I'm Transferring to Columbia
By R. Lance Martin | October 26, 2004To the Editor: In his critique that recently appeared in The Columbia Daily Spectator (Wednesday, October 20), Kwame Spearman firmly establishes Columbia's superiority over Dartmouth by exposing new information about our college. Spearman reveals that Dartmouth "[is in the] middle of a forest in New Hampshire [is in a] forest in the Northeast [has] nothing there [has students] crying in the wilderness [has a] high cow population [is a] more desolate place [than New York City] [has] nothing for [students] to do [is a] tree in the forest." Though I was shocked to learn that Dartmouth is not in New York City, I believe Spearman overestimates our intelligence by comparing our isolated College to "a scene" from "The Shining." Spearman forgets that we "got electricity last year" and, as a result, are unfamiliar with "movies." After watching "The Shining" on our new communal Hi-Fi over the weekend, however, I now understand that Dartmouth, like the isolated Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick's (film director) masterpiece film, could be the setting of a cabin-fever-induced murder! In a panic after deciphering Spearman's cryptic reference, I ventured through the wilderness and found access to a new technology known as "the internet" in a nearby town so that I could uncover more scandalous information. While surfing in "cyberspace" I discovered that my "overalls and a straw hat " are not fashionable, technology may provide new methods of "cow-milking," and Green Day's hit album "Dookie," which has been in my 8-track player for the past five years, is no longer popular. Considering our cultural inferiority, there was no reason for the subtle use of "eh?" in Spearman's concluding rhetorical question (Dartmouth is "pretty lame, eh?"). Spearman should have concluded with the conviction displayed his prior assertions ("First off, I guarantee victory over Dartmouth in EVERY SPORT")! Though the "first off" phrasing was convincing, Spearman's (repeated) use of capital letters ("Columbia has a FAR more attractive student body") firmly established Columbia's superiority in my book. Thus, I am transferring. At Columbia, I hope to bask in the glory of intellectual and cultural sophistication as, according to Spearman, we will be able to "go two to three miles and end up at MTV [or] Bloomingdales." I am confident that afternoons screaming in front of the TRL window with Spearman will fade into wild nights spent writing endless newspaper articles in a sea of Twinkies.