Volume CXXXII, Number 8 November 8, 2002 f

I can't figure out some of this Bowdoin stuff...
ACADIA SENESE
COLUMNIST

I like to consider myself a person who is on the ball, that is to say, I like to think I "get" what's going on around me. I don't like things whizzing over my head like a fastball over a poorly swung baseball bat. But for the life of me I can't figure out what's going on with this Bowdoin stuff.

I don't quite understand why Bowdoin built an incredible new building for the Outing Club. I know they have equipment, that they need a place to call home, but I feel like a lean-to may have been more appropriate. Aren't we defeating the whole point of the Outing Club if we provide them with a roof? A lean-to, arguably more generous than a tent, would have been far more suitable than a heated building.

Or what about the student that gets in the elevator and asks you to push "floor 2." I don't understand a) how they could have the bravado to ask for such a silly request or b) why they don't have the energy to walk all the way up to the second floor. Heaven forbid you walk a flight of stairs. But what I really don't understand is that I push the button for them every time they ask. I should a) glare at them and b) push fifteen just to spite them.

I still don't understand the pleas in the student digest requesting the whereabouts of some lost article of clothing. Do people ever get the article of clothing returned to them? Why didn't you write your name on that article of clothing? Maybe I should start posting "lost item" messages in the digest for fun just to see what people return to me. I could really use a NorthFace fleece to complete my Bowdoin wardrobe.

And I don't quite get what 'sustainable Bowdoin' is suggesting in their numerous posters around campus. If they want to start sustaining things, perhaps they should send emails. Emails don't cut down trees. But then again, most people don't read emails, since we manage to get four thousand a day. Maybe they should just make really, really small posters made of tear-proof paper. At least the posters would sustain themselves.

And I still haven't figured out how someone can talk incessantly in class. After three years, I've realized the following things about the overzealous class talker: anything important they have to say is said in the first sentence and anything following is a jumbled mess with grandiose highfalutin vocabulary to try and impress others and inadvertently put me to sleep. I'm yet to figure out if professors are impressed by the vociferous students, or if they would rather throw the apple sitting on their desk at the student. But I have figured out one thing: the class talker covers my butt in class when I'm not prepared. And for that, I must confess, I'm very thankful, or else I'd be inclined to throw the apple at them myself.

Finally, I'm baffled as to why people drive from one place on campus to another when it would take less time to time to walk to that place. I know it's cold out and that having a car somehow necessitates using it at the most unnecessary times, but what are you really accomplishing by driving from Harpswell to Thorne and back again?

Maybe I'm just behind the eight ball on all of this stuff. Maybe I've swung my bat a few too many times and I struck out long ago. But if someone could clue me into these things, I'd really appreciate it, because, after all, maybe I should be taking the elevator to the second floor too.