That’s What She Said

Today you decide that it would be a great day to go on an admissions tour of the greatest undergraduate institution in the land: your own.

Ever since you decided on this college, you have unexpectedly missed the good ol’ days when you stepped on campus as a bewildered high school senior, more concerned with getting a respectable grade point average than getting laid. Now that you have set your priorities straight, it’s time to have a little fun with the tour groups that clog traffic on the way to lunch every day.

But first, you must find a way to disguise yourself. You decide the best option is to grab a map of the school, your old copy of the course catalog handed out at orientation, and to wear sunglasses. Nothing screams “I’M VISITING” than walking around on the freshman quad with a map in hand. Last time you checked, most of the real students could find the campus center drunk, blindfolded, or both.

You get to the admissions office and there’s already a good-sized crowd milling about. Half of them look really paranoid because as high school juniors they have not yet been welcomed with open arms by the greatest undergraduate institution in the land. Secretly, this makes you feel very smug. The other half are the parents and aren’t even worth looking at.

The admissions tour guide arrives, and immediately you can tell she’s the kind that is overly enthusiastic and tells cheesy jokes. But you don’t say anything because you know she takes karate at the college and could probably break your arm in half if she was so inclined. Nevertheless, this does not detract you entirely from your mission.

“At the college, we pride ourselves on having over 30 majors in a variety of subjects. What would you like to major in?”

You realize that she is talking to you. You start by saying that after getting a 2350 on the SAT in the 8th grade, a 35.99999 on the ACT in the 9th grade, and 5 in the Biology, Chemistry, German Literature, and Physics: Electricity and Magnetism AP tests in 10th grade, and your IB diploma in the 11th grade, you decided that the lowly classes offered by your high school was not enough, so you enrolled in Advanced Latin Translations of Socrates at the local community college.

After being asked to serve as a T.A. for the class the next semester, you took a leave of absence in which you helped out poor orphans in six different third-world countries and learned to juggle bowling pins lit on fire.

But really what you want to do is to major in Economics, because that’s the only way people can make a living nowadays.

Unfortunately you don’t get a response, because while you were too busy listing off your great accomplishments, the tour group somehow moved farther away.

Halfway through the tour, you walk by a statue of a famous poet.

“And this is Robert Frost, who taught here at the college…”

You raise your hand and ask if it is true that college freshman, as part of their initiation rite on the second week of school, are required to serve all of the seniors in the underground fraternities by stealing kegs stored in the basement of the library.

“Uh…Amherst does not have or condone any fraternities.”

Of course you knew this, so you point out the fact that you meant the underground fraternities, and perhaps it was not so much the second week of school as it was the entire month. By now the parents are staring at you with a look of disgust, but you don’t notice because you’re too busy being entertained by the flustered tour guide.

“And I also heard that you have an animal infestation problem. I heard a student was bitten by a rabid fox. And every Sunday you have streakers. Streaker Sunday.”

The tour guide’s eyes are getting bigger and bigger, until suddenly another look pops into her face. Suddenly you realize that she recognizes you because you were the one who was daring enough to contradict a conservative professor on his views.

Before you know it, she has you pinned down on the ground. You hear a popping noise and realize that it’s your ligaments snapping from the weird angle your arm is twisted in. You promise yourself this is the last tour you’ll ever go on.

Happy Heckle a Tour Group Day!

—

According to FireStats, I have had two hundred and seven unique visits since my blog was launched. For the two hundred and two people who have not commented on my blog, all of you should do so immediately before I become depressed at my lack of popularity. For the four people who have commented on my blog, all of you get a great big virtual hug. *squeeze*

And for all you math majors out there, who have noticed that 202 + 4 does not equal 207, I would like to note that I didn’t count myself. See, students of the humanities CAN do quantitative problems!

I will take requests for content, comments until Hell freezes over, and comments from Hell in general.

—

The Center for Community Engagement often encourages students to think about how their academic coursework can connect to their service work.

In an attempt to make this post more accessible to the general student body, here I will connect my academic coursework to life…in general.

Also, I didn’t credit any of these authors, for fear of violent reprisal. Chances are slim for any potential book deals that raise the possibility of my being sued for plagiarism and intellectual theft. Slander is still an option, though.

ECONOMICS

“The law of diminishing marginal returns (or diminishing marginal product) holds that if a firm keeps increasing an input, holding all other inputs and technology constant, the corresponding increases in output will become smaller eventually.”

Real Life Lesson: You really shouldn’t take another turn on beer pong.

LJST

“Appellee was indicted in the district court for southern Illinois for violation of the Act by the shipment in interstate commerce of certain packages of ‘Milnut,’ a compound of condensed skimmed milk and coconut oil made in imitation or semblance of condensed milk or cream.”

