i went to the ig nobels! by Ellie F. '28
(last year) (there is also a vlog)
It’s funny how optimistic summer makes me. Every August, I sign up for more classes than ever and dream about the clubs I’ll join and the adventures I’ll have over in Cloud Cuckoo Campus, where psets are fun and get done in a reasonable amount of time and I never have to sacrifice anything, ever. It’s falling in love with someone you see once a year–highly unrealistic, I suppose, but can you help it? Isn’t it fun?
All this to say I thought I was some hot stuff going into last fall, and it ended in a nontrivial amount of tears. But before it ended, I’d made up my mind to shoot my shot with the Ig Nobel Prize and either ask, guilt trip, or plead my way into a press pass. This was much easier than I had anticipated.
I went to the ceremony and had a life changing experience, et cetera and so on, and I left with about an hour of footage. I’d make a vlog, and it would be fun, and I’d be done in a month or so, and then maybe I’d make a room tour because my roommate and I finally put up decorations after throwing the idea around for all of freshman year.
The fall semester ended (I didn’t edit). I went home for winter break (I didn’t edit). I came back to campus for all of IAP (did not edit). I had no plans for all of spring break (can you see the pattern yet). So that leaves the summer.
I moved into a two bed one bath house in California and bought groceries and new shoes from the shopping center three pedestrian crossings away. I hung up my shirts in a color gradient and learned which drawers in the kitchen didn’t slide out quite right. And when I was settled in, I was resolved that this time, really, I would edit the vlog.
My summer ended up being the Caltrain on more evenings than not, crowding myself in with the Giants fans in orange and young urban professionals leaving the office but still working on the way home. I’ll tell you about it more another day. But my summer certainly wasn’t Adobe Premiere.
My new mantra was to do it when I got home, to Arkansas. That’s where my excuses ran out. I’d sit down at my computer each evening, meaning to watch through my interviews and write a script. I had nothing else to do, after all. Instead, I ended up at the piano, relearning old songs and the feeling of the stretch in my hands.
It’s awful that only a hard deadline could make me finish this project. Honestly, I don’t like what that says about me. I’m hoping that it’s not an unchangeable fact, and I’m hoping that this is the semester where I change it, but then I look at my classes and despair just a little.
The fall equinox isn’t for another few weeks, and I’m dreaming again. I can’t help myself, and, well, it’s really, terribly fun.