Who am I?
I was sitting in a tiny, stuffy, stark-white room
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I was sitting in a tiny, stuffy, stark-white room
As I tried to come up with a topic with which to enlighten incoming freshmen, having started writing my column about two hours before the deadline, I searched on thedartmouth.com (I suggest you frequent it over the summer, it will help excite and prepare you for Dartmouth) for the column I wrote for the Freshman Issue last summer to give myself some ideas, or, should the need arise, repeat myself completely. What I found (and what you will find should you be bored enough to look) was a column dripping with excessive sentimentality, self-reflection and praise of Dartmouth to the point that, in retrospect, I seemed about as sycophantic as Smithers is to Mr. Burns.
I want to acknowledge the title right here. It seems that, during sophomore summer, editing takes a back seat in light of other festivities in which students are partaking, so I do not blame my editor for the miserable butchering of the title of my last column that caused no one to read it.
I refuse to get sucked in. I will not waste time arguing about something I just want to consign to the dark recesses of memory. We only have one sophomore summer. So, let the administration make up new definitions for words and laws hundreds of years old, let it be as completely and unabashedly blatant as possible in signifying the beginning of the end of the Greek system, let it try its best to taint this special term by making so many students waste it defending themselves. As for me, I'm going to seek out what sophomore summer epitomizes to the very core rather than reverting to the same old debates, debates in which I have spent more time than I care to admit participating and for which nobody has anything to show except lots of hostility and even more hopelessness. I'm going to explore new things, meet new people and perfect my Teva-tan. I will manifest in my own actions the uniqueness inherent in the very concept of sophomore summer. It's a time to break the mold.
We often confuse the meaning of Green Key weekend; after all, it's pretty easy to get confused if you're carrying around a water bottle full of vodka for 72 consecutive hours. As with Homecoming and Winter Carnival, Green Key has predominantly become an official excuse for marinating all that pesky knowledge that has accumulated over the course of the term in alcohol.
Bigotry always results in scapegoating, in overgeneralization, in unjust accusations based only on one's cultural, racial, or sexual affiliation, among other things. This is always the line of reasoning used by those attacking homophobia, sexism, racism or any other "ism." Of course, everyone understands that discriminating against somebody based simply on some affiliation of his or hers without looking at who he or she is as a person is an act of bigotry. Everyone knows that making presuppositions about an individual or blaming an individual for all the world's evils based simply on what you think about some general affiliation of his or hers is unjust, undemocratic and unfair.
I was running down Tuck Mall oblivious to the surroundings, only thinking about how I was late, and then for some inexplicable reason I focused my attention on the hill beyond Tuck and Thayer. It hit me then just how much in the middle of nowhere we are and how this is as close to utopia within the real world as we can get.
When I first glanced at the mass email sent out late last week about the gathering at Parkhurst to protest the administration's impotence when it comes to listening to the students, I was excited, thinking that more people felt the way I do. Then I read on to see what they were demanding, and I immediately returned to my state of disillusionment. In the words of a friend who also disagreed with the protest, "Is it just me, or does a meaningful protest require a meaningful issue?"
No one wants to hear about it anymore, but it needs to be said. What I have to say is not specifically in reference to what happened at Psi Upsilon fraternity and the reaction thereof; it, again, is in response to a trend recurring everywhere I look on this campus and others. And while I have tangentially discussed this topic on several occasions, it is time I came right out and said it so everyone can take a moment and reflect on their opinions.
I take offense.
The first official Dartmouth students began their studies in 1769. Four years later they were unleashed upon the world, ready and willing to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge they had acquired. This knowledge could be used for any purpose they could dream up. They would be the ones to cure society's ills, to better the lives of people at home and abroad, to ensure human health and happiness for all eternity. The possibilities of these graduates to affect the world for the better were endless, and society could not have been happier to accept these young go-getters into its waiting arms.
Recently my editor mentioned the existence of uwire.com, a website devoted to college newspapers across the country. My interest piqued, I visited said site to examine one particularly fun aspect of it, its daily rankings of the top columns from student papers. This site actually goes through a number of schools' newspapers every day and hand-selects what they consider the best columns.
Bush wins! Wait, hold on a second, Gore wins! No, that's not right. After the recount, Nader wins!
Traditions were made to be broken. Wait a second, that's not right. What was it that's made to be broken again?
Have you ever participated in a Battle of the Stressed? It's certainly one of the most common conversational themes. No doubt a friend has approached you moaning about the two papers he needs to write, six books he has to read and 13 exams he needs to study for, all before he goes to his 11 club meetings, only with you retorting that not only do you have to do all that, but you have to do it all with your left hand since you broke your other one participating in one of your five sports.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Those are the oh-so-wonderful sounds that we've all come to know and love on a campus consumed by Machiavellian tactics for getting things done regardless of who's trampled on in the process.
I'm telling you, folks, this is big. For most of us this will be the first time we're actually able to vote in a presidential election. This is democracy at its best; this is when we get to make our voices heard by declaring who we want to represent our opinions in office. Now, the way I see it, there is only one logical choice for those of us blessed with American citizenship -- vote for no one.
It was so appropriate that I was blitzed this summer and asked to write a column for the freshman issue of The D. First, of course, is the fact that it was a blitz. You all know about the superhuman entity of blitz at this point; no doubt a few of you have ingeniously discovered how to download and use it already. I swore to myself the first day of my freshman year that I would not succumb to blitz, that I would be man enough to refrain from e-mailing people who live down the hall. Five minutes later I forgot what a phone was and could not pry my fingers from the keyboard. Even the strongest among you should not underestimate blitz's addictiveness.
From virtually the beginning of the year, I heard all sorts of stories of the majesty that is Green Key. Upperclassmen of all sorts referred to Winter Carnival as a "walk in the park" compared to the insanity of Green Key. Homecoming? Pure child's play. For all of Spring term, like a kid in a candy store, my eyeballs grew bigger and bigger in anticipation of the final prize of eight or nine weeks of intense procrastination and faux-studying.
I've been doing lots of apologizing lately -- as well as lots of re-evaluation of exactly where the blame lies. You see, in my supreme arrogance, I repeatedly tried to explain to the four friends with whom I plan on blocking next year how, with one of the best numbers in the class, we are guaranteed to get some sort of decent housing. After all, I know of sophomores living in every cluster on campus this year -- why wouldn't the same hold for next year? Especially considering fewer rooms will be taken by freshmen next year since they're all being crammed into the River (the poor '04s never got a shot!).