2 days ago
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Christmas Parties and Alienation
I went to our math department's Christmas party for 5 minutes but then left because of the Christmas music. I was going to try to pretend that it was not for a specific holiday that is somebody else's and celebrate the end of term with my colleagues, but the Christmas music to go with everything else makes it impossible for me, so I felt the need to leave because it was starting to make me angry. There's just no point in staying when it makes me feel alienated and angry. (And it's not even that I don't like any Christmas songs --- there are, in fact, a couple that I like a lot --- but the whole feeling of inundation is something I can do without.)
Sorry if that's my flaw and nothing more (I know this bothers others less than me), but it remains true that this makes it so that I should leave. A holiday party isn't about feeling alienated. So it's best that I left.
I will get some more work done instead, and I'll celebrate with my colleagues another time.
And I will also calm down and return to my feelings of placidity.
Labels:
''holidays'',
Christmas,
holidays,
Mathematical Institute,
me,
Oxford,
rant
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2 comments:
If you had the time and inclination, perhaps next year you could volunteer to be one of the party organizers and make sure the music is the Lovecraft version rather than the Christmas version. "Oh come all ye Old Ones…"
I tend to skip the PMA holiday party, but that's because it's insanely crowded and doesn't have much food I care for. Not even sure if they play background music - hard to tell with the crowds and noise.
In fact, one reason I stayed for 5-10 minutes was in the hope that people would hurry up and come so I didn't hear the music. I wasn't looking forward to the food (it's meh), but it would have been nice to celebrate the end of term a bit with my colleagues. But even listening to that crap for a few minutes was already making me feel very upset, so I left. There were two young kids of my colleagues and the staff members who set things up already there, but the music was loud and clear. Anyway, I got some work done during those couple of hours.
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