Oh Dartmouth, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways ...
I love thee for thy early mornings of frigid gusts of wind blowing against my half-closed eyelids, while some form of disgusting precipitation soaks my face and the soggy breakfast sandwich I carry. Although, to be fair, the breakfast sandwich was lousy to begin with, because breakfast sandwiches are by nature lousy, and the cheese is never as melted as you'd like, and the sausage/ham/bacon is always undercooked, and English muffins are overrated anyway.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? I could, but thou wouldst suffer by the comparison, for of late the weather has been repugnant, and the granite of New Hampshire has turned into mud, and the hill-wind in my veins is polluted with nicotine regardless.
Dartmouth, for thee I summon up remembrance of things past, such as the Comparative Literature class on Performance Art I took freshman winter. During one class we watched a woman stuff figs up her anus, and we discussed the social context of her agency in the heterodoxic discourse, and I received an "A" for writing nine pages of utter lies, and somehow all this went on at this beloved Ivy League institution.
Dear Dartmouth, I love thee for thy overwrought sunsets, and the jolly nature freaks sitting with their massive variegated backpacks, perhaps tossing a Frisbee amongst themselves and calling it a sport. (yeah, and wiffle ball's a sport, too). They commune blissfully with nature because it's just so, well, "natural," and while their dog-eared copies of "Walden" and "Ishmael" protrude from their khaki multi-pocketed pants extravaganzas, an eighth of an ounce of psychedelic mushrooms careens through their bloodstream. That is, of course, the real reason why the sunset looks so good and Frisbee seems like a sport.
And Dartmouth, I love thee for thy fraternities, thy giant sloppy houses reeking of vomit, and especially thy Psi U, all stuffed with brothers whose matching windbreakers have more individuality than they. (It's not that people join Psi U and lose their personality -- it's that people join Psi U because they have no personality). And I love thy Alpha Delta, gurgling idiots squeezed into its basement like the Tokyo subway, brothers prowling the house with territorial blandness, toasting at length to a "dude" or "bro." And I weep for the demise of their treehouse as profoundly as I weep for the demise of Paul Hogan's film career.
But Dartmouth, thy sororities are also near to my heart -- Kappa much missed, how you call to me, call to me -- and most of all I love thy rush process that sets back Dartmouth feminism 20 years, confirming every chauvinistic instinct men have ever had about the shallowness of women.
Yes, now is the Dartmouth of our discontent made glorious summer by its news publication, its Daily D, which finds significance even in the most trivial occurrences and is foolish enough to allow ballast like this to run. Also I love the renegade publication, the Review, bitter, homophobic and completely irrelevant to campus politics, and oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Midway through my Dartmouth journey I went astray, and found myself entrenched in its alternative scene, and this, too, I did love -- its Panarchy and Tabard freakshow asylums, its eyebrow piercings and baggy pants and ubiquitous headphones, its disdain for everything practical, its worship of Hanover's bench people, so holy in their sour adolescence, so martyred in their persecution by the cops, and the skateboards! Oh, unspeakable passionate skateboards.
And Dartmouth, thy professors have taught me well, mysteriously disappearing during their office hours, assigning papers and problem sets due the Monday after Homecoming, holding an infinite respect for their own opinions, loving their research and publishing, squabbling amongst themselves and suffering at the whim of their roulette-wheel-version of tenure.
Dartmouth, thy Kiewit printing employees are like patients etherized on a table, moving at the speed of evolution while thy papers vanish into thin air, and a warning in thy Men's Room says not to stuff the urinals with paper towels, but no Dartmouth male ever thought of doing so until he saw that sign telling him not to.
Dartmouth, thy Dining Services rip-off haunts me!
Thy lack of a mascot plagues my sleep!
Oh Dartmouth, you eat students like air.
