BAMPFA STUDENT COMMITTEE
  • Home
  • About
  • Activities
    • Events
    • Zine
    • Five Tables Exhibitions
  • Blog
  • Photo Gallery
    • Cinespin 2022
    • Fall Opening 2022
    • Poster Pizza Palooza 2022
    • Film Fest 2022
    • Fall Opening 2021
    • Past Events
  • Call for Submissions

Recommendations for the Coming Apocalypse

3/12/2020

0 Comments

 
​by Quentin Freeman
Picture
Some schools have snow days. So far this year, UC Berkeley prefers to spice it up with Our State is On Fire Days, Worldwide Epidemic Days, and All Our Grad Students are On Strike For Livable Wages Days. Whoever said school was boring? The UC Berkeley grad students voted to go on a full strike starting Monday, March 16, in demand of a cost of living adjustment (COLA) and in solidarity with the 4 other UC campuses currently on strike. Starting Monday, not only will our classes be virtual, but if your GSI is one of the students on strike, it’s no guarantee that they’ll happen at all. Wondering what to do with yourself to fill the time (besides support your GSIs and wash your hands)? Spring break trip to Italy get cancelled? A little freaked out by campus’s new pre-apocalyptic vibe? Consider the following: 

Get outside! Berkeley is home to some delightful hiking trails, and nature is only a walk, bike ride, bus, or BART away. Work out those lungs and get some Vitamin D, and word on the streets is that trees can’t spread the virus. Short of using our cancelled classes as an opportunity to live out your hermit-in-the-forest dreams, check out the Fire Trails for some local action, or take the 67 bus to Tilden, where you can stroll through redwoods and around lakes. Want to get out of Berkeley? Head to Briones Regional Park just over the Berkeley Hills for some beatific rolling hills, or make the longer trek to Point Reyes National Seashore-- accessible by public transit!  

Listen to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. Yeah, it might not be the most uplifting song to go with the crumbling university, but what a banger. Get yourself fired up to take on whatever the world wants to throw at you, from glitching internet on your Zoom lecture to a full-scale, nuclear-fallout-style apocalypse. 

Teach yourself a new skill or hobby. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to play the guitar, or speak Gaelic! Learn to embroider, identify edible plants, practice your survival skills, or perfect your latte art. Maybe take up woodworking so you can build that off the grid cabin of your dreams! Now’s your chance to memorize all the lyrics to It’s the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M.! 

Feeling romantic? Hozier’s Wasteland, Baby! is the ultimate album for when it’s the end of the world, but you’re also totally in love. Highlights from the record include No Plan, complete with driving beat and nihilistic discussion of how there is in fact no plan for the universe, and everything will at some point return to darkness-- but at least you’re watching the final sunset with your girl! A little more on the acoustic side of things, check out the titular track, Wasteland, Baby: a soft, delicate ballad with lyrics like poetry. I mean, “And the day that we watch the death of the sun / that the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on / That you gaze unafraid as they saw from the city ruins /Wasteland, baby / I'm in love / I’m in love with you” -- nobody ever said the end of days had to be a turn off. The album is full of great date ideas for the end of the world, if you need any inspiration. 

Maybe don’t read The Stand by Stephen King unless you really want to lean into this whole pandemic thing. A nearly thousand page post-apocalyptic horror epic, The Stand is a fabulous way to kill a couple dozen hours. Its intricate web of characters, slightly disturbing world-building, and unfortunately very timely premise of apocalypse-by-disease keeps you riveted and a tad freaked out-- but very grateful that our own pandemic is not quite as horrifying and end-of-the-world-inducing as the fictional virus in the novel. 

However you decide to fill your time, don’t forget that in reality, COVID-19 isn’t the harbinger of the end of days; as truly unfortunate as this situation is, it’s only temporary. Wash your hands, be careful, go home if you want, but don’t fall prey to the panic. See you on Zoom!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

    Writers

    All
    Akshata Atre
    Asri Alhamdaputra
    Beck Trebesch
    Clara Sperow
    Dylan Murphy
    Elizabeth Saubestre
    Gillian Robin
    Haley Kittleson
    Jack Wareham
    Julia Cunningham
    Katherine Schloss
    Khaled Alqahtani
    Lucas Fink
    Melody Niv
    Nash Croker
    Quentin Freeman
    Ruby Bracher
    Ryan Simpkins
    Saffron Sener
    Sam Kurtz
    Saprina Howard
    Shine Lee
    Truly Edison
    Zoe Forest

    RSS Feed


ADDRESS
​Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
University of Califonia, Berkeley
2120 Oxford Street #2250
Berkeley, CA 94720

​EMAIL
​bampfasc@berkeley.edu


​
SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER HERE.

FOLLOW US


M-F: 7am - 9pm
415-555-1234
info@email.com
  • Home
  • About
  • Activities
    • Events
    • Zine
    • Five Tables Exhibitions
  • Blog
  • Photo Gallery
    • Cinespin 2022
    • Fall Opening 2022
    • Poster Pizza Palooza 2022
    • Film Fest 2022
    • Fall Opening 2021
    • Past Events
  • Call for Submissions