Your Inner Child
Today my Dad turned fifty, and I threw out my back.
They are in no way related except for the fat that ironically enough, they both have to do with age.
21 year olds are still taking finals, and as I very publicly attempted to lift my bag full of finals study materials in the college union, something gave out. It was such a shock to my system, that I dropped like a rock onto the ground, and was forced to pretend like I missed the couch next to me.
After dragging myself onto the couch and waving to a fellow student that, yes I am totally fine, I sat there thanking the finals gods that I at the very least still had my precious ipad on me so that I could viciously berade my friends through every social media outlet I could think of in order to complain about my cranked out back.
And then I saw the constant twitter updates, instagrams, and facebook wellwishers sending their social media love to my dad on his fiftieth birthday. Since I was already marooned on this couch in the union, I decided to rifle through them all.
Although, perhaps the best message was the one written by the man himself. (family blog plug) It’s a good read, and hey, I know most readers are looking for any way out of studying for finals, so I highly encourage a look.
No college kid in their right minds likes to think of the prospect of maturity. Many of us are concerned that the end of these four years means the end of anything good in the world. Or as my date to Kappa Sigma formal put it, 27 is the last good year. It is all downhill from there. I have five more good years.
But for my dad, that is hardly the case. He is a firm believer in the importance of entertaining your inner child, and recognizing that the people who really understand life are the ones who realize that life is a gift, and strive to really really live out life. People have ‘carpe diem’ written all over their journals, walls, possibly an artful tramp stamp, but few are those who take it a step further and value their own journey, the journeys of others and each day as a gift.
(And that, Dad, is exactly why I do not regret in the slightest streaking on the beach during kappa sigma formal.)
But in all seriousness, Sometimes it is tough to remember that life is a gift when you are wasting away in the basement of the library…and it takes a man turning fifty to remind us college kids of our inner child, that even finals is an experience worth living and learning from, and to treat each day even after college and the age of twenty-seven as a true gift.
Happy Birthday Dad, and as always, thanks for the advice.
(Sorry I don’t have an artfully done instagram montage….but kudos to Caroline Carter, It rocked, and you need to show me how to do it when I get home from Davidson)
Last Saturday night, possibly hundreds of non Davidson College affiliates came revel in the last few hours of Spring Frolics. The result: a massive fight in one of our social houses, police officers from multiple districts, a small scale riot scene, and perhaps the most pervading consequence – personal belongings ransacked out of our dorms. Others had their cars keyed, eating houses were vandalized, and goddammit my moped was damaged in a half assed hot wiring attempt.
This event has initiated a few responses.
1. Excitement that our predictable social scene was livened up by crimes associated with the urban hood!
2. Blind rage calling to end the Black Student Coalition who supposedly publicized and invited these individuals to campus
3. A sense of displaced guilt over one’s personal socioeconomic status thereby justifying the thievery
4. Ambivalence/ignorance. #DavidsonRiot? I don’t understand…
Am I pissed that my beloved chinese moped got vandalized and left high and dry next to Phi delt? Absolutely. Am I legally justified to place the blame on any individual? Unfortunately not. However, I think we need to seriously reevaluate party recquirements at the BSC if we are going to continue to use it as a party space. Also, to the person that ok’d kids coming on a party bus? – you should probably talk with the dean. Should we end frolics? No. Should we recognize that Davidson exists within a hyper bubble of moral utopia? Yes, if you would like to not have your stuff stolen again.
To those of my class that found the #DavidsonRiot kind of thrilling, I feel that, really. In a lot of ways, the Davidson social scene can get a bit predictable. Which brings me to (like all blog posts) a little paragraph in self reflection.
College is all about your formative years. Its four impressionable years away from the voice of your parents and your roots. The experience should make you question and explore ideas, questions, and life paths that before college you had never really considered. Its almost like mental/ emotional puberty: you have a lot of unanswered questions about whats going on inside your head, and you are constantly tweaking your life plan to fit the questions or philosophies that you develop while in college.
