As is always the case, but seems particularly so this year, summer is passing me by all too quickly. I am thoroughly enjoying my internship here at The Dispatch, and I am even beginning to warm to Columbus itself. But all too soon (in about 4 weeks) I will be leaving here for good. And it certainly feels like I only just got here.
I am, however, getting increasingly excited about my return back to Smith. Despite my many complaints about that place, I am looking forward to that beautiful campus, seeing my friends again, great classes and the many responsibilities I will be taking on in the fall. I'm already fulfilling some elements of my roles as Dawes House HC and Sophian editor-in-chief and can't wait to do more.
But I can't help to feel like this summer has passed me by. Combined with my Parisian nostalgia and looks to the future the present has become a bit of a blur. It is great to be working though, and even better to be working in an exciting and challenging position that offers me something new every night. So, no complaints here, just hoping to make the best of the rest of the summer.
Musique: "Le Chemin" Kyo
Showing posts with label Smith College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smith College. Show all posts
20 July 2009
09 April 2009
Things I Like RIGHT NOW
Synecdoche, New York by Charlie Kaufman – Considering critics have compared it to Beckett, Proust, Kafka and Woody Allen, it was probably a given that I would like Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut. It doesn’t hurt that I find Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to be utter genius and the screenplay of Adaptation to be one of the most mind-blowing and innovative ever. I was not in the least disappointed by this movie despite my immense expectations. The words that come to mind in describing this film, however, don’t at first seem incredibly positive: it’s emotionally-disturbing, disorienting, agonizing, troubling, alienating and overall painful. But the true and sincere emotion that this multi-layered film evoked in me more than made up for the pain and discomfort of the viewing experience. Plus, Kaufman does manage to work in a view laughs and visual gags (often at our pitiful and pitiable main character’s expense) for levity’s sake. All this said, I can’t really recommend the film to anyone but myself. It’s not a particularly enjoyable experience, and the movie’s sentiments can very easily hit as clichéd or pretentious or simply irrelevant if you are not the type of person that spends a lot of time reflecting on subjectivity, art, isolation and regret. Still, I was moved in a strange and unpredictable way by Kaufman’s epically subtle and cerebrally tender work.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – I know I’m a bit late to the game, but I finally picked up this novel and fell in love with it. As a Smithie, I believe it’s obligatory to have read this iconic and metonymic work by one of our most famous alumna. It is likewise obligatory reading for any self-reflective, self-deprecating, depression-prone, slightly counter-culture, literary young woman (look no further than 10 Things I Hate About You). So, I realize how clichéd it is to say that I’ve fell in love with the book, but I found the novel extremely touching and true. Plath captures so perfectly the universal inner workings of depression and her own downward spiral toward self-destruct that I sometimes felt like it was me she was describing on the page. It’s tragic and it’s touching, especially given the inevitable end of Plath’s real life story, but the simple elegance with which Plath writes is inspiring. And each moment, we sit by hoping that Esther Greenwood will find a way to get out from under that bell jar, because if she can do it, we can too.
The Smiths.
Musique: “Eye Know” De La Soul
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – I know I’m a bit late to the game, but I finally picked up this novel and fell in love with it. As a Smithie, I believe it’s obligatory to have read this iconic and metonymic work by one of our most famous alumna. It is likewise obligatory reading for any self-reflective, self-deprecating, depression-prone, slightly counter-culture, literary young woman (look no further than 10 Things I Hate About You). So, I realize how clichéd it is to say that I’ve fell in love with the book, but I found the novel extremely touching and true. Plath captures so perfectly the universal inner workings of depression and her own downward spiral toward self-destruct that I sometimes felt like it was me she was describing on the page. It’s tragic and it’s touching, especially given the inevitable end of Plath’s real life story, but the simple elegance with which Plath writes is inspiring. And each moment, we sit by hoping that Esther Greenwood will find a way to get out from under that bell jar, because if she can do it, we can too.
The Smiths.
Musique: “Eye Know” De La Soul
13 March 2009
To Res Life or not to Res Life?
That is a question.
The small French-themed house that I will be living in next year at Smith, is – or at least was last I knew – still in need of an HC (basically an RA or whatever you call those people on normal campuses) for next year. I initially was not in the least bit interested in this position, but I’m beginning to think that it might be a good idea. I guess I should try weighing some of the pros and cons.
