How to shame a student body's good name.
Sometimes I can really sympathize with the hoards of people passing out fliers and trying desperately to make their cause known, despite how often I complain about them being annoying. For instance, just now...
(I walk past Sather Gate and hear a plaintive undergraduate ask just after I've passed, "Would you like to donate blood?" I continue to walk and a moment later overhear two girls talking just behind me, headed to the same building)
Girl behind me: I wouldn't. I mean if someone I knew needed it or something. But I'm not going to donate blood because some sophomore hands me a flyer.
Oh yes. Donating blood. A sacrifice akin to donating a kidney, something that one shouldn't do because there is a chronic need for it, but because someone you personally know might need blood--despite the fact that often by the time you find out someone you know needs blood, if they don't have it in them, it's too late. Also, anything a sophomore suggests is clearly not worth your time. (I kind of wanted to turn around and ask if a senior handed her a flyer would she donate blood? A grad student? A professor? At what point would her disdainful tone change?) Thankfully, her friend thought differently and said, "I don't know. I'd donate blood." No disdain or not-thinking-about-when-blood-is-needed.
I'm not sure if the pettiness of the first girl would bother me so much if there hadn't been two massively destructive earthquakes in the past three months (to say nothing of the flooding in Madeira or rash of shootings in Oakland).
In better news, an enterprising Girl Scout is selling cookies just off campus, so I bought some Thin Mints. Also, the hot dog stand gave me the biggest pile of fries ever with my hot dog today. See? I can be petty, too :P
(I walk past Sather Gate and hear a plaintive undergraduate ask just after I've passed, "Would you like to donate blood?" I continue to walk and a moment later overhear two girls talking just behind me, headed to the same building)
Girl behind me: I wouldn't. I mean if someone I knew needed it or something. But I'm not going to donate blood because some sophomore hands me a flyer.
Oh yes. Donating blood. A sacrifice akin to donating a kidney, something that one shouldn't do because there is a chronic need for it, but because someone you personally know might need blood--despite the fact that often by the time you find out someone you know needs blood, if they don't have it in them, it's too late. Also, anything a sophomore suggests is clearly not worth your time. (I kind of wanted to turn around and ask if a senior handed her a flyer would she donate blood? A grad student? A professor? At what point would her disdainful tone change?) Thankfully, her friend thought differently and said, "I don't know. I'd donate blood." No disdain or not-thinking-about-when-blood-is-needed.
I'm not sure if the pettiness of the first girl would bother me so much if there hadn't been two massively destructive earthquakes in the past three months (to say nothing of the flooding in Madeira or rash of shootings in Oakland).
In better news, an enterprising Girl Scout is selling cookies just off campus, so I bought some Thin Mints. Also, the hot dog stand gave me the biggest pile of fries ever with my hot dog today. See? I can be petty, too :P