This Green Key Weekend heralded in a new frame of reference for me, and I would be lying if I claimed it was not unbalancing. As I sat in the living room at Alpha Theta and looked at the throngs of alumni who flocked back to the College for the weekend, I suddenly realized that, come next Green Key, I would be one of them.
I want to make one thing clear right at the start -- I do not have a horse in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity race.
By the time this op-ed goes to press, new Student Assembly leadership will have been elected. Just who will be in that leadership isn't certain as I write. But at least two things are certain.
College is supposedly a place of learning. In the psychological sense, learning implies behavioral and cognitive modification, often as the result of experience and conditioning. Learning, in its simplest form, is not a particularly difficult thing.
I have a confession to make: I've always been a little bit creeped out by those people who are absolutely certain about what they want to do. Not that I'm saying there is anything wrong about having a concrete plan for the future.
I confess to being slightly amused -- and more than a little bit confused -- by the strong emotions that "Frat Free Friday" aroused among some students this past week. The event's organizer told The Dartmouth that she was sure it would "incite some retaliation from the fraternities," as though we were talking about an assassination or a territorial grab rather than a series of gatherings. Sure enough, though, she turned out to be right.
In January 1941, speaking to Americans about the meaning of the world war that then engulfed the globe, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to explain the purpose of waging such a destructive conflict.
I hoped it would never come to this. I fear I may be turning into a broken record. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but so long as Dartmouth keeps coming up with new ways to amaze (read: shock, horrify and dismay) me, the College will keep forcing my hand. At least I will try to come up with some new words to express my surprise and frustration, but the message is pretty much the same.
A funny thing happened this Saturday night: the New England Patriots lost. After 10 straight playoff victories, after winning three Super Bowls over the span of four years, the Patriots were bounced from the NFL playoffs when the Denver Broncos capitalized on New England's five turnovers en route to a 27-13 win. For the Patriots, this losing thing may take some getting used to.
Technology writers have likened the internet to the Wild West (it's an analogy I am not particularly fond of, for reasons that will become clear soon enough, but for the moment I will just run with it). Cyberspace, the argument goes, is a new and effectively boundless frontier that is open for expansion.