Here I sit

Daily Aggravations and Regrets
and more cathing up...

July 7th, 1999.

    Well, here I am in Reid Hall, on the campus of Washington and Lee University, in lovely Lexington, VA. Reid Hall is the Journalsim school, and I'd say it's where I spent the majority of my time on campus. Or at least a plurality. Oddly enough, I only had one actual Journalism class while at school here. But I worked at the radio station here in various capacities for four years. I used to be the Rock Music Director, but they got rid of that position. So my senior year I had my work study here. I basically sat in the office and listened to new cds. And I got paid for it. But I didn't do it that often. Anyway, as part of my job as camp counselor, I have to sit around here in case any of the kids have problems with the lab or radio station. So I thought it's be a perfect time to update my journal. So here I am, listening to cds. Right now, it's Buffalo Tom's Smitten. I used to really like this band, and they still put out really great power-pop. It's just that my musical taste has diverged from that in recent years.   Anyway, i guess I'll pick up where I left off yesterday.

    The Summer Scholars program officially started on Sunday, the 4th of July. It was our job to sit around and make sure the kids checked in and got everything they needed. That wouldn't have been too bad, except for the fact that it was 95 degrees outside. It was really sweltering. I couldn't wait for lunch, since I could either drive around in my air-conditioned car or sit around some air-conditioned restaraunt. Rodzilla and I took advantage of the situation by taking many orders, thus allowing us to stay out of the heat for more than an hour, since we had to go to so many different places. And naturally, we ate our meal before we started on the other orders. Anyway, i also had to drive to the train station to pick up a coupla kids. that was pleasant too, largely due to the climate control of my car. I can't believe in the age of such advanced technology that we still can't control the weather. Sheesh. What are they spending all this money on?
    This is my third year doing this job, and I gotta say, I care less and less about this every year. I'm really only hear because Rodzilla is. But I thought I should at least try to pretend to care, so at my hall meeting I was much less sarcastic than I expected I'd be. Still, I think my kids can tell that I really don't give a fuck. I hate these hall meeting things. I always have to do the obligatory "who I am, where I'm from, what I like to do" bullshit. Last year, instead of that, I made the kids run a wheel-barrow race. This year, one of my kids was still dressed in his tie and dress shirt -his American Flag tie- and dress shoes, so I felt bad making him run around. So we just did some jumping jacks instead. But I saw this kid with the tie the next day, and he was still wearing a tie. It was like 100 degrees out, and I said "Um... you know, you don't have to wear that tie." And he said "I know, I wear won anyway." Ok, these kids are 17 years old. Isn't that, oh, a little young to be so fucking serious!? I mean, it's really ridiculous. Who does he think he is, Alex P. Keaton. The sad thing is, he's probably too young to know who the hell that is. But even some of the professors are making fun of him. He's really not impressing anyone with this idiotic tie-business. I think I should tell him, especially if he wants to come to this school. Yeah, it's fine and good to be interested in politics and business, and admissions people and professors love that kind of thing, but no one wants to hang around someone who acts exactly the same outside of class as he acts in class. It's like he's always on duty.   I'm sure whatever his hobbies or "recreations" are have something to do with politics and/or business. Anyway, I think I gotta have a talk with this guy and tell him the lighten the fuck up.
    So on sunday, we also met with our "small group." This is something new this year. It's supposed to be this little groups where the kids can get together with a different group of people and talk about things. Part of the whole diversity thing that that joker was leading the workshop in. Speaking of that diversity nonsense, an interesting footnote: Some of the counselors had to change their room assignments, because for some reason the director of the program didn't want black students to have roommates. Granted, most of the rooms are singles, but I don't know what she specifically didn't want them to share a room with someone. that just struck me as very, very odd, especially after all that diversity bullshit.