Real Life Lesson: You’re kidding, right?

POLITICAL SCIENCE 

“Whereas the long-run proportion of democracies at the low level will be P(d)*(L) = p(AD)/(pAD + pDA), at the high level it will be pD*(H) = 1/(1 + pDA), so that the equilibrium proportion of democracies will be higher at the higher level, pD*(L) < pD*(H).”

Real Life Lesson: If you want to sound smart in academia, use math in the social sciences.

Note- “Iraq + invasion = democracy” does not compute as a valid equation.

NEUROSCIENCE

“The first list below includes endogenous neuroactive extracellular signal transducers with known receptors. The list is composed of neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, neuropeptides, neurosteroids, and neuroactive hormones. The list does not include growth factors, cytokines, and intracellular second messengers; note that I have classified insulin as a growth factor.”

Real Life Lesson: The first list below includes endogenous neuroactive extracellular signal transducers with known receptors. The list is composed of neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, neuropeptides, neurosteroids, and neuroactive hormones. The list does not include growth factors, cytokines, and intracellular second messengers; note that I have classified insulin as a growth factor.

Dear Irradient,

I am a blogger registered on AmhPub. I couldn’t help but notice that even though the site has been well advertised with signs all over campus, there are still not many people who have registered with the site. I wish I could meet more like-minded people who are interested in blogging and proselytizing their liberal ideologies.

Furthermore, even those who have registered lack any posts in their blogs, making me very angry at having clicked on their pages and wasted a whole 10 seconds of my busy life that I could have spent on a much more popular online venue like the Daily Jolt, Amherst Confessional, Facebook, YouTube, or this blog here.

What can I do as a loyal follower of AmhPub to increase its visibility and participation on campus?

Sincerely,

Need More Pub(licity)

—

Dear Need,

I am sorry to hear that you have not found the online community you were hoping to find. Here at Amherst College, we strive for an inclusive, awkward, athletic, nerdy, caring, tolerant, enlightened, engaged, really engaged, and vibrant community in which all students can participate in an inbreeding of their ideas on a variety of innocuous issues. It is my hope that AmhPub can grow into this type of community, or in the very least, not fade into oblivion.

In the meantime, I highly suggest that you approach the AmhPub staff with your concerns.

Perhaps, they can institute a new rule that requires all students to register with the blog or be denied the opportunity to take any Economics classes, thus dooming their chances of ever earning a livable wage in investment banking. Similarly, you can consign students to the LJST department–though it does not believe in cruel and unusual punishment, it comes rather close with their mandatory thesis. Trust me, students would do anything to avoid this year-long incarceration in the library.

Ideally, you may be able to convince AmhPub to deliver free alcoholic beverages as a way to generate content, thus guaranteeing a 35% rise in posts, with half written in a drunken state of mind, as so eloquently demonstrated to us by a certain Indicator article last semester.

Best wishes,

Irradient

Success! My siren calls for the masses to flock to my newly-minted blog have resulted in a grand total of not just one but two comments. This, my friends, is a whopping 100% increase in my predictions.

Comment #1: “the theme of your blog should be only palindromes”

Excellent suggestion. First, reader #1, I thank you for implying that I have the brilliance to come up with palindromes for every day of the week and engage audiences with them. Unfortunately, I prefer pi. Oh my god, was that a palindrome? Do geese see god? May a moody baby doom a yam?

We will never know.

Comment #2: “So- I feel obliged to ask- who are you? (Take this as a good question- I was intrigued enough by your first post to ask…)”

I am a neurotic freshman.

If you are reading this blog, use the list below to see if you, too, are suffering from NFS (Neurotic Freshman Syndrome). If so, you may qualify for a study hosted by one of the 983748927342 Psychology majors to see how Amherst College can help you alleviate your symptoms.

Before participating in the study, please ask your doctor (or Ouija Board) to see if electroshock therapy is right for you.

—
You may be a neurotic freshman if…
1) You still freak out over grades not because you actually know how much they matter or don’t matter in life, but because this is what you did for the last four years of secondary school.

2) You have joined just about every single extracurricular activity on campus.
3) You have suffered burnout from joining every single extracurricular activity on campus.
4) Alternatively, you have had a hard time “adjusting” and spend your freshman days holed up in a dorm living a dismal life of scholarly seclusion.
5) Replace “scholarly seclusion” with “Facebook fanaticism.”

6) You threw up because you drank too much.
7) Alternatively, you don’t drink, because you think you’re paying way too much to be wasted all the time on the weekends.

You have tried (and failed) to discover your perfect major(s).
9) Alternatively, you already know what your major is, and have taken close to half of the requirements needed for its completion.

