This happy brick is saying "I am not cynical at all, I am only experienced, that's pretty much the same thing - Oscar Wilde." Mmmm...cynicism....

One reason I was strongly attracted to Reed is that the school is very honest in how they market themselves. Reed was founded on a set of principles and they simply won't waver from them for anyone. When US News and World Report did their survey on the best American collleges, Reed refused to answer. Arrogant? Yes. Justified? Maybe. You can't really quantify Reed, or ANY college for that matter.

Reed was founded, ironically, through the will of a very successful capitalist named Simeon Reed. The conservative curriculum reflects his desire for a school with all of the supposed rigor of the ivy league and none of the prentensions or aristocratic culture. The liberal student body reflects the decision of the school not to meddle in the affairs of their students. At all. If you walk around smoking pot, nobody cares. If you drink openly, nobody is going to arrest you. This is all because there is an assumption that whatever you do, you are acting under the mystical, all-encompassing Honor Principle. The Honor Principle is not written anywhere, and the only definition that exists is what constitutes a violation: anything that causes "undue harm or embarrassment to Reed or a member of the Reed community." My tour guide noted that the principle is taken very seriously as it is the only guide of conduct that exists on campus. The viewbook is very happy to relate tales of students leaving wallets in the dining hall, only to find them intact in the lost and found days later. That's nothing. I toured the library and saw student desks (when you're a senior, you either get a desk in the library or an office in the science building of your major) with unguarded laptops, notes, books, etc. And nobody had any good theft stories. So it must work, most of the time.

My favorite Reed student organization is the Reed Kommunal Shit Kollectiv (RKSK). The student senate can vote funding to whatever is most popular, and RKSK is very popular, so it gets a lot of money to buy collectively owned shit for Reedies. They mark these things with the hammer and sickle, and it seems that taking anything that is marked is a minor honor violation. I only saw one RKSK thing, an electric tea kettle in the basement of the library, which would be pretty nice to have down there, I guess.

Flying back to the issue of dorms, dorms at Reed are themed. Some dorms study japanese culture (i.e. watch Akira, eat sushi) some have a cat on each floor, and some go on camping trips togther. There are a few houses that are for language students and offer complete immersion in your day-to-day activities as well as classes. The picture above is of my cat, Sylvester, who would probably enjoy Reed just as much as he enjoys everywhere else, which is a lot, because he's always content. I don't know how he does it. If I knew, I wouldn't even bother with all this Reed crap, I'd go sleep in a sunbeam and eat some food, maybe.