Somedays, you just want to be on a life path that is what is comfortable, familiar, or what everyone else is doing, kind of like how you just wanted to wear the uggs and the tiffany bracelet like everyone else in your middle school homeroom.
And somedays you feel like if you don’t have those crazy times in your twenties that you are going to drive yourself so crazy in an office cubicle that eventually you will be like dwight in the office, and really into beet farming and parcor.
And me? There was this one time (I swear only once) in third grade that I went to see a child psychologist about (in the words a hollywood doctor might use) my hyper perfectionism and unwillingness to try something that I didn’t know I would be good at causing me to misbehave in my third grade class. Misbehave is an understatement, I basically missed third grade and pretty much became immune to the shame that time outs were supposedly supposed to inflict upon a young child.
With that character flaw in mind , my parents took on a different style of parenting (I assume) to help their child develop into less of a neurotic head case.
So here I am, a former neurotic head case looking down the barrel of her last summer as a student wonder. What the heck am I going to do 365 days from now? And why do I feel like the strange bird who doesn’t have their life together?
Sometimes I think my professors know me better than I do. Today over Indian curry and talks of contemporary China, my professor threw a book at me to read: The Dud Avocado, By Elaine Dundy. By the looks of it, Elaine and I would be big pals.
Book Description:
The Dud Avocado follows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s. Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy’s Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious,The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status when it was first published and it remains a timeless portrait of a woman hell-bent on living.
A woman hell bent on living.
If that doesn’t describe the identity I have been grappling with, I’m not sure what does.
How will that definition play out in my own plan? I will let you know in 365 days and perhaps many more blog posts.
The College Version of Raising a Fund
Call it thrifty, cheap, or simply knowing the value of a dollar, it really all boils down to the fact that I have always been the token poor kid in my friend group.
The blonde George Costanza if you will.
I have really embraced the title. It means no one gives me a look of reproach when I don’t go out to dinner with everyone (and if I do-limit my meal to only what is offerred for free. Chips and salsa or the bread basket). It means no one says anything when I pull out a tupperware for eating house food leftovers. It also means that I get to use the excuse “I have work” when really I just don’t really feel like doing the alternative.
A friend of mine, after being wrongly detained for disorderly conduct at the Carolina Cup has had a fall from financial grace. In order to pay her bail and wipe the charge off her pristine record she must come up with approximately 600 dollars in the next week.
Getting college kids to part with dollar bills is like trying to get Golum to part with the ring.
Now I am no longer the poor kid in the friend group. In an effort to simultaneously jumpstart my friend’s piggy bank and my stalled business idea, Campus Sherpas is here to help. My friend is offering the following services.
House Cleaning (emphasizing post- party cleaning) @ $40.00/hour WHAT A DEAL! And the price is negotiable
Room/Life organization: She will help you plan out work schedules, color code your closet, or help you pack to leave for the summer. all for 40.00/hour at a negotiable price
Its a great deal, and hey it is a great cause, double win. Contact me via the blog or my email gecarter@davidson.edu if you would like to set up an appointment for her cleaning services.
Coffee Shops in Downtown Chicago
The first title to this post was, Formal Season. It was because I tried to use this phrase while dress buying in the Midwest. I suppose there were two reasons for the retail assistant’s confusion:
1) Apparently, this isn’t a thing in the midwest.
2) I had just told her I went to Davidson College, she had deduced that it must be an online institution. How arrange a formal, and find a date when you are attending an online institution? Well, I can’t really shed light on that because Davidson College could not be farther from being online. We don’t even provide our students with adequate IT services.
I am in Downtown Chicago for the weekend to spend time with my family over easter, and of course the internet is broken. Not only do I not attend an online school, but apparently I don’t live in an online accessible apartment building either. So I have happily situated myself in a Starbucks close by in order to blog.
At first, I didn’t really have any idea what I would be blogging about. A part of me really wanted to write something semi serious to tag off the campus buzz Alexa’s post generated. Another part of me really wanted to write about formal season, however I the theme might be slightly cynical, or might make me look like one of those people on Pinterest who obsessively pin wedding photos when they have no plans for a wedding. In so many words, an upperclassman girl.
