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Page 8 The Clarion | March 28.2014 Bad Drugs From page 6 BC students I invited to like my page were probably going to vote for me anyway; they were all people with who I associated with every day. When I saw how deep in the hole I was, compared to Steve’s campaign page, 1 dove into an epic Facebook binge that would surely send a weaker man straight to rehab. I was sitting at the Phoenix Lounge around 9 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day, buried in my laptop, adding friends and inviting them to my page at an incalculable rate. I literally sent friend requests to half of Brevard College in one afternoon. If I had seen your face on campus, click! Your friend request has been sent. I started going directly to Facebook first thing in the morning, as soon as 1 got out of class, in class, after a shower, in the bathroom, walking to the bathroom, washing one hand at a time while the other hand Facebooked in the bathroom. You get the point. 1 went from being “intemetroverted” to a full-blown Facebook addict in 48 hours. As I was adding pictures to my campaign page a few days later, I went to tag one of my fellow candidates face in a photo. He and 1 were not Facebook friends, had very few mutual friends, and have certainly never been tagged in an image together. He swears he forgot his password months ago. Yet somehow I didn’t have to type his name into the search bar for Facebook to recognize his face. I had heard of this once before, but experiencing it for the first time is something that I found to be incredibly discomforting. I would still find it weird if the inanimate social network recognized my brother, but a stranger to me - in the eyes of Facebook at least - it’s just creepy. It was kind of like seeing the pictures of an emphysema patient and blasting a Marlboro Red afterwards. I knew it was bad for me, but I just kept on using Facebook. I have not recovered from my Facebook problem yet. I have several ongoing chats that have reached their two-week anniversary and my home screen is always updated with the pictures and wisdom of my new friends. I don’t need to Facebook anymore for my campaigns benefit, yet Facebook is open in a window behind Microsoft Word on my computer. I’ve learned that Facebook is a new type of reality. Instagram and Twitter, in my opinion, are quasi-realities that people became attracted to in opposition to Facebook. Facebook is actually a pretty decent electronic representation of life. Everything and everyone has a page that can be interacted with, not just liked. Content isn’t really confined. I’m not sure what the maximum number of characters allowed on Facebook posts are, but I have seen some pretty lengthy ones. Facebook used to be a niche website for college students and now it is very uncommon to meet someone who doesn’t have a page. Which is something I used to struggle with before my campaign began. As much as think that 1 don’t need Facebook, I find the minority of people who have deleted their accounts to be inexplicably arrogant. Everyone has a Facebook page. The people we like and the people we don’t. It’s far easier to manipulate what you don’t want to hear or see on other social media sites, and thus I think people view these sites as more novelty than reality. I think Facebook is unique in that it absorbs almost all of us into this illusion of reality. We can interact with everything you interact with in real life. People, places and things. More importantly, we can share, discuss and primarily argue issues. Because of the informal nature of electronic interaction, people feel inherently more encouraged to express themselves. This gives them the illusion of inclusion that they otherwise may never feel. If nothing else, Facebook provides people with a sense of value and worth. Often this is a false- equivalency to reality. Facebook is a full costume, whereas the other sites are masquerade masks. As I enter my third week of abuse, my pupils further dilating and my skin growing paler, I’m becoming aware that I need an intervention. 1 hope that no one takes offense If I muster up the strength an un-friend you all. Immersion From page 1 Acker, the only wildlife they’ve seen so far have been buzzards and a dead deer on the side of the river. Chris Brothers, a very enthusiastic and warm hearted. Southern gentleman described the story of how he and Carrie Schlemmer also flipped their canoe in the river. “John and Steve walked downstream and were like Burt Reynolds and Chuck Norris using their man hands to pull us out of the river and save us,” he said, “it was incredible!” Due to the rain, high waters, and the skill level of the group, they decided as a whole not to paddle Section 9 of the French Broad from Barnard to Hot Springs, North Carolina, as the risks were not worth the benefits. After a re-supply of food, backpacking gear, and canoes, with the help of Jake Parker and Elyse Santorso, the crew began their first backpacking section along a 30 mile strip of the Appalachian Trail. For these several days, they did a lot of hiking. One day even weighed out to be 13 miles. The crew explained that they had a lot of repetitive uphill and downhill. However, the trail was beautiful. They explained how they watched a beautiful sunset from the top of the Rich Mountain lookout tower. They have truly experienced all types of weather on their trip so far including rain, beautiful warm sunshine, and snow. However, these enthusiastic WLEE students remain positive and are continuously living in the moment. Many of the team members explained how each morning, Chris Brothers would wake up and say, “Today is more beautiful than yesterday!” This type of positive attitude from one person is easily spread throughout the rest of the group, and I came upon them with smiles on their faces. They were excited to have time off from hiking. Dan and I drove them to Linville Gorge for the climbing portion of their trip. With John Buford’s connections from working at Outward Bound, they were able to camp at the Table Rock Base Camp in Linville in exchange for some trail maintenance. Last year, a wildfire burned a large portion of the beautiful wooded gorge and nearly burned down the Outward Bound base camp. It was great seeing the crew in good shape, smelling decent, and in good spirits. Before Dan and 1 left, we said our goodbyes, gave them our treats of fresh veggies, fruit, and chocolate, and took a couple “Sunday Selfies” together.. Patrick Weaver, a local climbing guru of Brevard, was scheduled to drive to Linville to meet the crew this past Tuesday to be their climbing instructor for a couple days. However, as we all know, the weather has not been able to make up its mind and decided to dump snow all over western North Carolina. Because Linville Gorge is much higher in elevation, Patrick was unable to reach even close to the Base Camp and they were unable to go climbing. It will be interesting to hear the stories of what they did instead of climb in the snow, and how they were able to travel on the Mountains to Sea Trail from Linville Gorge to Mount Mitchell. Continue to keep these guys and gals in your thoughts and sending them good vibes as they still have one more week left of their trip!
