Truth.
I slept through my entire freshman year at Harvard, and I have no dreams with which to vividly recount.
This is, coincidentally, almost exactly an entire year since I last wrote anything on this blog, and the first time I wrote anything worthwhile (at least to me ) on this site, which I guess, is the original intention of any blog.
So my freshman year began in a pre-orientation programs cleaning bathrooms and trash (Dorm Crew) with other nervous freshmen. Camaraderie while sleeping on naked beds and lazily sweeping dusty, wooden floors really does something to the social soul because you begin to recognize that everyone you meet is not the overly charming genius you expect to meet. Some of us want to sweep floors, some of us want to make 11.80 per hour, and some of us really want to acclimatize to campus immediately. In fact, Harvard/Dorm Crew helped transition me from a nourishing family in Texas to semi-complete independence in Massachusetts.
That being said, I made a lot of friends while sweeping floors. One of my friends who was sweeping floors and dusting bureaus (who actually lived in my house later that year) and I were accosted while cleaning. A guy who was cleaning a row of rooms across the hall sauntered up to us, me specifically, and asked, “Are you a national chess champion?” Confused, I asked, “Do you mean something like being a national chess champion, or specifically, a national chess champion?
“Yea man, are you a national chess champion? Cause we’re in Harvard and I want to get to know you guys, cause, you know, I come from a cutthroat high school, ya know.”
I said, “Yea dude, I am a national chess champion… pretty good guess.” I hoped he was trolling me, putting up some sort of sarcastic reflection of the people one would expect to meet at Harvard. But no…he was THAT guy.
“Did you get perfect SATs?”
“Why?”
“I wanna know, like, I wanna know what kind of people got into Harvard. Shit is hard.”
“Yea dude, shit is hard. Doesn’t matter.” All the while, my friend is amazed and is laughing the entire time. The interrogator, oblivious. He proceeds to tell me his life story about his role in high school politics, the cutthroat nature of high school academics, and how poor he was in relation to what he thought was a student body of wealthy, aristocratic children. Honestly, he was a manifestation of our stupidest expectations.
Classes, friends, and partying , Annenberg, and a brutally bitter and frosty winter personified the rest of my year. Nothing idiosyncratic really stands out – maybe I should have blogged during the year and you would have known. Meh.
It’s summer now, and it’s fantastic. Updates on a year long reflection soon? No guarantees.
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