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“self-referential blogging”

Campus in a nutshell: Refuse, and tents

Campus in a nutshell: Copious refuse, numerous vehicles, and tents

If you’re wondering where that vague scent of trash is coming from, or why there are so many large people carrying heavy things around campus, you might want to snap out of your post-exam stupor and pack your stuff up: it’s move-out day. Everyone’s leaving!

(Unless you have Reunions housing, in which case Angela Hodgeman bestows you another 24 hours in your room before you have to move across the hall.)

And those big empty white tents and rows of wooden fences mean it’s officially Dead Week now, that calm before the Reunions storm. Everybody take a deep breath, catch up on your sleep, and maybe detox a little.

That’s our cue to peace for the summer. It’s been a pleasure writing for y’all, and be sure to check in again in the fall for news, musings, and everything you could possibly want and not want to know about our beloved Princestitution.

(But check back after Dead Week — we’ll be covering Reunions and commencement intermittently, as often as time and alumni partying will allow. And we’ll be covering the summer with our Weekly Updates and, of course, let you know if anything breaking happens.)

Love,

UPC

Please excuse this meta-blog post about blog posts, unless you’re a hairy comp. lit. grad student, in which case, enjoy: it’s the latest from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. For those of you not in the know, it’s a literary journal founded by the magnificently meta Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and a self-conscious self-referencing fiend. Robert Lanham is the brain behind The Hipster Handbook, and in case you doubt his street cred concerning the unwashed skinny-jeaned masses, Lanham is also the editor of arts and culture website FREEwilliamsburg. Here’s what he has to say about new media in the classroom, as forwarded to me by none other than my technologically incompetent mother. Be sure to check out the prerequisites for Lanham’s Internet Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview:

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

Now excuse me – my mandatory-for-precept-participation blog post for MUS 220: The Opera was due yesterday.

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