Sunday Morning

January 21, 2003 by David Blackman

Whats there to do on a Saturday night? Thats the question my dorms asking itself a day after my next door neighbor was sent to the hospital. I think its started to sink in that maybe drinking ourselves into a fog of amnesia every weekend isn't the best idea.

Once again Im forced to wonder, why do we drink? My whole dorm has now seen, repeatedly, how destructive it is. This isn't the first time weve seen the paramedics in our midst, and it probably wont be the last. Its not such a great high.

It was also male stupidity. Two guys started boasting, and then they had to prove themselves, with lots and lots of alcohol. So much so, my friend doesnt remember the cupful that knocked him down for the count, and that everyone told him not to drink.

So it seems that there were no parties Saturday night. I dont know if thats true or not I've never kept up with the party scene maybe its a collective hallucination on the part of my dorm, because were trying to remind ourselves that there are other things to do. If we dont see the parties, we cant drink at the parties.

But what else is there to do on a Saturday night? This is the fundamental question of every Stanford students existence, and we need to confront it, because the drinking thing just isn't working anymore. People are watching movies and playing card games and starting up ping-pong tournaments, but still asking, Is this all there is to do?

Is there?

Theres a question underneath all this that were not asking: What do we want out of college? We want to feel grown up, but protected. Thats why parties are perfect; were drinking like grown ups, and hooking up like grown ups, but know that our dorm is within walking distance, and our friends and RAs are nearby.

All of the drama in my dorm happened while I was away in Palo Alto, finding something to do on a Friday night I went and saw Casablanca. Id seen it before, but for six bucks it was a bargain, and a good way to kill the night. Should I really need to concern myself with killing every night? Id like to say I want to make the most of it read a book, learn a language, make some money but thats not true. I want to have fun, I want to spend quality time with people whose company I enjoy. It shouldnt be such a chore and such a bore to not party.

Casablanca and the rest of the past hundred years of pop culture has taught us that when theres no one else to turn to, theres alcohol. Rick spends the entire movie drowning his sorrows in gin and scotch and looking cool doing it (and on a sidenote, dangling a cigarette in such a way that I want to run out and pick up a 2-pack-a-day habit immediately, but Im not preaching against that vice, so I'll let it slide). In real life, booze isn't such a great companion.

At least my very drunken friend had good friends around him, who didnt leave him on the porch of a frat house. Hes thankful to have learned who he can trust; its the only positive thing he could draw from the whole experience, but for everyone else, the question is: When do I find my friends? Where do I find my friends? Where are the people like me, who I expected to meet by going to Stanford?

Why are we all having such a crisis of confidence?

I think the problem is winter break. Im calling for it to be abolished. We all go home, and see our old friends and our old school, even if we now hate them, and remember how nice it was to have history theyre still friends with whom you dont need to fill in the backstory because they were there for it, or heard it before, and the school didnt surprise you with classes in the geology library that required the aid of a 4-color map. We remember how comfortable our old bed is (even if its got a 14- year-old mattress with busted springs that your parents have been offering to replace for years and years), and how nice it is to shower without wearing flip-flops or worrying about meningitis. And then we come back here, to unforgiving I-Hum choices and friends who weve only known for a few months, and there isn't the first-quarter optimism and newness to make us gloss over our fears of being alone.

The desperation of winter quarter is making people do stupid things like hook up with sketchy stalkers and ex-girlfriends (and boyfriends), going so far as to bus and plane them in from hundreds of miles away. Maybe everyone has it in the back of their minds that Valentines Day is only a few weeks away. Im calling for the abolishment of that too. Pretty soon were gonna need to enter into the drama of the dreaded Draw. Its time to play all my cards and see who my real friends are, and who wants to volunteer to spend a year living with my neurosis.

This is the fun of winter quarter.

As for the guy who went to the hospital, hes fine, and so is the guy who he beat in the drinking contest, who puked first. The one who spent the night with an IV in his arm claims hes never going to drink again; his competitor went out partying tonight.

David Blackman is an undeclared freshman with hopes of surviving winter quarter and becoming an undeclared sophomore. E-mail him at blackmad@stanford.edu.