I might come back to that, but for now, I am inspired by the Chicago’s entertaining coffee shop culture.
Right now there is this homeless dude absolutely passed out and snoring like a train engine in an armchair by the fireplace. In any other situation, he might be aroused, asked to leave, maybe told not to come back. But in Chicago, the hipster sitting next to him is currently adjusting his beanie cap and playing on his iphone like this man doesn’t even exist.
I am sitting at the new “community table” at starbucks. It is designed to seat about seven strangers who will do whatever it is they need to do at a coffee shop together at this table. This is the reality: it is a whole lot more space for two people to sit at opposite sides of the table and pretend the other does not exist. This dude has a stack of motivational books next to him and he looks to be doing math problems. I would say he is an econ major, but he is definitely middle aged.
At the window, two women are having a joint therapy session with each other. Girl we have all been there.
So it is a pretty diverse group that I have the pleasure to be in the company of.
Just to keep you up to date, the homeless man has just shown a sign of life: a big nose pick.
Coffee shops, since their rise in popularity in Enlightenment France have always served the unique purpose of bringing intellectuals together to discuss politics, new ideas, and in many ways artistic expression. Sure, in a city you are going to find aspects of coffee shop culture degradation (ala the homeless man.) But some creative consulting agencies (such as chicago based doejo) Are actually looking for their next big hire at these coffee shops. Coffee shops get this rep for either being super corporate, or super left wing politically. Maybe it is the alt music, the fair trade coffee options or beat poets affinity for esspresso, but most coffee shops love towing the liberal line. Sometimes, to a hard line fiscal conservative, it is kind of nice. I go through life constantly scrutinizing the idealist, fluffy, granola liberal lifestyle. But I walk into one of these coffee shops, greeted by the sound of Joshua Radin, and a dude in one of those south american ponchos frothing my chai tea and I think, this could be the life.
Which is why I wonder, are the people who camp out in coffee shops with the bongo drums and a dark roast pissed about the amount of entrepreneurs milling around with capitalist ideas in coffee shops? More and more, coffee shops are becoming a central location for entrepreneurs to meet with one another and work on new ideas. The Coffee Shop is becoming the 21st century version of its french enlightenment former self. And I kind of like that vibe better than the crunchy one. This way, I don’t worry about the stray piece of wheatgrass finding its way into my dirty chai latte.
The homeless people are really cramping my vibe though. Apparently 6:30 is the hour where they hold court here. And I don’t want to sound ugly, but its pretty warm outside…..
I have about one month of school before I am back here spending the summer interning and working downtown. The scary thing is, I have started to realize that I need to look at these interning opportunities as potential entry level job opportunities. Could it be that 1 year from now I will be a single twenty something working in downtown Chicago?
Im thinking 60-40 Chicago or Shanghai. But a lot happens in a year.
If I am homeless I know I will be welcome in this coffee shop.
Confused By Confucius (and ipso facto myself) is proud to announce the very first guest blogger onto Confused by Confucius. In light of the content, I feel it imperative to state : this work is not my own, I am not taking credit for it, and I am not submitting it as my own for any class credit.
Feel free to take bets on how I feel about the content in the post, but at this time, I am not sharing my opinion, and this post is not a reflection of my opinion.
So without further adieu, Confused By Confucius brings you, (drumroll)
Don’t be fooled.
Davidson College is a very traditional institution, so I begin with a traditional beginning:
According to Dictionary.com, honor is defined as “honest, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and action.” This definition begs the question: ‘Based on Dictionary.com’s definition of honor, how does it define honest, fairness, and integrity?’
“Honest: ‘honorable in principles, intentions, and actions’
Fairness: ‘the state, condition, or quality of being fair, or free from bias or injustice’
Integrity: ‘adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty’”
I would love to be a part of a truly honorable community. In an honorable community, the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law, would prevail. Principle would matter. In an honorable community, people would fearlessly critique themselves. They would strive to be better, and they would trust that those around them want for them the same. I’m an idealist, but I’m not naïve. No such place exists. Davidson College does have a pretty cool Honor Code, though.
