Wherein Harry urges patience... somewhat
Oct. 9th, 2006 11:59 pmThumb-burning and big "YAAAAAA!"s, like my Democracy paper, will have to wait. Now is the time when I write about the new RHs and the state of the house.
So, mostly, the new RHs are pretty good. They're more strict than Bill and Fiona - they broke up Meet 'n' Greet - but mostly there don't seem to be any problems from them. They have some damn weird ideas about how the house works, though.
Firstly, they are worried about second-years pressuring first-years into giving them their meal points. ?? First-years get way more meal points than second-years, so many that nobody ever uses them all, and you typically have many left by the end of the quarter. Pressuring a first-year to give you your meal points shouldn't be necessary; they should do it out of ordinary human decency. This shouldn't be a problem, but if it does happen, well, is that really a problem? I don't see why it is. First-years shouldn't have to give up their meal points if they don't want to? Maybe, but they'd have to be a jackass not to.
Then they're worried about voting. They insisted that the elections be held by secret ballot and nominations done beforehand, again because of second-years pressuring first-years. Look - by second quarter this won't be a problem, and as for first quarter, it's a *good* thing, if anything. Not only that, but last year first quarter we had plenty of first-years running and even a few elected, so what's the problem?
The whole "house council" thing is kind of creepy, too - they refer to our elected officers as the "house council", and they've started holding separate (though not actually secret) house council meetings before the normal house meetings - all they do is go over what they're going to do at house meeting, but it's still kind of creepy. I was very confused when I first heard the phrase "house council" - the house council is the house itself!
One of the new positions they created, to go along with the old Social Chair, was the Social Service Chair. What? Yeah, like that's going to work in Tufts House, where the people insist that blood drives are actually run by vampires. But - nobody pointed this out during the big meeting on all this stuff, but Jim reminded me of it afterward - it was agreed last year, when someone suggested giving house money to some charity thing, that house money is to be used for the house. Anyone wants to give to charity, they can do so individually. If this Social Service Chair actually manages to get anything together, presumably they'd be taking house money - and by letting them exist, we can't really make that argument anymore... but I suppose it's too late to bring that up now.
But the thing that really nobody likes is what's going on with House Associates - now, apparently this was done in all houses, whether it's a new rule or just an enforcement of an old one I don't one I don't know, but apparently house associates now have to submit applications. With an essay. Which the RHs can veto. Apparently they wanted to get rid of rubber-stamp house associates, which makes no sense; being a house associate means you're *associated* with the house. Because you used to live there, and can now get in easily and play on their IM teams. Why should that not be automatic if the the house wants it? Now, I don't think anything requires applicants to write a *good* essay, or even one of nonzero length... the RHs could just choose not to exercise their veto power. But nope, they are. They want to know how potential Associates will contribute to the "programmatic aims of the house". Programmatic aims?! We're a house! We're Tufts House! We play around and we get our work done! The house as a whole has no programmatic aims! We didn't organize ourselves to accomplish some goal, we're together because we live together! And as a result, we're going to have on the order of 1 house associate, out of all the people from the house last year who left housing and often return here.
But no real problems, I suppose, other than House Associates. Dave seems to know how to solve most problems with enough talk, though unfortunately he also seems to know how to talk a problem to death in circles; let's hope the former remains more common.
Still, the RHs are not the subject of the subject of this entry, as even the house associates thing isn't a big problem; Tufts House will continue as it always does, and will simply go and manually sign in those who would otherwise be associates. I think we can endure the RHs with little problem.
Boy Alex, on the other hand. What the fuck are we supposed to do with him?
He lives in Henderson now, but he comes down here all the time and hangs around with the first-years. And he's just as bad as ever.
We endured him for a year. We thought he was gone. We shouldn't have to go through this again. Among the second-years the word is passed, the thought is shared: Something must be done.
*This* is where I insist that we wait. Not necessarily very long - until around mid-quarter or so will probably suffice - but we must do nothing yet. The reason is that I do not think the first-years have really gotten a chance to know him yet, and many of them probably still think of him as their friend. To do anything against him would be to divide Tufts House, and that would be much worse than having to endure Boy Alex.
The time can even possibly be made sooner - Tancer thinks she can spread the general loathing of Boy Alex to the first-years, though I have to wonder if this is really right - well, I suppose that's not really my responsibility, and anyway it's only speeding up what's surely already occuring.
Of course, there is another complication - Girl Alex and some others told the RHs about how dishonest and creepy Boy Alex is and how all the second-years want him gone, so they know too. And, figuring I may as well now that they had been told, sent them a long and mostly accurate account of just why we all hate him so much. So I think they want to talk to him at some point. When they plan to do that, I have no idea.
I doubt it will work. Boy Alex gets very defensive. If they or anyone confront him, chances are he'll do everything he can to annoy us. Actually, I thought maybe we should do that and hope to provoke him into actually breaking a rule, but I don't want to try it. ...except that really I suppose it's inevitable. People want to draw up a petition saying, Boy Alex may not enter Tufts House! And obviously, enforcing it would require him knowing about it, would require someone telling him. Now, Dave is a social worker, so it's possible he'd know how to defuse something like this, but maybe our best bet really is to provoke him. But I'd like to get some sort of not-official-in-Housing's-sense-but-official-in-that-the-house-agreed-on-it banishment on the record, too. That would just be really nice.
