"No Golf For You!"

I have golfed on several occasions in the past, but I wouldn't consider myself a golfer. However, for the first time ever, I decided that maybe I'd take advantage of the low, $2 student price at the golf course and play nine holes with a friend. So after work Friday afternoon, my friend and I set out for the Vassar Golf Course, expecting to play a casual game and have fun. Well, having fun was poor anticipation on my part. As soon as we walked into the clubhouse to arrange a tee time, I knew that Friday was not my day for golf. "Excuse me?" the club manager retorted in disgust after I said that we were there to play golf. "Well, then you will need to change. I'd prefer that you wear a collared shirt, and no cut-offs," he said, pointing at my khaki shorts, which were quite clearly not cutoffs. I could hardly believe my ears. I've heard of golf courses having dress codes, but for a college course, especially Vassar, it seemed really strict. I definitely didn't see that one coming. Dress codes go against everything Vassar stands for, such as creativity and self-expression. In fact, compared to many of my classmates, I'd say that I dress pretty conservatively; and there was the club manager, staring at me as if I were naked. At that point, I decided that the Vassar Golf Course was no longer worth my time or my $2, and my friend and I left in a huff, certain that mini-golf was a better idea.

Considering my lack of golf skills, I'd consider myself a pretty skilled putter. After being denied a tee-time at the Vassar Golf Course, we went to a pretty large course on Route 9 in Wappinger Falls called "Fun Central," and it was at that point when I realized what normal Poughkeepsie families do on the weekends, and the answer is not "putt-putt." In fact, I think I discovered the key to child obesity when I noticed the huge number of kids inside playing video games as opposed to the few outside playing putt-putt. At one point, a little girl walked outside onto the mini-golf course and indicated to her father that she wanted to play. "No, you don't want to play that," he said, "Come back inside and play video games!" At that moment I felt like an undercover sociologist studying American family dynamics in relation to physical health. Spending a majority of four years of your life reading sociological texts will do that to you.

In order to end the day more successfully than it had started, an evening movie screening seemed like a safe bet. The great thing about Vassar is the ease with which you can hold your own private film screening. My friend and I went to Rockefeller Hall, and, finding Rocky 200 (one of few lecture halls on campus) unoccupied, we closed the shades, turned on the DVD projector, and brought "Some Like It Hot" back to the big-screen. Of course, my description makes it sound a lot easier than it actually was. At one point I was so frustrated that I called my boyfriend and asked him how the projector worked, and he replied, "How do you expect me to help you from 1000 miles away?!" But lo and behold, I eventually figured it out. While I was denied the ability to play golf on the Vassar course, it all seemed to even out after I figured out how to get both the sound and the picture to play at the same time.

As an end note, today marks exactly one month until classes start, three weeks until students come to campus, and two weeks until I get to move into my TA. Hold tight! A packing list is on the way....