I had a topic lined up for this week, but I'm putting it on hold because it appears to me that there are more pressing issues in need of immediate address. Last issue, I wrote an article about the dating culture here on the University of Richmond campus. And here we are, two weeks later and still -- I have not received one response.
Why is it that taking out the trash is actually one of the most annoying things in the world? It is one of those irritating little chores that you are in total and utter denial about doing, and for no particular reason. It literally takes two minutes to walk the 20 steps to the nearest dumpster, but I would rather clean up the entire apartment twice with nothing but a tiny toothbrush than take out the godforsaken trash! They warn us during the first UFA block meeting that you absolutely cannot leave trash bags on your front stoop thing (note: STOOP KID from Hey Arnold should probably pop into your head with the mention of the word stoop -- if not, hopefully you're at least laughing about it now that I mentioned it, but if that's not even the case then you may consider perhaps re-examining your childhood). Yet, despite this warning about the trash-free zone, when I walked out of my apartment this morning I saw trash bags on both my neighbors' stoops.
Rumbling down Route 60, crammed in the back seat of an over-crowded Jeep, the vestiges of Saturday night's debauchery still lingering, I half wished I had stuck to my usual Sunday routine of noontime D-Hall and an unproductive afternoon in the library.
I am a Westhampton woman, but I have always been somewhat perplexed by what that means. I know Westhampton contains wonderfully bright and talented modern women, but I haven't seen that modernity reflected in Proclamation Night or Ring Dance.
By way of background, I am a former University College/School of Continuing Studies student who tries to keep up with what is going on at UR.
I have spent some time poring over both Ms. Hailand's and Ms. Parker's arguments for and against Proclamation Night, yet I feel that there are some key points that have been neglected.
Last Tuesday I read the scathing letter an alumnus sent about student (non)attendance at the football game on Family Weekend. The letter lit a bit of a fire beneath many students' tushes because the author pitted the Richmond student body as over-indulged, self-absorbed, apathetic ninnies. I was angry, too.
What a week! This is just one of those weeks. ... It's one of those weeks where everything seems to be going wrong. You run out of print credits, you leave your phone in your room, you can't find your SpiderCard, the panini line is ALWAYS long, you have three midterms and five papers, your mom feels needy and won't stop calling, it's rainy, you feel chubby, you run out of underwear but you have no time to do laundry so you're wearing bathing suit bottoms and everyone thinks that you're wearing granny panties and if there's a hard object in a mile radius of your foot, you're probably going to stub your toe on it.
Guy: "Hey, [girl's name]! How are you?" (Ye olde Richmonde tip-of-the-hat gestural question, which more than certainly does not require an answer other than...) Girl: "Good, what about you?" (Naturally, he's --) Guy: "Good." (Action complete.) "So, do you have a lot of work to do tonight?" And then, in what I would have thought would be taken as an irresistibly Michael Cera-ish way, "Just because, you know ... I just wanted to know if you had any plans because ... well, me and a few people were talking about maybe hanging out for a little while." His line here continues, but I just want to stop and note that to complete the visual of the situation, you must know that he stood in one spot and pivoted in place in order to maintain eye contact as she continuously sidled around him toward the library entranceway. Despite her impressively rapid sideways movement, I was able to catch her eyes rolling from my seat on the library bench as he tried to find the right way to ask her to chill with him. Guy (cont.): "Anyway, I'd love if you came and hung out, too." (Phew -- right as she got her first foot in the door.) "I mean, if you don't have too much work, or whatever." Girl: "Uh -- now I do." (I'm not kidding.
I was the first of the three University of Richmond women living in my apartment in San Sebastian, Spain, to walk through the door to our new home. My roommates yelled up through the window to ask what I thought. "It's um ... nice," I replied. I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I can tell you this was not it. When the door opened, it revealed a long, very skinny hallway with six doors lining the walls: one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom, one for the living room -- with a velvet couch with a pattern that looked like a mix between Native American art and Grandma-style floral -- and three for each of our bedrooms. There was no open space.