Why? Well,
(1) My Freshman roommate, Gen Carter, and I managed to go 95% percent of our freshman year with our dorm room unlocked and wide open. Anyone could have waltzed in, pursued the communal closet, stolen money, even double dipped into our hummus jar, but no one did. Maybe the mess was intimidating.
(2) You can leave $5 on a table in our Student Union as long as you’d like and no one will touch it. Actually, they may take it to lost and found.
(3) Your professors don’t hover over you while you test. They leave the room, or send the test home with you.
The Honor Code is special, but not as special as the Davidson community likes to think.
Why?
The college defines its purpose as such:“The primary purpose of Davidson College is to assist students in developing humane instincts and disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service.”
Reasons I find the hype behind the Honor Code superficial:
(1) In the hopes of landing bragging rights to a top-notch job and a fat salary, college kids will continue to play dirty, Honor Code aside. People want the most bang for their buck. And in a world as bureaucratic as ever, it’s all in the numbers – or the letters. Sorry, academia, I find the pursuit of knowledge to be incredibly noble, but most of us can’t make the vow of poverty that comes with it. College is a $200,000+ investment, assuming you leave without debt. To pay that one off, we’re all praying we wind up with a damn good job. That requires a damn good GPA. Or connections. You do what you gotta do.
The problem: Customer – parent or 20 something without money – buys $200,000 transcript, not $200,000 experience
The fix: If Davidson and elsewhere want to pride themselves on the learning experience, alter the incentives, and do away with the grade. As a student, I find my professor’s expertise – their commentary – so much more valuable than the 93% scribbled on the top of my paper. But to everyone else, it’s the 93% that matters.
(2) In my opinion, you can’t scare morality into someone. So the 3 and F policy – that doesn’t “develop humane instincts.” People leave Davidson just as honorable as when they came in. But it certainly does a good job of spurring innovativeness – or “creative minds,” as Davidson puts it. Take an Acting class, and refine your lies. Sprinkle your resume with a half-truth or two. Give yourself some extra time on that 90-minute take home. Play in the grey – pop some Adderall, or dupe your doctor. Put on a good show, and you can have ADHD, too!
The Problem: The Honor Code does not spark moral development. For those people that don’t already have a strong moral foundation, it (a) scares them. It never asks them to ponder how their moral compass came about. Or (b) it encourages them to be more calculated liars. After all, the four grades in a semester cost $50,000 – that is a huge loss on the $200,000 investment.
The fix: Counseling? After surviving 15 years of Catholic school, I look back and I appreciate the 30 minutes, twice a month that we all hated most: confession. It’s real. Self-refection does wonders for the soul whether you jam with Jesus or not. Can’t we make this whole Honor Code thing constructive?
No, we can’t. It has to be punitive, or it doesn’t work quite the way we’d like it to.
Well-intentioned people get the short end of the stick. Those who set morality aside? They rarely get caught. Bureaucracy prevails yet again. Trust the Honor Code, but please be thoughtful. We all lie, guys. I’m sure it’s instinctual. Let’s not pretend we don’t. We all cheat and we all steal. Monopoly, anyone? I’ll be banker!
I’ll end just as traditionally as I began:
In the words of Dr. Suess, “I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells.” To say our Honor Code really works? Nonsense.
The Easiest Game in Town
The lottery. Inspring more hope than Barack Obama
For once, I am not talking about college girls.
No, the easiest game in town is not college girls when there is 540 million dollars on the table. I really do appreciate all of the hard hitting blogs out there trying to put the figure into relatable terms.
Did you know that you could pay the tuition for every student at Harvard?
Yes, as far as I am concerned, 540 Million dollars pretty much buys me the world for the rest of my natural life, and no, I do not even care to think about spending it on the Harvard undergrads. Other bloggers like to relate the 540 million dollars in terms of all the great selfless things you can do.
