Friday, October 13, 2006

Worst Week Ever Archive 1

As promised here is the first op-ed column I ever wrote for the Wesleyan Argus. Ah, when I could get things done on time...

Worst Week Ever: Age After Beauty

By Calvin Cato


After four years of deliberation and failed manuscript ideas, I have decided that I should have a column devoted to me and my big mouth. Nothing too praiseworthy of course, just something that will strike at the heart of pop culture, and have my name prominently listed at the top of each article. I want a column where style meets substance and says "See ya!"

So under the influence of too little sleep, too many mind-altering drugs, and just a dash of VH1, I have come up with this: Worst Week Ever. It is a completely biased and unfair look at today's society, where idle jabs and catty swipes are commonplace. It is where I stop being polite and start getting real. Names just might be changed to protect the guilty but funny events go in as is.

Now that we've got our little intros out of the way, let's talk about who's having the best week ever: freshmen. All young and wide-eyed and reeking of cheap vodka. They think they can do it all: classes, parties, acting performances, activist dinners, Argus journalism. Overachievers. When will they learn and become as bleary-eyed and lazy as I am?

Everywhere I go, hordes of frosh couples are attached at the mouth, standing in the middle of the dance floor like erotic moaning totem poles. Can we make up a new word for this phenomenon? And everyone on campus wants the freshmeat, I mean freshmen and freshwomen. Who are we upper-classmen kidding? We have become the vultures at the parties, swooping down to grasp the just drunk enough frosh who has strayed away from the herd. Sigh! How did I get so old? Now I'm starting to get how the class of '03 felt when I was running around in short shorts and crushed velour screaming "Go Wes! Free booze!"

And recently, we've just passed WSA election time, which really is only fun for the freshmen. Let's face it: Freshmen aren't elected based on platforms or innovative ideas. It's all about popularity—and being popular feels good. High school popularity contests may have revolved around conformity but here in college, it's the exact opposite. By being crazier and more of a misfit than the next guy, girl, trans, wymmyn, etc., you Herr Frosh get to come out on top and feel good about the fact that you excel at being the cracked-out person you could never be in high school. Because it's cool to be yourself, isn't it frosh?

So who is having the worst week ever? Me! And quite possibly alternate universal versions of me. I still need to unpack, I oversleep for 7p.m. class, I have to plan out my rapidly approaching future, and I just can't find the time in my schedule of intense bong hit sessions and frivolous drinking to do anything productive. Now of course, I could have made my week better by not procrastinating and abusing substances, but that's just not as fun. I just find it completely unfair that I'm stuck in the ST Lab every weeknight surviving on Pi Café coffee and a rock-hard croissant while these freshmen are able to finish their work in five minutes, roll a joint on Foss Hill and see Bill Clinton's face in a cumulus cloud.

Not to mention the copious amounts of awkward exchanges I've racked up over the years. For me, the path between Campus Center and Fisk Hall is a social guillotine. I can't walk down that Death Alley path without breaking out in nervous hives or whipping out my cell phone in order to avoid making eye contact with the offending individuals. At this point, I may have to paper bag my face between classes to avoid seeing the people I would rather not talk to. Oh frosh, you may think you know uncomfortable exchanges; it takes a full year here to understand the true meaning of "Oh God, why are you still here?!"

I'll admit it; I'm jealous of you freshpeople. You've got a whole four years of drunken debauchery and awkward hook-ups ahead of you. To you, this campus is your oyster. Everyone loves you and adores you and wants you at all their parties. Soak it all in. You deserve to feel good about yourselves. And although my week is lousy, I have to smile when I see some freshperson dancing around campus in ballerina shoes and fairy wings, yelling "I love Wes!" at the top of his/her/hir lungs.

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