Pros
Getting paid
Having a suite for a room
Good life experience
Nice addition to my résumé
Getting to know more people
Having a reason to spend more time at Smith
Getting more involved on Campus
Not having to deal with adjusting first-years or roommate drama
Cons
Time commitment
Returning to Smith 2 weeks early and over J-Term (see pro no. 6)
Bureaucracy
Training sessions
Being the bad guy
Juggling the Sophian, schoolwork, life and this
Needing “intrapersonal” skills
Responsibility
Anyway, I’m still thinking about it. And I’m hoping to talk to the current HC of the house to hear her experience. What do you think?
Musique: “Je voudrais déjà être roi” Le Roi Lion
The small French-themed house that I will be living in next year at Smith, is – or at least was last I knew – still in need of an HC (basically an RA or whatever you call those people on normal campuses) for next year. I initially was not in the least bit interested in this position, but I’m beginning to think that it might be a good idea. I guess I should try weighing some of the pros and cons.
Pros
Getting paid
Having a suite for a room
Good life experience
Nice addition to my résumé
Getting to know more people
Having a reason to spend more time at Smith
Getting more involved on Campus
Not having to deal with adjusting first-years or roommate drama
Cons
Time commitment
Returning to Smith 2 weeks early and over J-Term (see pro no. 6)
Bureaucracy
Training sessions
Being the bad guy
Juggling the Sophian, schoolwork, life and this
Needing “intrapersonal” skills
Responsibility
Anyway, I’m still thinking about it. And I’m hoping to talk to the current HC of the house to hear her experience. What do you think?
Musique: “Je voudrais déjà être roi” Le Roi Lion
05 February 2009
Official Smith College Rant
It’s odd that since I’ve been abroad and, thus, away from Smith, I’ve become more away of the things about Smith that repulse me. You would think that being away from the college would make me nostalgic for the things I love about it, but it’s only given me more perspective to reflect on the elements of Smith that I’m not so fond of. This is not to say that I’m not at least partly excited to return back there for my senior year, but I have to confess that I am glad it’s only one more year.
There are certainly many great things about Smith. I’ve had a number of amazing professors and classes. Their French department is outstanding. This JYA program is one of the best. And despite what I may say about Smithies, I have met a lot of great people.
But I can’t help but think about how things would have been different somewhere else. Although I’m not completely regretful of the last three years of my life, I am almost positive that if given the chance to choose again I would not have chosen Smith.
To be fair, in this hypothetical situation, I would not choose a women’s college at all. Before I went to Smith, I wasn’t opposed to the idea of single-sex education, but I wasn’t all gung-ho about the women’s college aspect either. I figure that going to Smith was a way to allow me to go to the best college I could get into and that I could afford (thanks to financial aid).
Now, I am beginning to doubt the relevancy of single-sex education. Coming out of high school, where I had been taught by predominantly male instructors and was one a few females in my higher level math and science classes, I was excited at the prospect of tipping the balance at Smith. But I quickly grew tired of the equally skewed worldview that Smith had to offer. Constantly reading texts by and about women is boring and patronizing. As far as I am aware, women still only represent 50 percent of the population; continually framing classes around women is as equally exclusive as – if not more exclusive than – the male-dominated history we are trying to correct. What’s more, this assumption that these are the texts that would speak to us, that we would inherently enjoy and understand, is, as I said, patronizing.
Everything does not have to be framed in the cadre of gender roles and norms. It’s a bit frustrating – and equally unrealistic. In the real world, people do not spend their time sitting around reflecting on our differences like this. In a career, the philosophical reflection of the gender gap and women’s roles in the workplace doesn’t matter. NO ONE CARES. It’s only us at women’s colleges who sit around musing on these things over and over. Yes, women have been oppressed; yes, women at times face difficult challenges; yes, the list goes on; but ruminating on it the way we do at Smith only makes these divides greater and creates an us-against-them mentality. Suddenly every man out there in the real world is a secret chauvinist, fighting to uphold the patriarchy. We’re simply weaving a web of paranoia. It’s ridiculous.
Not to mention the social element of an environment filled with overly dramatic, cliquey females, grasping onto the high-school, popularity-contest culture in which they thrived. The whole thing is unbearably drama filled.
Smith is made up of an odd assortment of various self-selected groups. My *favorite* are the East-Coast elite/wannabes, clinging to Smith’s historic “women’s ivy” status (often because they didn’t get in to Harvard, Yale or Brown). I know those individuals don’t constitute all of Smith, but they do seem to be everywhere you turn.
