Trials of ‘09

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.

Being Gone

I’ll be gone in a little less than a day, packed to the brim and then some. Carrying some memories, some love, some excitement, some apprehension.

Anyway, have fun in college, trying to make something concrete out of any ambition you may have graduated with. Or have fun applying to college (sorry for the sadism) and trying to figure out whether a certain word will land you at exactly 0 characters left on your online responses.

I had my milestones this summer, kept in touch with true friends, mellowed out (lost any edge to a blunter smile and nod) and hope you did too. I found some of myself that I had dropped over the course of doing stupid things at Bellaire, or maybe I’ve regressed to a happier period

Whoever I know or whoever reads this note, please know that you have contributed to me in some way (whether that disgusts you or not), and please let me know how you are…despite if I haven’t talked to you in years – “it’ll be weird and awkward” is just crap. One life, one time to make as many relationships as possible. (18 years are already gone, geez!)

I don’t know what I’m going to do at Harvard, really don’t – a bit of ambition, and openmindedness that comes with being more relaxed. My dorm house is far from everything (except the baskin robbins and dunkin donuts across the street). Greenough. Looks like some English village (all I think of is My Fair Lady and cockney accents all around).

Also, what the hell? This became too stream of conscious-y, but what I said is true (if there was any dispute).

Last thing (before this aphex twin song burrows itself any further in my brain), don’t dig any holes you can’t get out of.

That’s what she said.

And now for something completely different…(the rest of our lives is supposed to follow the ellipsis)

Nascence

What has passed has not been simply an experience, but cynically, it has been a war of attrition. The years that fed into high school – middle school, elementary, daycare centers – all the sights and sounds that have caused me to feel dysfunctional at the slightest mistake or unsettling event have been the hardest to overcome in high school. So that awkward conversation in the hall, a teacher’s reproach, someone’s disdain – or even the leaps to false conclusions really threw my feelings out of whack.

But it’s been fun:

The volatility, the irrationality, and the spontaneity have been great. Can I highlight?

9th Grade: Ambition, and a middle school success high. I made a fool out of myself, and a shame since that’s how that class will remember me. Highlights: Indian dancing, random tests/quizzes, “Comrade” (and speeches too good to not be canned), social suppression, and premature introspection.

10th Grade: New high school – freedom? Dress code, harder classes (APWHIST), and thoughts about epiphanies – not fully developed then and not now either.

11th Grade: English with Seward was the best, people were nice, and recovering from a weird (in the loosest definition of the word) relationship. Pervasive debate culture.

12th Grade: Activities start snapping into place, a hierarchy of motivation and ideals start to emerge, and I gain a lot of good friends. This was how high school should have been in the past – people gifted with charisma take it for granted. And what’s growth without a vanity search (yes, I am the only Steven Maheshwary) with a side order of self-importance?

Hahaha, those highlights started devolving into generalizations. (oh well, I guess it is parallel to my development).

The point of this post is nascence – the event of birth – a chance to finalize my being as steadfastly awesome. And by awesome I mean charismatic, ambitious, and (as this induction into the blogosphere suggests) my-own-mousetrap-builder.

Harvard. Oh yes. The immigrant parent dream, and the dutiful son’s obligation. On April 1st, my mother shed the truest tears of accumulated motherhood – a hope not gone anticlimactic on a son seen to be awry. And my father, in the conflict of judging his son (like I said, there was dysfunctionality, awwww look a nudist soul) said, “good job.”

What can I say? I will smile, accept your congratulations, and will not premeditate a personality. That is my nascence – a reflection, an introspection, and pushing an epiphany from eureka to practice.

Thanks for reading this, and if you guys have anything you want me to talk about, let me know – above all, COMMENT!