Issue 2

Keith Cormany
Undergraduate/History

You’ve read correctly! Our esteemed university now has its very own app. The app is free to download from the iTunes App Store. My first thought upon discovering the existence of the UWEC app was something along the lines of, “So in a time when austerity measures are being forced upon us, our university spent money to develop an app?” As one review of the app stated, “I’m also surprised UWEC isn’t charging for it.” The app itself has several functions, some of which are useful. Some functions are simply creepy.

One such function is for McIntyre Library. Essentially, this function enables users to navigate the library’s webpage without using a web browser (per se). Perhaps neatest of all, users are able to search for available computers in the library, floor-by-floor. Users can also look up the library’s hours and search for books/articles/ journals.

The second “function” is MyBlugold CampS. It cannot properly be called a function; it simply opens the web address in Safari. It is rather difficult to navigate CampS on an iPhone. In all honesty, it is probably quicker to simply walk to the nearest desktop or laptop computer rather than try to use CampS on an iPhone.

Computer Labs is also a function. Theoretically, it allows users to view open computers throughout campus. It’s similar to the feature of the McIntyre Library function; it’s just expanded to the entirety of campus. As is the case with MyBlugold CampS, users are simply redirected to Safari, which sort of defeats the point of a stand-alone app.

The Maps function allows users to see the addresses of the buildings that comprise our campus—as well as pictures! Users can also view a list of parking lots, as well as a link to various directions to campus.

Another function is Contacts. A list of emergency contacts is atop the list. “If this is an emergency: dial 911,” reads a red bar. I’m absolutely terrified to tap this, either intentionally or even accidentally, out of fear of being visited by law enforcement officers who want to know why I placed a non-emergency call to 911. There are tapto- call bars for various services and facilities on campus.

At the bottom of the app is the Other Links function. It’s a bit of a misnomer in that there’s just one link—a link to dining services. It seems like Other Links was an afterthought in the development process. It’s possible they actually couldn’t think of any other place to stick dining services.

I have saved the bulk of my commentary for the remaining function: People Search. It’s this function of the UWEC app from which most of my problems stem. It’s utterly creepy, to put it bluntly. This function is a stalker’s dream. users can search for any student or faculty member and within a couple seconds know their phone number and email address. It offers a tap-to-call function for literally every individual in this Orwellian database. Users are also able to know the address for anyone living on campus. Let’s say a stalker is particularly inept and has difficulty deciding the individual they wish to stalk. With the app, this is not a problem. They can simply scroll through the database without having to even search—scroll, scroll, scroll until an appealing name pops up on the screen. Perhaps I’m part of the Wikileaks generation, but this terrifies me. I mean, I’m not personally afraid of being stalked. I’m simply disturbed by the fact that so much personal information is at anyone’s fingertips. Simply put, it doesn’t seem entirely ethical.

Most of the functions offered by the app are pretty superfluous. Your best bet is to simply use an actual computer. All-inall, I’m not entirely positive why this app exists. My gut instinct is to say, “I guess it’s cool to have an app developed by my university,” but that’s not really cool.

Briana Bryant
Undergraduate/Creative Writing

Our small blue minivan pulled into Grandpa Eddie’s driveway on a summer night like any other, or so I thought. It was the night my grandpa was moving out of his big house on Seymour Avenue to a little yellow house on the other side of town. My parents and I had come to help Grandpa move some of his things. I was partway down the driveway when I saw them, the family moving into his old house. In my naïve, five-year-old mind, I was mystified. I was enchanted. They were like nothing I had ever seen, having grown up in a small town in the middle of the Dairyland.

They all had it, that skin. Skin like I had never laid eyes on before. Skin so deep and dark I thought perhaps I would drown in it if I looked for too long. Skin so beautiful I couldn’t bear to turn away. Skin so different from mine. I wondered how they got to be so beautiful, so gorgeous. Did they do something to deserve such lovely skin? Maybe they are better people, or nicer people than us, I thought. I wondered how I could achieve this level of beauty.

“Mommy?” I asked quietly.

“Yes, dear?”

“When do I get to have dark skin like that?”

