, too bland, too bitter, but as it turns out the golden delicious are the exact kind of apple for me. They're right on that line between sweet and tart, they have a perfect crunch, and (this part is crucial) they are the perfect compliment to peanut butter.

So we strolled among the trees plucking apples and taking a nibble or two. It being early in the season and it being a particularly gray day there were still plenty of apples on the lower branches, but what's the fun in that? Half of apple-picking, for me, is an excuse to climb trees and display my mad-hops.

After about 20 minutes of frolicking I was satisfied with my haul and it was time to move on to stage two: my first-ever wine-tasting with a brand new friend, Regina! Regina came to UVA for grad school and transferred into our chapter. I have the privilege of being cobigs with her, and I want to say, outright, that Regina's awesome. As a family her, Lizzie, and our little Tudor went rappeling about a week ago, and Regina totally jumped out of her comfort zone and, simultaneously, over the edge of a mountain, in the interest of bonding with us.

So as a token of thanks for doing something crazy with us, we went and sampled the orchard's selection of wine. I'm not counting this as my first visit to a vineyard because Carter's is still first and foremost an orchard and second I didn't go with the express purpose of purchasing a bottle of wine.

But I did. I have a bottle of their Cabernet sitting on my shelf. I now also have a tenuous grasp of wine terms and a slightly less tenuous grasp of what I like. But we'll cover that in the vineyard entry.

After wine-tasting I pounded another donut and rounded out my lazy sunday with an exquisite nap. All in all, a great day.A great start to the Fall. A great start to this blog.

Now I wish I'd bought more of those donuts.

The Mission

Life.

Life is the topic to be explored at the core of this blog.

Life is awesome. It is, indeed, a great gift, and the richest of lives is filled with lessons, challenges, elations, and good stories.

And we only know for certain that we get one. There is no guarantee of an afterlife or of next lives, and there is, furthermore, no guarantee that you'll wake up the next time you close your eyes. But I'm not saying this to be depressing. I'm saying it to ground myself. And to inspire.

I think we all want to live rich and happy lives. That is our vision, but it remains a vision until we take that first step towards realizing it. I have all these things I want to do in my short time on this spaceship Earth, and my fear is that if I spend my whole life tossing those ideas around, I'll be laying on my deathbed one day wondering where the time got to.

Simultaneously, I'm dealing with the fact that this is my last year of college. I'm not saying I expect my life to peak during my college years. My hope is to always be working towards something better. However, college does offer a uniquely conducive environment for my kind of mission. I'm young and free and have access to all these amazing resources, and I essentially live in a city of my friends.

Simply put the iron is hot, and I think it's time to start striking. It's time to stop sitting and watching life pass me by, to stop wondering, to stop worrying, and just jump on board and see where it will take me.

And so this is my official declaration to my friends, to my enemies, to the world, and to myself: that I will attempt to take on a 100-item bucket list during my fourth year of college. This list has a little bit of everything, including but not limited to UVA traditions, adventure, chances to improve-myself, chances to advance my career, chances to good for others, and to leave a small but profound dent on the world. I don't know if I'll get through all of them in a year, but I will try my hardest. And, in the meantime, I'll write of my experiences for all the world to see, with the hopes that I'll find some good stories and maybe even a little wisdom to share with others.

I hope this list inspires myself and others to stop worrying about life and start living it.

My name is Will Paradis, and these are some of my dreams. I look forward to fulfilling them and sharing them with you.