My life, such as it is, has been dominated by the GW crew team. Perhaps we accosted you Tuesday to give us money as we erged (that means fake rowing) one million meters (that’s really far) on the H Street terrace. If you did, we thank you, it was very much appreciated. If you didn’t, well, you’re lame, and we’ll hit you up again for money some other time.
Being on the crew team means that I and about 90 other people spend an inordinate amount of time freezing to death on the Potomac, sweating profusely in our erg room, wearing spandex, lifting lots of heavy metal weights, usually looking disheveled, and making loud guttural noises a lot. The crazy thing is, in some sort of sick masochistic way, we like it, and we don’t just do it for those snazzy Goretex jackets. We’re just clinically insane.
Studies show that about three out of four people at GW either rowed, know someone who rows/rowed or hooked up with someone who rows/rowed. You can’t escape us, we are everywhere. We’re in your classes, you know, that smelly person who is always late to class and ends up sitting alone in the back, or that loud group of smelly people in the back. Get a bunch of us together, and we’ll all start talking about rowing stuff no one else understands. Put any food near us, and it’s gone in about three seconds. Visit the concessions stand at a basketball game, and there we are, serving up radioactive hot dogs.
I, for one, am quite amused to be a part of this subculture. You’re jealous, I can tell. You can get cool nicknames, like “Boom,” “Stretch,” “Chicklets” or “Cliffy.” I have several names, also, like “Odd,” “Dree” and “Speed Demon.” We’re still working on the secret handshake. Our plans for world domination are coming along nicely. I could go on and on about other weird crew things, but I’ll save them for another time. Don’t worry, there will be other times. In the words of my friend “Eds,” “Crew is a drug.” Once you start, you can’t stop.
Speaking of controlled substances (nice segue, eh?), I ate in J Street again for the first time in who knows how long. I realize I’m missing out on a large aspect of the GW social scene by cooking for myself, but my arteries are thanking me for it. I was at least heartily entertained by J Street television.
Will someone please tell me why the smaller TVs are always on the mysterious blue channel that lists obscure countries? The screen scrolls like this: 7:00 Myanmar, 7:05 Latvia, 7:10 United Arab Emirates, and so on. I’d like to know what channel all these programs are on, and why they are all only five minutes long. I bet subliminal messages are hidden between the lines like, “Eat the shepherd’s pie. Mmmmm … shepherd’s pie,” or, “Add 500 points onto your meal plan.” The girls at the table next to me were mesmerized. I guess the soothing shade of blue kind of just sucks you in. It’s a tough call now, though – do you sit in the big dining room under the baleful gaze of Bobbie Battista’s eye, or are you hypnotized by the listings of faraway lands, like Micronesia?
At last, the University has answered one of my many needs by placing a large wicker structure on campus. The Society of Students for the Advancement of Big Wicker Things on Campus (SSABWTC, a group soon to be renamed for some old dead guy who had a lot of money) has labored long and hard for this, and it’s good to see that its work has paid off. This work of art next to the Academic Center is titled “Vase of Knowledge.” Now, I’ve walked by this vase every day on the way to classes, and I’m not feeling any smarter. I could use the help, too, what with midterms and all. I hate false advertising. I wonder how the school would feel about a great big macram? pattern hanging down the side of the Marvin Center?