I am not sure what my mother answered, but I believe she was a bit stunned at my innocent, curious question. For several years, I had the impression that one day, when I had become nice enough or smart enough, or just plain lucky enough, I would get to have dark skin like the people in that family. Unfortunately, that day never came. When I was a little older, I realized that I would remain pale forever. My mother taught me about melanin, which is the pigment in human skin that gives it certain shades and colors. I learned that I was born with a certain amount of melanin, and I would never get to have more. However, I do have something my doctor calls a “café au lait” patch on my leg, which is a section of skin with more melanin than the surrounding areas. I became quite excited when I learned that the birthmark on my leg was like a small part of me that was African American, in a weird way.

I still remember that night at my grandpa’s house quite vividly. It may have been my first encounter with anyone of a darker skin color. Maybe it seems like a story about a naïve little girl who didn’t know better, and maybe it is. But it is also a story about the observance of something different without the lens of racism added on. I saw that family as what they were to me: different. But I did not recognize that difference as being something negative. I thought they were wonderful, beautiful people, people who I wanted to be like.

What if we could see every person, every issue, every thing, through the innocent eyes of a five-year-old? What if we made decisions without hidden prejudices and agendas playing into them? How many of the ideas you believe, the things you think are just what other people have told you?

I am sure there are things or even people that you do not like. But have you ever examined why you feel so negatively? Take a moment to analyze any narrowminded thoughts you may have. Perhaps racism is not something you struggle with. Maybe you have been discriminatory to someone of the opposite sex, to someone who makes less money than you, to someone who believes different things than you, to someone who has a different job than you, to someone who is older or younger than you, to someone who is just different from you. Have you given that person, your fellow human being, a real chance? We can all make quick judgments about people, based on appearances or surface-level facts. I would plead guilty to the charge as well. I may not be racist, but I know I have been judgmental in other ways. I challenge you to try to see the good in everyone, because I promise you, there is good in everyone. Every single person has something to offer. Being judgmental about a single person is one thing, but prejudice towards an entire group of people is simply repulsive. We are all humans, doing this thing called life together. Let’s start acting like it.

Alex Jackson
Undergraduate/English

Turning the faucet her fingers lingered over the dripping handle. Warm water glided over her purity, easing the white glow away as a new red gleam hovered over her skin. She let her touch caress the extended metal, letting the thought of her dream take over her mind. Lustful it was, closing her eyes as the water stirred sensations within her body. Lewd it was, she bit her lip in resistance to the pining. Lascivious it was, innocuous her dream was, merely a dream but now the yearning within every fiber convinced her curious fingers to pry a new crevasse. Suddenly her eyes flicked open and she retracted her hands from the salacious structures, prudery prevailed.

Joshua Thomas
Undergraduate/Broadfield Social Studies

Josh Thomas here, Flip Side readers. You may remember me from such hits as the only other article I’ve written this year. My subject today is happiness because I see a lot of unhappiness around me and tend to suffer from the malady myself. I hope to remedy this from you, but before I can prescribe how I think you can be happier, I must first start with a big don’t. My hope is that the large abstracts I present to you will be able to fit into something you need them to, and if they do not, that you can still learn a general lesson from them.

Don’t look around you: that’s the last thing you should do if you want to be happy. If you look around you, you’re going to see what is essentially, to different extents, one giant lie. If you compare yourself to your peers, you’re comparing yourself to a lie, and if you compare yourself to an ideal or role model, you’re comparing yourself to an even bigger lie. To understand why this is, just ask yourself one question: are you completely honest with other people? Are you even completely honest with yourself? Have you ever said you were doing great when you weren’t or that you loved your life when you really didn’t? What gives you any reason to think the people around you aren’t hiding at least a fraction of their true selves behind a persona? And if I’ve learned anything from history, it’s that heroes are elevated to a status far greater than the reality of who they really were. This is why to look outward, to base your happiness on the happiness of others, isn’t going to satisfy you very long.