But let’s be real for a second, if you find that tomorrow rolls around and you have the winning ticket. If you are at the Carolina Cup when you hear the good news, wait until you are sober (the numbers might change). BUT if you happen to be 100% sober and sitting in front of your TV with baited breath and you are the lucky winner.
It’s you.
And you better believe you aren’t thinking about charity or empowering the disenfranchised.
1. Making sure my family and I can be comfortable and have whatever car we want for the rest of our lives.
2. Use my money to fund my startup
3. Go to Urban Outfitters
4. Hire a financial advisor
5. Start a fund at Davidson for entrepreneurs
6. Invest (duh)
7. Soop up my moped
8. Hire a driver….to drive my vintage candy colored ‘stang (and a porsche for special occasions, and a hummer for when I am feeling like John Kerry)
9. Go to the super whole foods and buy all that weird expensive homeopathic stuff that you kind of want to try but don’t have the dollar billz
10. Buy seasons tickets to every Chicago sports team (and front row for the Hawks).
11. Hire a personal trainer
12. Travel whenever I want
13. Continue being a serial entrepreneur with a wide safety net.
Also, I don’t think I would tell anyone I won the lottery. It would just be a big mystery as to how I seem to have unlimited funds for the Groupon massage deals, and that I actually order a real meal when my friends go out to dinner. And if I totally lose my mind and go psychotic because I feel unfulfilled in life, then people might just think it is because I am a poor college student, and not a 1/2 billionaire. Because no one feels bad for psychotic lottery winners.
So I guess pay attention to the new bass bustin beats from my moped with pimped out wheels and a roaring engine…because thats how you will know that I swept
the lottery.
A Horse Race
The Classiest Spring Event in the South
Spring semester is fun for many reasons: the warm air, the lake campus, puppies, free cone day, but one of the most anticipated college events has finally arrived. That’s right folks, it is time for the Carolina Cup.
But wait, what is the Carolina Cup?
Hold your tongue, talk like that only exposes you as a yankee or a high school prospective student.
Technically, the Carolina Cup is a horse race held in the armpit of South Carolina, Camden. But for Panhellenic and Davidson Eating House Posers alike, the event is so much more. In fact, seeing a horse comes secondary to the fashion, day drinking, and rehashing high school with old friends from other colleges.
The Carolina Cup is like fashion week for college southerners. An opportunity to wear your most outrageous and daring lily pulitzer shift dress, patterned blazers, only to be completed with ray bans and a stiff drink.
At Davidson, girls pledge their allegiance to a Davidson fraternity, and arrive at the house decked out in pearls, big hats, and clothes modeled after the royal family in England. Pictures are snapped, drinks are filled, and before one can blink, a bus full of boisterous college kids fall out of the bus onto a sunny, tented field in Camden, SC lined with other college kids, frat games, music and kegs.
If there is any single event for which I am eternally glad that I attended a southern college, it is Carolina Cup. I like so many other college kids live for this event. When you ask my friends to describe their experience most of the time it goes like this:
“you get on the bus, wondering how am I going to entertain myself for 6 hours in a field? and in an instant, you are back on the bus panting, wondering what the hell happened, but knowing it was one of the best times you ever had”
“I forgot sunscreen. It was awesome”
Stories from the cup are if anything, entertaining. Last year, a kid from Wake Forest fell asleep on the Davidson bus and forced a pledge to come pick him up when woke up on our campus.
The Carolina Cup is this Saturday, since betting on horses isn’t really part of the experience, I am going to make a few bets on what is going to happen this year at the cup.
1. Alexa will crush under peer pressure and go to the cup
2. Meredith will get very burnt.
3. Connor will not sleep on the way back, but instead volunteer to do bus acrobatics and attempt to fit himself into an overhead compartment
4. A Davidson student will get arrested
5. My preppy attire will in some way, be a little off the mark
6. Everyone will use instagram for their photos, ignoring the irony that all of Instagram’s founders would not want to be caught dead at an event like Carolina Cup.
