Major bummer today. Jack wrote to tell us all that we probably ought to have a meeting to discuss our current standing as Evergreen undergrads at La Selva. At the moment, things are deteriorating quickly. Hillary's snakebite adventure and now Charissa's admission into the local hospital for digestive illness (acquired through no fault of her own) set the stage for a nasty undercurrent to surface in the social scene here. It has been made clear that, for as-yet-undisclosed reasons, people here just don't like us one bit. Apparently they think that as a group, we're irresponsible "unsupervised undergraduates" (Not my words. I think Jack relayed them from someone else) who are incapable of taking care of ourselves. In case it is not immediately obvious in spite of its ridiculousness, the implication is that one's ability to take care of oneself depends entirely on whether or not one has a Bachelor's degree. How appropriately snobbish. I wish I knew who'd made the complaints about our conduct so I could personally thank them for jeapordizing the future of this program.

I know that all this will inevitably be water under the bridge–stories to tell at parties and to future friends. But right now, it seems like a pretty crappy deal. We've all been officially threatened with expulsion from the station, specifically because certain people within our group have been breaking some rules, many of which are commonly broken by other researchers, staff, and visitors. People are displeased that "the Evergreen students" take up too much time on the station computers. People are concerned that we wear sandals at night. My sandal census this evening at dinner revealed that most of the sandal-wearers were long-term station residents, presumably those who originated the complaints against us. (I say presumably because all complainers to-date have been proving their maturity by filing complaints directly with the station authorities and giving no warning to any of us.) People are concerned that we are "too nonchalant" for them to understand. I'm a little bit vague on the implications of that one. With any luck, I'll be able to forget about it entirely in the very near future.

So, we had a meeting. Since we're perceived as a group rather than individuals, we've decided to make a conscious effort, as a group, to be more like what the people here want us to be. I'm a little apprehensive about the perceived simplicity of our task. A few among us are a little too proud to make convincing bootlickers.

Many cliches come to mind right now. That ubiquitous quote credited to Napoleon, Marc Antony, the Godfather movies, Shakespeare, and others–"keep your friends close and your enemies closer"–seems appropriate. So does "kill 'em with kindness" and "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." Clearly, these situations happen often if the prolific diffusion of these mantras is any indication. I just wish it weren't so. Things have been going so well lately. So well, in fact, that in hindsight, I should have seen this coming. I've been having a great time here, off in my own little world, not worrying about what people are thinking of me or whether or not the babysitter thinks I'm behaving myself. And then this big old mosquito comes along and takes a bite out of the ass of reality. C'est la vie.

Ugh. I can tell already. This one's going to itch for a while.