Late So Soon
How did it get so late so soon?
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How did it get so late so soon?
Ah, Green Key. It's kind of like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of Dartmouth big weekends: there's no real justifiable explanation for why it still exists, but we enjoy it anyway every time it comes to town. With Homecoming, there's a bonfire to run around and a pathetic football team to pretend to get excited about. With Winter Carnival, there's cheap skiing to take advantage of and a pathetic snow sculpture to pretend to get excited about. But Green Key operates under no such pretensions; it has no inviolable traditions for the administration to shake its naggy, overbearing parental finger at; it has no aspirations so lofty and hollow as "school spirit" or any of that crap. It's merely a weekend to embrace the onset of spring and get really, really trashed. And that, gentle reader, in and of itself, is reason to love it more than any other weekend in Hanover.
Samuel Johnson wrote, "He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty." When I graduate in June and leave Dartmouth to enter the world-at-large, I will be quitting a certainty for an uncertainty. By Johnson's definition, this means that I am no wise man. That comes as no surprise to those of you who have read this column over the past few years. But, as I've come to terms with Dartmouth and found a comfort-level here, my columns have gotten less critical and even farther from the type of wisdom that Johnson alludes to. So, after so humble an introduction, I present you with the following:
It often seems to me that our years in college
As I write this, I'm a little over three months away from graduation, and sometimes I feel as though I still haven't learned a damn thing. In three months, the bubble will burst, and I'll be thrust out into the real world kicking and screaming, and these columns will be only the tooth-and-nail marks I leave in my wake. I have absolutely no idea what I'll do when I leave Dartmouth. That world-as-your-oyster range of possibility, that wide-openness of opportunity it's about five percent breathtakingly exciting and 95 percent mind-numbingly horrific. It isn't just that I don't have a job; it's that I don't even have any idea about what type of job I'd like to have. I can't think of anything that would make me happy.
Add to the increasingly daunting laundry list of my personal shortcomings and character flaws a horrible sense of timing. It's been nearly a month since Katie Greenwood's guest column in these pages (The Dartmouth, Jan. 30, "System Failure") once again shed light on the exclusivity of the Greek system and sparked the predictable smattering of letters to the editor that pass for discourse at this school. But, Dartmouth being Dartmouth, controversies -- no matter how large in scale or atrocious in nature -- tend to have a pretty short shelf life in the collective consciousness of our seemingly A.D.D.-riddled student body. So, by waiting this long to add my voice to the din, perhaps I'm doing nothing more than flogging an already rigor mortis-ed horse. But, in addition to extreme laziness, there's another reason why I've hesitated to tackle this issue. I was hoping I wouldn't have to. I was hoping somebody else would say what I'm about to.
I live for big weekends. Homecoming, Green Key, Tubestock and, yes, even Winter Carnival. Everyone always talks about how great they are. And, in a sense, they are great. But as fun, carefree and alcohol-soaked as they are, they aren't everything. When I was a sophomore, Winter Carnival was fantastic. The keg jump will forever be etched in my memory (well, at least the sound of that one guy's skull cracking open on the ice). But when I was a freshman, it was completely different. That was when the bomb was dropped on the Greek system, when the Student Life Initiative was introduced and the vow was made to end the Greek system "as we know it." All Greek parties were canceled and the weekend was dead. Things ground to a halt. People walked around, jaws agape, and struggled to find ways to entertain themselves in the vacuum of the post-apocalyptic campus.
I knew this would happen. Story of my life. Man, I used to hate it here. Or at least act like I did. And now, just as I'm realizing I actually do like it here, when this place starts to feel a little bit like home, it's time for me to go. Not exactly -- I mean, I still have another term and a half, so it's a little early in the game for nostalgic laments, but whatever -- you know what I mean. And if you don't, you will -- eventually.
Thursday was my Mom's birthday. I'm feeling kind of guilty about the present I gave her. Somehow, it just doesn't seem like enough, all things considered. I mean, when you think of all the things mothers do for their children, all the stuff (in both a material and spiritual sense) they sacrifice through the years, it is tough to come up with a commensurate present. But I didn't even come close this year. She gave me the gift of life and I gave her the gift of a seven dollar coffee mug from the Dartmouth Co-op. To make matters worse, it's probably the same exact mug I gave her last year. In my pitiful defense, who has the gall to have a birthday this close to Christmas, anyway? (apparently everyone, if you've been reading The Dartmouth lately.)
Let's make no bones about it; I'm a bitter, miserable kid. No matter what I have to be thankful for, no matter what's going right in my world, I always dwell on the negative things. Maybe it's my personality. My disposition. Maybe I don't get enough vitamin C. Maybe it's a chemical imbalance. Whatever the reason, I tend to make the least of situations. I'm like a grumpy old man 50 years ahead of my time. Seriously, if I had my druthers, I'd be down in Florida right now at some retirement villa, drinking midori sours and playing canasta with my white chinos tugged up around my chest, held in place by an equally white alligator skin belt that nicely complements my white loafers and knee-high rubber orthotic socks. I went directly from angst-ridden teen to grumpy old man with no middle ground in between. To me, the glass always seems half- empty and I never have trouble finding things to complain about. Some might call it a talent; most would call it a horrible character flaw that makes me the kind of person you can't stand to be around for more than 15 minutes without developing an uncontrollable urge to drive bamboo shafts under my fingernails or flog me with a wiffle bat.