10) You really, really want to make a difference in the world: you desperately want the chance to prove your idealistic policies concerning world poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, gender inequality, and AIDS.
11) Alternatively, you give up these goals in the pursuit of a high enough GPA for grad school.

12) You have been upset because you fulfilled the Freshman 15 prophecy. What’s next–the sophomore slim-down?
13) You write, and re-write, your goals for college.
14) Alternatively, you decide college is the “time of your life” and balk on any sensible decision-making for several weeks straight. That is, until the Dean steps in…

15) You order a lot of pizza, especially around midterm season.
16) You suddenly start talking to a lot of random people from your old high school, just for the heck of it. Sometimes it’s just easier when you don’t see them every day on campus.
17) You join/snoop around the 2012 group to see who might be taking your coveted freshman spot next year.
18) You lament the inevitable loss of the best housing spot on campus due to room draw rules biased towards the upper classes.
19) You are wholly unaware of the fact that the other years refer to your group as “those stupid freshmen.”
20) You mistake a lot of upperclassmen for freshmen, thus reinforcing the unfortunate characterization above.

21) You join the Facebook groups that correspond to the actual groups you are part of on campus.
22) As a corollary, you create these groups.
23) As a follow-up, sometime you realize the absolute stupidity of the concept, and abandon these groups in a dramatic series of purges that elicit deluges of inquiries from your similarly neurotic freshmen friends.

24) You think you know all there is to college life simply because you are “in college.”
25) You get really upset whenever you think about freshman year ending, even though you really have three years ahead of you when the seniors have one semester.

26) You avoid anything that will betray the fact that you are a freshman–this list includes but is not limited to: not wearing your ID around your neck, hanging out with real upperclassmen, downplaying your crush on the college president, and mimicking the anger seniors have towards the futility of life and a good job offer.
27) Alternatively, you use the “I’m a clueless first year” card to milk an upperclassman’s knowledge for all it is worth.

28) You suffer multiple existentialist crises throughout the semester as you wonder how your brilliant professors escaped from the dark abysses of Ivy League law schools and competition-laced fellowships to receive comfortable life tenure AND still have a sense of humor. (This is only applicable if you’re vaguely contemplating a career in academia.)
29) You just suffer multiple existentialist crises.
30) You are part of a large or at least powerfully passionate cult dedicated to a professor on campus.
31) You are part of this cult because you are an easily impressionable freshman.
32) You carefully cull which pictures go on Facebook albums because you know this is the primary way other people (namely, the people from high school) find out what a great, awesome, party-it-up life you are leading.

33) You wonder a lot if you made the right choice to go to the school that you did.
34) Alternatively, you refuse to admit your feelings of uncertainty and choose instead to mask your anxiety by showcasing every single achievement or benefit your school has bestowed upon your glorious first year.
35) As a corollary, you list all the courses that you’re taking in your freshman year in all of their full-fledged fancy-course-name glory. (No one is going to know that you only see your professor less than 5 times a semester, right?)

If you can relate to any of these symptoms, contact a health professional immediately. Delay in doing so can result in drowsiness, existentialist crisis, or a rash.

I am sooo excited AmhPub is finally here. I have been eying those seductively attractive posters for ages now. Thank you, AmhPub, for letting me get wasted from the goblet of attention.

For the past few days, I have been contemplating what I should write in my blog in order to attract the most number of viewers. My past attempts at blogging have been rather unsuccessful: a reader here, a reader there…a stalker somewhere…

Since I lack any substantial collection of cute/fluffy/cute AND fluffy pictures of animals (see cuteoverload.com), experience on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (see http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/), or stories of inappropriate sexual escapades (see this page), I found my chances for instant sensational success abysmal indeed.

The more I thought about what to write, the more I said to myself, “Wow, is my inaugural post going to suck.” But wait, I forgot–no one reads this thing yet. And if you are reading it, but you think my post is lame and stupid, then Chuck Norris will kill a kitten.

I suppose the best way to go is to write about things that are particularly relevant to Amherst students. What strange food item (or even worse, non-food item) was found in the applesauce this morning? What Honor-Code-violating statement was posted on Amherst Confessional last night? Who fainted at the sight of Tony Marx this week?

Actually, I can’t make any promises. I may just write about my personal life, talk about my 4-year condemnation to eat chicken, apologize for taking cheap shots at Valentine Food, proselytize my liberal viewpoints, air my latest existentialist crisis. The wonderfully dull possibilities are endless.

I can’t make you read this blog, but I can take requests…so I open up this blog and ask what you would like to read about. And if tomorrow I wake up and there are no comments (or a stream of endless spam), well, I tried.