Learning a Little About a Lot

by Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications

STARKVILLE – Christian Quinn stood in a pawn shop staring at a wall of guitars. She didn't know how to play and didn't plan on learning. This purchase was supposed to be a decoration.

She had found the perfect black guitar to hang up on her bedroom wall, but Mississippi State softball's graduate assistant Nicole Pendley stopped her.

"She was like I really don't think you should buy this guitar," Quinn said. "It's $75 and you're never going to play it. If you're going to buy a $75 guitar, you'd better play it."

Instead the salesman offered her a different deal. He pulled out an old Fender from the back room and offered it to her for $40 if she'd agree to learn to play it instead of leaving it on the wall.

"I felt like I couldn't miss out on that, so I bought it," she said. "Everyone on the team thought I was crazy. They were like you don't even play guitar. Well how am I supposed to learn if I don't have a guitar. I might as well buy one. What am I supposed to do? Play air guitar all my life?"

Add it to the ever-growing list of hobbies and interests for the eclectic Bulldog outfielder.

Quinn's dabbling began in childhood. After playing baseball on boys' teams growing up, she'd gotten tired of some of her teammates and wanted something new. But her parents wouldn't let her sit around the house doing nothing.

After a little bit of thought, she settled on tennis. It seemed like a great idea, and she signed up. But Quinn never got a chance to play. She missed her first day to go to her sister's softball practice. She got really into the fashionable side of the game in high school, and now admits she probably own more tennis skirts that softball pants.

Speaking of fashion, she's already settled on her outfit for her next hobby once she's done playing softball.

"I want a motorcycle so bad," she said. "I want like the old-time, Harley-Davidson, blacked out, leather seats motorcycle. I was honestly begging my dad to buy me one. I know for a fact I will have a motorcycle."

She's already started searching for helmets online.

"Alumni game. You never know," Quinn said. "I might pull up one weekend on a motorcycle. I might not."

Guitars, motorcycles, no matter what the interest, it often comes back to a love for vintage items. She loves to visit antique shops with her brother. Whenever she is back home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, they'll head to a shop that's roughly the size of MSU's indoor facility at Nusz Park and wander through the aisles.

"Every time you go in there it's something new," Quinn said. "They try to organize it, but they've got so much stuff it doesn't all fit into sections. I always go by the video cameras, because I'm looking for a new tape recorder like they had in the 90s."

The most interesting item she's stumbled upon: a throne from the Congo priced at $2,800.

"What was cool about it is it was the smallest chair I'd ever seen," she said. "It was super short, and I'm thinking this person should be in a chair from like Game of Thrones. I just thought that was cool that all the way in Mississippi there's a chair from the Congo."

With her eyes set on a motorcycle from the 80s, a recorder from the 90s and now a guitar, Quinn seems like she may have been born into the wrong decade. But the modern era and new technology has allowed her to delve into more topics more easily than she ever could have otherwise.

She listens to podcasts and TED talks daily. Never on the same subject. She likes to bounce around.

"When we were growing up, my dad always said it was important to stay in tune with the times and know what's going on around the world in every aspect," she said. "That way if someone were to ask you a question about something, you wouldn't be ignorant. It takes literally 10 minutes of your day, learning about something that you wouldn't know before."

With the world seemingly on hold during a time of social distancing, Quinn has been able to focus on her hobbies. She's settled into a routine by now. Every morning she wakes up and goes for a run before spending about half an hour on her guitar – she's trying to learn an Arctic Monkeys song that has been challenging her because her hands are a bit too small to make the quick transitions. After that she turns on a Spanish podcast to help her pick up a new language.

It's all in a quest to know a little more about the world. She doesn't fault anyone for not knowing things, but she sees a responsibility to educate herself once she becomes aware of missing knowledge.

"There are going to be things you're ignorant about," Quinn said. "You're not going to know everything about the world, but I think it's important for our generation to be sophisticated in other things. Why would you want to live in this world and not know anything except what's in your circle or bubble? Why choose not to know?"

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