commence

it’s a farce, the great actors, the great poets…

The first thing I learned in school was how to pass someone in the hall. We received explicit instructions from our kindergarten teacher.

Do not say hi. Do not hug, high five, or ask where they’re going. “Just smile and wave.”

I understood the discipline part of it, but why smile? We weren’t happy. We were in school, being shepherded from recess to class. There was nothing to smile about.

the great statesmen, the great painters, the great composers,

It’s freshman year and I keep having this nightmare where I’m trapped in a lab experiment. After a million tests, they blindfold me and lead me to the exit. If I pass this one, I’m free to go. I can feel the sunlight on my skin.
There is one simple question.
What would you rather be doing?
I fumble. Sleeping? Partying?
What makes you happy?
I don’t know, I say.

the great loves,
it’s a farce, a farce, a farce,

Rural Minnesota was supposed to be a place I laughed at while watching Fargo with my boyfriend the night before I left for college. It was fiction. Nowhere was really that desolate, and no people were really that bland. Anyway, it didn’t matter. I was headed for a little oasis called Northfield, where fresh coastal blood would cut through the vast white nothing.

Two years pass. I meet someone new. He grew up here, on a Minnesota farm, on one of those dots you pity from airplanes. I find out these dot-people are not helpless. They think originally, love deeply. They choose to smile because that’s what you do when it’s negative ten degrees outside and you see another living thing. Whenever I see an open sky, or a field stretching forever, I remember the calm in his eyes.

history and the recording of it,
forget it, forget it.

My new friend makes me feel like Forrest Gump. He’s on our national championship Quiz Bowl team and a delightful conversationalist, always a step ahead but trying to take you there. He claims to be socially inept. I know it’s true because he was the first person at Carleton to tell me what I needed to hear.

“You’re a good writer. You know that, right?”

Today he’s spent five hours in the library, working on his History thesis. Out of nowhere, a backpack slams down on my lunch table.

“Hannah, academics are a lie!”

you must begin all over again.

I show up to Postmodern American Fiction ten minutes early. I’m supposed to be an English major and this is my first chance to prove it. Within thirty minutes, I’m completely lost. A sleepy-haired kid in the corner sticks up his hand.

“I don’t mean to derail our discussion, but…Hemingway was a great writer, but he shot himself in the head. Why should we listen to him about anything?”

throw all that out.
all of them out

A Declaration of Major Form has been sitting on my desk for the past three months. I spilled beer on it at some point, but I’m too proud to get a new one. One night, I come home from a party, and tape it to the wall. A new game is born. Pin-the-tail-on-the-future! I don’t need a blindfold or a friend. The room is already spinning.

you are alone with now.

I like Biology. I get to do things with my hands. It’s concrete, it’s fair, and it will never make me insane. Yesterday, we learned about expressed genetic traits. Every dominant allele was written across my body, as if in plain black font: “I…am…normal.” I feel triumphant.

look at your fingernails.
touch your nose.

I keep forgetting to wear long sleeves to Art History. The mythology gives me goose bumps, and it’s not like anyone has noticed, but it’s still embarrassing. They’d think I was…what? A hopeless romantic? A coward?

begin.

I’m a film major. I am trying to traffic in goose bumps. I am trying to smile at strangers. I’m five years old. I’m about to graduate. I have so much to learn.

the day flings itself upon
you.

poem by Charles Bukowski

Academia and morality

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do, and I understand.”
-Confucius

Over the past year, I’ve spent several hours a week writing editorials about the moral complexities of my college experience. I've only begun to understand it.

Whenever we talk about the value of higher education, we seem to reach an impasse at what academia is designed to do. Academia should let us 1) describe texts, and 2) evaluate them. The third step – figuring out what they mean for us – is hard to accomplish in the classroom.

This sentiment comes from professors who have far more knowledge than us, but also more experience working with it. Even if I disagree, it makes sense that I should learn the way they learned. Right?

When I think of the academic alienation at Carleton, I think we need to take a step back. Why are we here in the first place, spending $53,000 a year?

Our teachers seem to harbor a solipsistic optimism that when handed a text, any 18-22 year old will have grandiose moments of intellectual or spiritual (ah, same thing, right?) epiphany as often as they did. It’s something to strive for.

But with most students' busy schedules, that “outside the classroom” time for discussing the meaning of life – it doesn't exist.

So we drift from activity to activity, searching for fulfillment that never comes. We fall into a cycle of “work hard, play hard,” complaining about our workloads and perpetuating a massively destructive drinking culture, simply because work and play are the only guarantees.

We have been asked to wait. It will all be worth it at graduation. Like magic, we will have become better people.

When does this happen? After a year? A term? A class?

The truth is, most freshman haven't thought too much about the purpose of education. We like learning, we probably enjoyed books as children, we’re generically ambitious. But we’re here because it’s the next step. College is what 'successful' people do after high school.

So this assumption that all learning is unmitigated good – it's lazy, and risky.

Let’s accept the notion that there is no such thing as an evil idea, only evil ways to use it. For example: Hitler used Darwinism to justify genocide.

But imagine if the first time Hitler encountered Darwinism, it was in a classroom where he was encouraged to think about his own life – his experience getting rejected from art school, his poverty, his family’s misfortunes. In this context, it may not have been such an attractive concept. What if that classroom included Jews who were also sharing personal insights?

Once you take an idea away from the human lives it claims to understand, it becomes much easier to use against them.

