Classmates

Summer school programs abroad not affiliated with the student’s home university are always an iffy thing. It’s different when it’s with the home university, because then you’re basically going to be paying the same tuition price as if you stayed. But with outside universities, the chances are not as great that you’ll get financial aid. And these universities like to milk ignorant American study abroad students dry. So you know what this means. The people who participate in these programs are, ahem, pretty well off.

I am not saying this automatically excludes you from being a good person. I have plenty of friends who are very lucky and know they are lucky to have parents who are able to pay for a college education. Not only pay for a college education, but let their kids have a relatively comfortable lifestyle. IN FACT, I guess you’d say that yes, I belong to this group of kids.

I tread such precarious grounds by saying this that I generally hate admitting that I do go to the school I go to, and that yes, I am here for the summer. I suppose I could have dropped off the face of the earth without telling anyone. I hated when people asked me what I was doing for the summer because the conversation would generally go something like:

Student: “Hey what are you doing this summer?”
Adrianne: “Oh…I don’t know…how about you?”
Student: “Just staying here, working.”
Adrianne: “Oh, COOL!”

Because really, how would I say something like “Oh, you know, just hanging out in Rome” after someone told me they’re going to work?

ANYWAY, what I want to say is that it’s not how much money you have, it’s how you handle it. Kind of like having a third arm: the point isn’t that you have it, the point is that you’re using it in a cool way. Such as for a clothes rack or a windmill. And in summer programs, although there are people who gracefully behave as a cool linking sentence between paragraphs, there are those who can only make the transition by stating “I am a transition sentence.” And it’s when they’re stating that the topic of their paragraph is money does the problem arise for me.

Last week I had to spend a particularly painful dinner at a salad restaurant. Among the group of people I went with, there was one girl in particular who I would have preferred to be an exotic dish everyone hates on the menu. I don’t even know her name. We’ll just call her Motherfucker (MF).

So MF sat down at the dinner table. My initial reaction was one of fear and anxiety. I would have to try to make conversation with HER? I know some people probably think I’m judgmental. I guess I am. She looked like the kind of girls who made me feel like an ungainly hippo in high school. Tall, tanned, thin, pretty. The kind of person who probably made fun of me for wearing that shirt.

Anyhow. MF sat down haughtily at the table and then made one of those “OMG” faces when the waiter spoke to her in Italian. JESUS. Automatically, her ears seemed to stick out a bit too far.

She started talking about how her mom is one of the top 40 businesswomen in Pennsylvania, yet she STILL is cool enough to smoke up with her daughter. Then, as the sort of default topic all college students are wild about, the conversation turned to bad liquor and the worst wine you can get for the least amount of money. Yeah, she hung out with Roberto Cavalli’s son or grandson or monkey or something who bought her a 160 Euro bottle of vodka. Oh, and went to Art Café’s expensive area to rub shoulders with rich people. By that time, her nose was way out of proportion, her skin was rubbery, and her mouth looked like a rat’s tail.

While she was talking, she was looking at everyone expectantly. I wanted to say:

"Mary mother of God, can I please TOUCH YOU??? YOU STOOD NEXT TO ROBERTO CAVALLI’S GRANDSON OR SON OR SOMETHING?”

Then I had to spend another half hour with her. Upon departing, I was tempted to tell MF that the diamond necklace she had around her neck would have looked better as a noose.

So this program is kind of filled with people like this. With people who in the computer lab only say “God, I got so wasted last night” or “So what country did you do this weekend?” (That’s another thing. Although I should probably plead guilty, most of these students talk about “doing” places. As in “I did Amsterdam” or “I’m going to do Greece.” As if traveling was just another check box on their list of “Things to Do.”) Or who want to know if the pope still rules Rome. Or who ask someone if they went to visit Mary Kay’s (uh…Anne Frank’s?) house in Amsterdam and who don't realize that "All roads lead to Rome" is an expression and that they can't, in fact, take Highway Atlantis across the ocean to get here.

So there you have it. Just remember, "No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather." And it's really really hot, MF.