So you may have heard talk of this mysterious thing called the Furman Bubble. If not, you will. What is this bubble I speak of? Well, some people think that Furman is insulated from the greater Greenville community. I think not, and I have proof.

Exhibit A: Fall Fest.

In the past, Furman hosted May Day Play Day, an event for kids in the Greenville community. But, new schedules and new curriculums call for new events, right? So, Heller Service Corps dreamed up Fall Fest.

On Saturday, hundreds upon hundreds of kids from the Greenville area invaded Furman’s campus for a Halloween party. Some kids were dressed up, others weren’t, but, they all wanted sugar. And we here at Furman live to serve.

The campus was divided into two halves, with some kids heading over to South Housing and the others going to Lakeside. At each site, there were plenty of games, craft centers, and inflatables. The kids could also walk into some of the dorms to trick-or-treat.

I was stationed at the Cake Walk, which was a huge success. If you don’t know how to play Cake Walk, I shall tell you. You walk around a circle that has numbers on it until the music stops. At this point, someone calls out a number, and, if it’s yours, CONGRATULATIONS! You just won a cupcake.

We bought probably a million cupcakes. (Okay, so I’m exaggerating slightly, but really, I’ve never seen so many cupcakes in my life) And by the end of the day, we only had about ten left. Popcorn hands were also liberally supplied, and they were completely gone before the day was done. In fact, I got stink eyes from several kids when I told them that we were out. Lucky for me, cupcakes are an adequate substitute for popcorn.

The funniest thing was that even when we couldn’t give a kid a cupcake because they had already won, they still wanted to walk around the circle.

Who new circular motion could be so entertaining?

Ahhh. Clear skies, changing leaves, crisp mornings.

It can mean only one thing.
College applications are on your desk.
For me, it means midterms, but I won’t spoil the joy that is cramming for a test that covers what you have learned in a course thus far for you. No, I’ll let you experience it for yourself next year.

Anyways, I hope you have started applying, and if you haven’t, please do. Trust me, it is not a good idea to wait until two days before the deadline to start deciding what you want your essay to be on. I speak from experience.

But let’s move on from the odious task of applications, ‘cause I wanna tell you about fun stuff.

I’ve noticed several of you sitting in on Singer’s rehearsals of late. Good move, you future music majors, you.
Let me just tell you a little bit about Furman Singers, otherwise known as Amazing Incarnate. (not really.)
Singers is Furman’s “premiere” choral ensemble. We are a group of around 80 students, music majors and non-music majors alike. For my choral nerds out there, we sing everything from Palestrina to Hogan, from Poulenc to Fissinger. And, ‘scuse me while I toot our own horn…

we’re pretty good.

This Christmas, we will be touring with the Boston Pops (don’t know who the Pops are? Look them up; they’re kind of a big deal.) And come Spring Break, we will be taking our annual “American Tour.” Every other summer, we scoot on over the big drink and tour Europe. I’m kind of ridiculously excited about it, I’m not gonna lie.

In other not-quite-as-exciting-but-still-pretty-awesome news, Fall Fest is this weekend!

Fall Fest (because I know you’re wondering) is when thousands of kids flood Furman’s campus for a trick-or-treating Halloween extravaganza. And for someone who really hates Halloween (don’t ask me why, I couldn’t tell you) to be this excited about it just shows you how cool its gonna be. Just one of the other amazing things about Furman that you can look forward to.

Except you can’t if you don’t apply.

So get to work!

this is about how excited I am.

Dear Readers,
How is life?
Wonderful, I trust.

Now that the pleasantries are aside, we can move on to bigger and better things. Namely, Homecoming.

Now please, I know homecoming in high school may seem like a big deal, but trust me, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Literally the entire week was filled with activities. You want a short run-down? Okey-dokey.

Monday – T-shirt tie-dying extravaganza
Tuesday – Matt Costa concert
Wednesday – Cash Cab (with, yes, real money)
Thursday – Vegas Night
Friday – Float Building and Carnival
And this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Now, my personal favorite part of homecoming was float building. Many of the campus organizations built a “float” on the mall to try and win a prize. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am not well versed in float building protocol.

Little did I know the intricacies that awaited me.

The floats that we built were made from lumber frames covered in chicken wire that was cunningly molded to form shapes. In the case of the float that I worked on, said shapes happened to be Sesame Street characters.

As you might be able to guess, the floats are pretty sad looking at this point. Enter pomp (sans circumstance).
What is pomp, you ask? (Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know either) Pomp is little sheets of tissue paper that are then stuffed into the holes in the chicken wire, making the floats burst with color.  

