Orientation

Orientation began early at 8:15 breakfast. The Kline dining hall is poorly designed in two ways––first, there is too much redundancy at the stations––at lunch there were three different stations serving some kind of pasta. But more importantly, its the fact that the serving area and the dining hall are across the hall from eachother––so at just about every location there are people with trays full of food going one way and freshman going the other way. Yes its freshman month at Bard; most of them look very young, and very self-conscious. Bard is famous for its "alternative" kids––meaning they dress "differently." To the optimist this is an indication of free-spiritedness, creativity, and liberal politics and perhaps it is. But I wonder what really separates these people from the ones I go to school with at Williams, where the "alternative" kids are known as "girl with shaved head" or "boy with green hair" and that's enough. These things aren't said in a derogatory way––its just the sad fact that they're different and we don't know their names. Anyways the funny and revealing thing about today is that for the first time in my life I saw an entire dining hall filled with almost all "alternatives"––tight black pants, dapper hats, ironic ties, piercings, urgent facial hair. But the looks on their faces was not––oh wow I'm home, look at all these people just like me, it was, "oh shit, this is awkward, where do I sit, I hope nobody sees that I don't know where to sit." Maybe my eyes just seek out the insecure looking, or possibly project it onto them, but I'm pretty sure what happened was that, when grouped together, they splintered faster and more surely than a winning Nepalese coup and for the same reason––they were never on the same page. Kids who dress in tight black pants are not created equal. But again, why this difference between the Williams and the Bard students? Any ideas?

Enough of that. I'll write about orientation tomorrow.