It’s easy enough, then, to simply instruct you to look inward. Do what you want to do and it will make you happy; if it really were that simple than most of us would probably be a lot happier. There are an enormous amount of factors that come in between what we want to do and what we actually end up doing and some of those factors -- our conscious, our reasoning, and people who care about us, to name a few -- have a very important and positive role in shaping our actions. It is when other pressures bear down on us that we start to lose sight of who we really are and our happiness slips away. It can be pressure from our parents to take advantage of what they never had, it can be pressure from our teachers to achieve everything we are capable of, or it can be pressure from our friends to experience everything they think we should. It can be any number of things. When these are so powerful they can push with a force that we allow to overwhelm our own will as an individual, then we have begun to lose the battle for happiness and it certainly is a battle because simply saying no isn’t going to make everything better. We become so entrapped in what other people and society and our ideals demand from us that we slowly lose part of our identity as an individual. Just how happy can an incomplete us be?

So if this is something we need to do and we have to battle to do it, how do we succeed? Well, understanding this is a major part of the battle. If we can see how forces can shape us in a positive way and how forces can shape us in a negative way we become competent at resisting the negative forces, but some of them can be especially powerful, so powerful that many of us will spend the entirety of our lives controlled by them and either scrape out what happiness we can or stay miserable and attempt to make others miserable alongside us. Maybe you don’t feel this kind of pressure; consider yourself lucky because it is a very real thing and most of us are bound to experience it to some extent throughout our lives. It can be very frightening because to not adhere to what the rest of the world defines as “us” can mean that we are not successful, we did not meet our potential, we failed to make something of ourselves. If you remember nothing else from what I write, remember this: You and only you have the ultimate right to decide what success is. Nobody knows better than you what makes you happy. This is a simple concept that the rest of the world would destroy at any cost to keep its imperfect foundation from crumbling to the ground. You do not wear this as a badge of pride; keep it safely hidden with you so that it will be safe from the destructive power of “the rest.”

If others are not happy with the choices you make, the things you enjoy, or the ideas you believe in, then it doesn’t mean you have to be unhappy with them. Do not make another person’s unhappiness your own, and do not judge another’s happiness by your own unhappiness. These actions only destroy needlessly. All of us possess a greater capacity than to hate and to fear and to destroy and the more we can understand that the better we all can make this world we live in.

Adam Anderson
Undergraduate/Creative Writing

Remember when you were young and all you had to do to make friends was just ask them? I don’t, but I was a shy little guy back then. Yet, I remember all those kids shows and movies I used to watch, and that’s exactly what they told you to do. They even went so far as to tell you that you could be friends with anyone because everyone wanted friends. Can you imagine that?

Somewhere along the line we realize that is bullshit. The friends we make simply by asking are usually not the friends that end up sticking around. Of course there are exceptions, (I’m still friends with a kid who asked to be my friend in the 4th grade) but those are far from common. By the time zits start invading our faces, we’ve already adopted tastes and preferences. With these tastes and preferences comes a whole new kind of friend.

I didn’t have many friends growing up. I was shy and gradually developed an avoidance of people. My hobbies of anime and video games allowed me to isolate myself from what I considered to be a town full of rednecks. Yet, that didn’t stop me from having friends. I just didn’t have friends in the traditional sense.

I had online friends instead. I won’t go into the experiences of that too much. All I’ll say is that eventually I lost contact with most everyone I knew through the internet. I knew I would never meet them in real life, and I knew they had their own lives that they themselves would become busy with. Sometimes, I wonder if I would have had the same result with high school friends. From what I hear from some people, I can certainly imagine it.

College was my first real experience with having real-life friends (I don’t count the 4th grade friendship for various reasons) In 2007 when I attended Minnesota State University of Moorhead, I made friends with some people from the anime club. This included a girl who graduated a few years after me in high school (part of the reason I ever considered school that far away from home). It didn’t work out, (mostly due to distance reasons) but I also failed to make any sort of meaningful connection with the people there.

When I came to UWEC in 2008, my plan was to change that feeling of failure I had with Moorhead. I wanted friends that I actually could give a fuck about. Hell, what I really wanted was a girlfriend, and who could blame me? (I’ll spare you the story of my fucked up romantic life and save it for my memoirs) Ironically, the first person I wound up connecting with was a guy, my friend and current roommate: Joshua Thomas (yes the guy with the afro who’s also writing for The Flip Side)

Josh is not perfect. In my early years, I often held him on a pedestal. I thought he knew everything despite being several years younger. After living with him these past few years however, I’ve had that image shattered and reformed. Through all that, he’s still provided me a friendship unlike any other I’ve ever had in my life. Within our friendship, I’ve finally come to realize what I want in other friends and what I think friends should be. Through him and experiences brought about by him I’ve also met many others who’ve become my friends, and I’ve been working on trying to establish real bonds with those who try to get to know me.

