Center of idiocy
“To be totally honest, I was most
impressed with the size of the mam
moth’s genitalia in the Lloyd G. Tanner
Plaza outside of Morrill Hall.”
-Ben Bennack’s response, when
asked by NSE leader, Brett Stohs,
what impressed him the most about
New Student Enrollment.
Let me tell you something. The
world’s about to hit a wall, and you’re
driving. Well, you and the rest of the
student body. The pretentiousness and
pseudo-profundity among the students
at the University of Nebraska is at an
all-time high. I have a feeling you
already knew that, though.
I’d like to blame this on you and
your worthless major, but that would
be somewhat unfair. Therefore, I’ve
decided to enlighten you on which of
your classes and majors piss me off the
most. Make rocket go now!
Philosophy is definitely the most
useless area of study at the University
of Nebraska. Not only is the cycle it
produces wicious, it is completely
worthless. Graduates of this program
end up living in cardboard boxes and
spending their whole lives trying to
find their way out of them.
The only true philosopher on cam
pus is the Union bum. I’ve heard him
mumble the meaning of life on several
occasions. It has something to do with
turnips.
Math. What the hell? Andrew
Wiles can spend the rest of his life
searching for the answer to Fermat’s
Last Theorem for all I care. He’ll prob
ably still have more of a life than most
math majors. Mathematicians have
never made a serious contribution to
society and never will. Why anyone
would ever want to major in math is
like the Pythagorean Theorem: there is
no answer. If you have a problem with
that, consider your ass square-rooted!
Most majors at UNL prove worthless, wastes of time
Next up are electrical, mechanical,
computer and whatever other pointless
engineering majors are offered. Unless
you can operate a train, I don’t consid
er you an engineer. Your pathetic little
toy trains don’t count either. The
Engineering College is just for stu
dents who have no will of their own.
They have plenty of mechanical skills,
but they don’t have enough creativity
to come up with their own schedule of
classes.
It’s sad. Actually, pathetic is a more
fitting word. When the new computer
honors residence hall opens up, I think
they should charge admission and let
the public come see “Nerds and
Invalids, the likes of which ye have
never seen.” It could be used as thera
py for people who have been feeling
bad about themselves.
You ever want to
see a horde of self
centered bastards?
Look no further than
CBA, the building of
the damned.
Business majors are
for greedy misan
thropes who don’t
want to experience
real life and enjoy
sounding important
without having to do
any real work. The
college also serves
as a safe haven for
athletes. Uh, I mean
“student” athletes.
You know as well as
I do that the College
of Business
Administration can
safely take 95 per
cent credit for
Nebraska’s nation
leading 168
Academic ^ All
Americans.
And screw psy
chology. According
to Freud, the reason I
smoke is because of
“oral deficiencies
experienced as a
child.” According to
life, who gives a
damn? Besides, I’ve
always credited it to
the sweet, sweet nicotine. What is
mind? No matter. What is matter?
Never mind. That’s all the psychology
you’ll ever need.
What’s up with all those immi
grants and their “fofeign languages?”
What have Swedes, Germans, Czechs,
Russians and Italians ever done for us
anyway? Melting pot, my ass. I don’t
need to go to England or Italy to study
abroad, there are plenty of broads
worth studying right here on campus.
Not so fast, English majors.
Probably thought you were going to
get away, didn’t you? Probably thought
it was safe to chuckle at a dangling
participle or a sentence-ending prepo
sition. Well, tough luck. You’re just a
bunch of wannabe writers and
lawyers. Your talent will run out long
before your pen ever does.
Let’s see. Who’s next? Maestro,
banjo music, please. Seriously, East
Campus folk, it gets really tiring fol
lowing your tractors up and down
Holdrege Street. Four legs good, two
legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!
Four legs good, two legs bad!
wnoever designed Mammon Hail
knew what he was doing. Structuring
the building to implode was pure
genius. I don’t think anyone would
notice that the science majors were
missing, anyway. Cures, vaccines and
pasteurization aside, scientists have
brought nothing but pain and misfor
tune to people. What have flu and
hepatitis C shots ever done for me?
Nothing, that’s what.
Journalists are the scum of the
earth. They kick you when you’re up,
they kick you when you’re down and
they kick you in the balls just for the
fun of it. Ever since MacNeil left the
“MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour,” the
media has been crap. News sucks, and
newspapers are worse. Let’s face it,
print is dead.
And with that, dear friends, I take
my leave. However, I have a few last
words of inspiration, a la Chicken
Soup for the College Soul. Always
brush your teeth. Friends are the best
kind of people to borrow money from
and to have sex with. No matter what
anyone says, Big Brother really is
watching you. And finally, to please all
of you “deeper meaning” bastards
wondering what the purpose of all this
actually is, I’ve concluded that the
only classes truly worth enrolling in
are The History of Rock Music and
Human Sexuality.
