Class Year: Senior
Major: Human Development and English
Hometown: Fairport, NY
When I sat down with Megan to do this interview, I had no expectation of where it was going to go. If you’ve ever met Megan, you’ll understand why. She can be talking about the wholesomeness of British TV culture one second, and then tell you a horrific story about bears eating Russian families the next with almost no bridge connecting the two. It’s the unexpected timing that makes her stories so jarring, but it’s casual way she tells them that makes it hilariously endearing. So before long, I got this: 9 random life tidbits from Megan Bortz.
And when it was over, she wrapped it up by suggesting “you should make this a horror column!”
1. What To Do If You’re Stranded on a Boat in the Ocean
If you’re stranded on a raft in an ocean and you need water, what you do is you catch a fish. Obviously you can’t cook it, so you’re going to have to eat it raw. You cut it open and you leave it in the sun, and you eat the eyeballs for moisture, and there’s also a couple other organs. In practice, I don’t think I could do it, but theoretically, I wish I could. I’ve also heard of people being stranded in the water and catching seagulls and eating them.
2. The Untold History of Rokerthon
Apparently a couple years ago when Al came, he was hanging out with the students, greeting people and someone yelled, “Everyone hug Al!” Then dozens of college students attacked Al Roker and tried to tackle him. Apparently my professor was genuinely worried for his safety, pretty sure he went home with bruises. From then on, he brought a security detail. So you probably won’t get to hug Al Roker. But I bet if you yelled it, you would get tackled by a security guard.
3. Why Camping is the Worst
I hate camping. When I was probably 10 years old, we were camping. I just don’t generally like the idea of being in a tent where your only protection are these thin sheets of fabric. You’re out in the wild where there are serial killers and bears!
Anyways, so I go into the tent to change and I’m nude in the tent, and I turn around and there is a spider at face level within striking distance! So I scream and it’s 11 o’clock at night and I’m screaming like I am getting serial killed. My whole family is like “what the heck Megan, what are you doing?” And I’m screaming “There’s a spider!” and they were like “Megan, you can’t scream about that.” So that’s why I hate camping.
4. Unbridled Feelings of Oswego
It’s nice. I was only scared of the geese for the first year. Maybe the first two.
5. What People Should Be Watching on Netflix
Number one, The Great British Bake Off. It’s a show founded on compassion and soggy bottoms. It’s british so everyone’s really nice to each other while they’re sobbing in the corner because their pie fell apart. It’s great.
I’ve also watched Futurama literally thousands of times. I can quote it word for word. I watch it every night before I go to sleep and it’s kind of weird because at this point, if I see the first couple minutes of the episode, I know exactly what happens and I know the key quotes. So it’s getting a little dull. If anyone wants to renew that, you should. Futurama has heart and soul. I cry everytime at the dog episode… and the last episode… and the episode where Fry dreams about his mother who’s stranded thousands of years in the past and he’ll never see her again.
There’s an episode that’s famous because it makes every single person cry. They also have a Titanic themed episode, but that one doesn’t make me cry.
6. On Having Hobbies
I crochet. I actually crochet for charity. Me and my mom both crochet baby blankets for Project Linus. When I was a child I started a crocheting blog with my friend, which had one post. We called it the Knit-Wits, like knitting, even though it was crocheting. Probably still exists out there.
7. That Extra “Push” in Dating
If you terrify your date, they’ll mistake it for attraction. Go on a boat ride and strand yourselves on a deserted island.
8. How to Kill Time
If you enjoy watching someone pretend they were born in the stone age, you can go on YouTube and there’s a person who’s built an entire hut and kiln and various other things out of mud and sticks. And it’s all totally silent. You just hear cicadas and one man in the Australian outback building a hut or a fire.
9. Avalanche Safety
We live in NY, so if you’re skiing, an avalanche can actually happen pretty easily! One important thing to know when skiing is that in the area around trees, there’s such a thing as a tree well, that’s very soft powdery snow. If you steer into that you fall into this hole and it’s impossible to get out. People have frozen to death.
So anyways, if you’re in an avalanche, what happens is you’re tumbled around so you lose your orientation. So when a lot of people try to dig themselves out, they don’t realize that they’re not digging in the right direction. What you do is you spit and if the spit flies up, you know you’re currently upside down and you need to dig in the direction of the spit to dig yourself free.