evitae.net

Disclaimer: The following post is essentially a rant. By no means do I intend to generalize about or defame Bryn Mawr’s integrity. This blog post is simply a means to get something off my chest and is not meant to be a general representation of my school. I love it here, but as it is the case in virtually any community, some people suck.

Two nights ago, my dormitory held a meeting. This is one of the many rewards of small colleges; issues are more likely to be resolved by the students instead of the often stringent authorities. While I entered the meeting fairly pleasant in demeanor, the same cannot be said of my feelings afterwards. In as few words as possible, I just wish some people would grow the fuck up already.

At my school, laundry is free (although not technically if you consider our bloated tuition). Okay, that’s all fine and dandy, but perhaps if people had to pay for it, the chaos that typically ensues in the laundry room would not take place. Every single year, it’s the same thing. Inconsiderate people wash their clothes and leave them in the washer for hours on end. Have I no right to be pissed off when it’s my turn to wash?

I understand that Bryn Mawr is incredibly demanding, but goddammit, if you can take responsibility for your studies, you damn sure can do the same thing about your clothes. A bunch of girls at the meeting were whining about how they tend to forget about their clothes, and as the babying continued by way of the dorm presidents and hall advisers, my mind flooded with violent imagery. A rant is to follow.

To every mother who has been doing her children’s laundry up to ages where they should have been doing their own, I curse you. The housekeeper should not have to gather your daughter’s clothing from the laundry room after its been sitting there for weeks and put it into the various free boxes on the hall. No one should have to hike up and down the stairs between your daughter’s room and the laundry room to remind her that she needs to remove her clothes. When your daughter is nowhere to be found and there is too much clothing in the laundry room, I really shouldn’t have to put her clothing on the floor because there is nowhere else to put it since there are so many inconsiderate assholes like your daughter. Yes, everyone forgets things every once in a while - I too have committed this crime - but for serious though, some people never learn.

After the meeting finally moved on to another topic, it became evident that the babying would not stop there. One student, as a member of the recycling committee on campus, brought up the issue of people placing the wrong types of plastics in the recycling bin. She patiently explained that each article of plastic should have a number on the bottom of it describing what kind of plastic it was and whether it should be recycled.

Just above the yellow recycling bin, there is a poster listing which numbers of plastic can go into the bin. Six is not one of them, and yet people continue to toss said plastic into the bin. Do you know what some of the girls at the meeting asked of her? They wanted her to create another diagram demonstrating what could and couldn’t be tossed into the recycling bin. Good grief.

It takes about three seconds to flip a friggin’ plastic cup upside down and read a simple number encapsulated in the universal recycling logo and compare it to the acceptable numbers on the poster. I could tell the recycling committee girl was as frustrated as I was by her facial expression and departure from the room. I simply shook my head and went on my way as well.

For Mawrters (as students are affectionately called here) to be so smart, (and I see testaments to their intelligence almost everyday) they do incredibly stupid shit sometimes. Or maybe, if I was feeling at all optimistic, they’re just some lazy ass motherfuckers. That’s fine, just please, do it on your own time.

For the life of me, I have to stop taking the Chinatown buses. Sure, they’re cheap, they’re fast, and they run at consistent, convenient times, but what you don’t pay for in cash you pay for in your comfort, and if you’re particularly unlucky, your well-being (or worse, your life). Here are just a few reasons why you and I should avoid the Chinatown bus companies.

• More often than not, the buses smell like one thing or another that they shouldn’t. The first time I’d ever taken a Chinatown bus, I was overwhelmed by an odor akin to that of a chicken coop. This past weekend, the scent of urine flooded the bus, and the bathroom door wasn’t even open. That can’t be particularly healthy for you, can it?
• Most of the buses are in disrepair. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to drive behind one of these buses, I’m sure you were at least mildly alarmed by the roar of its engine. On one occasion, the heavy rains had somehow managed to leak through the ceiling. I actually sat in my cold, damp seat, clutching an umbrella. On one trip from New York to Philly, the tire had blown out and we spent nearly two hours driving slowly - at about the same speed it would take one to walk - to the nearest gas station in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. On top of that, it was another hour or so before a truck came to change the tire. What was normally a two hour trip had turned into a five hour one. It was very lucky that the bus got to Philly just in time for the last train to Bryn Mawr, otherwise I would have been stranded.
• The buses are not typically well maintained in terms of cleanliness either. The sides of the seats are usually stuffed with trash, especially if you’re on a later bus. Of course that says something about the customers, because they’re not nearly as likely to litter on a Greyhound or Peter Pan bus. Of course all this trash attracts pests, and this past weekend I had the misfortune of discovering a roach making its way up my sleeve. That for me, was pretty much the last straw.
• While I have not been the direct victim of discrimination, I have seen it in action on these buses. During boarding for one trip from New York to Philly, the bus driver refused several customers when only the first eight front seats were available because they were men and “they have smelly feet” or because they were “ugly women.” Once the bus was finally in motion, he flipped out a couple of times because he thought someone was playing a video game, and the clicking noise irritated him immensely. The fact of the matter is, it was probably the windshield wipers, because no one was playing any portable game. I checked, and most customers were asleep or listening to music. Would you feel safe being driven by the insane?
• Other than these personal experiences, these buses have made a number of appearances in the media, particularly those running from New York to Boston. Here are just a few interesting links I managed to gather. I may update this time after time.
  • Murder and Vice on the Lower East Side (Thesis) by Cyrus Farivar
  • Overloading the Machine (Blog) by John Sullivan
  • Bus line looks to shed its reputation for risk (Article) by Rick Hampson

That’s all for now. It’s lunch time!