Miss USA--They're just like US

Donald Trump, an uncontrolled fit of morality, is threatening to strip Miss USA of her crown after allegations of underage drinking and bad behaviour. If we can move past the unfortunate word choice of "stripping" in conjunction with a beauty queen, I think we can move to the larger issue of pretty brats with full throated indifference. Beautiful people are allowed to be badly behaved, and in the case of young women, we should almost expect it. After all, if they don't have wild times as youngsters, what can they reflect on as they rot away in old age homes, forgotten by all but a few perverts? All these women have is their youth and looks, and when those inevitably crumble to dust they should be able to remember the halcyon days and be able to say "I did tequila shots at Marquee and fell face first into Janet Jackson." I mean, it isn't as though Miss USA has any actual responsibilites besides wearing a silly tiara and not falling down on television, so who cares if she get a bit sloshed in the week before her 21st?



Clearly, Lark-Marie Anton, the spokeswoman with the unenviable position of caring about these things, does. She is the one tasked with spouting platitudes like "Miss USA is a role model." To whom? I imagine some of the past "winners" are very nice and probably genuinely care about buying everyone in the world a Beanie Baby or something, but I've never seen Miss USA speak about Darfur, Tibet or the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, I don't have even the faintest idea what being Miss USA entails on a daily basis. I do think the very idea that we should reward people explicitly for how they look is a bad message for young women, who should be encouraged to develop brains and personalities that don't fit into 30 second sound bites. How can we so casually accept the practice of parading young girls on a stage to be ogled at, ranked and rewarded? I don't get it, but I do think that Donald Trump's indignation is hilarious, considering that he continues to get older and uglier while his wives get younger and prettier.



The whole things disgusts and amuses me.

Apathy is so cool, or whatever

The title is obvious, and not really all that funny, but it's the best description of my state of mind.

In this--my third year of college--I simply cannot be arsed with nerves or anxiety about exams and school work. I don't have the fear in me anymore. I've become pretty good at dialing it in and getting what I need done at the time it needs to be done. And I do it pretty well. So when I sit down and crank out an economics problem set in an hour and get 100% on it, you should know it isn't luck, but the workings of a man brilliant beyond the bounds of the natural order.

Not caring about things is as liberating as you would imagine, as long as you commit to it. You can't worry about how nonchalant you are, you just have to be it. It is a great feeling to walk out of an exam you didn't really worry about and be secure with the knowledge that you completely drilled it. Success is a necessary component of insouciant living, and I'm doing it to a T.

College is about change

I am slowly but surely lurching through my final exams and assignments. It's been a tough slog, I don't mind telling you. Today was the first day I wasn't working like a maniac, but that's because I turned out a stellar final paper over the weekend for a class tomorrow and gave myself breathing room. I do this because I am both extraordinarily talented and averse to all nighters. I have pulled only one so far in college; freshman year for my Russian history class. I had to write two 5 page papers, an output I consider laughable now, and I researched and wrote from about 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. And then I went to a deli on University Place and saw about three students I knew getting breakfast after writing all nighters. It was what I imagined college would be like--primitive socialist accumulation and poppy seed bagels living side by side.

These days, I am usually able to finish assignments a day from the due date, which gives me time to edit the paper or give it to someone else. Before, my enormous ego and unshakable faith in my abilities wouldn't let me, but then I continued to get papers back with embarrassing typos and sentence construction at which even Borat would shake his head. I also have a lot of problem sets and math based exams, which doesn't really lend itself to peer review, or what professors would call "cheating." But here I am, putting together a presentation on Alexandre Dumas for Thursday in between cracking wise with my roommates. It's just what I imagined college to be.