Rosemary Smith
Containing Little or Nothing
Good morning. I imagine you are all flipping through your programs right now to figure out who I am and what I’m speaking about, so, before you get too confused, I better explain my title: “Containing Little or Nothing.” You see, for technical reasons, the title to my speech was due a week before the actual speech. So, as you can imagine, by the time I had to submit a title I had absolutely no idea what I was going to speak about. Luckily, Williams trains its students well for just this kind of situation: All I had to do was find a phrase that had the illusion of meaning while not committing me to anything in particular. If you’ve ever had to give a professor a final paper topic a few weeks in advance, you probably know what I’m talking about.
Beyond this, my title selection wasn’t totally random. It’s actually the name of a chapter from the novel Tom Jones. If you’ve read the book but still didn’t get the reference, I don’t blame you — it’s about a million pages long. In this chapter, Fielding is true to his word: He doesn’t say very much. What he does say, though, is interesting and entertaining, which is what I hoped my speech would be. If I’ve failed, don’t worry — I’m only allowed to talk for 3 to 4 minutes!
I’d like to use my time up here to tell you a quick story about something Williams calls the cooperative living experience. Like many schools, Williams housing is based on a flawlessly designed lottery system. If you’re a senior with a low enough lottery number then you can pick into a co-op. In return for getting to live in a nice house with your friends, co-op residents are expected to learn how to cook for themselves and generally live independently. It’s basically The Real World minus the stunningly attractive yet deeply moronic cast members.
Well, in true Real World fashion, I have a dramatic confession to make: I lived in a co-op all year and I didn’t cook once. That’s right. I never even turned on the oven. (My mother’s out there somewhere getting ready to murder me!) Of course, I had a lot of excuses for not cooking. Gas prices made the trip to Stop n’ Shop too expensive. I was protesting gender stereotypes. Our refrigerator smelled kind of funky. The list goes on. In the end, laziness and incompetence were probably the key contributing factors.
Luckily, although I don’t know how to cook, I am quite skilled at foraging for food on a college campus. The office of career counseling, for example, was a valuable resource. It turns out that free food is an integral part of the employment process. Was I interested in Teach for America? Not really. Was I interested in eating free pizza while hearing about Teach for America? Absolutely! Certain academic majors were also generous, although here things got a little more tricky. It’s hard to enjoy your ice cream when you’re trying to impersonate an earnest math major. To make a long story fit into a short speech, I did make it through the year well-fed and with only the occasional dirty look from suspicious event coordinators.
The Williams housing department is probably shaking its head at this very moment and thinking that I got nothing out of my cooperative living experience. After all, I still can’t cook. But, in the spirit of my carefully selected title, I’d like to suggest that I may have learned a little and I believe I have about 15 seconds left to make my case. You see, behind the confidant, relaxed faces of the graduates here today, I imagine there are at least a few who, like me, aren’t sure they’re totally ready for the whole life-after-college thing. The fact is we aren’t — and maybe we even can’t — be prepared for everything. This really bothers us Williams students who are basically know-it-alls at heart. But what I discovered this year is that not knowing how to cook, or balance a check book, or iron pleats, isn’t the end of the world. You’ll learn eventually. And even if you don’t, you’ll be amazed at how well you can do with just a little creativity and a sense of humor. Thanks and congratulations.
June 4, 2006