Christmas in September

I'm going to a tea party today. It' s a "High Tea" for the Honors' Residential College. At least we don't have to wear our hideous polo shirts; we just have to dress up and shake rich people's hands so that they will know that the students for whom they donate money have learned to dress themselves. I wonder what they donate money for? More tea parties? I shouldn't be so cynical, I know, but all these new events and such that have been added to the living-in-the-dorm experience make me want to re-think what's important to me. I imagine that there is some point to all of this but I certainly don't see it.

I love social things. At least I think I love social things. I am not, in any sense, an extrovert, but I do love people, and I seem to feel the need for "alone" time decreasingly often. (How do you say "decreasingly often" gracefully? "less and less frequently?" "more and more seldom?") I just hate standing around and making small talk. It seems so pointless.

I categorically hate politics. I hate the process you have to go through in order to get into grad school, of having "connections," meeting people just so that they will remember you, whetehr or not you demonstrated anything worth knowing about yourself in that 30 second window of time, asking questions you aren't really curious about in order to appear interested in studying with someone. As if that weren't obvious, if you are applying for the program. It all seems so little based on actual merit. And the same seems true (maybe more true) of the election. It's depressing.

Like secular existentialism. Sartre wrote an essay in which he tried to portray existentialism as a humanism. Who is he kidding? At least Camus is honest about how much the world sucks if he is right. Someone in my Latin class, who is generally a very earnest intellectual about everything, said that she simply hates modernity. I think that's a funny thing to say, but I have to admit that I'm not as patient with it as some people are, and I think the deficiency is mine. I'm glad I'm a Classics major.

I won't tell you what my Christmas present to myself is, since it ought to be kept secret from someone until Christmas, but I bet you can guess what color it is. ;-)