Sustained Criticism

I live, I aspirate! (That is a really useless allusion.) And I am sort of back at LJ. I've been busy caring for our charges – Anette and I've shared the responsibility – which entailed dragging them around campus on a pub-crawl, getting uselessly drunk in general and showing them where to get good coffee. We've been drinking too much, but that's student's privilege. The cunning plan (if all else fails, get them drunk) worked: everyone bonded. And I've found a platonic soulmate in Vanja, who happens to own about as much make-up as I do, read as much, and share my taste in men.

We went to a lecture about Coetzee and Knausgård, that finally crystallised my issues with my education. It is not science, it is culture. Utterly useless as a profession.

I survived a visit to the dentist yesterday; I went half-hoping for a wisdom's tooth showdown, half not. It might not be the best idea to go to a lecture drooling blood. They are both going away the 16. September, at last. Today I've dragged my eyes through 50 pages of Austen's Emma. Free indirect style doesn't really help, it is horribly boring.

Did I mention that we bought tickets to New York? We did.

My university has a 'buddy system', to make the transition into student life easier. It means that experienced drunks/students sign up to show people how not to drown in the big city. We all signed up for it, Anette and I as a team of two. Two people are supposed to take care of 10 new students. But, that is not how things are done at the Faculty of Humanity, and certainly not at the EURAM program. These new students were at some point dubbed 'children', I'm sure they will love it.

We do it the Humanist way. Faculty prejudice claims that humanists are scatterbrained, albeit fairly clever and never plan anything. And it is generally true for all of us. We deal with things as they come along, in order of random priority. Our program has 450 new students, and 20 buddies. 20, when 6 do not show up, 4 people volunteer on the spot, and 2 randoms are coerced into helping. Which means if we are lucky we get 20 children to take care of, 35 if we are not.

The leaders, in their infinite wisdom, decided that we meet in a campus garden (named after the most obnoxious man in Norwegian history, Ivar Aasen) 30 minutes before the children arrive.. The buddies then hold signs, handmade of course, up in the air and let their children flock to them. We're supposed to keep count, and move somewhere to do introductions when we have 30-35 children to take care of.

All of this collides nicely with two other meetings we, as buddies, are supposed to attend. Are (Kristine's boyfriend, 'Are' is indeed his name) figures we will need vuvuzelas to make people shut up and gather round. I am opting for heels, a temper, being an insufferable loudmouth. If that doesn't work, I intend to glare at them over my glasses. Then someone climbs on a table, screams at people to shut up, and ask that they raise their hands according to what they think they'd like to major in. What they think they would like. I am not joking.

It is all a logistical vortex. And I am not fit for dealing with those. Cunning plan: get them drunk. Make them share embarrassing moments, ensuring complicity: friendships need drunken earnestness, if we fast-forward them there they must be friends. Cunning!