Who Cares?

I DON'T CARE how much school work you have.

I know it was due last leap year. I am also well aware that if you don't do it right now your face will melt off or something. Right on your shoes, most likely. And we all know how hard it is to get melted face off shoes.

I still don't care.

The truth is no one cares. At Harvard everyone complains constantly that they have so much work to do--work that was already due, work that they blew off all day, work that they aren't doing, work that they should be doing because if they don't do it now they surely will fail everything and not get into graduate school and have a horrible poverty-striken life with a pain-in-the-butt spouse and lots of ugly slimy kids whose faces will melt off.

This gives us two types of Harvard Conversations.

Harvard Conversation One: The Casual Pass Conversation. Participants are moving in opposite directions and are looking at the sidewalk with occasional upward glances for safety purposes. They inadvertantly recognize each other at a block apart, but the awkwardness of trying to express acknowledgment from this distance is too great. Both participants instantly stare back at the sidewalk in unconscious humiliation, feigning ignorance of the other's presence until the distance is closed to approximately 10 feet. At ten feet they can pretend to have just happened to look up...

Person One: "Hi, Person Two. How are you."

Person Two: "Fine, Person One. How are you."

Person One: "Good, see you later."

They pass and the conversation has ended, although occasionally an extra comment will be thrown in by one or both of the participants so that they can walk away with a smile. People feel as though a good thing has happened if they can walk away smiling without spending extra time on the conversation--even if they are smiling for no apparent reason. Extra Comments can be uttered after they have already passed and completed the first part of Harvard Conversation One. Some examples of a comment by Person One:

1. (with happy sarcasm) "See you at dinner! Ho Ho!"

2. (with stupid sarcasm) "I'm off to have fun at the library, ha ha! See you."

3. (with mock anger) "By the way, my name is George. If you ever call me 'Person One' again, I will punch you in the head. See you."

Person Two then always ends the same way (looking back to Person One after the Extra Comment): "Ha ha! See you."

THIS HAS RARE variations. No time to stop, you must work. No time, that is, unless you sense an opportunity to undertake the Harvard student's ultimate joy: a chance to tell someone how much work you have.

Conversation Two: The surmountable Work Conversation. The two participants approach each other just like any run of the mill Harvard Conversation One, but without warning something goes horribly wrong and suddenly the interaction diverges radically.

Starting normally, Person One: Hi, how are you."

Then Person Two, for some bizarre reason that baffles even the most delicate instruments of modern-day science, decides that Person One want to hear complaints about school work.

Person Two: "Well O.K., but I have a lot of work to do. See, I have this ten thousand page essay due tomorrow and I haven't started. Well, see you."

Infinitely happy that he has said this, Person Two chuckles inwardly. The dam is broken.

Person One: "Oh, well I guess it is tough this time of year. I'd help you out, but I have been assigned to recopy by hand every book in Widener Library. The whole project is due tomorrow and I haven't started, so I'll see you."

Person Two: "Yea, I know what you mean. I have work too. See, I was caught in a meat cleaver this weekend and my body was ravaged beyond human recognition, leaving me limbless and very sad. The department has decided not to give me any extensions so I have to write my thesis, which is due in 10 minutes and I haven't started, in blood. See you."

Both persons are left with an uneasy sensation in their bellies.

THE CONVERSATIONS are a sad institution in Harvard undergraduate life. Incredible though it may sound, most students actually seem to believe that they have been assigned more work than everyone else. The result is the brisk negligence of Conversation One and the grotesque verbal blood-bath of Conversation Two.

It's all right if you wish to fester in despair over homework assignments, but not in public. Complaining about work is a lethal pollutant in the Harvard atmosphere. The heinous odor seeps in every crack and crevice of the Harvard ambience, suffocating the unwitting undergraduates who dare to take enough time away from their work to breathe.

I would much rather look at people whose faces have melted off than people whose faces tell me about their over-supply of work. Did George Washington complain about his tasks at Valley Forge?

"Oh, I've got soooo many English people to kill before we can win this war, and its sooooo cold and I haven't barely started...and...ohhhhh my teeth, they are made of wood... ohhhhhh."

No, George knew a thing or two about morale. Grace under pressure and all that. So the next time you get that in satiable urge to tell someone that you have more work than them, shut up.