2.25.2008

Not Quite 20Q

I went home this weekend to surprise my mom for her birthday so I don’t have any wild and crazy party stories for you. But I do have a few questions to pose.

Do you feel closer to your family now that you are away from home? For me I was always really close with my mom but my relationship with the rest of my family has really benefited from not being at each other’s throats constantly.

Do you feel different when you go home? I definitely feel like a visitor in my own house sometimes. My room is super clean and untouched and I am unaware of certain habits and inside jokes my family has developed in my absence.

Also, do you view your hometown and the area that you are from differently now that you have spent so much time at Vassar? I was discussing this with another student I was driving home with (as we were rocking out to old school aka middle school pop and hip-hop) and we both feel a difference. Where I’m from every girl needs to be a carbon copy of the next dressing and acting exactly the same. If you don’t have the perfect little body with flat-ironed hair and the right clothes than you just don’t fit in. For the guys back home it’s all about being tough, cool, and macho. They are cocky and obsessed with their bodies and it is hard to find an all around good guy who will treat you right. For me high school was exactly like the movie Mean Girls: forced, fake and superficial and if you weren’t at the top of the food chain you were a nobody. After being at Vassar, when I go home I walk around the mall and see all these girls that look exactly like each other, I see the stupidity of it all. They are sacrificing who they are to be accepted and I don’t find that to be a problem here.

I know some people complain about a lack of diversity at Vassar, but to me it is more diverse than anything I’ve experienced in the past. Even if there is a lot more of one “group” than another, the fact of the matter is they chose to be a part of that group and no one judges them for it. People pick their friends based on the important things like personality and what they wear or how they look has no bearing on the decision. I just really enjoy this aspect of the Vassar social scene and I was wondering what you guys think!

<3 Blondie*

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! if vassar is more diverse than what you're used to than that's pretty scary. I value you're opinion, but from my perspective, everyone here seems to be exactly alike. Everyone basically has the same style and appear to have the same attitude and stand offish personality.

Anonymous said...

then transfer!

Anonymous said...

anonymous... you obviously are not understanding the diversity of backgrounds that various people have. obviously some people come from places that are more diverse than vassar and others come from places that are less diverse. to discredit someone who feels that vassar is diverse to be extremely exclusionary. i would urge you to have an open mind when thinking about what diversity means to different people. i can relate to *blondie because i come from a town of 2000 people who are extremely homogenous. coming to vassar has been a very enriching and diverse experience. furthermore, just because one has not been exposed to much diversity before does not mean that one is not accepting of it. the next time you decide to judge someone of the opinion of diversity, remember that it is just that... an opinion. and everyone is entitled to have their own without threat of someone else criticizing or looking down on them. in my mind thats what diversity is all about.