Friday, January 22, 1999
Labels can mean everything in school
Wearing wrong clothes may invite name calling from peers
If it’s true that adversity builds character, the dawn of a new
quarter at UCLA gives all of us a chance to become stronger, more
interesting people. Nothing enhances character like waking up at
seven in the morning to endure a business lecture, especially when
you and your friends spent the previous night discovering how much
beer a person has to drink before he can no longer speak his native
language.
Many of us obviously need to do some character building,
especially that kid over there to your left – a clear example of
dressing for success (First Place: World’s Biggest Dweeb). Either
this guy is making some sort of statement ("I am legally blind"),
or he just arrived from planet Xenar and hasn’t had time to ditch
his "space suit."
Even worse are those poor women who wear their hair big enough
to capture radio transmissions from space aliens millions of light
years away.
I don’t know why everyone wastes time investigating "Area 51."
It’s perfectly obvious that an extraterrestrial cover-up is the
only reason a person would be caught in public with, to all
appearances, the pelt of a large woodland animal strapped to her
head.
Fortunately, the school environment is a powerful antidote for
bad fashion sense. I learned this lesson very early when, in the
second grade, I wore a sweater that – honest to God – used no fewer
than 312 different colors.
It involved colors that were not even part of the visible
spectrum, colors that seeped past a person’s conscious awareness
and had the sole effect, from a scientific standpoint, of making
that person laugh until the contents of his or her juice box came
bubbling out of his or her nose.
Thankfully, many of my peers indicated I had made an unwise
ensemble decision. They provided helpful, encouraging comments,
such as, "Dude, your sweater looks like something my dog threw up
last night."
Witty, even in my formative years, I immediately shot back, "Oh,
yeah? Well, your sweater looks like something my dog threw up last
night." And then I laughed heartily, as if to prove (was there any
doubt?) that this was indeed the funniest, most cunning thing any
second-grader had ever said.
At the start of the day, I had walked through the halls with a
self-confident grin, thinking, "Eat your heart out, Magnum
P.I."
By four in the afternoon I was rummaging through the junk drawer
in our house for a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches. I
would erase the shirt and any evidence that I had ever worn it,
including a few dozen 10-year-olds.
Naturally, fun and enlightening experiences like this don’t end
in grade school, but rather continue through high school, where you
might as well tattoo "dork" across your forehead if you don’t know
the fashion flavor of the month.
Of course, being a bit of the rebellious sort, I didn’t tattoo
"dork" across my forehead. I asserted my independence – not to
mention my spiritual strength – and carried a 35-pound flashing
neon sign that said "DORK" in capital letters.
The more ambitious types outdid even me and had their bones
broken in such a way that, from a certain angle, their bodies
actually spelled the word "dork." There are a number of football
players who will do this free of charge, regardless of whether or
not you ask them.
Whatever you do, don’t try to pretend that last month’s fashion
is still "in" when everyone – including brainless, one-celled
organisms, common pond scum and even a few freshmen – knows it is
decidedly passe. Not that I’m bitter about the sweater or
anything.
Even in college there are plenty of ways to build character.
Fashion is no longer a chief problem, but adversity comes in
other forms, such as 30-page term papers on the evolutionary
advantages of the hangnail.
Luckily, we have the university professor as our ally in our
fight to build character. College instructors work tirelessly in a
diligent and unceasing crusade to find new, creative ways of making
students wish they had never been born.
They often generate ideas by "brainstorming" together in small
groups called "think tanks" while smoking Cuban cigars the size of
"pygmy children."
The following is an actual excerpt from a secret conversation
among university professors, recorded – for the first time ever –
on hidden microphones that exist only in my imagination.
Professor 1: Hey, I’ve got an idea! Maybe we could put them in
classrooms with no oxygen and teach them by remote!
Professor 2: Gee, that’s swell!
Professor 3: Gordy, I don’t think we’re allowed to actually kill
the students.
Professor 1: Damn.
It’s exactly this sort of thing that makes professors wonder why
they went to school for 38 years to teach in a "free" country that
doesn’t even let you kill people from time to time. "Hey," they
plead in frantic letters to local congressman and lobbyists, "What
if we only kill the ugly ones?"
Invariably, the congressman or lobbyist responds, "Dear Man or
Woman, we would like to do everything in our power to help you, but
unfortunately we do not have time for these down-to-earth and, dare
we say it, ultimately plebeian goals. We might, however, have a
chance of coming ‘down-to-earth’ and meeting your request if, ahem,
our wallets were a little heavier, if you know what we mean."
Despite the rebuke, these dauntless souls forge on with iron
conviction, and not without brilliant results. Remember, professors
are the ones who brought us the dreaded group project and the
mind-numbing three-hour recitation.
Occasionally, when the malt liquor flows too freely, the
professors taunt each other about their ineffectiveness, flinging
barbed comments like, "You couldn’t teach your way out of a sexual
education class," or "I heard you didn’t flunk anyone this quarter,
loser."
Of course, when all is said and done, these people know their
job (boring us back to the Stone Age in a concerted effort to reach
tenure and take year-long sabbaticals in the Florida Keys), and
they do it well.
I, for one, am thankful. If not for my professors, I might never
have known the answer to such titillating conjectures as, "How do
batteries work?" and, "What is hell really like, anyway?" Every day
is a fun-filled adventure, every lecture a poison dart aimed
straight at your heart, for reasons of character-building, of
course.
On a personal aside, however, if I want true
character-building-adversity, I don’t look to my professor, or a
term paper, or even a reading assignment for a general education
class.
No, I have seen the pinnacle of adversity, have conquered it
even, and I tell people, you don’t know what real pain is, truly,
honestly know, until you’ve eaten at Taco Bell.Tona Scinta
Scinta is your worst nightmare. He is also a first-year graduate
student in social psychology. Contact him at [email protected].
Comments, feedback, problems?
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