in my mailbox this morning

Dear Freshman Class:
We all remember the events of Symposium and the ensuing debacle with the administration, and we are unfortunately still dealing with the consequences. As members of the college community and dorm residents, we collectively miss the Upper Common Room that used to be our home. In order to repair the damage done to that room, we must as a class raise $600. It is easy to ignore a letter such as this one asking for money, however keep in mind, that this is your school, your community and at least partially your responsibility. In many respects, the freshman class has made a bad impression on the college administration. Let us unify and show the administration that we can fix the damage we have caused. Essentially, all that is needed is $5 from each freshman. Members of your class will be collecting money outside the dining hall during lunch periods on Thursday and Friday of this week, as well Monday and Tuesday of next. We would appreciate any donations that you are able to contribute.

Thank you,
Fellow Members of the Freshman Class

what do you mean "we", kemosabe?

some backround:

Symposium is, thankfully, a tradition exclusive to santa fe. back in the day, when drinking ages were lower and class sizes smaller, some tutors began the practice of bringing a bottle of wine to the second seminar on the symposium. the tutors and students would share a glass of wine or two, sometimes during the seminar itself, but generally as part of a small gathering after the seminar concluded. when the drinking age went up, this practise ended.

sometime in the late eighties/early nineties, students decided to revive this tradition, holding a small gathering after the second symposium seminar and inviting freshmen. conveniently, the second symposium seminar always falls on a thursday on or near valentine's day (also the thursday before a long weekend) so this small gathering eventually grew into a party. because it was a party involving freshmen, it inevitably metastisised into an excuse for upperclassmen to get freshmen girls drunk and try to sleep with them. each year it got larger and rowdier, and the whole "small gathering to discuss the idea of Love" got thrown aside in favour of "let's get shitfaced on Two Buck Chuck and break shit!"

last year's Symposium evidently featured a wine fountain, and led to small fires and general destruction of Lowers Commons. since the party, by dint of timing, always takes place during the last weekend of Senior Writing Period, there were also lots and lots of noise complaints from irate seniors trying to finish their papers. after that incident, the administration decided to end Symposium, and the commons were closed for most of the rest of the year. they'd just been refurbished, so the administration was understandably less-than-thrilled by the wine stains and cigarette burns and broken chairs.

but, of course, Symposium is now part of some great Party Tradition as handed down to entering freshmen, and the partiers among our class were not about to let a little thing like the administration ruin their fun. our class already had several black marks against it; one incident in particular, still unresolved, involved the vandalisation of multiple cars parked in France only two weeks into the semester. (they got fucked up on cocaine and thought playing hopscotch on car hoods would be a good idea, apparently. they have yet to pay damages. they were not penalised. one sophomore lab ass did get kicked out afterward, but it was for a separate incident. i am sure, though, that his being caught by Security while fucking one of the freshmen on the hood of someone's car did not help his case, though.) broadly speaking, our class sucks, although the other classes suck too.

but so anyway, the substance-abusing asshat contingent of Uppers decided they were going to have a Symposium. at first, they went about this in the proper way, seeking a party permit. a party permit would have notified Security about the party, and would have ensured that people were supervising the party, that alcohol was being distributed responsibly, and that the party ended at a reasonable hour. of course, after the events of last year, the administration had already decided against permitting a Symposium, and the party permit was denied. and, of course, a little thing like a lack of a permit was not going to stand in the way of my fellow jackholes. so they threw a party anyhow.

two people wound up in hospital with alcohol poisoning. a lot of shit got broken. the quad was described as "covered with vomit", and the hallways and bathrooms were even worse.

the party planners tried to explain that they HAD TOO been responsible, because they'd called ambulances when they found people bleeding and passed out in pools of their own vomit, hadn't they? see? RESPONSIBLE! and they had NO IDEA that the laundry room had been filled with cartons of box wine! how were they supposed to know? they were too busy being RESPONSIBLE!

at any rate, i was given to understand that the administration was refraining from punishing those responsible for holding the party, on the condition that they would raise money to pay for the damage done to the common room. this was supposed to be a good-will gesture to the community as a whole. this course of action was decided upon in february.

only now have the parties responsible gotten around to trying to raise funds. and they've decided to do it by fobbing the responsibility off on the rest of us.

this is not in any way my "responsibility". no, not even "partially". i chose to abide by the administration's decision. i did not agitate for a party, i took no part in planning it, and i did not attend. except for Prank and Faust, both college-sponsored events, i have attended no campus parties at all. Uppers Commons is not "our collective home". the ones missing it most are the ones who live in Uppers -- the ones who planned this stupid fucking party in the first place. they are the ones who set up a band in Uppers, with amps, during Writing Period. they are the ones who set up the laundry room in Uppers as a speakeasy. they are the ones who spilled red wine all over the carpet and all over the table. they are the ones who broke the chairs and burned the floor. they are the ones who got so drunk they puked all over the quad. (the juniors and sophomores had some role to play in that as well, mind; the two who ended up in hospital were sophomores. a lot of freshmen, at least half the class, didn't even attend.)

"we as a class" do not need to raise $600. the shit-for-brains entitled little twats who were responsible for the damage need to raise $600. this was THEIR PUNISHMENT FOR IRRESPONSIBLY THROWING AN UNAPPROVED PARTY. it is not my responsibility to save them from the penalties for their own fuckheaded actions. hell, the amount the two ringleaders of this debacle have blown on nose-candy this semester alone would cover damages and then some. in addition, the twenty little snots who signed a petition back in february to protest... something, i'm not sure what, could also put money where their whining little mouths are. so i find myself less-than-sympathetic to this letter. i am not going to ignore that letter; far from it. i am going to walk up to these addlepated jackholes at lunch and explain to them how ridiculously insulting this letter is.

i'll be damned if i'm going to "unify" with those snotnosed little bastards. one of them still owes a friend of mine $3000 in damages to his car. did she pay it? no. will she ever? probably not. can she afford it? judging by her coke habit, i would guess her parents probably can.

and in a way, this is the responsibility of the college administration, too. they need to start kicking some of these motherfuckers to the curb. i don't care how many of them start ranting about the freedoms of our founding fathers and threatening to call the ACLU and/or their stupidly wealthy parents. (seriously, one of my "fellow freshmen" thought he could go up against the dean when he felt he had been wronged by an unlawful! and unfair! search of his room.)

i understand that the college can't function without money. i understand that at least some of the idiot rich must be kept on, in order to subsidise the less-rich. i just wish so many of them didn't have to be in my class, and i really, really wish that the privileged little motherfuckers didn't start looking to ME for money when they find themselves in trouble. surely there must be some solution to shore up college finances other than admitting an assload of moron trustafarians.