    Anyway, as predicted, my small group was a disaster. At the dinner last Wednesday, the boss-lady Megan was telling us about these new groups. She's also doing this for a third year, so she knows pretty well my laissez-care approach to this job. Well, as she was telling this as we ate, Rodzilla suddenly starts laughing and spews a stream of food out of her mouth. After she calmed down a bit, but still with her mouth full, she pointed at me and exclaimed "I was just imagining YOU leading a 'serious' discussion!" Megan had to agree that the prospect of me leading a little talk on acceptance and understanding was somewhat absurd. And so did I. So when we met on Sunday, and again yesterday, we didn't talk about a damn thing. The kids knew I thought the concept was compete and utter bullshit. It's not like I made any effort at all to mask these opinions. But I did want the group to be useful in some way. I mean, it was meant largely to help the students come together. So I figured that mutual suffering was always effective in bringing people together. So I had them do all sorts of idiotic shit, like telling me their least favorite states, telling bad jokes, and just standing up while I rearranged their seating arrangement. When they asked me what we were supposed to be talking about, I said, "I dunno... something about diversity or something." I told them it was their assignment for the next group meeting to find out, discretely, what the other groups talked about, and we'd discuss that next time. In the meantime, I told them that if anyone asked, to tell them we talked about how hard it is to be a woman in the late 90's, and that I was particularly insightful in the matter.
    This whole "diversity"" thing is really, really dumb. Here's how I see it. We have this workshop about diversity and the evils of stereotypes. The guy leading the workshop asks the question "So, what are some good stereotypes?" I don't want to insult anyone, but I can't believe people didn't know this was meant as a "trick"' question.   I mean, come on! He's here telling us how evil they are, and now he's asking for good ones? Of course, people immediatly raise their hands and answer, and this joker gets a big ol' grin across his face. One girl says that just because she's Korean, people assume she's good at math and science. And I'm all "So!?" and she says that she was in fact the worst in her class at math and science. But you know what, she's from Korea! So OF COURSE someone has to be the worst. But I bet you the worst math student in a korean class is still better than half of the American students. And you know, the reason that most people think that Asians are wizards at math and science is because THEY ARE. I mean, please. How many Asians do you know that are really, truly horrible at math. I know one, and we make fun of him all the time. Don't get me wrong, this girl is a super-nice person. I just think some people think stereo types are a lot worse than they really are. So anyway, the reason I went on this stereotype rant is because the head of the program said they wanted to form these small groups of kids in order to understand why Washington and Lee always gets a diverse group of summer scholars, but does not enroll a very diverse regular student body. Well, I think it's because of the curriculum. While all the programs are adequate, I'd say that the curriculum just doesn't excel in stereotypically minority areas, like, oh, math and science. So naturally, minority students, mainly Asians and Indians are gonna flock to places like Johns Hopkins or something. So the funny thing about this whole diversity conundrum is that, by seeing stereotypes as ignorance and trying to look past them, they're missing the main reason why minorites don't want to come here. How many Asian parents want their kids to grow up to be well-versed in the Liberal Arts. Not as many as the ones that want their kids to be wealthy doctors, I'm sure. Anyway, the point is, stereotypes- good and bad- exist for a reason. And there's really not much that can be done to change that. And I'm damn tired of hearing otherwise.
    ANYWAY... getting back to life, well, the last two days have been spent getting back into the routine of being a camp counselor. Things with Rodzilla are pretty good. Although she threw a bottle of water at me and almost broke my toe. I mean, no malice was intended. She just thought I'd like some water, and threw it extremely poorly. And it still hurts. This lead to some sort of argument/serious talk. But the good thing about our arguments, at least for me, is that I always feel like they really do some good, that it's not just and idiotic, childish exchange. Ok, so I dumped a bottle of water over her head. But that was just to save face. But things are going well. As far as the other counselors go, I don't feel much bonding going on there. At least far less than the last two years. I just feel a lot older than the rest of them. Maybe since I am. the previous years, I wasn't the oldest, or even close. This year, I'm more than 5 years older than the youngest counselor. Still, they're overall a nice bunch. Some puchy broads, and stupid girls at times. But I guess they're friendly enough. Some of them are pretty painful though. In situations like this, I always imagine how James would react. He can be such a dick, that I really am very curious how he would put up with some of the stupid bullshit. Then again, he was a Dorm Counselor here for 2 years, so I guess he's well versed in this. But there's a fucking dumb-ass lip-synch contest this weekend, and they're making all the counselors be in an act. Sigh... i swear... I'm 23 years old. the last place I wanna be is in the middle of some sorrity girls's choreographed dance routine. Yet there I was, box-stepping and gettin jiggy. Or at least my closest approximation to gettin jiggy. It's really dumb. There's a lip-synch contest here every winter that raises money for charity, and that's usually pretty amusing, because everyone -the audience and the participants- is pretty drunk. I can't believe that they're so excited about this dead sober. oh well. anyway, I'm gonna post this so I don't have to sit here any longer than I have to.

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