Word: life
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Then one day Martin's roommate, who was practically engaged to some Cliffie he had known all his life, strode into the room and announced that he had a girl for Martin to meet. He had been introduced to her just that day at the Cliffe, and he had told her about Martin. (Not all about Martin; no, not even much about Martin.) Several girls who knew Martin had sworn to this girl that he was really nice, and she had told Martin's roommate to have him give her a call. "Give her a ring," said Martin's roommate...
...hard life being an SDSer those days and I gave up after a precious few of them. For one thing, I made the startling discovery that SDS meetings were a drag and tended to consume whole evenings at a gulp. For another. I drifted into alternative extracurricular pursuits where people seemed to get on a lot easier with each other and where it was possible to meet a considerably wider assortment. Still, I continued to assume, come the revolution, that I would leap forth-with into the ranks of Harvard's insurgents, whoever they might be. And I continued...
Psychotherapy was intimidating, "First you discover that throughout your whole life you had been in one process of getting sick," one of the girls said. "Every move you made and every feeling you had had helped make you what you were now-unacceptable to the world." Another Cliffie described her therapy as "a steel claw tearing open my scabs.... During each session my hands shook and I could taste snot in my mouth." For some there was an irritating sense of disconnection, a feeling that while their parts were being microscopically examined, they were wasting their present lives and shortchanging...
These students made friends with other patients and participated in the hospital's social life. They became part of the community that Erving Goffman describes in his book Asylums. One student still tells anecdotes about the people he met. Another said. "You could have great times there. People sat around reading I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There were some great tall-tale tellers...
...assimilation into student life was a sticky process. One boy said his greatest problem was the time lapse. "Things that happened five months ago for my friends happened yesterday for me. I came back and my roommates were into things I knew nothing about.... I felt humiliated by never knowing what anyone was talking about." He felt threatened by the same feelings of isolation that had originally driven him to the hospital...