Rules

Hola,

Check out my room! It's a little messy at this moment... We call it my "bulín" thats slang for "little personal space." Actually I don't know how to say that well in english.

So I've already talked about rules in one other blog entry; I mentioned how compliance with rules is crucial for a society to operate well (assuming the rules they are complying with are legit). For whatever reason, it seems that people in the US are generally conscious of rules whereas here in Argentina, there are a bunch of laws that no one knows about and/or follows.

Now I am going to add another observation to the mix. I was sitting in my class in la Universidad de Buenos Aires, thinking about the pictures I wanted to take of the concrete walls covered with bold angry political posters in order to remember the "hippy" atmosphere in UBA. (It's very hard to stay attentive in a 4 HOUR class in a foreign language...) Then I started looking around at all the other students in my class. There is such a large range in my class, from 21 year-olds (me, I think im the youngest) - 70 something year-olds, from sociologist to teacher to unemployed student. It makes me think about how uniform my US classes are in terms of the type of students. If someone older than 24 were enrolled in Lafayette the first question would be "what went wrong?"

I think in my culture (be it bethesda, lafayette, private universities, i don't know) there is too much pressure to conform to the norm, which in a certain sense is a rule. Maybe its more of a rule of thumb:

a general or approximate principle, procedure, or rule based on experience or practice, as opposed to a specific, scientific calculation or estimate.

People go to school until they are 18, then if they have the resources and inteligence, they should go to college for 4 years, postgraduate school and begin there careers. The problem with fitting everyone in a structure is that everyone is different! Things happen, good or bad, and we can't meet these "expectations" that are "ideal." Maybe I was going to go to gradschool but I got an offer to do something meaningful in Tibet or Quatar. Am I worse off because I didn't reach the gradschool level? Maybe I was going to go to college but I got struck with bad luck and had to drop out, should I be looked down upon because I can't continue in the normal "right" path of life.

I get the feeling from my interactions with people here that there aren't as many expectations for people to follow the same path. There are women who are close to finishing their college degree and then get pregnant and leave (my host sister). Hey, if thats what they want at that time, and they are going ot be full time moms for life, then who am I to look down on their decision. If someone for whatever reason doesn't make it to college until they are 70 something, or decide to go back when they are 70 something, then good for them for doing it when they can. If someone has to work for 2 years flipping burgers before they can afford to go to the best university, then they shouldnt be looked down on for being 26 in a college class. They didn't mess up, they did well and they should be embarrased. There are good things about structure, but I think to a certain extreme it is very claustrophobic and creates unnecessary pressure to follow whats "the best" even though "the best" can be very different from individual to individual.

These are still thoughts in process... I'll finish with something a little more concrete: An example of how the rules in the US can reach ABSURD extremes is the fact that in some school somewhere in the US they are now limiting the length of hugs in the hallways in a highschool (according to a friend who read this in NYT). Someone should tell the administrators that the kids here KISS each other EVERYTIME they greet. Limiting hugs? Give me a break, thats waaaaaaaay too much.

Hasta luego,
Kati