7. Someone will get into an altercation with another fraternity
8. Our bus driver will let us use the microphone
9. No one will make it out after we get back, despite our best intentions
10. 6+ make out chants started
If you are not in college, the good news is, there are family tents so that you can at least bear witness to the degradation that is our nation’s youth if you were not so fortunate to be a part of the fun in your college years.
The Carolina Cup is seeped with irony in that it is a relatively trashy affair under the guise of lily pulitzer, vineyard vines, and finger food. And I absolutely love it.
Don’t call me Saturday, there is no cell service at the Carolina Cup.
The Perks of College Poverty
Call it a silver lining or the upkeep of an illusion, but sometimes, a college kid has to find the bright side of being totally and completely broke. Unless you have the benefit of a trust fund, most kids in college at some point or another, maybe while checking their online statement, discover they are down to their last benjamin.
A lot goes through your head.
- I will starve before I tell my parents
-Man I am really going to have to budget
-I wonder what kind of prospects my march madness bracket has?
-Is the lotto over 100 million yet?
After the initial shock, and the prospect of formals and social events go flying from your future grasp, any resilient college kid will shake it off, and decide with determination that not all is lost. As long as you can have the willpower to stick to a budget. So how do college kids prioritize their budget?
with the following guiding principle: given the X dollars you make in a week, spend half on beer, and save the rest to the best of your ability.
Food? Scooter repair?
-No. At the end of the day, food can be scavenged, a college gear head can fix your moped, and if you don’t allot half your budget to saving for social events, there is a 100% probability that you will be pissed that you are missing out, and you are going to take that anger out on a bowl of ice cream; Which you bought as an extra grocery item (i.e something other than beer) and therefore violating the only guiding principle of college budgeting.
If you are successful in your budgeting commitment there are a few skills/lessons to be gained:
1. Eating local/organic/fair trade is a dumb marketing ploy targeted towards overprotective mothers.
2. Eating local/organic/fair trade beer is a dumb marketing ploy targeted towards artisan hipsters. Or people from Ashville, NC.
3. Hormone injected fruits and vegetables are not only cheaper, but a helluva lot bigger. $$$
4. College poverty opens the door of creativity not only in the form of cheap food creations, but also cheap thrills.
5. Your willingness to do things for money is high. You will almost do anything. Sometimes that puts you in situations that you would not expect yourself to be in. Like driving around drunk 40 somethings so that they can see if their chihuahua is safe at home.
6. It builds character. That’s what adults tell me.
7. Most people assume your poor because you are in college, so you can usually milk that for all its worth. Or get out of participating in pay only events that you don’t want to attend and bemoan your budget.
8. Well, its only up from here. Its not like you can lose money from being totally broke.
9. You can create lofty lifestyle goals on pinterest without people wondering if you actually can afford it. Like creating a huge pin board comprised of designer clothes and chanel bags like it is something you are pinterested in purchasing. If you could afford that stuff, you would look totally obnoxious, but since you are poor in college, you get a pass.
And after you are done going HAM on pinterest, go into your fridge, crack a beer, or in many a case a twisted tea and be glad that you have a semilegitimate excuse to call it your meal.
Another weekend. Same party
You never think that you will ever be ready to leave college until…its another sunday, another end to an identical weekend, and another identical sunday workload.
The typical junior year milestones are going abroad and turning 21, and then it suddenly clicks- adulthood. New frustrations arise:
why does Davidson College feel the need to micromanage where I socialize ont he weekends, and why the heck isn’t there a bar on main st?
Why can’t I find a job?
Why is the hook up scene so unsatisfying?
I don’t have enough money to feed myself. And I don’t have time for a job.
My pinterest boards have a much more expensive taste than I do. .
Most of us hope this “I am so over college attitude” is just a phase, we spend time reminiscing about freshman year, but at the end of the day, we are not the 17 and 18 year olds experiencing a court party for the first time.