Picture this: the most powerful nation in the world, a country historically steeped in confidence and pride, is devastated by terrorism and plagued by the looming specter of biochemical attacks. At times like these, we need someone capable of rising to new heights and capturing the imagination and awe of the American people. To paraphrase Paul Simon (something I feel comfortable doing since my hair is as unstylish as his boy Art Garfunkel's): Where have you gone, Michael Jordan? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. (woo, woo, woo). Unfortunately, the MJ we're seeing today is a far cry from the MJ of old, the MJ we need.
I seem to remember not too long ago a whole lot of dirt being kicked up by something called the Student Life Initiative. Now, for those of you who are new to the College or whose attention span has been ruined by too many mind-altering substances or too many boring econ lectures or too many late-night games of pong or too many poorly-constructed run-on sentences written by bitter, hackneyed columnists who always drone on about the same stupid subject, let me give you a brief synopsis of the SLI. The SLI is, as I see it, a three-pronged platform that, if implemented properly and efficiently, will turn Dartmouth into the greatest Ivy League institution in the world (north of Cambridge, of course).
I really enjoy autumns in Hanover. The bright orange pumpkins, the warm apple cider, the majestic and kaleidoscopic foliage, the crisp autumnal air, the 30-below wind chill factor, the deadly hail of acorns, the bracing shock of being able to see your own breath while brushing your teeth, the frozen tundra where once stood the Green. Fall truly is a lovely season here in New Hampshire. I'd rank it in my top five any day.
I don't really know what to say about what
Talk about life imitating art imitating life. In Animal House, Otter says: "You can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? Isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the United States of America!"
With last week's protests at Parkhurst Hall, this College finally showed that it has both some soul and some spine. Even though the protests were a little disorganized and, at times, seemed to blend too many disparate voices, I commend the effort and applaud the leaders and participants. If your goal is to make a little noise and wake people from their so-called apathetic slumbers, cacophony is as effective as harmony. And maybe Dartmouth doesn't have the whole student-activism thing down to a science like Columbia or UC-Berkeley, but if you're ultimately going to be ignored in the end (or just given lip-service from indifferent Trustees), isn't being heard as good as being understood? On this campus, it's a Herculean task in and of itself just to get 90 people fired up over anything that doesn't involve free t-shirts or beer, right? If, in the end, this turns out to be just like every other newsworthy event (something happens, there's a campus-wide stir, letters get sent to the editor, administrators put their spin on the situation, committees get formed, subcommittees get formed, time goes by, people lose interest, etc.), at least the people crying out in the rain on the Parkhurst lawn can say they did their part to make this a better place.
For three years now, I've had the good fortune of being a staff columnist for the Dartmouth. With this title come no fat paychecks, no VIP status, no adoring fans. It just means that every so often, I get to have an opinion on something and the nice people at the D give me 800 words to vent my thoughts to the dozens of loyal readers of these pages.
I'm obsessed with money. Well, not really. But for the sake of argument (and for the sake of me finally writing a column that isn't about the fate of our precious Greek system), let's say that I am. When did this happen? I wasn't always like this. I used to be a fun-loving, outgoing guy who valued cherished moments and shared experiences. I used to be able to enjoy the finer things in life without putting a price tag on everything. I used to only be joking when I'd roll down my car window and ask for Grey Poupon. Now I go to sleep with dollar signs in my eyes and my dreams disturbingly include visions of Alan Greenspan where Heidi Klum used to be. All of a sudden, I'm like Scrooge McDuck incarnate.
Forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'd like to talk about the fate of the Greeks at Dartmouth (if I were a little smarter, I'd come up with a clever mythology pun about Greeks and dead (or wooden) horses, but then again, if I were a little smarter, I'd probably be at Harvard, or at least someplace warmer than this God-forsaken patch of frozen tundra). As you loyal readers of America's oldest college newspaper know, I've been an outspoken supporter of the oft-maligned Greek system for quite some time now. When I came to Dartmouth, I never doubted that I would join a fraternity. I pledged during my sophomore fall and moved into my house during my sophomore summer. Personally, I've had nothing but positive experiences with the Greek system. But, like it or not, the Greeks are under intense scrutiny and some changes are going to be made.
As a wise old junior, I planned on writing a really impressive column showcasing my extensive knowledge of Dartmouth, dispensing pellets of knowledge like so many pieces of Pez and impressing all the cute '04 girls on the way. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how anything I could say about this place would be either an angry diatribe or a depressing rant. And come on, we all know that I haven't been able to come up with an impressive column in well over a year now. But I am a junior and, since I stayed back in kindergarten, I'm probably older than a lot of you. Therefore, I feel entitled and obligated to share some of the Dartmouth knowledge I've gained in my experiences here.