So that was fun.
I really need to put to use the lessons I learned in marching band. Something you eventually have to learn is that regardless of how much you want people to care about what they're doing and do the right thing, there will always be some people who just aren't interested and make everything painful. Some things simply won't change, and to continue worrying about them is akin to banging your head against the wall until it's bloody. It makes no difference. Xavier will never march right. Casey will never hold his horn up or march in step. The drummers will continue to hurl vulgar insults at the drum majors who don't listen to them. So it goes, neh?
But yes...there are some things here at the university that I just can't keep caring so deeply about, as unfortunate as it is to let it all go by. I can't keep blacking out Core Project stickers after acid rain leeches away the Magic Marker I used the first time around, for instance. There are hundreds of them on campus, and as much as it sucks that the band is using our campus to promote its shitty rap-rock, there's not much I really want to do about it short of perhaps getting some black spray paint and covering them all over. Last year's marker campaign took enough effort.
Also, I still wish we had a marching band, but I really don't have the energy or time it takes to mobilize a force of students who'll actually learn a show and practice several times a week. Sure, I could, and my reluctance to do so probably shows a lack of initiative on my part, but yeah...I'm hardly pulling decent grades as it is, and I doubt becoming the ringleader of a new activity is the answer.
Similarly, I can't keep harping on the campus alcohol culture. We've got three issues a week coming out now, each one bearing one or two articles in support of the rampant alcoholism on campus. I already made my point last spring, in the end-of-the-year issue no one read. I don't have time to continually write replies to this crap, nor do I want to become pegged as a one-issue writer. I wish some other people would actually step up in defense of our right to live in an alcohol-free environment, but I'm not going to rally a campus-wide temperance movement. That's not even the point. My only real sticking point is with the underage drinking, and even then, I'm just not all that sure anyone's listening. It's disappointing to end up compromising through inaction, but y'know...there's only so much I can do. Further, while it may seem somewhat hypocritical and perhaps a betrayal of my cause célèbre, I don't even live in a place where alcohol is a real problem anymore. I successfully avoid being around drunks, and I rather like it that way—but that means I have a real lack of compelling examples to use for these hypothetical opinion articles.
I did write a letter to the editor today, though, about something completely unrelated. This Shawn Redden guy, a history grad student, has been flooding the opinion section with these long, didactic rants about the war in Iraq, terrorism, President Bush, and other issues. With today's article, I simply couldn't read anymore without throwing in a few words.
The paper wasn't a complete loss today, despite several problems with poorly copy-edited headlines. The staff editorial, for instance, was actually well-written and relevant, bashing those "Sesquicentennial kiosks" the university ordered and placed in "high-traffic" areas. The things don't even work right, much less display any relevant information. I wonder who wrote the editorial this time...