New Lancer Days: An Opportunity to Draw As Much Attention To Yourself As Possible?

On the evening of Saturday the 22nd, Jim Merkel opened up the discussion for questions about his book after a relatively long, yet humble, lecture about his book Radical Simplicity. Over two hundred minds in Jarman auditorium thought, "This is it! This is my time to shine!" Suddenly kids start coming out of the woodwork and approaching the mic. "Umm," one girl said, "I noticed that the first two chapters were really interesting, but then the book just became really repetitive..." 

Okay, let's stop here. Is that a question? No. Is that necessary? No. Is that polite to say to an adult, much less one who has been kind enough to take time out of his volunteer work to come to a bunch of college students who didn't even read his book? No. This girl was just looking for an opportunity to get up in front of the newly freshman class and make a name of herself. She will now be that girl that said that dumb comment at New Lancer Days. I was embarrassed for her. Then some other kid asked, "Well, uh, if you're only living off six grand a year, why did you raise 40,000 dollars for the bike lanes in your city?" Hmmm, well, he wasn't living off the bike lanes, was he? That money was raised for the city, not for Mr. Merkel. I praise Jim Merkel for not losing his cool, as I understand a situation very similar occurred last year. That shows great patience.

These kids are just gushing and grasping and screaming to make a spot for themselves in this community, but they're going about it the entirely wrong way. Girls were wearing heavy makeup and short skirts and I even saw boots. Okay, new Lancer Days is composed of sitting in Jarman for multiple hours of the day; what's the occasion, ladies? Boys were talking about "gittin' trashed" and being loud and obnoxious. What's the thought process there? "Dude, let's go to a party tonight and drink, even though freshmen are the only students on campus right now, which means we're all underage." It just doesn't make sense to me. These kids were just exploding with identity crises. I understand this is an opportunity to start over and all, a clean slate, but must we be so annoying?