I’m not proposing that we turn every class into a group psychoanalysis session. But I think the level of abstraction we've reached in humanities classes is counterproductive. When you’re afraid to bring up concrete examples of ideas, you can't make vivid connections to your previous experiences. And neurobiology suggests that’s actually how learning takes place.

The fatigue of analyzing texts with total detachment can lead to two unhealthy outcomes. One, we stop believing that what we do in class has any bearing on our lives. In the extrinsic-motivation-based system of grades and diplomas, we stop caring about our moral compass because it comes second to success. Two, we latch onto whatever idea grabs us first. Hitler did that; so did Sarah Kofman, a French philosopher who killed herself on Nietzsche’s birthday.

College shouldn't be a cerebral dream from which we wake up lost and cynical. If we don’t start connecting the theory of life to the practice now, when will we start? When there are no grades at stake? When it’s our employees, our students, our children?

Crew

“IN TWO, POWER TEN!”

I can’t do this. No one can possibly do this holy god it hurts please make it stop hurting-

---

I’m at the freshman activities fair, lingering near the crew team table. My brain is being annoying.

Why are we doing this? It conflicts with cross country.
That’s the whole point of college, trying new things.
What if I turn into a man?

“You’re the perfect build for crew. Are you interested?” The coach is smiling at me, somewhat creepily. She hands me a flier.

Two hours later, I’m wandering into the basement of the rec center with thirty other girls. I am judging them, and it’s fun, but the voice again.

Practices are at 5 a.m.
At a beautiful reservoir.
You’re supposed to be focusing on school.

“In fact, the rowing team has the highest average GPA of any sports team...”

There’s no chance to shine, though.
Wouldn’t that just be the worst thing, Narcissus?
Shut up. Look at these girls. One is asking, "Do we have to run a lot?"

“No. When the weather is bad, we use the erg machines.”

The girl nods and, glancing around, gives a relieved chuckle. “Because I’m not into running.”

“That’s fine. But you have to understand, rowing is probably the hardest physical thing you will ever do.”

The coach looks at me again, but I find myself returning the creepy smile.

---

The rower builds up a fearsome level of lactic acid, as much as 50% higher than any other athlete.

I don’t sleep anymore. Six days a week, I blink at 10pm and wake to the screech of my alarm clock, flashing 4:30.

I’m quitting today. Right after practice.

When we arrive at the reservoir, the landscape can only be seen through the sky: The stars silhouetting the hills, the moon on the water. We row through the darkness, watching an orange streak on the horizon spread itself higher and higher until suddenly, the sun breaks over the hills, and in every direction is rolling green. Next to us, a flock of geese skids onto the water, trying to seize the gold playing on its surface but only multiplying it.

I want to be tired, but I don’t have a choice. I’m jarred awake by beauty. It’s happened so many times now I’ve almost learned to stop fighting it.

“…and bury your blades.”

I settle into my seat and look up at our coxswain. The gesture is more intimate than a kiss. From a foot away from my face, she’s about to watch me suffer.

---

Rowers have some of the highest power outputs of athletes in any sport.

SHUNK!

Coach says it’s her favorite sound in the whole world. It’s the sound of eight oar blades feathering in sync. Sometimes we hear it across the water, a flawless echo from a UC Berkeley crew, but for us, it’s usually SHUNK-clatter-clatter-clatter, which is the sound of my patience running out.

Good rhythm comes painfully slow to novice rowers. In "stroke seat," I'm the leader; I’m supposed to set the pace for everyone behind me.

Physics tells us that the slowest part of a rowing stroke should be the "recovery." When you reach forward to put your oar back in the water, the boat loses momentum, since you’re facing backwards in it. “Rushing up to the catch” is one of our biggest problems. If I do my job correctly, I often fight the movement of seven other bodies. I often get slammed around like a sock puppet. Today, coach doesn’t seem to notice.

“Three, more lay back! Six, hands high!”

TELL THEM THEY’RE IDIOTS

“EIGHT! Head up! Stay focused!”

I’m just a number again. It’s a godsend.

“That’s it. Seven, watch her shoulder…”

When our SHUNK happens, I don’t hear it. I feel it. It’s raw human power multiplied by eight and concentrated into one fluid motion. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

---

So, why do kids cry when they’re born? Well, it is said, Satan stabs a child at birth, as an introduction to pain. You know…welcome to the world, right?
-K’naan

“500 TO GO!”

It's race day and this sport should be banned. I want to scream in pain, but we’re not allowed. It’s a waste of energy.

“ALRIGHT, A POWER TEN FOR YOUR STROKE! SHE’S BEEN WORKING HARD UP HERE-”

Our boat surges forward.

It’s pure human heart multiplied by seven and concentrated into one fluid motion. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I want to cry, but we’re not allowed. It’s a waste of energy.

---

Five years later, I still have rowing dreams.

Our coach had a degree in sports psychology. After a particularly brutal erg workout, she pointed out that some of us were subconsciously shaking our heads. It’s the body saying, “No” to the pain. By then, something had changed. I was nodding.

On Academic Dishonesty

On Sunday, it was doom-gray outside by 3pm. There was snow, and then hail, and finally thunder. “Thundersnow!” Everyone in the library rushed to the window. I made a joke about the apocalypse, no one laughed, and I was too excited to care.

A long time ago, I seriously considered having someone write a paper for me.

It seems absurd now, as my godlike writing talents have won me literally several nice emails, but at the time, I doubted I could impress anyone with words.

