Despite the fact that September has flown by and all of a sudden it's October. My first O-chem exam is in slightly less than 15 hours, my first bacteriology exam is next week, and I'm writing a five page paper for Friday. So, you know. Fun.
But on the bright side, Google has not taken over the world yet (that we know of), the Senate has passed the bailout, the Giants are 3-0, and the Red Sox just won their first playoff game. Also, I have successfully completed a Wednesday New York Times crossword puzzle for the first time.
Incidentally, the Times reports that Barack Obama was actually looked at by John McCain on the Senate floor during voting on the bailout. I'm really looking forward to watching the debate tonight. I know this is before my time, but I'm really hoping for a "You, governor, are no Hillary Clinton" moment. Unfortunately I don't think Joe Biden is capable of such concise statements. I plan on enjoying bilateral amusement. Hopefully my absentee ballot will arrive soon.
My mind tends to wander at a late hour. Also, I had a Vault at about noon, and since I don't drink much caffeine (I try to keep to water or juice at meals) the effects are still sticking with me. But anyway, speaking of voting and exercising rights, I assume everybody has heard of the Amethyst Initiative? Right now the president of Colby, Bro Adams, is not supporting it. Shocking! This may change, or not; I know that there was a group of students in the student government who were going to petition him to sign. Because nothing says good policy and sincerity like signing on pain of student protest.
Disclaimer: the following was written without being thought through, and the only reason it appears here is because I spent ten minutes writing it and don't feel like deleting it. Read on at your peril.
And to continue with my rant, student protest has been big on campus lately. Not actual protest, of course; the students here are too secure in the world to actually need to change anything. No, this protest is quite a bit more impotent. A little background: the Student Programming Board (SPB) opened the events calendar with themed dance: a luau, as it were. Soon after the student body found out through campus wide emails (it's called the Civil Discourse (but don't let the name fool you) and comes out every morning) that some students (two) had been offended by the dance. Turned out that part of Colby's diversity includes Hawaiians, and they'd been offended by the themed dance. So they demanded an apology; the SPB dallied; the offended party became even more inflamed and gathered some of the more "socially conscious" students to their side; the SPB apologized and was deemed insincere (a formal apology was brushed aside because the phrasing was not personal enough); terms like white privilege were thrown about...the end result is a multiculturalism rally on the steps of the library tomorrow afternoon.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm all in favor of social awareness and avoiding racism. But for an entire month we've had all sorts of minorities competing for the label of "most discriminated against," and I'm frankly sick of it. My one contribution to the fray pleaded for rationalism, which of course was shouted down as what a typical white and privileged student would say. Right, I'll keep that in mind. Note to self: apparently going to high school among more diversity than most of these people have ever seen is an invalid argument in the face of being part of the white majority...oh wait, that doesn't work.
One of the more annoying features of Colby is that we live in a nice insulated bubble, free from the actual cares of the world. This is a good thing in many ways, but when it comes to issues such as the economy (I won't claim to know exactly what's going on, but at least I keep up with events) or racism, we've forced ourselves into a corner. Without any real issues to deal with, we invent our own. And this is how a school dance with a luau theme that offends two students embroils the better part of the student body in a sudden wave of cultural awareness and white guilt.
If you're still with me, I deeply apologize for you having to read the previous. Here's some music to make up for it.
SeeqPod - Playable Search
2 comments:
Good luck on O-Chem and bacteriology. I'm kind of envious that you're learning cool science.
And the whole small-school-insulated-community-arguing-about-nonimportant-issues is kind of what college is about. I remember having an argument - polite, more of a debate, I guess - with a fellow Wabash guy about whether Clapton's signing of "Cocaine" was endorsing the use of the drug for about an hour in college, and the whole thing came down to semantics of me thinking endorse meant to openly and wilfully encourage people to use and the other guy believeing that it meant Clapton was encouraging the use by even mentioning the drug.
College is when everything seems a hundred times more important than it really is.
Enjoy the hell out of it, man. It's good times.
And thanks for the music.
REMEMBER THE PERRY DEBATERS!!
You got shouted down? That's kind of funny. You coulda said they didn't know what it was like, to be male middle class and white.
In any case, I suppose it will blow over.
Quick question: were most of the people at the aforementioned rally white?
Quick Question #2: How'd ochem go?
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