Maybe it’s the East-Coast thing that’s just not right for me or maybe it’s something special about Smith, but either way I never realized how out of place I would feel as a student on major financial aid among a crowd of rich girls.
And the bureaucracy of the institution that is “Smith College” adds another whole layer of frustration. The college is full of its own history and own false sense of self-worth. In the majority of the country the phrase “Smith College” means very little, but while on campus, they would have you believe that those two magic words bear a burden of history and tradition that is perhaps not even rivaled by Oxford. Surely I exaggerate, but they would have you believe that “Smith College” magically opens doors. It’s not true. I’m not really sure if it ever was true; the college has simply become deluded by its own faux power.
With all that being said, I don’t really know how different things would be anywhere else. Obviously, I have no counter-experience with which to compare it. And despite all this, I don’t think these last three years have been a waste. It’s all part of a greater experience that is life, and part of the fun of it is that you can’t do it over again, even though counterfactuals are inevitable – and fun.
I’d just been thinking about all of that lately…
Musique: "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" Broken Social Scene
There are certainly many great things about Smith. I’ve had a number of amazing professors and classes. Their French department is outstanding. This JYA program is one of the best. And despite what I may say about Smithies, I have met a lot of great people.
But I can’t help but think about how things would have been different somewhere else. Although I’m not completely regretful of the last three years of my life, I am almost positive that if given the chance to choose again I would not have chosen Smith.
To be fair, in this hypothetical situation, I would not choose a women’s college at all. Before I went to Smith, I wasn’t opposed to the idea of single-sex education, but I wasn’t all gung-ho about the women’s college aspect either. I figure that going to Smith was a way to allow me to go to the best college I could get into and that I could afford (thanks to financial aid).
Now, I am beginning to doubt the relevancy of single-sex education. Coming out of high school, where I had been taught by predominantly male instructors and was one a few females in my higher level math and science classes, I was excited at the prospect of tipping the balance at Smith. But I quickly grew tired of the equally skewed worldview that Smith had to offer. Constantly reading texts by and about women is boring and patronizing. As far as I am aware, women still only represent 50 percent of the population; continually framing classes around women is as equally exclusive as – if not more exclusive than – the male-dominated history we are trying to correct. What’s more, this assumption that these are the texts that would speak to us, that we would inherently enjoy and understand, is, as I said, patronizing.
Everything does not have to be framed in the cadre of gender roles and norms. It’s a bit frustrating – and equally unrealistic. In the real world, people do not spend their time sitting around reflecting on our differences like this. In a career, the philosophical reflection of the gender gap and women’s roles in the workplace doesn’t matter. NO ONE CARES. It’s only us at women’s colleges who sit around musing on these things over and over. Yes, women have been oppressed; yes, women at times face difficult challenges; yes, the list goes on; but ruminating on it the way we do at Smith only makes these divides greater and creates an us-against-them mentality. Suddenly every man out there in the real world is a secret chauvinist, fighting to uphold the patriarchy. We’re simply weaving a web of paranoia. It’s ridiculous.
Not to mention the social element of an environment filled with overly dramatic, cliquey females, grasping onto the high-school, popularity-contest culture in which they thrived. The whole thing is unbearably drama filled.
Smith is made up of an odd assortment of various self-selected groups. My *favorite* are the East-Coast elite/wannabes, clinging to Smith’s historic “women’s ivy” status (often because they didn’t get in to Harvard, Yale or Brown). I know those individuals don’t constitute all of Smith, but they do seem to be everywhere you turn.
Maybe it’s the East-Coast thing that’s just not right for me or maybe it’s something special about Smith, but either way I never realized how out of place I would feel as a student on major financial aid among a crowd of rich girls.
And the bureaucracy of the institution that is “Smith College” adds another whole layer of frustration. The college is full of its own history and own false sense of self-worth. In the majority of the country the phrase “Smith College” means very little, but while on campus, they would have you believe that those two magic words bear a burden of history and tradition that is perhaps not even rivaled by Oxford. Surely I exaggerate, but they would have you believe that “Smith College” magically opens doors. It’s not true. I’m not really sure if it ever was true; the college has simply become deluded by its own faux power.
With all that being said, I don’t really know how different things would be anywhere else. Obviously, I have no counter-experience with which to compare it. And despite all this, I don’t think these last three years have been a waste. It’s all part of a greater experience that is life, and part of the fun of it is that you can’t do it over again, even though counterfactuals are inevitable – and fun.
I’d just been thinking about all of that lately…
Musique: "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" Broken Social Scene
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
