Mart-deBlog

By now I received the diploma. Thus, time for a sequel, time for some righteous pessimism. Because it's just an ugly thing, that diploma. I want to explain here, also to remember myself, how the diploma embodies to me all that it is ugly about studying.
Until now, the paper itself has only attracted respect from people you don't want respect from. It is (wannabe-)elitist, in a sad way, especially because it has the whole honors college written on it. But an honors college means nothing more than getting high grade easier than somewhere else. Texts are the same anywhere, if you ask me, and teachers definitely don't become better when they enter the campus' gates. And then, I was short of 0.01 point for a 'magna cum laude' instead of the 'cum laude', the diploma takes itself so serious. It makes me angry, especially cause my brother failed his exams with pretty much the same pathetic amount of points, sometimes no difference can make a real difference.
No, really, students are stupid. How much I dislike those people, that take language for intelligence, those who think they are genius because they know how to spell their latin-rooted words. Or those who believe in talents, the ones that think they are gifted, and who need to explain how little they studied when they get a bad grade, and they often have such an autistic focus on one subject or interest, and never dare to go outside the boundaries of their supposed talents. Also an evildoer is the concept of 'intelligence', a widespread sick concept. 'Intelligence' is still a test construct, like x in x+y=z. What was retarded yesterday is called dyslexia today, and still it only functions to separate people. But UC showed me super-IQ-kids that defined stupidity clearer than anyone else. Many suck up to professors, badly. Good grades, and the diploma, only show how much one is able to adapt to mediocrity, and how well one sees what is expected and how well one obeys to given tasks like a dog. I did it quite well, and it disgusts me far more than it makes me proud.
Also, I'm starting to feel the hangover from playing student for the last three years. I mean we all play our roles, but I have never played one for three subsequent years, with serious dedication. It started with being rejected, because of my Vrijeschool background which made me unfit in character to UC. But I believed I could be anything I wanted, and surely I could be a UC student. And so I showed them, and myself how well I could play the role. And, the longer you play a role, the sadder it becomes. I remember that passage of Sartre, about the waiter who tries too hard to be a waiter, too rigid, too polite, fleeing away from anguish: what Sartre saw as the nothingness we are, the freedom to give meaning without necessity, the burden of complete freedom. On UC, I and all the others, had to play the role of student to an extreme. And the result? I cannot quote Sartre without sounding pretentious. I cannot quote Sartre, without seeing it as a grounding of my arguments. I forget the fact, that I could have always stepped outside the role of student, anytime. I didn't and lost sight of many possibilities, of the other choices unto which to project character.
Still, somehow it was worth it all, I think. Time will tell. But I will always try to remember the tiny crimes, the ugliness it takes to get somewhere.