Word: despairful
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...students at Eliot House took a fancy to dressing up for dinners last year, the national press was awash with the phenomenon complete with large glossy pictures, and contemplative columns reflecting on just what this meant for the future of our republic. More tongues may have clucked in national despair when Harvard spoke of tearing down its Ivy than when Reagan took a budget are to federal student loan programs...
Next: loneliness at sight of large and cheerful groups at every turn, irresolvable personality clashes with roommates, cold war with hometown sweetheart, distress at ridiculous string of accomplishments boasted by everyone else in entryway, despair at impossible equation of things to do and time available, fear of extraordinary academic failure (with concurrent anxiety that admissions-office computer made error), agony that infatuating face prefers one's own roommate, disquieting sense that life at home has changed in one's absence, exasperation at sarcastic attitude of hometown friends and family about fancyschmancy college (with cute regional pronunciation of college name...
...students who are functionally illiterate, who cannot do long division, and who have no idea what is contained in the Bill of Rights. Among educators there is a sense of desperation that America's young lack even the rudiments of learning, and a still greater feeling of despair that nothing can be done about it. What can and should be done about it, declares Philosopher Mortimer Adler, is a radical return to an education that is both general and liberal, and equal in quality...
...Orphaned Ponyboy Curtis, 14, and his greaser pals, for instance, are too busy fighting to date girls. In S.E. Hinton's bestselling The Outsiders, Ponyboy and his hoods battle Socs (Socials), who cruise their mean streets in Mustangs and madras shirts looking for loners. The results: manslaughter, murder, despair. But out of the rubble of class structure, sensitivity rises triumphant. Says Ponyboy: "What kind of a world is it where all I have to be proud of is a reputation for being a hood, and greasy hair? I don't want to be a hood, but even...
...they say of most games, money is a way of keeping score. To Rose, it is just another stat. He is competitive in all things. "How come I'm not in the lineup?" he asks at Manhattan's Stage Delicatessen, looking up from a menu in despair that no sandwich is named for him. "Reggie Jackson ... Tom Seaver... Susan Anton. What kind of year has Susan Anton had?" It has never been the money. "I led the league in hits in 1965," Rose says, "and made $12,500." When Rose became a free agent after the 1978 season...