Personal achievement varies from person to person. If you’re at UNM for four years, you’ll wind up doing a lot of things to entertain yourself, and some will be more meaningful than others. Here are a few things every Lobo should do before graduation. Call it a UNM bucket list:
There is no shortage of research on the positive effects of relaxation. Now one business lets customers find their happy place via floating. Enlighten Others specializes in holistic healing. Located a half mile southeast of the University, on Bryn Mawr Drive, the local business features hot yoga, massage therapy — and float tanks. Business owner Kenneth Pintor said he liked the idea of offering float tanks for relaxation because they create a distraction-free environment that facilitates a state of restfulness.
Envision not eating, drinking, smoking or having sex from sunrise until sundown every day for a month. For people who observe Ramadan, doing so is an annual event. Serene Akkad, a junior International Affairs major and event coordinator for the Muslim Student Association, said the fast during Ramadan is intended to help cleanse the soul and body, to help practitioners get closer to God, and to return them to their roots. “It teaches us to always be thankful,” she said.
When I applied for a job with the Daily Lobo I pictured a room crowded with papers and overflowing ashtrays. I envisioned coffee cups full of rum with melting ice. I heard, in my mind, people yelling across each other about the hottest topics, demanding phone numbers and confirmation: “Did the governor really say that?!” I saw myself taking a questionable assignment and prying open a window to get to the files that would finally put away that dirtbag politician. I would drag the hegemony down by blasting it with the holy light of journalism! I quickly figured out that I knew nothing of journalism. Everything Hunter S. Thompson taught me about reporting was wrong. With no experience and little functional knowledge in the field, my first two submissions were rapidly rejected. The world of journalism — especially college journalism — is full of obscure rules. Brought upon me with the most immediate rigor was the first-person rule: Nothing in a story is to be written in first person.
Imagine finding yourself locked inside an unfamiliar room. You’ve been told you only have an hour to find a way out, and once your hour is up ... you lose the game, and another team will enter to attempt their escape. Husband-and-wife team Darren and Carrie Guido have taken the popular “escape the room” internet games and brought them to life in Albuquerque.
By Kevin Haaf Some say music and movies can make a society. That the shape of a culture is crafted and reflected by the celebrities who set trends. Joe Ragland III, a senior psychology major, said his five favorite artists and celebrities are all feminists.
Motivated by a desire to help people enrich their lives through literacy and education, local organization Zombie Bar Krawl is launching a free exchange library system called 1000 Paper Brainz. Chelsea McBride, founder of 1000 Paper Brainz, said the name was originally an idea for an art project based on the Japanese novel “A Thousand Paper Cranes,” which is founded on the legend suggesting that if one folds 1,000 origami cranes, he or she will be granted a wish. “I’m an avid book reader and lover. I’m always trying to think of ways to convince everybody to read,” she said. “I took the idea to my Albuquerque Bar Krawl Krew (the local chapter of Zombie Bar Krawl), and they loved it.”
Students must read books. Often they are dry, flavorless textbooks that leave one groaning page after page. Andre Haag, a professor in the East Asian Studies Department, uses cultural artifacts (books) to demonstrate significant historical periods and events. When asked his five favorite novels, Haag said that he did not have any favorites and that the term “favorites” lacks a critical edge. “I don’t believe in the framework of having favorites. I don’t have the stability of preference required. I think it’s artificial to claim that you have a favorite. It changes moment to moment. Frankly, I think favorites are inane. No offense,” Haag said.
Once in a while, an event takes place that breathes new life into the barren storehouses and broken windows of the Albuquerque Rail Yards. On Saturday, that event was the Naked Food Fair.
LoboTHON’s wholesome fun drew hundreds of supporters, but fell short of its $62,000 fundraising goal for UNM Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Nearly 1,000 people came to Saturday’s dance marathon event, which raised $44,268 for children who are working hard to keep going. After a year of planning, some of the organizers will now move on to different projects, while others plan to dedicate their fundraising talents to next year’s dance marathon.
Solutions by The State News