I've never been the best student. In middle school I was at the top of my class, but homework gave me hell; I’d just sit at the dining room table for hours on end, thinking about god knows what, until the guilt resurfaced.

In high school, my GPA plummeted. The material got harder, and I used the same strategy as always: Skin of your teeth. Do well on tests. It wasn’t enough.

And yet I eventually conned my way into Carleton, a place where Type-A personalities came to make love on piles of books. I had to change. I had to learn good study habits and rhetoric, a language I’d heard in bits and pieces from my parents but had never been forced to speak.

But for the first time, I was surrounded by people who seemed smarter than me. The day before deadline, I only saw one solution. Find someone who knew what they were doing. Ask them to help me out, just this once. I couldn’t afford to screw up my second college career.

Never mind that I could write. I’d been writing creatively since I was fifteen. There was an untraversable rift between that and my damn Linguistics paper.

Why does this happen to so many of us? Why do papers destroy us? Why have there been seventy cases of academic dishonesty in the past three years?

Let’s go back to the 18th century. People spent less time physically alone, so reading was considered the most private activity you could do. Conversely, writing was the most spiritually demanding. You were inviting someone to watch you think.

But this hasn’t changed. In an essay, you take things you’ve read and pit them against each other, and yourself. For the first step it’s easy to cite dead men the way Chicago wants you to. But inside, where you’re watching yourself think, you should be citing everything you’ve ever experienced.

That’s where ideas come from. They come from 7th grade AIM conversations, from the buttery French horn in an old sci-fi film, from your dog's pointless dewclaws, from that invincible feeling you get when the sun passes behind a thin layer of clouds and you can look straight at it. Academic writing is unsettling because you use your soul, but you're not allowed to use the word "I."

This might seem like a minor concern. If you play sports or music, you're already resilient. You get to say, “I” every time you sing. But chances are you still put off a few papers that should, in a perfect world, be fun to write.

For a year, I boycotted writing. It seemed like a waste of time not to read instead. But the more I read, the more I realized that good creative writing and good academic writing had something in common. From the love-struck Austen, to the outraged Orwell, to the reluctant Darwin, the basic belief that we deserved their insights made precise language the only option. They were all brilliant, but more importantly, they were sincere.

In an Aesthetics course last winter, we were struggling through a dense reading by a contemporary art scholar when a frustrated senior (it's always a senior) picked up his book and held it in the air like a stale sandwich.

"This was the most offensively meaningless article I’ve ever read. Every sentence made me so angry that I had to stop several times because I was getting physically ill.”

This delighted me, of course. But I think it will help us to forgive The Man. This term I'm in Visual Studies, a course not so different from Aesthetics. Our professor reminded us that while some of the readings are intense, that’s kind of the point. “When the rubber band of your mind snaps back, you’re able to see things you couldn't before."

Academia is loving you the only way it knows how. You can forgive bombastic writing the same way you’d forgive a smirk on a stranger. Maybe that’s the best smile they can give you today, and maybe they’ve read so many research papers they can’t help sounding a little silly. It isn’t a reason to copy them. Read between the lines. Listen for thundersnow.

hobbes

let's go out!

yellow fever

When people ask me about being half-Asian, two things happen. First I think of elementary school. Then I give the short answer: “It’s the best of both worlds. Most of the privilege, none of the guilt.”

Clever, right? I like that it steers away from melodrama, because I’ve played that game enough. Let’s stand around and admire our pain and forget about Darfur. But it’s also a defense mechanism, because deep down, the pain is there. The question almost always comes from a white person, and some part of me is remembering elementary school, when some kid would ask me if I was Chinese, I’d say no, I’m Japanese, and discover the whole thing was a setup for a really bad joke.

“Chinese, Japanese, American knees!"

In case you’ve never seen it performed: You pull the corners of your eyes up, and then down, and then you touch your knees. You laugh, and the kids around you laugh, and a little piece of Hannah’s soul slips out of place.

I grew up in an inner-ring Cleveland suburb called Lakewood. It’s remarkable for its socioeconomic diversity, but it is 93% white. In advanced and AP classes, I was almost always The Minority.

I got used to this, and over time, the questions people asked me got less and less offensive. “Do you speak Japanese?” became “Do your parents speak Japanese?”, and so on.

It would be nice to believe that all Carleton students know better. Once, someone asked my race before asking my name. But for the most part, people behave themselves. I really want to trust them. I don't want to have a violent visceral reaction to anime kids. I want to hear guys wax poetic about the beautiful women they met on study abroad trips and feel special and desirable instead of nauseated.

In the past, internalized racism was a simple problem with a simple solution. Detroit Red became Malcolm X and never looked back. But what do you do when your culture is exactly what The White Man wants? What do you do when your hard-fought identity is charming, adorable, and still not quite human?

Most people don’t seem to think about this. Some Asian girls have no problem dating guys who are “into Asian girls.” We can write lengthy papers on Orientalism and then go out and buy Japanese furniture for what it represents - something that is not familiar, not mainstream, not your parents, not your trashy cousins, and definitely not your third grade shame, whatever that may be.

When people ask me what it’s like to be half-Asian, I get the same feeling I got two years ago, when we moved out of Lakewood to a much rougher neighborhood in West Cleveland. Every time I walked the dog, I faced a string of catcalls. It made me angry for a while, but one day, I realized something much worse had happened. I’d stopped smiling. The more I smiled, the more attention I got. Exoticism does the same thing: It turns who you are into a source of fear.

