they say you were something in those formative years
Was reading Jintian's journal. Hit this. Thought. Wrote. The following.
Jintian --
You're in San Francisco, working off the Swarthmore overload. Listening to Alice in Chains, hey, say goodbye, don't follow. Pass me down that bottle.
If it were 1996, could be me. I ran away spring semester '96, fled to SF becaues it was about as far away as I could get in the continental United States. Had to shrug off Swarthmore, I said. (Though ask me if I didn't sit snooty in coffee shops in North Beach, bent over used paperbacks from City Lights, thinking about how much I'd impress the kids in my psychology class -- if they could see me now.)
But of course it's too far, it's another world. And the mumblies in Golden Gate Park, if you're lucky, say, "Swarthmore? Isn't that an all-girls' school in upstate New York?" (Note to readers: it's not.) And admit it: you get a little pissy.
Swarthmore, it's like the army. You want people to know what you've been through. Because what I'm trying to say, Jintian, is this.
You are blessed to be of a singular breed -- you're just too close to see it. The same way you can never explain to the layperson just how serious the fic community is, just how intimate and challenging and fulfilling -- the great big world of state schools and Ivy Leaguers won't know, have no IDEA what it's like to spend your formative years behind the narrow fort-windows of McCabe library.
I -- my friends and I -- we were the ones who lived above the flower shop, in the Barn, Swat Apartments and Greylock. We're the ones -- as a friend of mine put it -- smoking our cigarettes, ashing into our yogurt in the Tarble anteroom, blowing smoke into your fingers and fries. We monopolize the back room at Pub Nite. We started Cabaret. Go to the indy screenings in DuPont. Chartered the Kohlberg coffee bar and wrote treatises for the Phoenix on the art glass and the sundial. Honors-track double-majors, my friends were. Math/English. Theatre/Poli-Sci. I was, I believe, the first student officially in the film theory department, and we were ALL IT concentrations, till the end of time.
And somewhere in there in 1998, just like you, I hit critical mass. And I left, this time for LA. Didn't graduate. Didn't care.
Except now I'm out in the real world and the one thing I'm proudest of is my tenure at Swarthmore. "Anywhere else it would have been an A -- really!"
Guilty because I'm the fuckup who goofed off on a Saturday night when all my friends were holed up writing papers. The first and only place where being smart isn't just cool -- it's the LAW. And I ducked out too early.
Swear to god, Jintian, if you can make it there you'll make it anywhere. And in a world where football players ARE valued more highly than math or theatre geeks, dude, get OFF on a school that deserves its reputation for academic snobbery. Be a snob, in the name of all the underling elementary school nerds who got the shit kicked out of them at recess. Appreciate how amazing it is to be in a school where parties are canceled because of Chem 10 finals. Let out a primal scream.
There's so much to do, so much to take advantage of. Get a WSRN show and read Irigaray until six in the morning. Take the IT capstone. Write at 300 page thesis; get it published. Audition for a pretentious Directing 2 piece. Have an Andres at Paces, sit alone, read a book. Do your work, ace your tests, write your paper, get it done. I'd kill for the chance to do it again, to go back and really, REALLY appreciate what I had at the #1 school in the country. "We're not snobs, we're just better than you."
Get OFF on it, baby. In the real world, nobody cares. But if you can bring with you just a little bit of that sense of entitlement -- I'm brilliant, damn it! -- you'll rock, once you get out of there. And then a couple years from now, you'll be in Philly, or SF, or Brooklyn or Brussels, craving a Yuengling, a Ploughman's plate.
"Forgot my woman, lost my friends, things I've done and where I've been. Sleep in sweat, the mirror's cold -- seen my face it's growing old. Scared to death the reason why I do whatever to get me by. Think about the things I've said, read the page, it's cold and dead and take me home."
Say hi to everyone for me. Bob Gross. Ken Gergen. Allen Kuharski. Patty White. And send me a car sticker, will you? The long one, with Parrish in the middle?
