Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM

Location honestly shouldn’t be this hard to think about. But as I’m sitting here and thinking, just as I’ve sat and thought for a week, nothing I can come up with is related to my purpose of being on campus in general. I’m a commuter so I spend long (painfully long) hours on campus where I feel like I should’ve been doing things connected to political science or literature, and yet I didn’t. Maybe if I had I would’ve had an easier time of this and choosing a place I felt connected to. Instead, I typically spent my time looking for places to nap or to calm down from just BEING here since I find it generally overstimulating. Which leads me to places I do really love on campus being not tied to parts of my identity, but just what I enjoy out of life and what I search for generally.

If you’ve ever been inside the music building next to Gilman parking structure you’d know 1) you never actually SEE people walking into it (making its little couch a prime nap spot) 2) you can almost always hear the soft hum someone practicing classical compositions in a far away room. I really love that it’s on a far edge of campus and I get my own symphony from time to time. To me, there’s nothing more alive and real than music and hearing it live is such a privilege so I’m almost sad that no one else really goes to listen. It’s interesting to think about the music building in relation to a project about myself when it really has nothing to do with me- I have maybe an ounce of musical talent. But I really resonate with this idea of feeling connected and at home in an unrelated place, so I’d love for people to experience my project in a space wildly unrelated to what I’m likely to be writing about. I would also really hope that whoever goes to my project location would get to hear a little bit of the music playing in the background and experience what I love about campus.

On campus we’re generally pushed to find community in like-minded people, and you can feel that in the way they’ve mapped out the place. Cultural spaces have designated areas, each college a different place with emphasis on different studies or identities. I love that there is space for almost every of community imaginable, but I also find it difficult to feel comfortable participating or being in places with people who don’t think the way I do or that are different from me in general because every space feels so isolating. So I think I’d want my project to be about thinking of people with overlapping identities and hopefully I’ll be able to use the music building as part of that.

As a side note: I know the class is about code-switching and translanguaging and I wonder if this could apply to music as well? Maybe (if I choose to do poetry) I can switch between speaking the lines and inserting different compositions I feel say what I need to say the way English can’t. Just an idea!