For my final project I wanted to do something celebratory once again. As the Actlab may no longer exist at UT I figured a tribute to the class in the form of a eulogy with a twist would suffice.

I found coffin tins online, poked holes in them with a hammer and nail and planted flowers in each one. I also had Actlab stickers made to cover the skull and crossbones on each of the tins. The morning of presentations I dug holes on the side of the communications building, buried each of the tins and created a graveyard with tombstones on which each of my classmates' names were written.

I gathered everyone outside:

Ladies and gentlemen, dearly beloved....we are gathered here today to pay tribute to the lives of, well, all of you. Miniature yous. There in the ground. Okay. There aren't really tiny versions of you in the ground. It's just a metaphor. Although I did visit that voodoo witch lady just to see if she had any tricks up her sleeve. I think that would have won me best Actlab project ever! But I digress. I'd just like to say a few words about all of you.

Remember that time we took that road trip in the old blue bus. To Marfa. The end of the line. And Joey drove the bus like he was racing a street car and we all thought we were going to die. And Steph, Shayna, Chase, Joe and Will sat in the back and sang old show tunes for four hours. And we hit that possum and Andrew made us stop the bus and eulogize and bury it. And Darla got sick and puked on David's shoes. Jen and Ladan read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov because they wanted to find the passage about Marfa. Once we finally got there all Ekaterina and Paul and I wanted to do was find the minimalist and modern art and take photos in the desert, but we had to fight Josh because all he wanted to do was find the exact locations where There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were shot. Then we lost Jason, Elijah, Smashley, Dustin, and Sandy when they trapsed off into the desert to find the Marfa lights. God knows what happened out there. The night staff at Hotel Paisano probably thought they were seeing the Marfa lights too, until they realized it was just Elijah stumbling into the hotel with his ball, high off of the ghost lights. And Andreas and Matt came even though they're not in our class and Andreas found a dead javelina and insisted upon dragging it around with us the entire trip. And then we went to Big Bend and Jenny and Peter had that run in with the mountain lion and were hanging onto a creaking, cracking branch over a ravine, but Katie ran around for like 6 hours so the mountain lion would chase her while Allison and David Macgyvered out and built a trap. But then Megan wanted to take the big kitty home with her and we all had to put our collective foot down. "No, Megan, the lion cannot ride in the bus with us!" Then on our way home, Joey hit that roadrunner and we got that flat tire and had to change it in the sweltering desert sun. And then zombies attacked and we had to chop their heads off with machetes and we barely got out alive!

Man, that was a really weird and awesome trip. And somehow, we all made it back here unharmed. And someday we will no longer be here, but right now we are. And although we may experience a number of deaths in our lives, sometimes those deaths are necessary for rebirth. As we remember and celebrate our lives and life of the Actlab, let us all remember that although things last forever, they must change their shape sometimes.

Now, please dig up your your graves and take the contents as a reminder of the Actlab and that death and rebirth are inextricably linked.

As my class mates were digging up their graves, I discovered a very peculiar bite mark on Katie's arm and confronted her about it. She tried to hide it and claimed that she fell, but I knew better. As I was further interrogating her, my suspicions were confirmed as a zombie rounded the corner and came straight for us. Panic ensued. Everyone fled back to the room, where much to our chagrin we were met with a slew of the undead. Luckily, I had had tote bags with Sandy's face made and each one contained a sword! An epic battle ensued!

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Each of the bags also contained a Death mix entitled: Although things last forever, they must change their shape sometimes.

your beat kick back like death                               scout niblett
holland, 1945                                                       neutral milk hotel
death of a shade of hue                                        of montreal
in the morning linda dies                                       paleo
willow tree                                                           chad van gaalen
the lonesome death of hattie carroll                       mason jennings
cross road blues                                                  robert johnson
across the universe                                              the beatles
eli, the barrow boy                                                the decemberists
last kiss                                                              j. frank and wilson and the cavaliers
cosmic dancer                                                     t. rex
at death, a proclomation                                       phosphorescent
banshee beat                                                       animal collective
while you were sleeping                                        elvis perkins
i had a dream i died                                              le loup
in the back seat                                                   the arcade fire
on the death of the waters                                     shearwater
unravel                                                                bjork
while we have the sun                                           mirah/ginger takahashi

<3 <3 <3