I'm taking a four-course load this winter, and including three (let me repeat, three) required x-hours every single week, I will be having a grand total of 17 hours of class a week. And not a single one of these four classes can be accurately described as "sluttishly easy," "mad easy, yo" or even "hella easy, dude." I attribute the decision to inflict upon myself a schedule of such dubious proportions to both my inherent insanity and the ridiculous nature of the D-plan. Yes, yes, another article bitching about an established institution at Dartmouth. (At least I'm not going to mention the Ess El Eye. But let's face it kids, in a matter of minutes we'll have a dry campus and the Nyquil will be confiscated from our dorms.)
It's the D-plan that forces me into this ridiculous position of consciously choosing to have a hellish term (out of an inexpedient desire to be educated -- gasp! -- and to take classes that actually interest me). I've come to grips with the fact that I am a geek, of sorts (yes, I had to qualify the statement with the "of sorts"). In fact, so should you, oh Best Beloved Reader, acknowledge the dork lurking within. It is highly unlikely, having been admitted to "a private, four-year liberal arts institution that has been at the forefront of American higher education since 1769," that some element of "nerd" (designation in the Periodic Table of Elements: Ne, next to the Element Tu) does not dwell within you. (I am always infinitely astonished that a person, who spends the first 18 years of her or his life wearing coke-bottle glasses and sitting hunched over a desk protecting a science project, upon arriving at Dartmouth and replacing the glasses with contacts, can metamorphose into a binge-drinking slut/he-ho. Fascinating.)
Due to the D-plan, I have forgone a social life and quality time learning what so many come to college to experience: "dialogue between peers," "developing meaningful relationships," and "downing a 40 in under ten seconds." But no, I interrupt my blistering diatribe against the D-plan to speak of an even more pressing issue, an issue that is deeply embedded in life at Dartmouth as we now know it, an issue that could perhaps tear asunder the very fabric of existence here.
The movie "Quills".
I shan't have the time to delineate the thousands of ways in which "Quills" inexorably points to and encapsulates Dartmouth (the Ideal Moviegoer will have perceived them already) but will merely speak of them in passing.
When the trailers came out for "Quills," I thought, "what sort of perverse and unconscionable subversion of upstanding American values is this?" and immediately dragged my friends to a theatre crowded with senior citizens redolent of baby powder. In the film, the Marquis de Sade, from whose name the term "sadism" is derived, writes pornography in an insane asylum. There is a naughty laundress, a necrophilic priest, and a naked Geoffrey Rush caught up in a poignant struggle against the repressive minion of an English-accented Napoleon. Does this not strike a chord with all Dartmouth students? Indubitably so.
But for some minor failures in innovation (read: too much nudity on the part of Rush, too little on the part of Joaquin Phoenix, Kate Winslet, and Michael Caine) the intrinsic brilliance of this representation of Dartmouth cannot be ignored. And if you are even now, unaware of the parallels, I suggest that you take an English class to learn the valid metaphorical nature of all existence (i.e., George W. Bush = bush = flora = the physical world = the sinful body = hell = Satan, hence, George W. Bush = Satan, from which follow apocalyptic television programs such as "Temptation Island").
And yes, the pyromaniacal inmate of the asylum is apropos to our yearly bonfire.
