<p>Granted not my best writing, but at midnight and near exhaustion, the gist of what I attempted to write remains.</p>
<p>We are unique and our differences set us apart. This should in no manner prevent us in learning from one another. Perhaps we could plant seeds within the garden we find ourselves in with blooms to draw smiles upon.</p>
<p>With regards Wesley’s comments on Borat: Borat is a poor example for this thread. Borat is not worth watching much less mentioning within any cultural context. Borat lowers the threshold of decency and self-respect. Catering to those of a lower social development does not enamor one nor embolden one to positive actions.</p>
<p>Being one of intellect does not necessarily imply intelligence. Intelligence with the application of wisdom and the proper consideration for the quality of life towards ourselves, others and the world must be the underlying purpose when we consider the life of the mind. If you cannot add value to the altercation, why bother with your blather. Perhaps a pensive life is preferred to the impassioned speeches of impetuous personages that pepper tasteless conversations.</p>
<p>Appreciate the qualities you find in others as in yourself for then you prosper. Let us learn to help one another overcome the bewilderment we find ourselves in. </p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<p>::: Scholarly cough ::: While I believe that out of the entire Sascha Baron Cohen oeuvre, early Ali G television shows are the most worthy of repeated viewing and study, I do feel Borat offers intermittent pockets of brilliance. Still, the Ali G canon is richer in incisive social commentary. And of course, Sasha Baron Cohen’s turn as the French Formula Un champion Jean Girard (in Talladega Nights) offers many an insight into the deeply troubled post 9/11 Franco-American relationship.</p>
<p>Horse - Radish, was it? - did you know that Sasha Baron Cohen read history at Cambridge, at Christ’s, and wrote his thesis on the American Civil Liberties movement? I wonder if Cambridge is as intellectual as it’s made out to be?</p>
<p>the whole time, right from the start.</p>
<p>Agree with Harriet Welch. Da Ali Show was brilliant. Borat had flashes, but that kind of humor can’t be sustained for a full-length film, IMO. I expect Bruno to have flashes, but be similarly disappointing.</p>
<p>Speaking of intellectuals and comedy, a pair of recent grad Swarthmore brothers are going viral (1.8 million views) with their Auto-Tune the News Series, featured in this news story:</p>
<p>[‘Auto-Tune</a> the News’, CNN Never Sounded So Good](<a href=“http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/06/29/auto-tune-the-news-cnn-never-sounded-so-good/]'Auto-Tune”>http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/06/29/auto-tune-the-news-cnn-never-sounded-so-good/)</p>
<p>let’s put this in the simplest terms possible. the op is every parents worse nightmare. which of you out there who are parents, would want a slug like dchow rooming with their kid? the op has obviously shown that there is only one person that matters to him/her. locking out the roomie while he’s in the shower? who cares, i just don’t like leaving the room unlocked, its always what i want that counts. help a brother out by waking him the next morning? no thanks, i’m teaching him a life lesson by letting him oversleep, he should thank me. what? he says i’m the bad guy? no no, not from someone who clearly is only a “psuedo intellectual”, you don’t say sh… like that to a real intellectual like me! obviously, i post the original post because noone else at swat has the capacity to see why i am right so i turn to the molly coddling pc loving crowd at cc for validation(btw, why am i always eating alone at sharples?) since it appears that everyone at swat seems to think my roommate is in the right, swat must be bogus intellectually and does not deserve one such as myself, so unless the people of cc convince me otherwise, i’m out of here.</p>
<p>that’s basically the whine that i hear. please, don’t encourage that loser to stay, in fact, lets bid him a not so fond farewell and hope the door doesn’t hit is a… on the way out.</p>
<p>Horseradish, I’m sorry, but I have to say that I just skimmed your posts without really reading it. I disagree about your idea that having intellect doesn’t imply intelligence. First, intellect is a kind of intelligence, so if you have intellect, you necessarily have intelligence. Besides, everyone has intelligence; it is the protean faculty. Now, being very intellectual does not mean that you are generally very intelligent, because intellect is just one kind of intelligence.</p>
<p>Duhvinci, you have shown complete ignorance to the fact that my locking my roommate out was an accident. And you’ve shown ignorance to everything else too. Everything you’re saying is unsound.</p>
<p>dchow,</p>
<p>Please do not take to heart some of the unpleasant things that some posters have said to you. Anyone who has been following your posts since you started posting here would know that you have been thoughtful and honest when you have shared your two cents worth. </p>
<p>I believe that when you initially posted about your roommate, without fully explaining all that was going on, and sort of did one of those stream of consciousness that young adults tend to do, it made you sound uncaring. Once you gave more detail in your later post, it was easy to understand what you were feeling.</p>
<p>I do not know you personally, but I have a feeling that you were simply expressing frustration. Having lived with the roommate from hell my freshman year, I can fully empathize with anyone who is unfortunate with his/her assignment of a roommate. Hopefully next year you will be rooming with compatible friends and will have a more enjoyable experience.</p>
<p>the roomate from hell in this case is dchow! ignorant and unsound is a heck of a lot better than self centered and pretentious. the locking out of the roomate may have been an accident but the part of you that hoped your roomate would fail because he couldn’t wake up wasn’t. that was all you, bro!</p>
<p>It is sad to see that Duhvinci’s current posts continue to show the same immaturity and lack of insight that his posts show dating back to his Swarthmore ED admission 3 years ago, when he called himself an “immature, pampered know-it-all.” </p>
<p>Dchow, there will always be individuals who will fail to understand differing perspectives and throw verbal tantrums when someone dares to disagree with them. This is not always due to a lack of intellect but often born of intolerance for differing views. Usually owing to their own backgrounds and insecurities, they must reject all that is “different” from the way they would handle things because their own self-identity is somewhat lacking. Duhvinci’s comments say more about who he is and what Swarthmore will not be able to do for him than they do about you. Brain smarts do not equal emotional smarts. </p>