Scott Eastman/DN
Chris Gustafson is a sophomore ag economics and Lucas Stock is a freshman English major. They are Daily Nebraskan columnists.
Crisis of love - a faith story
Allowing intimacy opens doors once thought permanently closed
I found God in the Rec Center.
She was wearing a “No Fear” T
shirt and Reebok warm-up pants. She
was doing squats, with a lot of
weight, too, while I was doing lat
pull-downs. I watched her during my
rests between sets.
She finished with the station and
passed me on her way to the dumb
bells. Our eyes met as she parsed; she
had the most beautiful blue-gray
eyes, with a thin ring of indigo on the
limit of the iris. Her eyes and her dark
blonde hair gave her a pointed, pur
poseful look.
1 finished with my sets on the lat
machine and went to the dumbbells,
too. She was getting ready to do
bench presses. “Will you spot me?”
she asked. '
I stood silent for a moment, then
moved behind her. I moved my lips
slightly, saying, “Yes,” inaudibly.
When she finished with her sets,
she rose. “Thanks,” she said.
“No problem,” I was awkwardly
silent. Finally, “Hey, I never caught
your name.”
“My name is Jen,” she said.
“Cool. It’s a pleasure making your
acquaintance, Jen,” I said, mock-for
mally. “My name is Jake.”
She smiled. “Well, I’ll see you
around, then?” /—
“Yeah.”
with that, she turned to leave.
As it turns out, our schedules
were nearly identical, so we ended up
in the weight room together frequent
ly. After a couple of times, she gave
me her number, but it would be a cou
ple of weeks before I got over my
intrinsic timidity and called her.
I spent the four rings until her
answer wishing for the machine.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Jen there?” j
“This is she.”
j “Hey, Jen, it’s Jake,” I said.
“Hi, Jake. I was hoping you would
call.” Her voice was warming to her
friendly tone. It comforted me.
“Yeah, I didn’t know when to call
you. I didn’t, want to catch you at an
awkward time or anything.”
“Listen,” she said, “you can call
me whenever you please. You might
get the machine, but I always reply.”
“Cool. So anyway, how are you
doing...”
We talked on the phone for a few
hours that night. More phone calls
would follow; in time we would
become closer, to the point where we
seemed inseparable most of the time.
The issue of my sexuality came up
periodically. I wasn’t able to make her
understand why I felt I was militantly
gay
“What I don’t get,” she said one
night, “is how you can cut off so many
people from consideration.”
“It’s not like that ... ” I tried to
explain.
“Yes it is. When you say you can
only love a man, never a woman, you
are closing yourself off to a whole dif
ferent level of experience. You are
saying, ‘Nope, not for me,’ on a whole
class of relationships you’ve never
honestly tried.”
“Jen, it’s not like that at all.”
She gave a frustrated sigh. Then,
“Jake, do you love me?”
“Of course I do. You know that.”
“No, I mean, do you love me in
that way?”
I knew what the response should
have been, but I couldn’t give it. It
was true I hadn’t dated any guys since
I met Jen. But did that mean I loved
her in that way? I didn’t know what to
say to that. I just knew I couldn’t leave
her behind.
Time would pass, and we would
allow ourselves to grow close to an
incredible degree. Thoughts of men
faded away. Before long, Jen and I
were an “item.”
I loved her for her strength of
character, for her devotion to what
was right. 1 would meditate on her
face and her laugh when she wasn’t
around, and I would discover such
profound beauties that words would
pale as their messenger.
She felt similarly for me as well.
We would spend hours together,
whenever we could, and she would
tell me everything and listen to every
thing I had to say, until finally we
would fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Then, one day, she asked me to
commit myself to her.
“Jake, I love you deeply and with
all my heart. I want you to be with me
forever.” Our heads were close, her
eyes were down on our interlocking
hands. She looked at me, again. That
gray-blue. “Will you marry me?”
“Jen,” I said, barely more than a
gasp. “I’m overwhelmed.”
Indeed, I was. The idea seemed
like nothing more than infinite happi
ness and comfort. After a life of emo
tional turmoil and devastating rela
tionships, how could I resist?
How could I devote myself forev
er, though? Just less than a year
before, I was dating men and con
vinced that I would never do other
wise.
What if I had ever found the male
equivalent of Jen? What if she wasn’t
the only one?
I looked deep into her eyes for
strength. She squeezed my hands, her
eyes focused on mine. “Jen,” I said,
with more voice/this time. We
breathed together, and I watched her
face, that face whose every detail I
had committed to memory. My'eyes
welled with tears. “Jen ” this time
with a sigh of relief.
“Yes, I will.”
Jake Glazeski is a senior music and math major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.