Honest Student Bloggers

I'm sitting in a computer lab on the 4th floor of the Cleveland State library, looking at a seagull, getting more agitated by the second. The seagull is perched on a spire on a church across the street. Behind the church are treetops and more rooftops and a rusty water tower, and beyond them I can see the lake, which is gray today.

I don't care. I'm only staring out the window because there's a voice in my head saying, "Let's never go back," and I have to keep telling myself that it's just the view, Cleveland's East Side beats Limon Puddles. But it’s too late. This place is making me hate what I'm supposed to love about Carleton.

Five minutes ago, a random student came in and sat down at the computer next to me. We haven't acknowledged each other's presence, and we probably won't. It's glorious. How could I possibly explain to her what it's like not to be a number?

---

College waited two years to happen, nothing and then everything. A week into this – I'm giving it a pronoun already, see, because I'm looking at double comps and LSATs and summer internships – Dad had already done two by junior year but hell, everything moves slower away from the coasts, I want to explain, wondering why it sounds like an excuse.

He doesn't know. This is Carleton. Eight people asked me how I was doing today. How am I? Seriously? No one is that nice. You didn’t come here because you love people and snow. We filled out the same application, and chances are we both sold out somewhere along the line. The only difference between us and those pricks at Amherst who “think they’re better than everyone” - they have the balls to admit it.

You’re not nice, you’re terrified. Stop smiling at me. It’s making me retarded, and now I’m terrified too, because I feel like Algernon. Law school is two years away and we’re playing Quidditch.

---

I'm fifteen years old and trying to learn the second movement of the Moonlight Sonata. I haven't realized it's impossible.

The notes just won’t fall into place. They rush, and scatter, and land like bricks. It sounds decent, but anyone who’s heard it done right knows that it is not what Beethoven intended. My piano teacher Jackie, for example.

“You have to practice your arpeggios confidently. I mean, your forte is a mezzo piano.”
“Really?”

The Russians got it down to a science, Jackie is telling me. It’s all in the release – you have to let the weight of your entire hand find the bottom of the key, come off clean, and then transfer it to the next note in line.

Every pianist has struggled with it. It's our version of whatever blues legend Robert Johnson, as the story goes, sold his soul to the devil for.

Transference.

At this point, you might be wondering how this relates to my life at Carleton, and mentally suggesting that I go out and socialize instead of sitting here discussing piano technique. But it's the only way I can describe this crude improvisation I've called college for the past three months. Because when I talk to people – something is still soft, hesitant. It's hard, I want them to see, and I have been trying but straw just won’t spin into gold and my hands are getting tired.

unemployable

The day the aliens come,
the reckoning day, the day of last words,
I have something to say
just one thing,
if they’ll listen:

we know how bad it looks.

we know we’re ugly.
it's true, we sweat, we shit, some of us bleed,
we get old and wither,
we’re soft, we're not built to last,
we'd be so easy to squash,
but please don’t, because

we know we haven’t made it very far.
it's true, we’re still smashing electrons together,
drowning in melted continents,
baffled by consciousness,
but please,
just give us some more time, because

we know we’re deplorable,
it’s all true, we have
bombs pointed at our own planet, we have
children in factories making $500 jeans, we have
minstrel shows and frat house rapes and
ten thousand more reasons to kill us, but
please don’t, because

it’s all true,
everything we say
in our
songs.

Manifesto

"Fact of the matter is, I believe that our only curses are the ones that are self-imposed...We, all of us, dig our own holes."

-Coach Gaines, Friday Night Lights (2004)

For anyone who has ever read my column, thank you. But I want to make something really clear. I’m no wiser than anyone else here. I like giving advice to freshmen and sticking up for strippers on paper, but I’m only 22 years old. I have no idea what I’m doing.

In November, I went to a discussion called “Does Sexual Violence Affect Women of Color at Carleton?” I was hunting for a column idea, and I was expecting to hear sweeping social critiques. But toward the end, legendary history professor Harry Williams said something strange. How can we be happy as individuals? What can I, Hannah Watson, do to enjoy my own life?

This was very upsetting.

On one hand, it seemed to go against the entire ethos of what I’m going to call the WASP belt, the string of colleges (including Carleton) founded by Congregationalists with a core mission of service to humanity. Harvard was originally intended for creating “a learned clergy.” You got an education to give back to the world, maybe teach a savage or two about Jesus, but not to make yourself happy.

Modern academia has become its own kind of religious community. We’re driven by a common belief that nothing is what it seems. You might get this from looking at a microorganism or a nude model, but whenever it happens, it feels good for a simple reason: It makes you free. Learning emancipates us from our preconceptions about the universe.

So going deeper, education is indelibly personal. If a drop of pond water is not what it seems, perhaps you are not who you think you are.

Not many people know this, but my life used to revolve around sports. Even fewer people know that I’ve struggled with poor body image for most of my Carleton career.

I did soccer and track in high school, but in college I discovered I was built to row. They put me in stroke seat (look it up, proles), and within three months, I’d broken a 7:40 2k on the erg, which was a big deal for DIII women and damn near the school record.

I decided it was enough. I wanted to focus on challenging my mind. I transferred to an elite, frozen, land-locked school. But I held onto my pride, and forgot that one of the best things about crew was the respect it gave me for my body. At regattas, I’d look around and see all these tall women with thighs and shoulders and breasts and miraculously unapologetic postures, and I’d finally feel home.

I tried different activities at Carleton, but it was never the same. I couldn’t throw a frisbee for shit. What would I do with my body do in this godforsaken state? What else could it do?

