Meme
Swiped from Lauren, because if she can be a spoiled youngest child, then I can be a spoiled only child.

"List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can't really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), 'Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice.'"

1. College drinking parties--I have to agree with Lauren on this one. Alcohol is fine, yes, I like a glass of wine now and then. But getting drunk just for the sake of getting drunk is idiotic--almost as idiotic as bragging about it afterwards.

2. Summer. It's hot, which makes me physically uncomfortable and mentally sluggish, and because it's hot out there are people running around half-dressed (unless you're at the beach, in which case it's considerably less than half-dressed). In addition to this, most of us college students go back to our hometowns for summer, which in my case means being a long way away from my friends. I also happen to enjoy school.

3. Sports. I've never liked sports--they seem like a waste of time and money. Physical activity is grand, but it isn't the be-all and end-all, and in schools organized sports tend to take valuable resources away from academic pursuits. There's something very wrong about half the high school choir missing rehearsal once a week in soccer season, or building a new college basketball arena when the performing arts students have nowhere to perform. Sports. Grrrrr.

4. Most current fashion trends for girls/young women. Why on earth would anyone want to wear jeans so low and a shirt so high that the world knows what color her thong is and that she has a tattoo on her lower back? Why wear a skirt so short and heels so high that walking is impaired? Why wear fuzzy winter boots if she lives in L.A.?

5. Talking about how bad the Jesuits are. I will be the first to admit that many Jesuits today are unfaithful to the Church, some in more creative ways than others. (I've heard Fr. Maher's story about the "Mime Mass" he was forced to endure as a seminarian in 1980's San Francisco. It's amazing he made it out of there with his orthodoxy intact. We won't even go into the guy with the pink clerical shirt.) But I go to a Jesuit school, and it's not so bad. Maybe that's because it's better than some other Jesuit schools, but there are nutty things going on in every religious order. What about those pictures (posted I believe by the Curt Jester) of dancing Dominicans? What about the Benedictine nuns who protest for women's ordination? I suppose the Jesuits are an easy target because the nature of their lives as academics forces them more out in the open than some other orders, and because of how many of them there are in this country, but I'm sick of the Jesuit jokes.

Zadok has already weighed in on a few of these subjects, but not done the meme.