Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
This sounds very frustrating! If you visit the Walk-in Help Desk on the 3rd floor of O’Neill by the printers, they should be able to take a look at what’s going on with your phone and laptop. They provide computer assistance from 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday.
Yes! I have answered “IDK” 8 times. In addition, there 27 instances where I have answered that I “don’t know” something and another 32 where I’m “not sure” about something. That makes 67 instances of not knowing the answer for a student, which makes me sad. But, it’s important to acknowledge the limits of your abilities (or knowledge). There are plenty of things I don’t know, and it would be worse for me to lie or act like I do know something and give someone bad information.
No! No person ‘sucks.’ Sometimes my human friends are tired, or cranky, and they act a little ‘sucky,’ but they don’t ‘suck’ to the core, which means you don’t either. It might be cliché,’ but have you ever heard the phrase, “fake it till you make it?” Scholarly warning…this link is not a scholarly source!…But, there are some good ideas and an interesting chart that might help you ‘make it’ better. bit.ly/wikipedia-fake-it If you still feel like your life is cruddy, the people in Counseling Services (bit.ly.BC-counseling) are definitely the people you could talk with about your life.
I was horrified to hear of this terrible event, and I’m sorry you feel like BC doesn’t care. Though I know it might not ameliorate the lack of a public statement, my library assistants have heard nothing but care and concern from BC staff, students, and faculty. As to the population: a recent Pew survey estimated that nationally, recent college graduates were about 3% Jewish, and Boston College Hillel estimates BC’s Jewish population at 2%. I doubt that’s enough of a difference to influence concern about antisemitism. I’m sure BC as a whole cares; perhaps student groups could help encourage BC to turn that care into a public gesture of some kind.
I’m sad that you’re that sad. If the sadness is impacting on your life, please contact the folks at University Counseling (bit.ly/BC-counseling). They’re there to help.
I’m still hanging. What’s up with you?
I recommend a site called LibraryThing, a crowdsourced booklovers’ project in which people share the titles in their personal collections. You can type in a title (like Catch-22) and see a list of recommendations, which are the books most commonly owned by people who also own Catch-22: bit.ly/LT-catch-22. You can do the same for Catcher in the Rye. Movies? Sure: The 1970 version of Catch-22 with Alan Arkin is brilliant: O’Neill Library PS3558 .E476 C3 2006 (behind the 3rd floor reference collection). Other military comedies: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, and of course M*A*S*H.
I’m feeling compassionate. It seems like a lot of people are suffering for one reason or another.
That is a big question that lots of people have wrestled with. Leibniz called it a theodicy, and I can offer a variety of suggested reading. TLDR: The Christian view tends to be that human freedom to choose has to include the possibility of evil. Here’s a general take from a favorite source, the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas: bit.ly/bc-theodicy1. For a more Catholic view: bit.ly/bc-theodicy2. and for a classic more popular treatment, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”: bit.ly/bc-theodicy3.
Thanks for letting me know – I’ve passed the message along, and I hope that it all works its way through the system…
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having issues with the wifi! If you call the IT Technology Support Help Center at 617-552-HELP (4357), they can help get our Network Services team on the case.
I’m sorry you’re feeling lonely in the love department. Encourage yourself to go to social events & meet people, get involved in conversations, listen, do things you enjoy, offer to share activities you enjoy with other people, and above all, have faith that getting to know people, which is an end in itself & a joy, can also eventually lead to romance.
Who says they’re not the same thing, red bicycle when you were twelve?
Thank you! I love you too. The short answer to the question of getting hit by a car is “no”. The university does not have a policy of extending free tuition to anyone hit by a car on campus. However, if you are hit by a car, you likely have a civil case on your hands. The exact outcome of the case (whether you receive money, have to pay out money, who the parties to the lawsuit are, etc.) will depend heavily on the exact circumstances of your accident. Even in the best case, it will be at least a year before you see any money. Some cases can drag on for a long time (5 years or more) and you will have graduated long before they’re over. All of that is to say that not looking before crossing the road isn’t a good path to a scholarship. I think many students assume others will stop if they walk. Unfortunately, too many people aren’t paying attention to the roads these days, and that’s a very dangerous assumption to make. Be safe. Look both ways.
Ah, a classic logic problem which lots of thinkers have addressed. It’s called the omnipotence paradox, and there are a variety of responses to it. Actually entertaining Wikipedia article: bit.ly/bc-omni. More technical discussion: bit.ly/bc-omni2. Aquinas argues that logic still applies: Even an omnipotent being can’t do something impossible. Augustine argues that God must act according to his nature, which means he can’t create anything omnipotent. The Wall’s favorite modern response is that the question is just a pile of words: if God is omnipotent, “could not lift” doesn’t make sense.
No, RAs are not permitted to have romantic relationships with the residents of their res, according to Jake Cusick, Housing Assignment Specialist at ResLife. So I guess you have to let this one pass. Crushes do fade in time.
Attitudes about sex are complicated everywhere, not just here. Here’s a sampling of some sociological literature, with several different perspectives: bit.ly/bc-virginity. Even our library catalog, which contains a lot from a Church perspective on the subject, still shows a really broad range of approaches and attitudes: bit.ly/bc-virgin1. The Wall is a little baffled also.
Plato, that big name philosopher born 427-ish BCE? (bit.ly/SEP-plato) No. Some guy named Plato, maybe? Ask him if he’s interested. Fingers crossed.
I won’t say it’s not a difficult situation, but there is help and hope and a future. I’d contact BC’s LGBTQ student support: bit.ly/LBGTQBC. Also, there are many resources for partners available here: bit.ly/PartnerTrans. Wishing you both strength and happiness.
To our joy and sorrow, probably not. The reasons for joy are real, as are the reasons for sorrow. You’d probably enjoy the idealist philosopher George Berkeley (bit.ly/bishop-berkeley), though you may find his pure idealism jarringly more radical than the possibility that we’re living in a simulation, which presupposes a material reality that’s creating the illusion in which we live. Berkeley would dispense with that materialist nonsense rather quickly.