<p>From what I saw at Swarthmore when I visited, I doubt that most Swarthmore students or parents of Swarthmore students would be proud to be aligned with his views. I suspect that Dramatica is right and you will find your niche at Swarthmore in the coming years. Focus on what you can do to live a life of value rather than achievement, of giving back to the world around you, and I am sure intellectual fullfillment will follow as well as friendships with like-minded individuals.</p>
<p>Sorry to get so philosophical but when I was going through difficult times earlier in my life. I found that this simple guideline made a huge difference in getting my focus off of myself.</p>
<p>I am prejudiced for my own kind.</p>
<p>Does support for the sustainability of our own kind inappropriate?</p>
<p>Does the claim amount to indifference to other groups?</p>
<p>Intelligence is not merely biological, but myriad by definition.</p>
<p>To make your claim as you proffer is to proclaim ignorance using intelligence.</p>
<p>Your culture claims harmony with nature, yet you declaim indifference to the diversity that nature represents.</p>
<p>Man is defined by how man exercises his intelligence.</p>
<p>You cannot profit from your experience because you do not know how to appreciate or put value upon the experience of one’s adversary.</p>
<p>We will win, regardless of your spite for our species.</p>
<p>Our creative playful gift or endowment allows us to exercise our understanding to an intercourse of spiritual information leading to the outcome of our intellect within the realm of intelligence.</p>
<p>Veni, Vidi, Vici.</p>
<p>It is not fair to turn this into a dchow bashing session! I’ll admit that he could have perhaps phrased his description of his qualms against his roommate more neutrally in his original post, but I think some of his later explanations have made up for that well enough. Dramatica’s most recent post seems to sum up dchow’s intended message. I recommend that those who would be quick to judge, and judge harshly, his original post read its interpretation by dramatica first. </p>
<p>I believe our OP was merely trying to raise a point about the perceived intellectualism of Swarthmore versus what he views as the actual intellectualism. I’m sure this view varies from person to person, depending on the type with whom they associate. Of course there are going to be groups at a college that are more intellectual than others, even within the scope of an intellectual campus. Likewise, there will be those that turn off their “thinking caps” outside of the classroom, as well as those who attempt to pass themselves off as more intelligent than they really are. Dchow perhaps just had the unfortunate luck of rooming with this particular type. </p>
<p>Also, Horse Radish, I would say that I’m decent at critical reading and interpreting the meaning from texts that exhaust the “big word budget,” as my friend puts it, but I fail to see a truly coherent message in your menagerie of semi-philosophical ramblings.</p>
<p>Thanks again, dramatica, for your caring and thoughtful point of view. And to phanatic for understanding.</p>
<p>I think it all just boils down to finding my niche of students. It’s okay if freshman year didn’t turn out perfectly. Freshman year is a time to give it the first go-around. I feel that I know a lot more about what to expect next year at Swarthmore, and how to take advantage of all Swarthmore has to offer, and how to better go about achieving my goals. Some people here have given me very useful advice that I’ll take with me in the fall.</p>
<p>if the purpose of the thread was to illustrate that your roommate considers himself an intellectual while you consider him merely a psuedo-intellectual as are all the other swatties who avoid you because of your subpar personality, i would venture to say that he is a supreme intellectual simply by the fact that he couldn’t stand you and is probably safely tucked away with a better roommate of his choosing for next year, while you were probably matched at the housing lottery for failing to find an intellectual of your own choosing (or one who could stand to be in your presence for more than a minute while you tried to engage him in an intellectual conversation when all they wanted was to decide what to do for the evening. i admit, i’ve always had a problem with the runon.)</p>
<p>That wasn’t the purpose of the thread.</p>
<p>ok, please help me out here, if the purpose of the thread was not to illustrate the difficulties in finding a new roomate who could tolerate the selfish antics of the op (hopefully, the random roomate paired with the op at the housing lottery was unaware of the character defects of the op), then was it to highlight the op’s distinction of everyone who either disagrees with the op or dislikes the op as only a “pseudo-intellectual” while those that agree with the op are deemed actual full fledged intellectuals? or was the purpose of the thread, after eliciting near unanimous derision from op’s bretheren for op’s antics, an attempt to garner sympathy from the apologists on this forum who will always source out the op’s bad behaviour on the root cause, namely the roomate (and also get a few "poor baby"s in the process?) btw, kudos to the op for getting a few extra poor baby’s from the apologists by dredging up the sure sympathy getter of declaring a possible intention of transferring. so, really, being only a pseudo, what was the purpose of this thread?</p>
<p>hey astro, if you want the op to live a life with value, maybe he can start by extending his hand and try to be a better friend and roomate instead of the judgemental, self centered being he portrays himself to be in the original post. commenting on whether the swat community is aligned with my views, i can only say that i hope they are the world would be a better place. if not, who cares? swat wants me to be an independent thinker, not a lemming.</p>
<p>let’s just hope you guys don’t wind up roommates (via lottery or, otherwise!)</p>
<p>better yet, let’s hope he transfers to wesleyan. i hear they still crave swat rejects.</p>
<p>They can’t, johnwesley - Duhvinci’s a rising senior. They could still end up neighbors, though. </p>
<p>Maybe the deans should use this thread during RA training next month. There’s a lot to work with here: first years’ expectations, roommate conflicts, opportunities for community building (and social adjustment), empathy training. Just ponder the role-playing sessions.</p>
<p>I agree, HMW. One should also take into account that about 90% of what gets said on the internets would never pass muster in real conversation.</p>
<p>Duhvinci, have some coffee; that last statement makes no sense whatsoever. I expect better from you.</p>