I have chosen to drop the practice of blogging about my college assignments, after a couple of incidents of too much candor that have gotten me in some hot water (one of my favorite aphorisms is: “Good judgement is the result of experience, and experience is the result of bad judgment.”). But this anecdote, relayed by a student, is too good to not commit to posterity.
I am in Annapolis, MD, at St. John's College, a stunningly amazing institution with which I am quite smitten. It sits adjacent to the U.S. Naval Academy. “Johnnies,” as they call themselves, consider that a week of academic pursuit on their campus is equivalent to a year of study by their next door neighbors. Consequently, every Wednesday night, at midnight, they have a loud and boisterous New Year's celebration, directed toward the Academy.
I am unlikely to stay up late enough this Wednesday to verify this in person. Even if apocryphal, it's a great tradition.
Gotta hate the term "Oops".
Call me imperceptive, but I've never seen anything on your blog that could even remotely be categorized as "too much candor". Or have the qualities of being straightforward and non-judgmental (not to mention downright relentlessly positive) taken on new meaning?
Posted by: stephen | October 19, 2009 at 08:25 PM
It's an eye of the beholder thing, but I have learned to be exceedingly careful when discussing a client. Precisely what may not seem offensive to me might come back and bite, and because I can't tell what, I'm more careful than when I began this blog five years ago.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | October 20, 2009 at 05:23 AM
I'm a student at St. John's and can verify that this really does happen. It's actually 10 PM to 12 AM, culminating in a countdown from ten to "Happy new year!"
Stories vary; that's our favorite one, but there are more. The simplest is that a lot of people had Wednesday "Hell Days" (all their classes in one day), so they had a celebration for getting through another long, hard, "year." Wednesday is also the first day of school after registration, so it's the start of a new year, and they wanted to repeat the new year's celebration all year long. A more interesting story involves our tradition that anything a member of the administration says, even in jest, is absolute law: some upperclassmen were pestering the assistant dean at the time asking if there was any time that they could give beer to the freshmen, and the exasperated man finally responded "only on new year's eve." We have winter break in that time, of course, so the upperclassmen decided that every Wednesday night was New Year's, so they could have a party.
Consequentially, I may caution against taking pictures at New Year's except very, very carefully. Not many parents would like to open an admissions pamphlet to see eighteen-year-olds holding beers. Might be worth seeing if you're still up, just be forewarned.
Anyway, that's the stories I know about New Year's. We've got a million just like 'em for any given tradition. Enjoy your stay.
Posted by: Johnny Anony | October 20, 2009 at 11:59 AM