November Burning Man... and Woman

The November S3S gathering was filled with toasty marshmallowy goodness. Folks came out to the new Butts household in Central. Fun was had by many.

The little ones of our bunch giggled around the fire.

Pictures can be seen below...

Dr. Richard Murphy, the newly appointed head of the languages department, charmed many with his British accent and highly recommended that we all watch M, a nearly perfect film...

so here it is... enjoy.

November Pictures!

RSA Chapter

Hello out there in the rhetoric world.

It's been a while since this blog has been updated; however, there is some important news to go down in the archives!

The Society of the 3rd Sophistic has become an official Rhetoric Society of America chapter. So, now S3S/RSA will function as our student organization for all things rhetorical!

You can now see us listed on the RSA website here.

A little history of S3S can be found in the first post on this blog, here. But one of the main functions of the organization's founding was to be able to have a student organization that could host a triennial conference called the Carolina Rhetorics Conference. Though other activities have evolved with the group including our monthly gatherings.

We hope to update rhetorical things here more regularly this year, and that this blog can become a space for professional development, community building, and other interestingness.

Aug 09: New Year, New Piñata

Every school year needs an initiation rite. Three years ago they used to stuff a first-year student full of Skittles and whack him with an old laptop. We've come a long way.

Check out the entire roll of pictures from the Vitanzas.

In the weeks since, Bernard, Jimmy, Lauren, Juanrong, Walter, Steven, Stephen, and Taerhim have settled into Strode 205.

Soon they'll be unable to separate their first RCID memories from the preplatonics.

Next up: disco, disco, disco!

January s3s musings

Anthony returns with insightful reflections for the new year...

“And that over there, that over there is Georgia.”


For S3S, 2009 began as it should: with a party. The population of Six Mile, South Carolina (553) grew by almost 10% when Tharon and Wendy Howard graciously opened their home to children, students, faculty, and friends, ready to restart another academic cycle.

The numbers may have been twice that if so many had not been lost to the wilderness (It was only by the luck of GPS that I arrived).
If the town of Six Mile is, in fact, six miles long, then there must be a folding of time and space somewhere along its edges.

Of course, it was worth the journey, not only for the Howards’ hospitality and special BBQ sauce for mini-Franks, but also for the sprawling landscape that surrounds the home. It was dark, not much could be seen, but the vastness was felt, especially by those of us from the city. All that non-concrete breathes loudly.


Hand-crafted Howard


Anyone taking a tour of the Howard home must marvel at how much of it was actually made by them. They built the house. They cleared the land. They installed all those nice little lights that wind up the back driveway to the deck.

If you ask, you may even be allowed a glimpse of the Howards’ Other Vehicle, that which contractors envy and the brush fears. Gazing up at its wheels and down at its mulching blades, one has to redefine what is traditionally thought of as the realm of an academic.


Wii


Two points:

1) the Howards have one.

2) Alicia Hatter’s tennis serve is not to be messed with.







Previews

• Carolina Rhetoric Conference: it’s up and running and coming to Clemson February 20-21. Sergio, who plans on offering wholesale web design prices, has just launched the site.

• The Return of PRE/TEXT: chicken claw and all. Keep watch, true-believers. In the meantime, those who are game (sorry, couldn’t help myself), may want to clear a space in your bookshelf now for the just-announced special issue:

[Jan Flyer]

• S3S This Week! Elisa Sparks has sent out a far-reaching invitation, crossing departments, disciplines, programs, Second Lives, and party lines. The gathering this Friday should not be missed.

• More Pictures and other Facebook Delights: Pictures have been loaded to facebook, both on akb's account (in order) and on our new Facebook s3s group page (inverted): s3s on facebook. Check us out, join in, leave comments, have fun.

december delights

Our December s3s event, kindly hosted by the Collamatis, proved to be one of the best-attended and most-festive so far. Please see some of these facebook-based collections of pictures for evidence:
from Christina Hung
from Alicyn Butler
from me

As you've certainly heard enough from me, and asking Anthony to comment on his own event seemed a touch boorish, I've elicited commentary from other event-attendees. So, without further ado...

Alicia Hatter
If there was ever a "memorable moment" from this semester's S3Ss, for me
it was the moment my number was called for the gift exchange. I approached
the glowing Christmas tree and cast my eyes over the variously shaped
gifts waiting to be unwrapped. My number was early in the sequence of 25
or so, so there were many packages left to choose from. I selected an
odd-shaped object with typical snowman wrapping paper. "Surely this is a
special thing," I thought to myself, "For it's not in a bag or a box.
Indeed, it's got such a strange shape there'd be no normal box to fit it
in."

I don't know what I expected, other than fantastic-ness, when I tore into
the wrapping, but I can say that I did NOT expect to find myself in
possession of the item which I held somewhat incredulously in my hands: an
AM/FM clock radio. Circa 1990. Mr. Keith Morton had a sense of humor
indeed!

Merry Christmas, clever gift exchange. I actually can't wait until next
year to pick something from my own abode to re-gift. Much laughter and
mirth are surely to follow. :D

nov s3s

We're a bit behind on our highlights for the last s3s event, but here's a sense of the evening. Apologies for the redundant zooming image motion -- iWeb mildly thwarted me. To see the photos with captions, try this link.