This is the second of a two-part series that attempts to answer the question, “What does it mean to be exhausted at Amherst College?” The first part of the series attributed the more insidious aspects of exhaustion to the campus’ excessive disciplinary culture. This second part asks, “Can exhaustion be redeemed?”
Lately, toilet plungers have been on my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about how infrequently I see toilet plungers on campus and about what that dearth of plungers says about our community. Before coming to Amherst, I lived in a fairly ordinary lower-middle class suburban house. Each of our bathrooms were equipped with one plunger, typically placed to the left of the toilet. In our family, whoever plugged a toilet was responsible for unclogging it, which seemed reasonably fair to everyone.
People have often asked me, “What is the weirdest question you’ve gotten at a sexuality workshop?” and, honestly there’s one clear answer.
With variance in national holidays, school-wide events and commencement programming, the college’s academic calendar changes on a yearly basis. The length of each semester has always remained consistent — 13 weeks in the fall and 14 weeks in the spring — but it could be changed in the near future. College Council recently proposed shortening the spring semester to 13 weeks, for reasons such as aligning the college on a similar calendar with other elite institutions and allowing for consistency within the structure of interterm.
“Better the wheels of government should stop … demonstrate itself to be a failure and find an end … than our principles, our honor be infringed upon — we have right, justice and the ‘King of Kings’ on our side.”
If this sounds as though it came from the mouth of a Republican congressman this past week, many of whom refused to hold a confirmation hearing on anyone President Obama might name to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court — let alone even meet with any presumptive nominee — well, it did not.
To the Curriculum Committee, and (again) in particular, The Fundamental Skills sub-committee,
At first, this op-ed was going to be a call to arms, asking our fellow seniors to boycott the senior gift drive. As members of Amherst’s divestment campaign, we planned to refrain from donating to Amherst College until the college has divested, a pledge that many other environmentally-conscious alumn have already taken. Amherst still has many investments tied to the fossil fuel industry, and we felt that it was important that our class does not give our dollars to the companies that are destroying our planet.
