Your roommate's a party animal. Woops. Guess his interests in math and analysis only extend as far as his dick. His favorite hobby? "Tutoring." Yeah. He works his game in the fucking 2nd floor of the Regenstein. Absurd?
Not quite.
Picture this. You've just finished an essay on Kafka. Your eyesight is tinted orange from being under green lighting panels for 10 straight hours. You open the door and collapse into bed.
Thud thud rustle... snarl?
You're awoken in the middle of night by what sounds like a cat falling out of bed. A vaguely human shape crawls up. Her hair makes her look like that chick from The Ring. She gets back into bed... and they resume. In front of you. You can see every little detail. Missionary, doggy, cowgirl, front and reverse. Midway through it they start talking in Korean.
Your first thought, then, is not how badly this will suck for you in the morning, when you wake up and see two naked people collapsed three feet from you. No, crude thoughts like that are for people in Evanston. Your first reaction is... what would Kafka say about this? The absurdity of the human existence?
It's only when you wake up in the morning that you realize how far down the Hyde Park rabbit hole you've gone.
Monday
Thursday
Bullshit
Your slightly balding, severely malnourished professor, henceforth referred to as Johannes von Kuhdunger the Fifth, is giving a riposte on the motivations of Achilles. Your newfound friend, Frankie Fobabee, is next to you and he was the only one smart enough to bring a laptop. "Great", you think. Just what you need to concentrate on the motivations of a three thousand year old fictional Greek spoiled brat.
Apparently, Frankie agrees. When Prof. Kuhdunger calls on him (presumably to make an example of those who dareth ignore him in class) Frank proceeds to beautifully dissect Achilles as someone spoiled--no, not just spoiled, but raised in a household that reveres him, that thinks that because gods intersect with the human world then people can be like gods and therefore he's arrogant and thinks he's more important and ultimately how his motivations are internal and un influenced by externalities and how---
It is at this point you begin to die a little on the inside. You feel that part of you--fun--seeping away as you realize that, to your horror, this is what you'll learn at Chicago--the ability to bullshit, and not just bullshit, but do it beautifully, spontaneously--so well that fully half of each graduating class ends up going into consulting or investment banking.
Vita excolatur. Life of the mind, enriched by the finest mental fertilizer not on the East Coast.
Apparently, Frankie agrees. When Prof. Kuhdunger calls on him (presumably to make an example of those who dareth ignore him in class) Frank proceeds to beautifully dissect Achilles as someone spoiled--no, not just spoiled, but raised in a household that reveres him, that thinks that because gods intersect with the human world then people can be like gods and therefore he's arrogant and thinks he's more important and ultimately how his motivations are internal and un influenced by externalities and how---
It is at this point you begin to die a little on the inside. You feel that part of you--fun--seeping away as you realize that, to your horror, this is what you'll learn at Chicago--the ability to bullshit, and not just bullshit, but do it beautifully, spontaneously--so well that fully half of each graduating class ends up going into consulting or investment banking.
Vita excolatur. Life of the mind, enriched by the finest mental fertilizer not on the East Coast.
Saturday
Welcome to Chicago
You've just unpacked, shoved your parents onto that Chicago Tour Bus which you know will get your teary-eyed mother and camera-happy father away from the campus for three hours. You look around and see your roommate playing Diablo. He's killing Mephisto in a Gothic cathedral that looks like the one outside your window.
You go to the house lounge. It's going to be a gathering of all the people in your house! You. Are. So. EXCITED!!! You want to see that Sabchin girl who's been facebook stalking you for two months. Is she as hot as she claims to be? Her pictures look pretty damned good.
The meeting starts. The girl you're sitting next to gives you a long look. You don't notice. You're looking for Sabrina. The RA goes over the standard stuff, do socialize, don't set off the fire alarm, don't hit the sprinklers with a broom, no means no, yadda yadda. Midway through you feel somethingcold and wet on the back of your left hand. It takes you a moment to register what is going on. She's drawing a heart on the back of your hand with pink glitter.
You realize, too late, what a facebook stalker looks like without photoshop. Everyone sees the heart. The hot girl from Georgia (the country), your neighbor in the dorm, has already noticed and is talking to some other dude.
And then you realize that you shouldn't have broken up with your high school girlfriend.
Welcome to Chicago.
You go to the house lounge. It's going to be a gathering of all the people in your house! You. Are. So. EXCITED!!! You want to see that Sabchin girl who's been facebook stalking you for two months. Is she as hot as she claims to be? Her pictures look pretty damned good.
The meeting starts. The girl you're sitting next to gives you a long look. You don't notice. You're looking for Sabrina. The RA goes over the standard stuff, do socialize, don't set off the fire alarm, don't hit the sprinklers with a broom, no means no, yadda yadda. Midway through you feel somethingcold and wet on the back of your left hand. It takes you a moment to register what is going on. She's drawing a heart on the back of your hand with pink glitter.
You realize, too late, what a facebook stalker looks like without photoshop. Everyone sees the heart. The hot girl from Georgia (the country), your neighbor in the dorm, has already noticed and is talking to some other dude.
And then you realize that you shouldn't have broken up with your high school girlfriend.
Welcome to Chicago.
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