COLUMN: Running From the Rat Race

From Corin Brown's "Bonin' In the Boneyard," Fall '94 How'd you spend your four month reprieve from the bowels of that ghoulishly unforgiving political, bureaucratic, and social nuclear-experiment-gone-awry, known only to those whose lives it irrevocably touches as the Penn "Scene" or the "Attitude?" I bet you really missed doing all those unmistakably "Scenic" things like, uh... going to class, fine-tuning your resume in between visits to CPPS, studying everyday, uh... personally hoarding all of your professor's/TA's office hours/free time in hopes of being rewarded with a big, fat "A" or even better, a big, fat job recommendation. Last May, as finals rolled around, I bet you just couldn't wait to get away from the people whose sole raison d'_tre is to get ahead. Period. "Screw my integrity, screw my friends, and screw me learning anything as I rudely hustle out of class as soon as that internal clock chimes 10 minutes to." "Just give me what I (my folks) paid my (their) hard-earned money for: My 4.0 in college, my cushy, easy-going 90 hour per week job in cosmopolitan paradise when I graduate. And when I earn a promotion, give me my appropriately understated BMW 850 with a 12 CD changer in back so I can prove to myself how sensitive I am by listening to uninterrupted sets of Seal, George Winston and the Three Tenors while driving to the Hamptons without having to soil my hands changing the discs. Me. Give it. Now." Gosh. I can imagine how enjoyable it was giving Smoke's a break for the summer and just drinking with your high school friends at someone's house on the beach, like you used to do. I can imagine how cool it was not having to consider the same old Penn girls ( I can't speak for the women) as they stumbled and stammered blindly through the smarmy confines of Smoke's, right into your heart. I bet you were all looking forward to this summer. Spending time with your friends from home, knocking around the old neighborhood a little, catching up with your siblings, reading a little, going out a lot, taking it easy. Basically living your life while you can before your life, as you know it, ends. So what did I do this summer to elude this mess we call the "Scene?" How did I spend the last free summer of my life, the last time I could avoid being herded into that flock of sheep known as the suburban white American, white-collar proletariat? I did what everyone else I know, who goes to Penn, did this summer. I got an internship. A fucking internship! This is what attending Penn will do to you, freshmen. Schoolwork, resumes, office hours, Smoke's, getting ahead, ambition. This is the "Scene." Did we miss it? Are you kidding? We missed it like Brooke Shields missed having sex her whole life! Why would I voluntarily get up every-day-of-every-week-of-every-month of this summer at 7 am., drive forty minutes, bust my ass in an office for eight hours? Because I go to Penn. Why would I then drive another forty minutes home, eat, shun my friends' offers to go out because I was too tired from busting my ass for eight hours at the office then pass out at 10:30 p.m. Because I go to Penn. Was I really getting away from Penn's pre-professional junior rat race? No way! Did I really want to leave the "Scene" in the first place? Guess not. Sure, I thought in July, empirically my summer was sucking pretty bad, but I was planning for the future. I was now spending 12 months a year doing everything I could to ensure my chances for material success after I graduate. After all, that was what everyone else was doing. Or were they? As the summer crept along, I noticed my friends from home were all knocking' around from one stiff job to another, always making some cash but always keeping their schedule open and they were always relaxed. I scoffed at them with the requisite portion of Penn sanctimony. I'm the one with the vastly more impressive, and widely coveted internship. Who needed to blow off a few weeks to go camping and see the Dead in Vermont? Who needed to go sailboat racing in Newport? Who needed to shoot 9 holes in the cozily warm twilight every day? Who needed to smoke a bowl? Who needed to be spontaneous? Certainly not me. I was making a four month stop in the real world, learning from my masters of white-collar stiffdom how to get a table for dinner and which after-work cocktails to order. Now this is the type of wisdom I could really use. Jesus Christ. What a crock. What was really great was that I could commiserate with my friends from Penn who were in the same position. I would call my friends and we would compare how hard we worked, compare how intimate we became with the office copier, debate which blend of decaf had the best flavor, etc. But it all came back to convincing ourselves how much we were getting hooked up for the future. And that we weren't supposed to be having fun. I suppose we loved the Penn "Scene" so much, we had to bring it home with us for the summer. The Penn student is a truly different animal. It is an animal owning the basest competitive urges and survival instincts. From the time the hungry freshmen are shuttled in to when they leave, they learn to assimilate to the customs of their peers. I finally got a handle on this fact when some of my friends called me up in June with plans to go canoeing on the Allagash. An ordinarily awesome idea. "No thanks," I chimed purposefully. "Gotta go plan my schedule for the spring semester." Help. Corin Brown is a senior Political Science major from Newton, Massachusetts. Bonin' in the Boneyard will appear alternate Thursdays.