Well, we'll see what happens. We'll just have to wait (hopefully).
-Harry
So, mostly, the new RHs are pretty good. They're more strict than Bill and Fiona - they broke up Meet 'n' Greet - but mostly there don't seem to be any problems from them. They have some damn weird ideas about how the house works, though.
Firstly, they are worried about second-years pressuring first-years into giving them their meal points. ?? First-years get way more meal points than second-years, so many that nobody ever uses them all, and you typically have many left by the end of the quarter. Pressuring a first-year to give you your meal points shouldn't be necessary; they should do it out of ordinary human decency. This shouldn't be a problem, but if it does happen, well, is that really a problem? I don't see why it is. First-years shouldn't have to give up their meal points if they don't want to? Maybe, but they'd have to be a jackass not to.
Then they're worried about voting. They insisted that the elections be held by secret ballot and nominations done beforehand, again because of second-years pressuring first-years. Look - by second quarter this won't be a problem, and as for first quarter, it's a *good* thing, if anything. Not only that, but last year first quarter we had plenty of first-years running and even a few elected, so what's the problem?
The whole "house council" thing is kind of creepy, too - they refer to our elected officers as the "house council", and they've started holding separate (though not actually secret) house council meetings before the normal house meetings - all they do is go over what they're going to do at house meeting, but it's still kind of creepy. I was very confused when I first heard the phrase "house council" - the house council is the house itself!
One of the new positions they created, to go along with the old Social Chair, was the Social Service Chair. What? Yeah, like that's going to work in Tufts House, where the people insist that blood drives are actually run by vampires. But - nobody pointed this out during the big meeting on all this stuff, but Jim reminded me of it afterward - it was agreed last year, when someone suggested giving house money to some charity thing, that house money is to be used for the house. Anyone wants to give to charity, they can do so individually. If this Social Service Chair actually manages to get anything together, presumably they'd be taking house money - and by letting them exist, we can't really make that argument anymore... but I suppose it's too late to bring that up now.
But the thing that really nobody likes is what's going on with House Associates - now, apparently this was done in all houses, whether it's a new rule or just an enforcement of an old one I don't one I don't know, but apparently house associates now have to submit applications. With an essay. Which the RHs can veto. Apparently they wanted to get rid of rubber-stamp house associates, which makes no sense; being a house associate means you're *associated* with the house. Because you used to live there, and can now get in easily and play on their IM teams. Why should that not be automatic if the the house wants it? Now, I don't think anything requires applicants to write a *good* essay, or even one of nonzero length... the RHs could just choose not to exercise their veto power. But nope, they are. They want to know how potential Associates will contribute to the "programmatic aims of the house". Programmatic aims?! We're a house! We're Tufts House! We play around and we get our work done! The house as a whole has no programmatic aims! We didn't organize ourselves to accomplish some goal, we're together because we live together! And as a result, we're going to have on the order of 1 house associate, out of all the people from the house last year who left housing and often return here.
But no real problems, I suppose, other than House Associates. Dave seems to know how to solve most problems with enough talk, though unfortunately he also seems to know how to talk a problem to death in circles; let's hope the former remains more common.
Still, the RHs are not the subject of the subject of this entry, as even the house associates thing isn't a big problem; Tufts House will continue as it always does, and will simply go and manually sign in those who would otherwise be associates. I think we can endure the RHs with little problem.
Boy Alex, on the other hand. What the fuck are we supposed to do with him?
He lives in Henderson now, but he comes down here all the time and hangs around with the first-years. And he's just as bad as ever.
We endured him for a year. We thought he was gone. We shouldn't have to go through this again. Among the second-years the word is passed, the thought is shared: Something must be done.
*This* is where I insist that we wait. Not necessarily very long - until around mid-quarter or so will probably suffice - but we must do nothing yet. The reason is that I do not think the first-years have really gotten a chance to know him yet, and many of them probably still think of him as their friend. To do anything against him would be to divide Tufts House, and that would be much worse than having to endure Boy Alex.
The time can even possibly be made sooner - Tancer thinks she can spread the general loathing of Boy Alex to the first-years, though I have to wonder if this is really right - well, I suppose that's not really my responsibility, and anyway it's only speeding up what's surely already occuring.
Of course, there is another complication - Girl Alex and some others told the RHs about how dishonest and creepy Boy Alex is and how all the second-years want him gone, so they know too. And, figuring I may as well now that they had been told, sent them a long and mostly accurate account of just why we all hate him so much. So I think they want to talk to him at some point. When they plan to do that, I have no idea.
I doubt it will work. Boy Alex gets very defensive. If they or anyone confront him, chances are he'll do everything he can to annoy us. Actually, I thought maybe we should do that and hope to provoke him into actually breaking a rule, but I don't want to try it. ...except that really I suppose it's inevitable. People want to draw up a petition saying, Boy Alex may not enter Tufts House! And obviously, enforcing it would require him knowing about it, would require someone telling him. Now, Dave is a social worker, so it's possible he'd know how to defuse something like this, but maybe our best bet really is to provoke him. But I'd like to get some sort of not-official-in-Housing's-sense-but-official-in-that-the-house-agreed-on-it banishment on the record, too. That would just be really nice.
Well, we'll see what happens. We'll just have to wait (hopefully).
-Harry