This year is no exception, it’s the pinnacle of my efforts. Since this is my last year on campus before I move into an apartment, I want to focus on the people I actually care about. I want to meet more people who I can actually care about. Unfortunately, it’s not easy, and I’ll explain why through an example:

Facebook says I have 49 friends. Looking a little closer, 3 of those friends are family. 38 of those friends I barely see or speak to. That leaves around 8 friends who I actually consider a friend. 8 people who would probably also consider me a friend (hopefully if I’m doing it right). I’m a good friend of probably even less. The number shrinks drastically as you go deeper and deeper.

If you look at one of my friend’s friends list, you will no doubt find that its at least triple my number. Again, if you cut relatives and people they barely associate with, that number goes way down. If you cut it down to who they felt close to, I wonder what number they would be at. Even my friend Josh admits to the same frustration that I have: it’s hard to really care about a large majority of these people you meet. Especially when they feel like making no efforts towards anything beyond a casual acquaintance.

It makes me angry. I can add people on Facebook even if I haven’t had an extensive conversation with them. There’s almost no hesitation. That’s just the way it works. People don’t think about making efforts to get to know this person. Why should they? They didn’t send the request. They obviously didn’t need the friend.

I have to say that I’m guilty of it too, and I’ve been trying to rectify that. Everyone I add, I try to get to know. I try to let them know me on a personal level. Hoping that someone is going to think “Hey this guy is different, he might be worth actually being friends with.” Those are the people I’m looking for. Not the group of friends where I become the third wheel, not the people who go out bar hopping, but the people who I can actually care about.

And, I’ll tell you this, these are the types of people you should be looking for as well. Fuck mindlessly floating among people who only know a name and a face. If they don’t know what makes you vulnerable, you can do better. If you can’t sit down with them and talk about what makes you different from everyone else, you can do better. If you’re sitting in your room by yourself on the weekend, you can do better. If you’re getting wasted every weekend, you can do better. If you think the only one that matters is your significant other, you can do better. It doesn’t have to be me, but it has to be someone that lets you express who you really are. Not just another name on a Facebook friend list.

Comfort Found in the Oddest Sanctuaries

Rachel Mueller
Undergraduate

So far, every night, when the clock strikes half past
My subconscious says “you’re not going to last.”
My reading’s not done, regardless, I stall
And I seem to do nothing but stare at the wall.
It frustrates me why this wall catches my eye
...I know Henry Grady’s an interesting guy.
I could learn a thing or two from his success
...Tomorrow might be cold, so how should I dress?
Wait, what’s on this page? Are these words at all?
There’s 22 eye catching cracks on the wall!
...I miss my friend Sam, I should see how she’s doing,
Wonder how her sporatic love life is brewing.
I’ll leave her a message and wait for her call,
gives me 5 more minutes to study the wall.
We talk about how we play phone tag all night,
About how we’re single, and how that ain’t right!
Hmmf. Back to Grady, but, who give a piss?
It’s my family, my friends, and my home that I miss!
Trying to focus, trying NOT to cry.
A million questions of wondering why,
Why am I here or where will I go?
My ugliest colors are starting to show!
My puss-colored hope and my browwwwn motivation,
It’s been 14 days and I need a vacation.
This goes on most nights, but it’s usually brief,
Until I retire to my place of relief.
Where I found comfort is where.. most girls pee.
That’s one type of relief, but it’s not what I mean!
Well, I’d rush in the bathrooms and sit in the stalls,
And not much has changed, I’d still stare at the walls.
But I didn’t study the caulk or the cracks,
I was way too intrigued by new quotes and new facts.
Did you know Micheal Jordan was first cut from his team?
Walt Disney was laughed at for having a dream?
A ninety year old woman shares her life story,
Life lessons learned in her young days of glory.
Good luck and money is not all you need,
Happiness through passion will help you succeed.
...This so-called “homesickness” was treated by stalls,
The wonderful, yellow, optomistic-fillled walls!
I’d walk out refreshed, my worries receding.
Go back to my room, and finish that reading!
R.A.’s of Oak Ridge, I thank you a lot
for taping those posters up in the right spot.