It could drink. And it could look good. I started to live for these things, and my health slowly fell apart.

So this question of how to be happy – it haunted me. It threatened all of my precious regret, and all the anger I’d buried about our goddamn weather and our goddamn ectomorph infestation. It threatened the whole hero/victim complex I had with Carleton, which was a good excuse for neglecting things I cared about.

But I couldn’t dismiss it. Harry Williams has been here since 1989, and witnessed the struggles of thousands of students. What’s more, I’d heard the exact same thing a week earlier from someone who’s been here since 1979, legendary CAMS professor John Schott.

As we head into winter term, please remember their advice. Try to be kind to yourself. For me, this means eating regularly, sleeping, and forgiving the teenager inside me who sneers at non-competitive exercise. She’s never written a column, or made a film, or been in love. She was beautiful, but so am I.

College is about letting go of who you've been. Whether you have noblesse oblige guilt about being a studio art major, or working-class guilt about not being satisfied with a $52,000-a-year experience, you can make Carleton a better place by celebrating the fact that as a human being, you have a right to be unhappy as well as happy.

“… it doesn't matter to me at all whether you like the school. It seems like you like some things, and don't like others, and that's how it should be.”
- Becky Leichtling ‘08

Photo credit: Emma Giboney

College in three haikus

oh yeahhh
Batman comics stashed
inside a Coach bag, damn it
feels good to be me.

this year, I sold Babe Ruth
to the Yankees for
an old Daewoo, and used it
to invade Russia.

the smile means
I’ll remind you that
life is good if you remind
me that it’s easy.

Trust no one

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education

When I was in elementary school, my dad got involved in the movement to change the Cleveland Indians’ name and mascot. During baseball season, we attended demonstrations outside Jacobs Field.

I believed in the cause by default, but I hated the protests. They were cold and boring, and I had to watch thousands of fans disrespect us. Some laughed, some gave us the finger, and a few stopped to talk, but they often seemed inattentive (I now realize they might have been drunk).

In 1998, the Indians made it to the World Series. As a publicity stunt for the opening game, the activists burned an effigy of Chief Wahoo. I watched five of them, including my dad, arrested for “aggravated arson.” (They were detained overnight, but never prosecuted.) My brother videotaped the whole thing, and it made the news.

Inevitably, this came up at school. My fourth grade teacher wondered how many people had been arrested. I answered. She smiled, and asked how I knew this.

I was cornered, so I told the truth. The entire classroom gasped. I turned beet-red, and laughed, clinging to what I can only describe as the masochistic thrill of social martyrdom.

That year, my school established something called the Golden Rule Club.

This program was the brainchild of our assistant principal, who had become highly unpopular in her efforts to improve lunchtime discipline. She used to stalk the cafeteria looking for kids out of line. I guess one day she decided that there had to be a better way, consulted Stalin and Skinner, and came up with the GRC.

Any student could become a member of this club based on a points system. Points were earned through different activities, from putting a napkin on your lap during lunch (1 point) to various forms of menial labor (collecting trash from the playground, 15 points).

Every week, Vice Principal Stalin would announce the newest members and present them with blue and gold T-shirts. Every month, the entire club would wear these shirts to school, and receive a free meal catered by Taco Bell. You'd sit at a special table with a white tablecloth and "Golden Rule Club" signs, eat your taco, and be happy, because you won.

This is speculation. I was not in the GRC. From my perspective, it was just a wall of blue and smugness and Fire Sauce. At first I abstained out of laziness, but most kids will do anything for fast food. By Christmas, the majority of the fourth grade had joined, including the rest of the gifted program; some of my friends became high-ranking members, which was a recurring source of conflict ("Why don't you just join?" "Because it's retarded").

In the spring, Stalin finally pulled me aside. In retrospect, I don't blame her. It must have seemed odd that Hannah Watson, quiet kid, model student, would take issue with conformity.

"You know, you really should be wearing a napkin by now."

She had a point. It was the easiest thing in the GRC rulebook. But that's what I couldn't stand. It was so easy, and it didn't mean anything.

Clever and classless and free

Jeff Richmond: When we were first dating, some of the guys at Second City said, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be a hoot if we go over—’

Tina Fey: ‘—over to the Doll House. We’ll go to this strip club ironically.’ I was like, ‘The fuck you will…’

In 2008, erotic dancers in Minnesota were charging about $300 an hour, but I would only have to pay $20. It was my second year at Carleton, and a group of my friends had decided to hire a stripper as a surprise for a girl’s birthday.

I had some knee-jerk Asian discomfort about this, but I shrugged it off. After all, this was Carleton. We’d probably end up paying some bemused woman $300 to play Scrabble with us for 20 minutes, which was hilarious, and besides, we’d get to meet a real live stripper! How delightfully plebeian.

A week before the event, I got an email thread discussing the details. Did we want a blonde or a brunette? Piercings or tattoos? They did some research and attached pictures of our options.

After watching these photos circulate for a few days, I had to wonder. Did they feel good about stripping? Did they have other jobs, or families? The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed that I might actually watch one take off her clothes for money and pretend to enjoy it.

I had no objections to sexual freedom. At women’s college, it had been everywhere – naked people laying out in the sun, transsexual people on my sports team, people who had sex in public bathrooms talking about it at dinner.

But this was entirely different. Just for the hell of it, we were about to hire an actual sex worker.

