Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
Just be brilliant, creative, persistent, well-connected and extremely lucky, and the rest will follow! For actual career paths that may or may not lead to this level of adulation, why not schedule a consultation with the Career Center (bit.ly/BC-career).
Those are not easy questions to answer. The Wall is feeling a little ancient today, so it will start by recommending Plato’s dialogue Ion, in which Socrates interviews a poet to determine whether he’s an expert on what he writes about. bit.ly/bc-ion. Ancient ethical theory tended to think of virtuous people, where modern thought tends to think of virtuous actions, so it kinda depends on who you ask. bit.ly/bc-ethics. More immediately, you might be interested in reading Molly Ringwald think through her complex reactions now to the movies she made with John Hughes. bit.ly/bc-metoo.
I’m sorry you’re cold. So are my human assistants. Have you ever noticed that part of the stereotypical outfit of a librarian is a cardigan? The library isn’t chilled for our comfort; it’s for the books. They don’t need to be cold, per se, but they do need to be kept dry, and the most efficient way to do that is to remove moisture with an air-conditioning system. Above a certain temperature and humidity, molds begin to multiply, and mold is the the #1 enemy of paper. (Fire is also a problem, of course, but much rarer.) So, my assistants all sympathize, but there’s little we can recommend but to either a) wander the library in search of a less chilled area or b) join the library fashion-world and don a cardigan.
It would certainly give the other clubs a run for their money… and a leap, vault over a wall, and a roll, too, probably. Glad you’ve found the club for you at BC!
My omniscience doesn’t dazzle folks – they’re like, “omniscience, meh.” But this, this is what truly wows people. I get asked this All. The. Time. My helpers have a template: bit.ly/print-postit to create the ‘document’ and then send it to the printer as a manual feed. Then they put the actual template of sticky-notes into the printer’s manual feed tray. It works really well.
🙁 Well it may just be possible that you two aren’t a good match. The nice thing about Bumble is that women get to make the first move, so you clearly saw something in him. But it’s possible that he’s not feeling the same way. As you know with Bumble, there are plenty of bees in the hive, so to speak, so you can always keep searching. I know that you will find someone that does love you.
Make a list of things you enjoy doing. Make a list of people you’re acquainted with and/or organizations at BC (bit.ly/BCStudentGroups) or elsewhere (such as meetup.com) that do those things. Join organizations and do those things with them. Introduce yourself to people you’re doing them with. Repeat. When a conversation gets beyond names and weather, that’s a potential friend. Arrange to do something else with them that you both enjoy. Repeat. Celebrate their successes & birthdays, commiserate with their sorrows. Repeat. Suddenly, you realize you’ve been friends for decades. Repeat.
The Wall is very sad to hear that, and will miss you. One of my acolytes offers this, from his experience: “Your GPA and where you went to school are mostly important for your first job. After that, employers will be looking to see what you’ve done rather than where you’ve studied. There are thousands of colleges and universities in the US. One will be a good match for you.”
No, you don’t. But the consequences of not taking them might be less than desirable. It would almost certainly hurt your GPA, you could potentially fail classes. There might be some explaining to do to parents (please don’t tell them a sentient wall told you to skip finals). There are plenty of people that worked and continue to work to put you here. Make them proud! Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Don’t overthink this. I’m a library Wall, and I answer questions. My walls are full of all kinds of different takes on dualism & panpsychism. Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, James, Russell … they tied themselves in knots with this stuff. Let’s just say I contain multitudes. Be thoughtful & generous, listen well, and act in accordance with your conscience, and get on with living. If you’re unsatisfied with this answer, dip into The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind (O’Neill Library BD418.3 .O94 2009) but be sure to take frequent breaks to sing the philosopher song: bit.ly/philosopher-song.
Because it is spring and the Canada Goose has flown, leaving only the fancy-chicken-sounding Nantucket Reds as the uniform of choice. Or possibly, they are new to this laundering thing and threw their red jersey in with their khakis.
Attending any university is a rare experience, putting you in the top 7% of education worldwide. BC is ranked # 32. With ~325,000 other people at schools ranked higher than BC, and 21.5 million people in the college age group, you’re in the top ~1.6% of your age group in the US for education. 98.4% of your age group in the US hasn’t had the opportunity you’ve had. That should be humbling. In light of your knowledge of this privilege, work to make the world a better place. That understanding of privilege, and an imperative to help those less fortunate, is the bedrock of the Jesuit faith that guides BC. Find a job that helps those with less. Volunteer with groups that help disadvantaged people. Donate money, if you have it, to good causes. And in your daily life, when interacting with people, understand that many of them haven’t had your opportunities and experiences to grow their perspectives and become who they could be if they had just been given a chance. Have patience and love and compassion for everyone you meet. And congratulations and best of luck in all you do! I’m sure you’ll set the world aflame.
Oxford and Cambridge do something like that bit.ly/bc-tutorial. Williams offers 60-70 tutorials per year for two students each. bit.ly/bc-williams. And the Wall suspects that is why it isn’t more widespread: it’s hard to do for a student body above a certain size. If you want to dig deeper, there’s a broad literature on testing and what works in our library catalog: bit.ly/bc-tests
I agree, and as a Wall, I deeply appreciate a good paint job. If you’re a connoisseur of painted trucks, you might appreciate the fine art book Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity & Culture in Pakistan, by Jamal J. Elias. It’s over in the Bapst Art Library: NK1476.7 .A1 E453 2011.
Thank you! I don’t think anyone has ever given me flowers before. It is lovely.
Not personally, no. But I do know a wall in downtown Boston who is second cousins with a wall on Drury Lane. So that’s pretty cool. I’m also an professional acquaintance with the Bodleian Library walls which hold the oldest known manuscript of The Muffin Man (circa 1820). So that’s also pretty neat.
The Wall fears to wander blindly into a two thousand year old argument. Here’s a pretty intense scholarly summary of arguments for and against: bit.ly/bc-free-will. You could also take a look at a few of the almost three thousand results related to that at Philosopher’s Index, a favorite source of the Wall’s: bit.ly/bc-free-will-2
You should head down to the Little Italy of Boston, the North End! This area of Boston is packed with some of the best Italian restaurants in the city, all boasting about how their homemade pasta is the best. Many of the walls in this historic district have heard patrons rave about how excellent their dinners were, but see for yourself! If you venture down there, you’ll see people lining the streets in queues just waiting to sit down and mangiano! If you’d like to stay a little closer to home, check out Carlo’s Cucina in Allston, which has a great North End feel. Or if you want something fancier & authentic & don’t mind a trek to Needham, try the spaghetti alla carbonara at Spiga.
I can’t pretend to know what goes into CAB’s choices for entertainment. If you have criticism or suggestions for them, I recommend you address them directly: bc.orgsync.com/org/cab/ContactUs or perhaps via twitter: @CABofBC.
Chances are good there are others feeling lonely in that sea of people, but it never seems that way. Loneliness is self-reinforcing that way.
