The Vine: July 10, 2002
Hi Sars,
The letter from Take Me Out To A Ballgame…Any Ballgame reminded me of a column by the Sports Guy called “Rules For Being A True Fan.” I don’t agree with all of it, but he pretty much nails the “Loyalties” section.
And I would say to Take Me Out that the best part about rooting for a bad team is the feeling of pride you get when the team finally gets good. I started rooting for the New England Patriots the year they went 1-15, and I know it meant more to me when they won the Superbowl this year than it did to the friends of mine who started rooting for them ten minutes before the game.
Sincerely,
A Sports Gal
Dear Gal,
Bill Simmons is an excellent writer, and that’s one of his more popular columns; he makes good points about bandwagoners (most of which could probably apply to me, but again…Juan Samuel…and Mackey Sasser…I had valid reasons).
And I agree with you that sticking with a team through the crap years makes the good years that much more rewarding, but I’ll say it again — if it’s only winning you care about, you’ll have a long six months ahead of you with a baseball team. You have to enjoy watching the game, even if your team’s rendition of the game has Abner Doubleday twirling in his grave.
Dear Sars,
I know that you get a lot of letters like this but I can’t find a way out of this problem.
I’m a first-year pre-bio student. When I first started, everyone told me that I was going to have the time of my life. Boy, were they ever wrong — I feel like my whole life is falling apart into pieces.
When I was in high school, I loved going to my science classes, so I thought that a science major was for me. Well, I hate all my science classes; I’ve never experienced anything so hard. What seems to make it worst for me is that nothing seems to spark my interest like I felt in high school — in short, learning just isn’t fun for me anymore.
In fact, my life just seems to be boring and a drag most of the time. It’s not that I’m not meeting people — I’m shy by nature, but I have at least one friend in all my classes and I’m making new friends every day — it’s just that between class and all the work that goes along with class I feel like I don’t have time for a life anymore.
I’m so stressed out that I cry myself to sleep every night (if I have time to sleep) and I can’t seem to make myself eat anymore (I have no desire to chew and put food in my mouth even if I’m hungry). To add to all of this, when I’m stressed I get muscle spasms that cause my legs and hands to shake violently.
I’m so confused about my life right now that I want to drop out and work flipping burgers somewhere (no offense to burger flippers, it’s just an analogy) but I’ve already paid some four thousand dollars and it seems like a waste of money to just quit.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to kindergarten
Dear Go Back,
Get out your university directory and find the number for the academic counseling office. Call them. Set up an appointment. An academic counselor could probably help you a lot — by hooking you up with a tutor, by suggesting studying strategies and helping you prioritize your assignments if that’s something you don’t do well, by seeing how you might shift your courseload around a little to lighten it, by showing you other majors that would interest you and make use of the work you’ve already done without stressing you out.
So get on the horn to a dean or a counselor and get some help sorting yourself out academically. Also, if you can, try to take a step back and look at the big picture. It’s your first year. You don’t have to figure everything out now; you don’t have to have your whole life planned. It’s totally okay to look around and realize that you’ve gotten yourself in over your head. It happens all the time. There’s no shame in it.
For now, hang in there and trust that it’s all going to settle out the way it should even if it’s confusing and stressful now. You need help, and that’s fine — you just have to go get it. See an advisor about your courseload. See a therapist about managing your stress. And don’t lose hope. You’ll figure it out.
Hello Sars,
The problem I have is not so much mine as it is my mother’s, BUT as she insists on discussing it at least a gazillion times a day with anyone who will listen, I just want this to end.
My grandparents (on my mother’s side) were invited to the wedding dinner of their friend’s grandchild. They couldn’t make it, so they replied to that effect. A week later, my parents received an invitation to the same wedding (my mom grew up with the bride’s mother), but the RSVP date was scratched out and written in as a week later.
My mom was like, “What the?” and got on the horn to my grandma to find out what was going on. Apparently the bride and groom had not considered that anyone would turn down an invitation to their wedding dinner, so they only sent out the exact number of invitations. In the end they had extra (I’m assuming) paid-for dinners, so they sent more invitations.
My mother is offended. My mother is hurt. She says that they made it obvious she is a “B-list” guest. They didn’t even bother with new invitations!
My advice to my mother (not that she listened) was: Weddings are hectic, they made a mistake, you knew you weren’t that great friends before they pointed it out, this shouldn’t really affect whether you go to the wedding or not.
So what do you think? How big was their faux pas? Is it reason enough not to go to a wedding? Whether they go or not, should anything be said to the bride and groom? Should people on a “B-list” be invited at all? I mean, it’s a wedding — shouldn’t it be with people you love? Should I really be writing to Miss Manners?
Most importantly: How can I get my mother to stop talking about this? I think it’s catching.
Just Wants Some Peace
Dear Peace,
Scratching out the old date on the invitations is extremely tacky. It looks cheap, and it makes it clear that those who received the altered invitations are, as your mother complains, “B-list.”
In your mother’s shoes, I’d stare at the invitation in disbelief, snort out loud, scan it, email the scan to all my friends with a snotty caption, and then RSVP declining to attend and get on with my life. I mean, they didn’t invite me on the first go-round, so I hadn’t really planned to attend anyway, and if the tackiness of the invitations is any indication, they’ll probably have a cash bar and a bar-mitzvah band murdering the entire B-52s catalog and a bunch of five-year-olds in bow ties running around hopped up on wedding-cake icing and Shirley Temples, so…no thanks. Not dressing up for that crap.
In your shoes, I’d tell your mother to send in the card marked “no” and let it drop. She shouldn’t bring up the gaffe to the couple — pointing out the bad manners of others is bad manners too, and seldom works anyway. If she feels she must make a point, she could check off yes, then scratch it out and check off “no” instead, but she has to decide that, and she has to decide whether it’s offensive enough that she doesn’t want to go to the wedding. Tell her to decide already and leave you out of it, because you don’t care, and based on what you’ve told me about her non-closeness to these people, neither should your mother.
[7/10/02]
Tags: etiquette health and beauty popcult the fam