If you asked Carleton students to consider stripping, I’m sure the vast majority would decline. Our culture is based on shyness. We have trouble going on dates without the aid of student government (i.e. Screw Your Roommate), we can’t appear naked in public without sprinting (i.e. streaking), and most of us can’t even dance fully clothed in front of an audience without getting hammered first (i.e. Ebony).

None of this is bad on its own. People tend to be guarded about their sexuality because it’s important to them, as it should be. But everyone deserves this. When you pay a stripper to do something you’d never do yourself, you accept that her sexuality is less valuable than yours. Outside of Carleton, I know people (male and female) who’ve had sex for money; none liked how it felt.

College should be fun. But once your choices involve other people, you have to remember that the things you do are the things you actually do. Hiring a stripper as a joke is still supporting an industry that exploits people in atrocious ways. We live in a world where human trafficking is a massive and fast-growing trade.

We also live on a campus where sexual assault happens.

When Carleton’s revised Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response policy showed up in my mailbox a few weeks ago, this was all I could think about. Despite their laudable efforts to streamline the process, no amount of re-wording and re-structuring could change the atmosphere that caused people to stay silent.

But this atmosphere is nothing more than the sum of many individual attitudes towards sex.

Today, I honestly can’t remember whether or not my friends went through with their plan. Does it really matter? Maybe not. Maybe injustice anywhere isn’t a threat to justice everywhere. Maybe I just need to lighten up and have a better sense of humor. Then again, maybe even the funniest woman in America would have felt the same way.

…I love to play strippers and to imitate them. I love using that idea for comedy, but the idea of actually going there? I feel like we all need to be better than that. That industry needs to die, by all of us being a little bit better than that.
-Vanity Fair, January 2009

Dear Freshman

“Given Carleton’s high retention rate (97%), it’s pretty evident that Carls are satisfied with their school.”
-CollegeProwler.com

“35% of students have seriously considered leaving Carleton College.”
-Carleton Campus Climate Survey, 2008

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

---

Hello, freshman. Welcome to Carleton. Unless you are a sociopath, you’re probably a little anxious.

I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me, because after four terms at Carleton, I got so frustrated that I essentially stopped doing work. When this manifested on my transcript, they gave me a two-term suspension.

As an applicant, you had impressive grades, extracurriculars and/or test scores. But you're a Carleton student because underneath that, you genuinely enjoy intellectual freedom.

In theory, this helps us keep each other, and the institution, as honest as possible. In practice, it doesn't always show. Class discussions are stagnant, circular or one-sided. Student government can't seem to change worthless school policy. Many of us do half-assed work. Worst of all, we feign happiness. We settle into cliques, and before long, the rest of Carleton starts to look nauseatingly homogenous, but we keep on smiling because this is the Midwest, where angst is for cowards.

If you ever encounter this, here are some things to remember.

1. Class discussions are up to you.

Even when you're unprepared, or chemically inconvenienced (tired, hungover, high, etc), your ideas matter.

Carleton does not hire faculty primarily for their people skills. I think our professors still deserve their #1 ranking – they’re brilliant, accessible, and caring – but they can’t really understand you.

This is not their fault. I don’t understand you. You were six years old when the Internet happened. You probably know what 'sexting' is. The important part is that you understand each other, and you can keep each other in check.

In class, someone will often dominate discussion. It will be tempting to hate this person, but do not be intimidated by his vocabulary (face it guys, it's usually you); your silence is the only reason he thinks it's cool to spend ten minutes on the latest idea NPR has given him license to abuse.

It’s not as easy as it sounds – most of us are awkward – but if you have a valid insight, another smart, awkward person will probably respond to it.

2. You are what you write.

This is why Carleton pesters us with writing requirements, but unfortunately, ugly hurdles like portfolios can obscure a much uglier truth: Every paper you bullshit is a tiny act of suicide.

If you're lazy (like me) or busy (like most people), it will often seem necessary to shut off your conscience the night before a deadline and defile "Politics and the English Language" for six hours straight. It's not. If you don't have enough time, swallow your pride and ask for an extension. Most professors would rather wait an extra day than read five pages of nonsense, and besides, this behavior will hurt you in the long run.

You can't pick a major without giving any subject real attention. One of my worst mistakes was majoring in science, and I did it partly because I hated the insincerity I was getting away with in social science and humanities.

3. The right major will feel the least like work.

I truly hope you don't get suspended, but it forced me to discover what my real passions were, and who my real friends were. One person gave me some of the best advice I can give you: Forget about your diploma and do what you love.

I had avoided CAMS entirely because a lot of people called it a joke; it's become the only department where I’m able to work shamelessly hard.

4. Carleton politics are more accessible than you think.

When school policies seem hypocritical, talk to CSA, or go straight to administration. If you don’t get answers, write a Viewpoint for the Carletonian, a blog post for the Daily Knight, or yes, a CLAP article. People read this shit. President Oden used to, and if Poskanzer wants our respect, he’ll be doing the same.

Finally, I invite you to participate in this column. If you have a gripe, a concern, or a joy to share about Carleton – or about my writing – I would love to publish it. Talk to me, email me, or drop a note anonymously in my mailbox (#122).

---

In 1975, my parents stepped onto campus. They had a storybook liberal arts experience, and still claim that Carleton taught them how to think.

For me, this was a massive personal inconvenience. By the time I was born, they'd become committed to social justice. My mom dragged me along to do community organizing in Chicago, live in a commune in New York, protest US weapons testing in Puerto Rico, and visit political prisoners across the country.

She worked for the United Church of Christ, which is a lot like Carleton – white, liberal, and flawed. In high school, I watched them fire her for speaking out against institutional racism.