history

Ashly Curtis
Undergaduate/Creative Writing

Wouldn’t it be funny if I tried to write this poem while listening
to a Mann’s speech about Woodrow Wilson, prohibition?
It’s hard for me to concentrate on such mundane a subject.
My eyes fall to the blank paper before me and wish I could
fill it with something more interesting.
Engineers turned inventors mean nothing to me. All old. All
dead – blue bags on the floor, squeaking chairs.
Incessantly squeaking, breaking up my thoughts with angry
squeaks.
Shut up, I think. Sit still, I think.
Chairs and squeaks. Like little mice running around the
room – mocking me with miniscule freedom.
Run away little mouse, you’re so lucky you can. I sit here in
this silent chair and wish I were anything but human. Don’t
you ever wish that too?
Shut off my ears and stop listening. Listen to nothing – no
ears, no fingers, not even any thoughts. Just a big empty
head.
You can’t escape yet – he says. Five more minutes – he says.
Minutes, seconds, moments of utter boredom tossing toward
the wind.
Stories that mean nothing. Walking hills and signs – traffic
backed up.
Debilitate. Think it over. Try to solve the problem.
Gravity?
No, war against gravity.

Noose.

Caleb Larson
Undergraduate/Creative Writing

she swayed, swinging
  on a rope.
  It was eerie
because the crowd had left
no one was in sight,
so I climbed up and kissed her good night.

ADDICTION

Tyler Bridges-Parlet
Undergraduate/Psychology & Spanish

It’s not that I don’t love you
I just cannot let you in
With my minimal compassion
You will never, ever win
When you use me as your ragdoll
And disregard my needs
To embark of self- destruction
Hurting all who may impede…
You’ve taken me and stripped me down
And cut me to the core
Leaving only numbness in the void
I can’t feel, anymore.
In my epitome of weakness
Sarcasm’s all I know
I appreciate you trying
I’ve just never been this low
So excuse my bone- dry humor
And my lack of energy
It’s my method of survival
Good or bad, it works for me.

LOVING

Katie Johnson
Undergraduate/Psychology & Women’s Studies

Longing for people who make us feel special
Opening up our deepest darkest secrets
Vowing to become better
Intertwined in so many ways
Never giving up
Gracious for every day we have here together

Who Woulda Thought

Matt Novacek
Undergraduate/History

who woulda thought that a single voice
could change thoughts
who woulda thought a single action could
change hearts
who woulda thought that death row could
be filled with life
who woulda thought a single being could
cheat death
the burden was too great for me
so i gave it up to open my eyes and see
the world was too corrupt
so i gave away the anger in me that would
erupt
who woulda thought that we were gonna
die
who woulda thought we actually had a
chance to live
who woulda thought that he wanted to
save
who woulda thought he would take upon
himself
i shoulda walked where he walked
i shoulda wept where he wept
i shoulda taken what he took
but he did it for me instead
he was glorified
he was sanctified
he was denied
he was crucified

I Wonder

Briana Bryant
Undergraduate/Creative Writing

Where are you today?
I have not seen your beautiful face in
months
I wonder if you are happy
I wonder if you are sad
I wonder if you ever think of me
Or if you have forgotten
Some things change with time
But one thing will always be true
I will always be there for you
I will always care about you
Reach out your hand and take mine
I am here.

What Would You Do?

Rob Rushton
Undergraduate/Undeclared

What would you do
if you could not fail
if all your endeavors
were doomed to prevail
What if you tried and tried
with all your might
so all those around you
could bathe in your light
Would you climb a mountain
to enjoy the view
or run a race to see
what your muscles can do
If you could not fail
what would you do
the choice
is up to you

Fall 07

Chris Tassoul
Undergraduate/Criminal Justice

I pulled out right before I came
Things were good but now they've changed