"Colby needs to be weirder," Grant Patch '12 says. As an English major with a creative writing concentration, he's doing his part to help the College gain some flavor.

Hailing from Lexington, Mass., "birthplace of the American revolution," Patch currently resides in Grossman, the art and music house. His passions run the gamut from creative writing to making his own music to acting, and Patch has at the very least dipped his fingers into all of these areas here on the Hill. On top of that, "I try to do ridiculous stuff with my friends," he says.

Patch has been writing creatively since elementary school, but "I've been only writing seriously (whatever seriously means) since junior year of high school."

His topics? "Basically what everyone's been writing about since the beginning of writing...life, death, love, you know. And heartbreak."

Though he considers himself more of a "prose guy," Patch has recently gotten into poetry, particularly slam poetry. In fact, he won a Grossman slam poetry contest last year and performed at the Poets Rest at Dawn event that took place last Saturday, November 7.

As for writing, Patch says he doesn't work for one particular style over another. However, he does look to his favorite authors for inspiration. "You're a conglomeration of everything you've ever read when you write," he says.

Here on the Hill, he is the vice president of the creative writing club, The Cellar Door.

As for music, Patch played the guitar in bands during high school but could never find the ideal sound. "I wished I could record music that I hear in my head...I just wanted to get my ideas out the way I hear it and want it to be...so I found this [computer] program and figured out how to use it," Patch says.

Now Patch records his own electro-pop music, which he calls Deaf Country. This music can be found on MySpace.com. Last year, Patch threw a couple of small concerts in Hillside stairwells that he called "Take Back the Vestibule."

"It was completely illegal and a fire hazard," he says, but it was an effort to reclaim public space. This year, he and some friends hosted a glow dance in the Grossman basement, which unfortunately got shut down before it really got started, he says. But he was planning to play some of his music there, too.

It all plays nicely into his goal of "undoing the sterilization of Colby." Keep your eyes out around campus for wacky little things that make you smile...Patch and some of his friends may be behind them.

Last year, the crew put together a surrealist, rambling speech for April Fools' Day. After building up a lot of hype about it, one student performed the speech from the bridge in Pulver Pavilion, called "The Nose Knows."

Or take his shoes. He says he sees people around with "really fly kicks" and, inspired by their bright colors and excellent hustle, he bought his own "really cheap" pair of white shoes and painted them himself. Check them out if you see him around.

"I just want to make Colby a weirder place. I feel like so many people [follow the status quo] and that's cool, I do that too. But I just try to shake stuff up."