So here we are: my last satirical column before my identity is unveiled next week. As we approach the end, I’ve gotten to thinking about my columns and have realised that there is something unfair in this set-up. Week after week, I get to target Duke and my fellow students and skewer them for their perceived foibles or missteps—but in so doing, I worry I’ve portrayed myself as in some way above it all. Of course, in reality I’m just as complicit in the ridiculousness and irrationality pervading Duke as anyone else. So this week, I have decided to level the playing field by falling on my own sword and how I relate to Duke. Welcome all to the roast of Monday Monday!
I’ll start with one of my worst vices: complaining. I moan about all kinds of minor Duke inconveniences. Take food, for example. I say there’re no food options here, but that perception may be less to do with Duke’s actual food availability and more to do with me choosing to eat the same five things every week. It’s hard for me to seriously say that I’m being forced to eat an austere, modest diet when there’s literally a food truck devoted solely to Belgian waffles visiting every week.
I moan about other stuff too—like the buses. I often decry that Duke buses come far too infrequently, but of course that doesn’t stop me from refusing to run for the bus when it’s clearly about to leave or from standing around waiting for that much-hated bus even when walking would be quicker. And I blame the Duke administration for a litany of things they couldn’t possibly control, too. Don’t get me wrong: intimidating unionizers and maintaining shady endowment practices are things worth criticizing. But I think the mechanical failure of a water fountain in Perkins is better characterized as the product of Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics than it is administrative mismanagement.
Another weird thing I do is that I compete needlessly. And it’s not the normal kind of competition where you try and have the best GPA, because obviously bragging about that would be poor form. It’s more like competing over how hard my life is compared with others’. Take the following normal conversation, reimagined for this column’s purposes as a Yu-Gi-Oh battle.
Monday Monday: Yeah, I have work to do tonight. [Monday Monday’s places “Generic Homework” (ATK 500 DEF 500) into his Monster Zone.]
Friend: Same, I have a five page paper due tomorrow. [Friend attacks Monday Monday’s “Generic Homework” with her “Five Page Paper” (ATK 1500, DEF 1000)]
MM: FOOL! You activated my trap card! [Monday Monday’s “Generic Homework” transforms into “Ten Page Paper” (ATK 3000, DEF 2000); Friend loses 1500 Life Points.]
Then there are ACES sign-ups. Every semester I compare my upcoming schedule (read: how hellish it is) with others’ in a manner that closely resembles the business card scene in American Psycho. That competition isn’t restricted to academics, of course. Sex is an unclear example because I’d probably be doing it even if I weren’t at Duke, but the competitive impetus to have a regrettable hook up definitely increases when everyone else is leaving with someone. By this stage, my hook up history comprises so many dramas and incestuous links it reads like a Gabriel García Márquez novel.
I like to think of myself as a good person, as one of those Duke students who has big ideas about things and who’ll eventually jet off into the real world and do great things. In the meantime I’ll do DukeEngage, maybe work at a non-profit for the summer, help the world become a better place, you know? But when someone says, “Hey Monday Monday, come picket unjust labor practices at the Marriot tonight!” I’ll immediately be like “lol sorry poverty and injustice can wait right now I have a thirty minute problem set due in six hours.” If I’m entirely honest, I’m really less a principled and visionary Duke student than I am a fierce and creative proponent of sitting in front of a laptop doing nothing for extended amounts of time.
And of course, I lie aplenty. Not your classic “Oh no, I thought I sent the assignment earlier! Sorry, I’ll do it right now!” kind of lie though. It’s more like a “Oh yeah, I’m great!” when I’m actually about to peace out from a party without telling anyone kind of lie.
I don’t enjoy speaking to my peers about my problems. If someone asks me how I am, I’ll usually respond with “Good, thank you!” rather than the less socially acceptable “God is dead and the Earth has turned to ashes.” But it’s odd; I don’t talk about my problems because it would make me seem fallible. But of course I am fallible and it’s bizarre that I front an image of emotional perfection when neither I nor anyone else is perfectly stable. So it is that rather than risk putting my emotions on display I’ll just sit in my room, silent, staring at the walls for hours on end. And yes, to that effect depression is exactly like the sensation of waiting for a pizza at The Loop.
It’s almost satirically self-contradictory. I constantly complain about Duke and profess how bad my more superficial problems are; yet, I’m incapable of speaking to anyone about any of the problems that keep me up at night. I have such pride that I will speak about my problems only if they in some way advance my reputation. I’ll go to CAPS, but I’ll keep it on the down low. I’ll hide away all my difficulty because I fear that to show real humanity is to show weakness. I am not what I purport to be.
But you know, that’s probably just me.
Apparently they’re gonna get Bruce Springsteen for next semester’s Monday Monday. I heard he has a niece here or something.
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