A few physics majors and I took a break from electromagnetics last week to shoot some hoops at the John Muir College basketball courts before hopping over to the Chinese American Student Association’s dumpling night. First, a few observations:
1. The new backboards on the outdoor basketball courts are lovely, and the nets look fresh and new even this late in the quarter. It is a comfort that our undergraduate fees are going to something tangible and dubiously worthwhile.
2. CASA dumpling night was one of the more disappointing experiences of this writer’s life. Not only were the dumplings slow in coming from the kitchen, but after paying $5 in admission for “”all-you-can-eat dumplings,”” attendees were duped into making the dumplings themselves by placing meat in dough. While this writer is all for cultural awareness in food preparation, he’d sooner just be fed for his $5. At least the dumplings were good (in spite of being shoddily constructed).
3. Physics majors are laughably uncoordinated.
4. Apparently, the “”Four out of five UCSD guys aren’t pressured into sex”” posters have yet to be removed, in spite of the fact that most of the campus population views them as naive and the only argument they advocate is, “”do it because everyone else is.””
However, as ludicrous as UCSD students may look exercising (or having sex), there can be little doubt about either the value of physical activity or how little many UCSD students get of it (exercise, not sex).
Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has a mandatory one-unit physical education requirement that can be fulfilled in any number of ways; one would surmise that forcing the sloth-like elements of UCSD’s undergraduate population to intramural games, or fencing, or dancing once a week would go a long way in forcing a segment of the campus population away from the standard recreational activity of Counter-Strike.
If for nothing else, UCSD students need to work off all the calories from the beer they’re drinking — in preparation, it seems, for not having sex with their dates.
And in other world news besides Iraq, Israel’s government dissolved last week (a bit less cataclysmic of an event than the phrase implies). All things considered, former Israeli defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer’s decision to draw the Labor Party out of the unity government coalition seems rather counter-productive and self-serving (for those not following the news, Ben-Eliezer’s decision to pull Labor out has more to do with internal party politics than any noble purpose). Every indication shows that the Israeli population would elect more hard-liners into office who would make Ariel Sharon look like a softy.
What does all this mean? The glut of trite and rhetorical letters defending the actions of either side of the conflict aren’t going to stop flowing into a certain student newspaper anytime soon. And for that matter, nor are the trite and useless articles. All things considered, what original can be said about this particular situation by students who understand little to nothing of world affairs or, for that matter, anything about the conflict in particular?
While this writer has no particular objection to unisex bathrooms on campus, one wonders about the necessity of such a facility; after all — airports, malls, restaurants and just about every other public facility have two, not three, different kinds of restrooms. One would presume that any students who might derive some slight benefit from the limited number of unisex facilities spread out over the immense size of this campus would nonetheless have to accommodate to society’s standards on the whole issue anyway for every other part of their public life. Which leads to the greater issue of asking whether the A.S. Council has anything productive to do or relevant to say; conventional wisdom says little to nothing. One does remember the candidates making a great deal of fuss during the past election about issues like student parking, A.S. Council autonomy and 10-minute passing periods.
And instead, the students of this university get their voice heard demanding unisex bathrooms. It is useless (if not necessarily ill-founded) issues such as these that give university students the stereotype of meaningless dilettantes who study little and complain much.
If any readers have noticed the slide in the quality of writing in this column, this writer categorically blames it on sleep deprivation. The condition does have its beneficial side effects; it tends to make this writer more genial, more patient and more willing to accept his lot in life, at the cost of any semblance of personality and quality of writing. If this writer were to follow the norm for what passes as journalism in this country to save on time, he should simply submit one word for the entirety of this article: “”sex.””
