We Are Tottenham Haters

Arsenal F.C., or simply, “Arsenal” is an English football club based in North London. They play in the English Premiership, the highest division in the United Kingdom and arguably the best league in the world.

My support for Arsenal started in 2004 when I was seven. My brother had been watching them for a few years prior and had convinced me to start watching their matches with him on the weekends. My support quickly grew into a love when my brother and I watched Arsenal complete the impossible and go an entire League season, 38 matches, unbeaten. This was a feat not done since the 19th century by Preston North End F.C.. Watching arsenal that year was like watching an artist paint his masterpiece. Those 11 men strung together the most incredible, perfect, and viscous passing ever witnessed by mankind. Their defense was impenetrable, and their ability to counter-attack was unmatched, the Arsenal could be defending one moment, and then three passes later, have the opposition’s keeper picking the ball out of his net.

Since 1997, Arsenal has been led by their manager, Arsene Wenger. This lanky frenchman brought an entirely new style of football to Arsenal and was the first manager in the English Leagues to field a completely non-english team. Wenger led Arsenal to countless trophies in the first years of his reign and brought in some of the world’s best talent. That is, until after that historic season. Since the 2003-04 season, arsenal has won only a handful of silverware, and finishes lower and lower in the league table each year. Most football supporters can handle this sort of decline, but not me. I’ve been watching Arsenal’s slow descent as if it were a close friend slowly being taken over by addiction or some other crippling disease. The disease that Arsenal is currently stuck with is “Wenger-itis”.

Monsieur Wenger was magnificent for Arsenal, but as of recent he has been doing nothing but hurt the club. His refusal to buy new players for the team has allowed the biggest talent we had to leave year after year and see nobody new come in to replace them. The decline hasn’t been apparent until this current season. So far, five weeks into the season, we’ve lost two matches. Teams that win the league typically only lose 4 or 5 matches a year. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they can’t muster up even a draw early in the season, they’ve been losing. We’ve won three matches, but it’s really not enough, it should be six matches won. If this descent continues from the Arsenal, I don’t think I could truly love them the way I have in the past. For the love of God they better start winning more matches, and if they don’t I’ll have to jump on the “Wenger Out” bandwagon.

-Ian Caldwell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fWFBz6s4XI

Spoiled by Technology and Having

Life has changed so much these last few years. Whenever it’s a night on the weekend/holiday and I’ve done “nothing”, I always get this weird feeling. Perhaps the wifi has died, or there’s no electricity, or there’s simply nothing to do; everyone else in the family has slept early and friends are all on some vacation. Sure I’ve probably watched a few youtube videos and browsed the web a bit, but I still get this “empty” feeling. I get this sense of meaningless and pointlessness; there’s nothing to do; nothing has been accomplished that night. I get the idea that fine, I work in the day, but once I’ve done so, the night is time for my own enjoyment. In a way I’ve been motivated during the day so that I can do something at night. Many valuable hours have gone by, wasted. I get this feeling that unless I’ve played a game, watched a movie, followed a sports game, etc. I don’t get the satisfaction I need on a weekday before I sleep to say “Yes, I’ve accomplished something for my enjoyment today. I’m free to end the day.” Whenever I don't get this satisfaction, it always disappoints me. But them often I get thinking, how would I have acted differently years ago, before I had games to play with friends, before I had movies to watch on a regular basis, before I was into sports?

Then I come to the realization that we’re becoming spoiled by technology and what we’ve gained that we used to never know of. Whatever new thing I add to my life, I also add a new sense of longing and pointlessness when it’s over. For example, when the nba is over I feel really sad since there’s nothing to follow and look forward to everyday. Yet before I followed the nba I couldn’t have cared less when the season was over. Similarly, I didn’t always have movies to watch every so often. Now, when have a couple spare hours and no movies to watch I’m disappointed, especially when I can’t figure out what to watch and time is running out. It sometimes takes a long time to pick a movie. But before, I watched movies very rarely and any movie was fine. And no when a friend plans to play with me but later figures he can’t, it’s kinda disappointing. But before I couldn’t have cared less whether he plays or not.

There are so many more things that have spoiled us over time. Another example is something we call “lag.” Whenever the wifi dies everyone gets really frustrated. Whenever a document takes “forever” to load, people groan in frustration. Whenever a webpage doesn’t load students call over the teacher like it’s some emergency. However, a few years ago there was no internet, let alone computers. There wasn’t the concept of transferring files within minutes, let alone seconds. Nobody complained then. Uploading a file in 1 hour was considered fast. When urls took a minute to load, everyone was happy for the fact that it even opened. Now when I look at the first gen ipod touch. It feels so slow and bulky. But I remember several years ago, it was revolutionary, so fast and so light. Everything that it did was amazing, no matter how long it took.

The more we have, the less we’re appreciating the smaller things. Next time you complain, think first about what you have that those years ago never had. Appreciate the fact that you even have it, not how well it works. If it gets the job done, be happy enough. Have more patience.