a tale of two campuses
my ankle hurts. Ben, Jen “Dreamin’ One” Kerner, and i went to SPAC, and in the course of playing some basketball, i turned my left ankle. my left foot area is in bad shape. i had already hurt it when running (i have flat feet, boo hoo). oh, and i played basketball at SPAC yesterday, too; Jitim Young was there, and i think he kept looking at me kind of funny, perhaps because of my Illini t-shirt. oh well. i guarded this 6′2, 210 lb. black strong safety-ish football player. it didn’t go so well.
did you know that Ben’s site is the first result on Google when you search for “mill arendt argue?” impressive, huh? Ben sure thinks so, hahah. oh, and try searching for “ben cherry” and see if it comes up in the first 10 pages. (ok, it’s page 3, cut ‘im some slack…)
hey Mary and Adele: she’s putting you to shame, girls. get a move-on.
i know i’ve blogged about this before, but i feel like i can’t emphasize it enough. Northwestern has two schools: north and south. sure, there are “pockets of resistance” (e.g. the sorority quads and Allison down south), but i think that an incredible amount of one’s experience at NU is determined by where one lives as a freshman (and likely sophomore). since i’ve been going to SPAC a lot in the past month or two, i come in contact with more north campus kids. they seem like they don’t belong at NU — at least the NU that i know. it’s the same way i feel when i walk around the frat quad; it’s interesting, sure, but it’s like taking a field trip to UW or something. i really think that NU has to have one of the more defined splits of any school out there. we’re big enough so that north and south can each have their own “culture,” yet not so big that the culture becomes a amorphous conglomeration of individual groups (a la Illinois).
perhaps the biggest problem with this split is the eagerness of members on each side to drive their differences to extremes. up north, you’ve got the state school-wanna frat guys, as gorgeously described by Ben. these kids are the WORST. i just want to smack the shit out of them and send them crying back to their Nissan Pathfinders. oh well.
on the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the holier-than-thou artsy types. lotta these kids in Chapin, and they seem to be carrying on a tradition. on Dillo Day a few days ago, some Chapinos from 20 years ago came back for a reunion, and in the course of talking to them, it was quite easy to discern that they still had a raw disdain, even malevolence, for the preppy Greek kids. i guess old grudges die hard. the artsy types aren’t cooler than you the way the up-north kids are; they’re just more cultured.
anyhow, i don’t think i fit into either stereotype. of course, most kids here don’t, and i probably try to squeeze more of them than i should into those two boxes. oh well, it’s easier that way. but the moral of the story? choose your freshman dorm wisely!