Carleton tried to do something like this in 1974.

My parents heard about Professor Wellstone, but during their time here, they never bothered to meet him. My mom was invested in Chapel functions and studying; Dad was content with Biology/football/the bar.

You can do your best to enjoy the Northfield bubble. But the world is far messier than academia. No matter what classes you take, one of the biggest things you can learn here is to question authority.

If you see something wrong with Carleton, chances are you're not alone. Thirty years ago, 94% of the student body stood up for Paul Wellstone because the admissions office knew what it was doing.

This hasn't changed.

When I saw Carleton bragging about diversity and sustainability without being transparent about the economics behind them, I gave in to cynicism. No one seemed to care that the school was preaching intellectual curiosity while condoning intellectual laziness.

But in reality, Carleton students rarely reject an opportunity to think. That’s why our most fiercely beloved campus publication is the only one that never censors, and it's probably why our Quiz Bowl team beats Harvard.

Which brings me to my parting advice.

Never stop giving people chances to impress you. When they seem disingenuous – and at some point, they will – cut them a break. That Chinese kid who never talks to anyone is a long way from home. That hipster who won't shut up about his radio show just left behind a cherished music scene. That cocky freshman suspects that he only got in on football, and that angry CLAP writer might be a dirty legacy kid. It takes some effort, but I already sense that you can do it.

The truth is, you have everything in common with the person sitting next to you in class. If you were alive in Poland in 1940, or Pakistan in 1971, or Cambodia, 1976, you might have died together.

You’re an intellectual. Be proud. Don’t reduce yourself, or your peers, to what clothes you wear, what bands you hate, or what substances you ingest. You have too much to lose.

Happy Mother's Day, ladies

“After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”
-Mark Twain, Adam's Diary

My alarm is set to a pop radio station. By 8am, the hosts of the morning talk show are usually several drinks deep, and their shouting is a good waker-upper. The other day, there was a discussion on the evils of women.

It seems Talibany, but you hear it all the time. Girls are bitches. We gossip, lie, manipulate, and generally ruin lives. We hate all other women besides our friends, and we secretly hate them too. The only reason we don't rape and kill is because we're too weak.

At this point, someone usually speaks up. I kept waiting. After twenty minutes, I wanted to cry. Almost every caller was a woman, and they all agreed that they belonged to a race of monsters.

---

Last winter, my mom called from the hospital. She was in a bike accident.

When I walked into the ER, I didn't know what to expect. Thankfully, it had sounded worse than it was. What caught me off guard was my reaction. I’m not a squeamish person, but when they said she'd need surgery, I fled to a bathroom across the hall, where my reflection above the sink was sweaty and chalk-white.

I paused.

I went back. I forced a smile. I held her hand, wondering if it helped, praying for my dad to show up and take over.

But when he did, something strange happened. He froze. As he explained, this was paralyzing: Seeing a loved one in pain when he couldn’t do anything, drive to the hospital, save the day, shoot the bastard responsible...

---

At the risk of sounding traditionalist, I think it’s wonderful that men often want to fix everything. But sometimes you can't. The world is unfair. Cars crash, bombs fall, boxes open, and all you can do is show compassion – the simplest human act, but not the easiest.

I wish I could take credit for this, but I know that pasty girl in the mirror. I’ve seen her before, moments before speeches and piano recitals.

This time was different. It only took a few words. Your mom needs you.

I think something on my second X chromosome just kicked in. And I'm eternally grateful for that, but it also makes my heart break every time I see another woman calling herself weak.

If I Were A Boy or two

Poor guy, "LeBron James has killed his desire for higher education"

Poor guy, the slave of wormlike PhDs.

Poor guy, diabetes at age 12

Poor guy, "Nearly one in 10 college men met a 12-month diagnosis of alcohol dependence."

Poor guy, they call him a coward for respecting beauty

Poor guy, they call him a monster for noticing it.

Poor guy, shipped home in a body bag

Poor guy, "I think going abroad changed him."

A list of times Ohio is burned in pop culture, and an explanation

Vanilla Sky

Brian: But wait. You're rich and women love you, and I'm from Ohio and I'm drunk. Can I tell you the truth?

Bowfinger
Daisy: I know what's going on. I may be from Ohio, but I'm not from Ohio.

3rd Rock from the Sun
Tommy: We don't have cell phones, we're from Ohio!

30 Rock
Floyd: There was actually a tornado downtown in Cleveland last week. Destroyed an entire city block. Three bowling alleys, a liquor store, and the liquor store museum.

Ugly Betty
Wilhelmina: I love your blouse!
Betty: No you don't.
Wilhelmina: You're right, I don't. It's hideous. Like driving through Ohio.

----

Why Ohio? There are much worse places. They're called Kansas and Nebraska and New Jersey, and it's national consensus that they suck. But that's why making fun of them is like making fun of hipsters - it's too easy. Watch:

"Nebraska is boring."
"New Jersey is worthless."
"Hipsters are arguably the worst outcome of the Bush administration."

There's no one in Nebraska to offend anyway besides Conor Oberst, who already sings about killing himself, and with New Jersey, shittiness has become a point of pride.

Ohio, though. It's kind of legitimate. We have 20 electoral votes, a bunch of colleges, and sports teams that consistently almost win. We have a few cities paved with time and fully acquainted with success. We have just enough cultural capital that we don't need to represent ourselves with cheese or potatoes.

