Tuesday, August 10, 2010

#93: Not knowing what pot smells like

Notre Dame Students enjoy a rather privileged existence as undergraduates, and are able to fulfill many of the requisite conditions to living a life that is SO College (see #11) during their four years at Notre Dame.  In pursuit of this life, they happily undertake many activities of which ResLife, the heavy-handed disciplinary arm of the administration, would most certainly not approve.  Notre Dame Students break parietals regularly (although usually in pursuit of a future bride/groom instead of a casual hook- up), they build elaborate lofts in their dorms, and under these elaborate lofts they place elaborate bars filled with hard liquor that is certainly not permitted (see #92).

However, Notre Dame Students’ strident attempts at SO College debauchery does not extend (for the most part) to the use of recreational drugs.  Most students around the country smoke pot at least once during their college careers, and the drug is practically a legal commodity in California and other states.  At Notre Dame, however, this form of youthful experimentation is notably absent.  While at other schools smoking pot is widely accepted as part of the college experience, at Notre Dame the emphasis on dorm life and the sheltered upbringings of its students within the Notre Dame Bubble combine to create a stigma attached to the use of pot. 

First, Notre Dame Students are generally obedient and enjoy following rules and instructions.  While some of their state school counterparts might feel less nervous about having pot in their dorms than having alcohol, Notre Dame Students fully understand the administrative risks that would come from lighting up in their dorms.  Even when Notre Dame Students leave campus to party and live in off-campus residences, they generally continue to reject pot even though it is something many of them might reasonably consider using in other circumstances. 

While some may have smoked in high school, once at Notre Dame they become fearful of the Kyle McAlarney treatment and refuse to do it at all (except in some incredibly rare and highly sketchy situations).  These students know how important their education is, and they know how ruthless ResLife is, and instead opt for a safer and more conservative path to being SO College.

Because of this, a drug that is fairly easy to come by on college campuses around the country is nearly impossible to find at Notre Dame.  Furthermore, the vast majority of Notre Dame Students (who were too busy building their college applications in high school) make it through their entire college careers not really aware of how pot works or what the drug even smells like.  This leads to interesting conversations with people at non-Notre Dame parties that might include silly comments such as “I think someone let a skunk out in the other room,” and “How does that glass thing on the coffee table even work?”  The non-ND friends will laugh, admiring the adorable naïveté that also results in curious character features such as being confused about the definition of hooking up (see #21).

At any other university, the ignorance about such a widely-used drug would be rare, but at Notre Dame it is widespread.  Notre Dame Students are told from the outset that it is okay for them to drink, but it is not okay for them to use drugs.  Because Notre Dame Students almost always follow the instructions they are given from their elders and peers, they listen to these rules.  As a result, most Notre Dame graduates head off into the world unaware of the distinct smell of marijuana smoke.

24 comments:

  1. bahaha.. i dare to disagree

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  2. hahah i'm disagreeing on this one as well

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  3. agree... to the disagreeing haha. i know quite a few people who smoke

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  4. Haha, I have to disagree with the disagreers... I've had this discussion with many of my non-ND friends.

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  5. ask the glee club.

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  6. if they're non-ND friends how would they know whether ND students generally know what pot smells like?

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  7. I've been to more than one party at ND that involved pot, but have somehow always managed to be on the other side of a closed door when it came out.

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  8. I was relieved to read this. Conversing with non-ND friends, I felt like the only one who was totally (and willingly) ignorant of the illegal substance.

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  9. The writer of this blog must spend his saturday nights at the grotto, because pot is fairly ubiquitous off-campus.

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  10. um yea i got suspended for a semester for smoking on duck island...

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    1. There are many spots all over campus, the island included, but its better to find a friend off campus, rather than run the risk of NDSP

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  11. Haha, I knew that there would be posts by a bunch of "cool kids" who would disagree with this. I'm glad not a lot of people I know at Notre Dame smoke pot because I find most of those people to be obnoxious and annoying. That's something immature junior high or high schoolers do. I always love to quote Daniel Tosh on this one: "Why don't I smoke weed? Because I'm not in the 7th grade anymore and I've got shit to do. Grow up and do coke like an adult."

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  12. I vividly remember (okay, I'm old...15+ years ago) smelling incense and knowing that the guys in that room were "smoking out." But I STILL don't know (for sure) what weed smells like!

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  13. Look, if you really think that ND students don't know what pot smells like, then its because youre a pre-med student who doesnt participate in normal ND social life.

    The fact is that most ND students will encounter pot on a regular basis, and will try it at least once, but probably more. The author of this blog is pretty far removed from REAL Notre Dame culture and (since he now sells his book on-campus) is obliged to paint the rosiest picture of ND possible, I really hope nobody takes this site as an actual account of ND social life.

    This author sells his book in our bookstore. Of course he glosses over the undeniable fact of illegal drug use. BITCH.

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  14. hahahahaha you do not know my friends

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  15. We once had an RA barge into our room yelling that she smelled pot. One of the girls in our quad was using a straightening iron on her hair. Turns out ND students don't know what pot OR black people's hair smell like. During the "disciplinary meeting" in our rectress' office, we suggested racial sensitivity training, just for kicks.

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  16. YOU just don't know what pot smells like, YOU. And, there are many much better ranked schools with kids who spent as much time, if not much more, working on their college applications and still managed to find out what pot "smelled like" in high school.

    I'll just refer to my partner in anonymity, "The author of this blog is pretty far removed from REAL Notre Dame culture."

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  17. You're a fucking tool.

    Yours,
    The vast majority of humanity

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  18. this is false, just that people usually have it off-campus

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  19. Nope, this is true. I came through ND partying plenty and not knowing what pot "smelled like." Now, later knowing it as my neighbors' "incense" here in Newark NJ, I realized I smelled this faintly doing night runs around St. Mary's Lake.

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  20. most likely headed there next year, glad to hear this isn't true

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  21. My favorite part about this is that drinking alcohol in contrast to smoking weed is without a doubt more harmful to one's overall health. Notre Dame, I realized is filled with a lot of sheeple. If society says it's okay- then it must be!! Yikes. Something makes me more and more uncomfortable with my surroundings here every single day.

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