The Sesame Street Float (wind is not kind to pomp)
So Friday night was spent pomping floats and running after floats and pomp (it was extremely windy) and at the carnival. Speaking of, the carnival was pretty neat-o. While riding on the Flying Dragon, I was taken back to my days as a wee lad at the North Carolina State Fair. Ahhhh….good times. 

I was really surprised by the number of alumni who came back to Furman for Homecoming. I guess it just shows how much people love this school. And you could love it too (yes, that was a shameless plug. I apologize)

a decapitated catamount (Western Carolina's mascot) (and they really were decapitated. Well not really, but we definitely did beat them)

P.S. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Please email me! graysonknowsitall@gmail.com (and no, my email address is not a reflection of my views of myself, but rather an allusion to everyone’s favorite “Dear Abby” for the nineties generation)

Ahhh…Fall Break. ‘Twas wonderful.

Last Wednesday marked my first time home since I moved in, so it was definitely nice to go home.

Now you may think that the biggest surprise when I got home was that my bedroom was turned into a sewing room or that my parents had decided to move or some other shenanigans like that, but luckily none of the above occurred.
Nope, the biggest surprise for me was the water pressure. Sounds idiotic I know, but every single source of water at Furman is outfitted with a water restrictor. So moving from a nice sprinkling of water to a veritable river of H2O was quite startling. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. These water restrictors are just another thing that Furman has in order to make the campus “green”.

Here are some more things that make Furman the greenest campus around.

And I’m not just talking about the trees.

Bell Tower Housing: I’ve talked about this little village of sorts before, but it bears repeating. Bell Tower Housing is comprised of four small cottages that are all outfitted with certain eco-friendly technologies like solar panels. Upper classmen can live in this housing complex so long as they agree to engage in eco-friendly behaviors like recycling, monitoring energy usage, and composting. 

The Organic Garden: Just behind the Bell Tower Housing complex sits Furman’s organic garden. This garden is maintained by Furman students and provides veggies to the dining hall and the greater Furman community in season.

LEED Buildings: Several buildings around campus are LEED certified. What does this mean, you ask? LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Essentially LEED certification means that the United States Green Building Council has come to Furman and inspected the buildings for several criteria that make a building environmentally sound.

The Dining Hall: one little thing that I forgot to mention in a previous article that happens to fit perfectly in this one is that the Dining Hall is also eco-friendly. All of the disposables in the DH are biodegradable. Nifty, huh?

Whether you agree with the environmental concerns that have been raised in recent years or not, the measures that Furman takes to ensure sustainability on campus are a really easy way to do your part.  

the very green plant that graces the dorm room

I’m sure that by now you have been on several tours of college campuses. If not, what are you waiting for? There is nothing like a campus tour to really get a feel for how life would be should you choose to come to that particular college.

And Furman puts on some of the best tours, in my humble opinion. Perhaps some of you came to Fall for Furman this weekend or are planning to come to Furman soon to visit. You will take a tour of the campus that will take you around some of the most important features of the school (i.e. the Library, McAlister Auditorium, the DH, etc.) But these tours overlook some pretty cool things that I think you should know about.

First things first: The Place of Peace

This is a recent addition to the Furman Campus, and it has a pretty cool story attached to it. It seems there was a family shrine  that sat in Japan. Said family decided to donate the shrine to Furman, who accepted this generous gift. The shrine was deconsecrated, and broken down into some obscene number of pieces, which were then packed into crates, shipped to Furman, and pieced together again by expert craftsmen. The Place of Peace overlooks the Asian Garden, another oft overlooked feature of campus. The whole effect is very tranquil, very Zen, very “ooo I’d like to do some Yoga right now”.

Second on the list: The Cliffs Cottage.
You may have heard of Furman’s sustainable living community. The Crown Jewel of the complex is Southern Living’s Cliffs Cottage, which was built to be completely “green”. The house is currently opened for tours and will eventually be retrofitted to serve as a learning space. Surrounding the Cottage is the Bell Tower Housing community, a collection of four small houses in which upperclassmen dedicated to sustainable living can reside. Students must commit to living in an environmentally responsible way, which includes monitoring energy consumption, recycling, and composting.

Another feature of this area of campus is Furman’s organic garden, which lends its bounty to the DH.

My personal favorite:

This place doesn’t really have a name (to my knowledge), but it is one of my favorite places on campus. If you walk past the Place of Peace and the Asia Garden, past Bell Tower Housing and the Cliffs Cottage, and back into the woods, you come upon some loverly walking and biking trails. It feels like you have completely left campus. There are little creeks running everywhere, tons of trees, and even a nice picnic shelter. It’s a great place to go to just relax and detox. And commune with some nature.  

So after your tour is over, don’t be afraid to walk around campus yourself and discover some of Furman’s little secrets.