Overheard at Smith

I think you should be able to grasp the concept.

[overheardatsmith-blog]

Kathy Griffin

If Kathy Griffin asks to stay at your house when your not there, say no.

~ Anderson Cooper

[overheardatsmith-blog]

I listen to Rhianna when I run...

Anderson Cooper

[overheardatsmith-blog]

What is this? Pride and Prejudice with sweatpants?

[overheardatsmith-blog]

About her vagina

This is not an exit. This is an on ramp, not an off ramp.

[smithiescomplaints-blog]

Dear Smithies,

I have turned off the submit option for all three blogs. There will be no new posts to Overheard at Smith, Smith Professor Quotes or SmithieComplaints. The phenom has run its course.

I started these blogs are a joke to myself that became a huge part of the Smith online community. Poking fun at Smith was my way of expressing a deep affection for the campus and the people who populate it. 

But in the nearly 3 years I’ve been running these blogs, I have received downright nasty submissions and I have received a lot of passive-aggressive “My complaint is that you never update” messages. I’ve read racist, transphobic & classist complaints and I’ve deleted them all. Policing the space that I created for Smithies to express affection and good-natured teasing got to be too much. Especially while Smith as an institution struggles with these things, and while I can see the nasty ways in which Smithies will talk about other humans when given a venue to do so anonymously. 

SmithieComplaints was a blog about privilege, it was about how Smith College produces a certain type of complaint that would never cross the mind of most people. My personal favorite complaint of all time was “I can’t tell if I’m conscious of my privilege or falsely conscious of my privilege.” The submissions I get now are not true to the tongue-in-cheek tone I intended when I began the blog. They are self-congratulating, smug, and redundant.

I’m proud of the way I ran these blogs and I’m glad you all enjoyed them. I won’t delete them— they’re here as a testament to what Smith’s online community looked like from 2010-13 and how a college that costs 50k a year still can’t manage to teach students what a satire is. These blogs were never about me, they were about all of us, and how fucking terrible we could be and how we could still laugh at ourselves. 

Sincerely, SmithieComplaints aka Sarah Fitz ‘13J

[overheardatsmith-blog]

Working in Comstock/Wilder Mini Quad

"Sorry. I'm just taking highlighting very seriously right now. "

[overheardatsmith-blog]

"... and my breasts felt like sorbet!"

[overheardatsmith-blog]

Professor:"So I went to chase duckett for dinner--"

Students: "It's called chuckett"

Proffesor: "Is that what they call it, chuckett? Well, yeah hah. That's what the food looked like."

[overheardatsmith-blog]

Beethoven is a catty girlfriend

[overheardatsmith-blog]

Chapin Living Room

"I only date centaurs."

[overheardatsmith-blog]

It's just so sad, because hydrogen is so underappreciated and so overused... It's like a prostitute!

[overheardatsmith-blog]

A: I hated math... It's like suddenly there are imaginary numbers?

A: I think they're used in planes or something...

B: I'm not an engineer.

[overheardatsmith-blog]

"So this mini-quiz should be pretty straight forward. I promise you, there is no trickery, it is exactly as I have told you in class."

- Carrie Read in CHM 224

[overheardatsmith-blog]

"It's visually ironic, so it's hipster"

[overheardatsmith-blog]

She seemed serious...

"I'm gluten-free except for when the dining hall serves pizza"

[overheardatsmith-blog]

I want my juice. It's the only thing that makes me consistently happy in this world.

(two minutes later)

...and now it's all gone.

[overheardatsmith-blog]

I don't want my life to be like I, Robot.