School Visits and Why my Friends Hate this Blog

1.) Accepted Students weekend makes me feel like a salesman sometimes.  Other times it makes me realize why people get into the admissions job.  Is it weird that admissions has made me think of this school as a business and a product? Hi, I am a prospective buyer (student) could you tell me where the marketing department (admissions) is? Yes I would love to see what you have in your show room (campus tour). Seriously though, it was the best time I have had at this job so far.

2.) Talking to high school students is pretty awesome cause they are still excited about life.  They aren’t like seniors who have come to realize that the statistic showing the high percentage of graduates who go to graduate school is not a good thing, but rather a statistic that indicates that your undergraduate degree will not get you a job.

3.) If you saw a three paths on a campus and two of the paths led to a building and the middle path just led to grass what would you think?  would you think the middle path symbolized the value of your education…leading you nowhere? Would you think that the middle path signified that the middle road leads no where and that a person is nothing without extreme well separated beliefs? Would you think that it reflected the schools low endowment and their inability to afford a complete third path? Or would you just take it to mean that the landscape architect was trying something different?

4.) People (3) are getting annoyed with me referencing them in my blog. Blogging is strange. While I take inspiration from my life, a lot of it is embellished for the sake of entertainment. Sometimes I speak truth. Sometimes I dont at all. Most of the time it is in the middle. Whatever. If you see something on here that offends you because you think it putting too much of your business out there, leave a comment and I will take it down. In any event it is interesting though to see how and when people get annoyed over issues of privacy. I mean people are ok with facebook pictures, rfid tags, and dinner table gossip, but posts that allude to them, but make no direct reference are no good. ok. Wait, did i do it again?

5.) I think the only time i would run off to vegas to have a shot gun wedding is if I met a woman who liked the same music as me (and didn’t just tolerate it), had bangs, laughed at my jokes, and stood up to me. (you see this is me embellishing/over-simplifying for entertainment).

6.) I am learning that my break from education has made me an even worse debater/dinner table discussion haver. I cannot form thoughts in any coherent manner. I think I am just going to stop talking until I go back to school.

The Story of a tramp

I originally did this blog as a way to keep myself occupied when I couldnt sleep.

I then used the blog to get myself in the habit of writing often.

I then used the blog to record the little random rants that happen in my head.

For a very long time my family were the only viewers. They kept telling me the writing was good (my earlier work is at times better) and soon I got cocky and thought that others would enjoy my little diatribes about children and insights into the beauty of pinball. So, what did i do? I started sending shameless plugs (links) to friends. Reader numbers increased. This is when everything changed.

Then I started posting links whenever I made an appearance at an online function or gathering. Reader numbers increased. Now I watch my stat counts like a girl watches the phone hoping johnny football star will call. I am a whore when it comes to press. Worse yet, I am a whore who cares. The effect of this is that my readership is up, but this gem has some negative consequences. Now, I am censoring myself. Now that I know certain friends read I am holding some stuff back.

I know I know, it reads like a classic US weekly “i wish i wasn’t in the public eye woe is me story” that comes from someone who is (admittedly) an attention whore. Still, it might be time for a name change. Cause for the past few days I have wanted to say some things but have held back knowing that there was a potential someone who would read it…think it was about them and then unfriend me on facebook, which we all know is the modern version of not inviting someone to their birthday party…ie the truest testament of “you mean nothing to me” that exists in this dirty digital age.

Sigh…Please whoever is reading this…know that what I write here, is not completely serious and that when I am writing about some skanky biddy or meat head bro on here that I am really not talking about you, but rather that other skanky biddy or meat head bro.

Kissing and Telling

There is no question that one of the most gossip heavy institutions is the small liberal arts college. Seeing as how there is no anonymity and scores of college co-eds repeatedly make one night bad decisions there is a surplus of juicy fodder for gossip. Forget hollywood, and don’t even consider a sewing circle. College is at the forefront of cable-high-speed gossip. Did you hear so and so had the local at the bar take a body shot off her? Yes I did hear that…a mere six hours after it happened.

One of the prized subjects of small college gossip is the hook-up. While the term hook-up is subject to a myriad of definitions, for the point of this post I am going to tag it as a little M.O.’ing. Part of the appeal of hook-up talk is that it pushes a private matter into the public sphere. What usually happens behind bedroom/bathroom doors, or at least in the shadows, is suddenly unveiled publicly and getting a peep hole into someone’s metaphorical underwear drawer is always a hot sell. Note: New Englanders are more afraid of PDA than they are of Patagonia going out of business which makes the public transmission of private matters an even hotter sell in the NESCAC.

Point is, there is no way anyone who mildly stands out at a NESCAC is going to get away with some M.O. action without people knowing who, what, when, where within a few hours…sometimes minutes. It is kinda of like the game Clue. It was X in the kitchen with Z. Except in this game even if you are wrong you don’t really lose. In a social climate where people want to and do believe anything…your story is true even if it is not…so then what is real (woah I am having a first year philosophy moment)? Answer is, anything someone thinks they saw…it is gossip. People overlook the fact that she is a lesbian and read you two showing up at breakfast together as a tell that you two are making it hardcore…oh heteronormativity-sigh.

Basically, you so much as dip off with someone for a smoke and you mide as well just hook up with them (if they are consenting) because everyone is going to think it anyways, which means you are subject to charting. For those who don’t know charting is like the a gossip’ers dissertation (and this shit happened before the L Word). It is starting with one person and making a web of who they hooked up and then making a web of the people those people hooked up with. It keeps growing and growing and suddenly you have twenty pieces of paper spread out across a room and the urge to make an appointment at the free clinic.

Anyways once it is written down, it is history, and like all good small liberal arts college students know, history is hard to change.