Sure, none of this merits the patriotism we indulge now and then. But if it's baseless pride that bothers you, Texas has turned that into an art. On the coasts, arrogance reaches dangerous levels. It's so good to be Bostonian that you have to give up several years of it, a shortened lifespan the inevitable cost of always being angry at the rest of the world for not being Boston. The only reason everyone forgives them is that they have "personality" - an accent, a lifestyle, some ethnic stereotype open for condescension and therefore charming.

Meanwhile, we teach CNN how to speak. That's not cute. To the outsider, it's just frustrating. All he hears is a name, all he sees is a heart shape on the map, and all he'll remember about either is an annoyingly wholesome symmetry.

Ohio is neutral, neutral is Ohio. If you write for ABC and are miserable because you’re working on the next Ugly Betty instead of your screenplay, or you watch ABC and are miserable because you’re watching Ugly Betty, you want a joke that sends mediocrity somewhere else. Ohio is neutral, and neutral is average. At least I don’t live in Ohio. I am not average! I am better.

NO, YOU’RE NOT. Be a little more creative, and leave us the hell alone.

an hour into my CAMS paper

27%

“Two girls call me closed-minded. I tell them that they are so open-minded that their brains leaked out.”
-Tucker Max, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Whether or not you believe in affirmative action, Carleton can do better. No one expects us to single-handedly solve the race gap in America, but one thing isn't helping, and that's bringing in international students and calling it diversity.

In 1974, Carleton's black and Latino enrollment was 150/1600, or a little over 9%. Today, it is 11%. In 35 years, we have gained 2%. Meanwhile, the actual black and Latino population of the US has grown from 16% to 28%.

Carleton students by race, 2008

Suddenly we're a lot farther behind, and we're using bad semantics to hide bad recruiting. In a recent speech, Oden mentioned the 'diversity' of the incoming freshman class: “...and [number] international students and students of color."

"With their powers combined, we are closer than ever to creating the ultimate Diversity Megabot! Take that, Middlebury."

He didn't say that. But anyone would tell you not to combine these groups – you're thinking in terms of Norm vs. Other, using a binary system to sort people. It’s the only way to have a sex life at Carleton, but it’s irresponsible.

But it can't be a mistake. President Oden is smarter than me. So coming from him, it sounds more like an excuse. It sounds like someone’s not doing their job because there’s no Rockefeller grant and black males leave anyway and it’s easier to get “diverse perspectives” from other countries than the third-world one in America.

In May 2007, Carleton's admissions policy shifted from need-blind to need-sensitive. The Voice reported that "there are fewer nonwhite and first-generation students in the classes of '10 and '11 than earlier classes."

The $300 million campaign soon followed, and a major initiative was bringing back need-blind admissions. But of the $90 million designated for financial aid, $60 million went to domestic students and $30 million to international students.

Why? What kind of diversity is important to us? People are afraid to talk about it, but most don't seem to care. Maybe I'm wasting my time because it all looks the same on paper and that's what we're here for, a piece of paper. The idea of diversity is good enough for the idea of an education.

Carleton vs. Disney World (we have more countries, but they have Blizzard Beach).

In the end, I think it's stupid that Carleton wants to be mini-Oxford, but I get it. We're sick of no one caring that we're mini-Harvard. The trouble is that changing our priorities has consequences on the real world that we're not owning up to. The irony is that people don't ultimately come here because it's "cosmopolitan;" they come here because they see the ranking and the modest image and expect a little "integrity."

OMGWTFLOL

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter will probably waste several minutes of your life, and for that I apologize in advance. It may surprise you, however, that a similar imposition is routinely forced upon the vast majority of Carleton students. I refer, of course, to the startup time of campus computers.

I understand that as the 8th (9th? whatever) best liberal arts college in the country, Carleton provides us with countless privileges. Each improves our experience here somehow, but by how much – that depends on who you ask. Personally, I’m looking at a long downhill. Now that Upper Sayles looks like Starbuck’s, I doubt that my Q of L will ever skyrocket quite the same way again. But my therapist at the Wellness Center keeps telling me to think positive, so...the new iMacs on 4th Libe are pretty cool.

I particularly appreciate their sleek, ergonomic keyboards. They make typing easy and accurate, sparing me the shame of re-entering my password each of the minimum six times I have to enter it. However, it astonishes me that these fine investments take longer to start functioning than a lacrosse player on a Sunday morning. Since Apple can do no wrong,* I blame Carleton.

I would never question the necessity of the GoPrint! application. Just the other day I watched some townies sneak into the library to print out pictures of heroin or whatever, only to be thwarted at the card-swiping station. “Damn, I really felt like killing some trees!!" they mouth-breathed. "Oh well, let’s go steal backpacks from the dining hall.”

At the time, I had been about to print out a life-sized picture of Obama for my room. But somewhere between the second and third time I was asked to approve it, I had a sudden change of heart. 26 pages? I began to doubt my place at Carleton, and then my value as a citizen of the earth. Thanks to GoPrint!, next time I can save myself from such redundant thinking.

But what about the other applications bouncing sluggishly at the bottom of the screen? “Mount” something? What is the fuck is that, and why must it steal an hour from me every term?

Maybe I'll never know. I guess I could ask my friends at SCIC, but they’re busy fixing broken printers (putting up signs) while I sit here, gazing out at the sunlight...waiting to remember why I left it in the first place.

*Decree of Jobbal Infallibility, unanimous resolution by freshmen Emily and Neil, Urban Outfitters half-yearly sale, 2007.