We don’t need an attitude adjustment, we need coping mechanisms.
Coping Mechanism #1: Make 2 very important bucket lists
Bucket list number 1: the list of things you absolutely have to do before you leave college.
Everyone talks about their crazy college stories. That time they drove a car onto the quad, or that other time when they drank with a professor. Come up with your own list. No judgement. And commit to crossing off every experience before you graduate
Bucket List #2: The bucket list of your twenties. A wise mexican in Shanghai once told me: your twenties are the ten years of your life that are absolutely for you. Whether it is going to Burning Man, or going soul searching in India, or starting your business, commit to your twenties bucket list and see what you can start crossing off now.
Coping Mechanism #2: Go to networking events
Go to networking events because a) you never know who you are going to meet and 2) free drinks (sometimes if you are a boy and definitely if you are a girl) and 3) Above all else, its a chance to hang out with older people, which is a good way to feel better about yourself when you realize that you regularly party with 17 and 18 year olds.
Coping Mechanism #3 Xanex
I haven’t tried it. but I hear it does wonders for whatever you got.
Coping Mechanism #4 Positive Affirmations
As long as you are busy not giving a wit about the college scene…take some time to get really comfortable with who you are. You are stuck with your own self identity longer than you will be stuck being a junior. Stop worrying about who you are hooking up with, what formal you were or were not invited to, or whether you got the internship. This will be the only time I ever endorse this: stop competing, take yourself out of the rat race, take a chill pill (xanex?) and let your freak flag fly. Take a class in the science of knowing yourself and your post grad years will thank you.
Coping Mechanism #5 Break Rules
I’m not saying break the honor code or go rob a bank. I am saying that sometimes a walk on the wild side is where memories are made. Breaking rules is a breakaway from the mundane, and might be the solution to the drab monotony of being a junior. So go ahead climb the new building construction, wear white before easter, do yoga on chambers lawn, or just resolve to be really weird on the table at the next court party you go to….in the words of Gib from the epic 80s classic, A Sure Thing, don’t be so repressed.
Now that I have offered a significant excuse for my future law breaking, legitimated the use of xanex and my attendance at networking events…I am going to go ahead and sign off, and remind my parents of my sarcasm so they don’t ship me off to rehab before I have time to actually accomplish all this.
The Business of Giving
When I was in the ninth grade, to every adolescent’s horror, we were given a partner of the opposite sex and an animatronic baby to take care of for a week to simulate parenthood. the baby would cry, it had a loose neck to that if you didn’t hold it correctly it strangled itself, it cried at night, it had to be changed, the whole nine yards.
At the end of the whole ordeal we were supposed to tell our health teacher that there may be more to the concept of abstinence than we previously thought.
Of course, thats not really the take away. For many of us, the message of abstinence was lost in the mortification of the entire experience. For example, my mother forced me to take my animatronic multiracial baby on the city bus to school every morning. Like clockwork, it would wail and send the homeless people into a tizzy and cause mothers to look at me with serious concern.
The point is, if my school really wanted to make learn how much parenthood sucks, they should have given us a real living thing, like a puppy. Because as I have learned in the past week, puppies, more than anything I have yet to encounter, have the natural ability to cause college girls to sacrifice sleep, time, and energy for its happiness without any expectation that the little bundle of fuzzy joy will return the favor.
One of our live auction items for my eating house philanthropic event is a puppy. My friend Meredith is running the silent auction and her care for the puppy is probably the most pure act of altruism exhibited in the entire bosom buddies operation. Not only does she have to work around a very unpredictable pee schedule, she has sacrificed going out on weekends, has done everything in her power to train the puppy and give it a hyper perfect home only to give it away at the benefit in two weeks.
the philanthropic event seeks to raise money to fund earlier stage testing of breast cancer, and in the past has raised as much as 80,000 dollars. That is a whole lot of money for a really great cause.
In fact it is so much, that in many ways, we have lost site of the cause and have focused more on the business end of the entire operation.
gencarter91