Christine -- I have always highly valued opinions that challenge long-standing and established traditions that have come to be accepted as the norm. I value them in the sense that, when something is challenged or questioned, the process of developing a sustainable defense forces one to really step back and look at the tradition and its continuing importance. This analytical assessment, when the defense can be formulated, not only validates the existence of the tradition, but also strengthens the foundations of the tradition's significance and its contributions to its current context. However, I am not able to extract any worth in empty criticism for criticism's sake as I find some of your "concerns" to be. This being said, I have a few things to say in response to the statements you voiced regarding Proclamation Night. Before I address your specific concerns, I would just like to offer a caveat to keep in mind throughout your next two and a half years at the University of Richmond, a university which places high value on intellectual and social credibility. Before offering up an opinion, issuing a statement, turning in a research paper, etc., especially one that will be featured in a published document to the entire school, make sure you have done your research and that the sources you use are reliable. More importantly, when offering an opinion about something, it should be something with which you have firsthand experience or knowledge. Having never attended Proclamation Night, I am surprised that you feel you have the qualifications to write such a detailed critique. Keeping this in mind, I hope that if my response to your opinion teaches you nothing else, you at least walk away understanding the value of thorough research and being an informed member of the community.
Before I begin, allow me to give some insight into who I am and what I believe. I am politically and socially liberal.
As a former editorialist for this very student paper, I know a thing or two about hitting the "Send" button too quickly, about not really thinking things over sufficiently before letting them get to print, about wanting a Mulligan after it's a little too late for one.
For all who don't know, Proclamation Night and Investiture are ceremonies that first-year students and seniors partake in together.
Say it's a sunny Friday afternoon, you just finished classes and you're free for the weekend. Say you and your friends decide to go to Short Pump to do some shopping and grab dinner before you go out. Say you're driving down UR Drive, "Like a G6" is blaring on the radio and everyone is doing their individual renditions of a cute car dance. Say you drive past a group of boys, and BAMMMM, you hit a speed bump and look like a total loser. Say this happens about seven times on your way off campus and that the speed bumps consistently salt your game, run the risk of ruining your car and are perhaps one of the most obnoxious obstacles standing in the way of you and Friday afternoon freedom ... just say ... I can't even tell you how many times I've experienced the mellow-harshing reality of consecutive speed bumps on the way out of campus. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for safety, and am a firm follower of the speed limits around campus, but does anyone else agree with me when I say that the University of Richmond went speed bump overboard this year?
I was standing in my friend's UFA kitchen last weekend, talking with him about whatever series of unusual events was taking place in each of our respective lives. My friend was mid-sentence when his face completely disappeared from view; it was replaced by a refrigerator door, which was immediately replaced with a small backwards hat atop a seemingly uncontainable amount of hair. Being that the friend in question was the apartment resident, it took me a few seconds to register exactly what had just happened. Upon realization, I tried not to let my absolute appall get in the way of my speech, and I directly addressed the baseball hat wearer.
While I agree with Mr. Anderton that it was disheartening to see so many students leave this past weekend's football game early, I find his personal attacks to be even more disheartening. To characterize the student body as "self-absorbed and over-indulged group of apathetic human beings" is a vast exaggeration, especially when making such a generalization regarding a football game. There are students on campus that work two jobs, that volunteer throughout the city of Richmond and that stay up late in the library to succeed at this academically challenging institution.
I thought I was going to get over this, but the more I think about it, the madder I get. I am fortunate enough to have tickets to the Richmond Spiders football games this year, but unfortunately, that also provided me with the opportunity to witness one of the most pathetic examples of student spirit I have ever seen. I'm not sure how many seats there are in the so-called "student section," but by the third quarter of last week's game, it was empty.
Recently I've been waking up with night sweats and experiencing a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. At first, I suspected that I had been bitten by a radioactive spider and decided that before I was ready to take on the Green Goblin, I would have to trade in my identity for a red and blue mesh onesy from American Apparel (what?
OK, so this topic is very near and dear to my heart. Every time I think about it, I just can't help getting a bit fired up ... about Boatwright bathrooms.