I'm still proud.
Sab
7-21-01
Jintian --
You're in San Francisco, working off the Swarthmore overload. Listening to Alice in Chains, hey, say goodbye, don't follow. Pass me down that bottle.
If it were 1996, could be me. I ran away spring semester '96, fled to SF becaues it was about as far away as I could get in the continental United States. Had to shrug off Swarthmore, I said. (Though ask me if I didn't sit snooty in coffee shops in North Beach, bent over used paperbacks from City Lights, thinking about how much I'd impress the kids in my psychology class -- if they could see me now.)
But of course it's too far, it's another world. And the mumblies in Golden Gate Park, if you're lucky, say, "Swarthmore? Isn't that an all-girls' school in upstate New York?" (Note to readers: it's not.) And admit it: you get a little pissy.
Swarthmore, it's like the army. You want people to know what you've been through. Because what I'm trying to say, Jintian, is this.
You are blessed to be of a singular breed -- you're just too close to see it. The same way you can never explain to the layperson just how serious the fic community is, just how intimate and challenging and fulfilling -- the great big world of state schools and Ivy Leaguers won't know, have no IDEA what it's like to spend your formative years behind the narrow fort-windows of McCabe library.
I -- my friends and I -- we were the ones who lived above the flower shop, in the Barn, Swat Apartments and Greylock. We're the ones -- as a friend of mine put it -- smoking our cigarettes, ashing into our yogurt in the Tarble anteroom, blowing smoke into your fingers and fries. We monopolize the back room at Pub Nite. We started Cabaret. Go to the indy screenings in DuPont. Chartered the Kohlberg coffee bar and wrote treatises for the Phoenix on the art glass and the sundial. Honors-track double-majors, my friends were. Math/English. Theatre/Poli-Sci. I was, I believe, the first student officially in the film theory department, and we were ALL IT concentrations, till the end of time.
And somewhere in there in 1998, just like you, I hit critical mass. And I left, this time for LA. Didn't graduate. Didn't care.
Except now I'm out in the real world and the one thing I'm proudest of is my tenure at Swarthmore. "Anywhere else it would have been an A -- really!"
Guilty because I'm the fuckup who goofed off on a Saturday night when all my friends were holed up writing papers. The first and only place where being smart isn't just cool -- it's the LAW. And I ducked out too early.
Swear to god, Jintian, if you can make it there you'll make it anywhere. And in a world where football players ARE valued more highly than math or theatre geeks, dude, get OFF on a school that deserves its reputation for academic snobbery. Be a snob, in the name of all the underling elementary school nerds who got the shit kicked out of them at recess. Appreciate how amazing it is to be in a school where parties are canceled because of Chem 10 finals. Let out a primal scream.
There's so much to do, so much to take advantage of. Get a WSRN show and read Irigaray until six in the morning. Take the IT capstone. Write at 300 page thesis; get it published. Audition for a pretentious Directing 2 piece. Have an Andres at Paces, sit alone, read a book. Do your work, ace your tests, write your paper, get it done. I'd kill for the chance to do it again, to go back and really, REALLY appreciate what I had at the #1 school in the country. "We're not snobs, we're just better than you."
Get OFF on it, baby. In the real world, nobody cares. But if you can bring with you just a little bit of that sense of entitlement -- I'm brilliant, damn it! -- you'll rock, once you get out of there. And then a couple years from now, you'll be in Philly, or SF, or Brooklyn or Brussels, craving a Yuengling, a Ploughman's plate.
"Forgot my woman, lost my friends, things I've done and where I've been. Sleep in sweat, the mirror's cold -- seen my face it's growing old. Scared to death the reason why I do whatever to get me by. Think about the things I've said, read the page, it's cold and dead and take me home."
Say hi to everyone for me. Bob Gross. Ken Gergen. Allen Kuharski. Patty White. And send me a car sticker, will you? The long one, with Parrish in the middle?
I'm still proud.
Sab
7-21-01