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Show Opinions What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas this year? sophomore, English Mary Melly I want a personal computer and a dog. by Blessing Ream Forum staff reporter " Michael Padilla Dar Quealy freshman, nursing I want a gallon of submissive pickles. Either that or a sonic enema. IwantSantatobringmebackLizPctcrsons ' picture of the year. Photos by Temmie Fleming mental-patie- Ive tried a thousand times to understand about whats so enticing watching sporting events. For some reason Ive never been able to sit and watch other people playing with a ball. or Let me say that Im not anything. I dont have some deep psychological complex about athletics because I was a dweeb who always got picked last in gym class. Im a good athlete and I like sports, or at least I like to participate in them. But sitting on my ass cheering and eating junk food in the middle of a crowded stadium or a stuffy living room just doesnt do it for me. I dont have a problem with people who enjoy it either. What I do have a problem with is being treated like Im mentally and socially backward because I dont know how many points Karl Malone scored last night. Who cares? Im not excited by some giant tossing a bouncy round object through a metallic hoop. Sure hes good at it, but so what? If you drop that hoop down a foot Im pretty spectacular myself. I find it ridiculous that we deify somebody whos good at shooting balls. In this town Karl Malone rivals Jesus as the most respected individual. Ive got cousins who know everything there is to know about him. Shooting average, height, weight, marital status, even how much he bench presses. Every time Im around them they rattle off some piece of trivial information theyve discovered about Karl. Thats great, but where does it leave them? Knowing a lot about Karl Malone or Michael Jordan just means youre an average, ordinary pallooka whos gathered too much information about abasketball star. Youre not a better citizen, you arent a better athlete, you dont score higher on I.Q. tests, you dont even get an income tax deduction. The most you can hope for is actually meeting these people and shaking their hands. Once thats happened, youve peaked. Whats worse is that fans cant just say their idols are great athletes. Fans have to glamorize them until theyre the most near-- . perfect humans on the planet. Instead of saying that Karl s incredible at basketball or. that John Stocktons a supreme guard, people have to make them larger than life. Malone and Stocktons . becomes very intelligent anti-spor- ts semester.1 - Whats so macho about vicarious living? of) Sleep (Lack it. flare to a haircut sort of has by Trevor Mavin Forum staff writer MB A student Stcphanid ttjiymond I wanr $jinia to bring me a 4.0 this sophomore, accounting nt Something I warn against is pointing out any imperfections in these guys. I know a woman who dated Malone and claimed he was nearly illiterate. I dont know if thats but true maybe he just dumped her when I told my cousins about this it was as if Id denounced God. To this day they still ostracize me for spreading false and malicious rumors about Karl. The thing I find really odd about the whole fan mentality is that its somehow gotten intertwined with our concept of masculinity. Whats so manly about leading such a boring life that you have to live vicariously by watching others do something you cant? Topless guys who wear rainbow wigs and go to football games in temperatures arent macho, theyre idiots. The man who hollers the loudest at games isnt a stud, hes obnoxious. And the guy who knows the shooting average for everybody in the NBA isnt brilliant, hes bored. A few days ago I went in to get a haircut. In the waiting room a couple of high school jocks in their lettermens jackets sat thumbing through copies of Sports Illustrated. Realizing that a trivial conversation with these champs wasnt exactly an option, I grabbed a magazine off the rack to help pass the time. I picked up what I always pick up. Not S.I., not Fish and Game, not even GQ. I chose Vogue! Not for the fashion tips or the perfume samples, I choose it for the pictures inside. Soon after I realized that the across from me were giving me strange d looks. There were, even a few slurs aimed in my direction. I should have ignored it, but thats not my nature. Instead I pointed out that while I was looking at a $100,000-a-da- y model in her underwear, were busy devouring images of sweaty they men in uniforms. Go figure. If people like watching sports and catching up on athletic trivia, that s fine, but don t act like Im some kind of nerd because Im into leading an active life of my own not I others their live lives while vegwatching etate. If that makes me a freak, fine! If picking Vogue over S.I. makes me less of a man, so be it! But for me Bo Jackson in a jock strap isnt nearly as mesmerizing as Naomi Cambell in a thong. Guess Im just a misfit. sub-freezi- by Christy Jones-Fend- low-tone- en er Forum staff writer There are three kinds of people in this world morning people, night people and people who walk around with a floral couch pattern permanently embedded into faces. I fall into the their latter category. It is my firm belief that my long-tim- e status as a student has most certainly aided in the steady disintegration of my once acute ability to remain at least moderately drool-dampen- ed , coherent. Lets face it, although college provides an outlet for sharpened intellect, it is not without a price. The infinite hours spent cemented to those excruciatingly rock-har- d desks; world record cramming binges; and weeks spent studying the life and times of Bemie, the organism, tend to erode our alert state of mind. I find myself more and more escaping at inopportune times. offon J ust yesterday, while lounging on the beach in St. Thomas, listening to the sedate surf and sorting through various colorful my professor had the nerve to interrupt me, yank me out of my chaise lounge and sternly request that I continue with my ng he-m- and the college life one-cell- mini-vacatio- ed ns sea-shel- ls, . Musings.... well-establish- ed Lizs Christmas Continued from page 2 Merry Christmas. Hell, why not throw in Happy Valentines, Easter, and Fourth of Ju ly? 1 1 m cans being hal fway through Jan when someone inevitably says, Hey, didnt you have a birthday sometime in December? Yeah, thanks for noticing. But a birthday is still a birthday and I will be celebrating. And before I go, I have to say Hi to a' most ardent fan. Hi Travis, thanks for your input. Well invite you to the wedding. So everyone have a safe holiday break. Take some time for your families and yourselves. Remind yourself of what its like to read something just for fun. Watch television for an hour and dont feel guilty. See a movie without feeling like you should be studying. Most of all, just enjoy yourself because spring semester is .only 18 d u-a- fun-fille- days away! oral presentation. I dont know what the big rush was. Judging by the corpse-lik- e appearance of my fellow classmates, they were thoroughly immersed in windsurfing off the coast of Fiji. To add to my already tendency to inadvertently check out from time to time, I was assigned a 5:30 a.m. shift at work last week. Since I am a night student, alteration of slccpcommencement time is not possible. I can think of no worse torture to inflict upon a person , except maybe bi ndi n g them to a banana chair with barbed wire and forcing them to watch Lawrence Wclk reruns over and over again. Perhaps I am exaggerating. I guess its not all that bad if you can look past my sunken gray eyes, mismatched shoes and incomprehensible blubbering. Heck. Traffic is fantastic at 4:45 a.m. And parking you wouldnt believe the selection. All in all, Ive decided to simply view my sleep deprivation as just another endurance test. Aftcrall, didnt wcall learn in biology that only the strong shall survive? My question is, will they be awake to care? ry Continuedfrom page 2 Bad things happen at Christmas stress, depression, car wrecks claustrophobia. But good things happen too. As long as you remember that for two months of the year Christmas will take over you life, you can deal with it. You cannot avoid it. You may feel like you have to behave a certain way or feel a certain way in order to liyc it right because everything is screaming Christmas at you. You dont have to, though, and you certainly dont have to hate it. Remember the essence of your Christmases minus everything else, and let it be your own. I believe its the only way to survive. It takes more effort to hate it than it takes to accept it. So listen to some Tchaikovsky, drink some hot wine and sing or whatever works for you. December 15, 1992 .A. forum itijj Pagei 3 1 ,V |