Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 19th, 2007.
Hey all, not sure if I'll finish catching y'all up to where I am at the moment, but I'll give it another go-round. First some ordinary musings...
I was wondering why my blog views have taken off lately. I mean, what with about forty friends and maybe 3 subscribers, it seemed odd. Then I remembered that I'm now allowing facebook to import my blogs. hmm... clever, aren't I?
Let me clarify something, by the way: I'm in Princeton, New Jersey these days. I've got a job doing research with a professor by the name of Daniel Kahnman. He's cool. He's got a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahneman . And I live in the Princeton "ghetto" which means that for about two blocks around me, there's a little bit of diversity. Got two room mates, pretty cool people...
Ok, Chapter 3:
Well, in the last episode, I detailed how I got a job, traveled, did some other stuff, then I sort of glossed over May. Well, I don't really remember May much. In fact, with the way my memory's been going these days, I'd better get this thing finished as soon as humanly possible...
So with May began the senior events, and Hillel was the first. Because if Hillel tried to compete with all the other senior events, let's just say that wouldn't work out so well...so on Wednesday, May 2nd, they had a senior dinner. This was actually pretty fun, although the ironic part is that I sat with my housemates mostly - that is, people from the Currier '07 Jew Crew. This is primarily me, Aviel/Bryan, Jon Kamler (my senior-year room mate - who still has my stuff!), Hannah Sarah, Arielle, and Strich. Plus there are satellite members like Josh Elihu and Johnny Leeman and a bunch of others. All in all, not too shabby of a group, compared to what '08 and '09 have got...Also, we got to drink wine in the courtyard and try to act graceful and sophisticated. right.
I had work to do - a paper for my Jewish history class was due on Monday, and I had also decided, for some odd reason, to organize the study guide for the class. You know, study guides - where you do a fraction of the reading for the course, write up a summary, and everyone else does likewise, and everyone gets to take it easy-ish.
Now I had never organized one of these things before. Second-semester of my senior year, doesn't seem like a good time to start something new, does it? But I was really anxious that no one would do it, because the reading list was HUGE. and since I knew a ridiculous number of people in the course, I figured, hey, why not?
In the end, I managed to get out of doing practically any reading at all - just lots and lots of emailing, assigning, and a little bit of arm-twisting. See, my group was a runaway best-seller. We cornered the market - another group actually said that they couldn't get enough people because of us, and asked to join. Over half the class was in on the take...I got a weird kind of evil glee out all this.
and I was writing a paper on the relation between Freud's Jewishness and his Freudian-ness. But aside from that, I was pretty much free. See, at Harvard, they have a reading period that lasts a week and a half, so that students can put off studying for a week and a half and party or whatnot...
of course, I should have been figuring out what I was going to do between graduation and July 1st. That's when my job was supposed to start, and in the mean time, Harvard was throwing me on my ass on June 8th (day after graduation). I needed to find a place to live, but had never done this before, and at first, I really didn't know what to do. naturally, my first reaction when I don't know what to do in a situation is to do nothing, so that's basically what I did for a while...
May 8th there was a Currier house senior dinner...I sat with Aviel (formerly Bryan, formerly my room-mate) and a bunch of people we weren't that friendly with. Turns out it was primarily an awards ceremony for pretty much everyone in out house and class except us. Actually, the whole Jew crew got pretty much shut out...but I'm not sayin anti-semitism or anything, hell no. See, I almost never get awards, and I have figured out why: I never do anything extremely well and I never devote hours of my time to helping other people. I think that's pretty much the only ways people get awards...and kudos to them, for that.
(Actually, there was a little scandal about an award that I could have potentially gotten from the ortho minyan at hillel - basically, they had created the award this past year, and it was to be given to an outgoing member of the community who had done a lot to serve the community. The only public service I did while at Harvard pretty much was helping out the minyan, which I did in a variety of ways for my first three years. Then I got sick of performing a series of thankless tasks without any support or help or positive reinforcement, etc. So, senior year, I prioritized other things. And guess what? although three awards were given, I didn't get one - even though I know one of the big guys was pulling for me! What can I say? orthodox judaism has really never done anything but push me away. Sometimes you gotta wonder - why bother pushing back?)
May 15 our psych-lab had a year-end party. I'd been looking forward to this because in the past they've been pretty cool, but this year's party was a little underwhelming. Also, they gave out awards at the party, too, but only for people who had worked on a particular study - guess what? not my thesis study. Shut out again...I'm really not the award-winning type.
May 18th I had my first final, May 22 I had my second, and last! So at this point I was totally free, and had nothing to do but kick around and party until June 7th. However, I let the housing search stress me out to a ridiculous extent. I decided that I decided that I needed to go down to Princeton to look around in person, after laying the groundwork first. but first, there was Shavuos...
That's right, almost forgot about Shavuos - it started the evening of my last final - May 22. The big stinker was that Austin had managed to get out of town right beforehand. I mean, good deal for him, I would've done the same, but that left me with Avi and Adam and the usual crowd at Hillel, and they're all pretty unpredictable.
Usually, shavuos night is awesome because it's a religiously sanctiones/ordained all-nighter. hillel was pretty boring, however. In fact, I walked back and forth twice, and gave myself some foot trouble for a few weeks, but nevermind.
The second night, I ate at Danny and Lindsey's - they are the nicest people ever. I think this is when I found out what I would do with all of the random stuff I needed to store - they offered to let me use their basement for the three weeks.
MY GOODNESS, I almost forgot to put this in: on Sunday the 27th, I drove to Monsey, NY, and back with Avi and Dave to attend Shuey's wedding. No time to explain, but it was just crazy that we went there and back on the same day...
The next week was "senior week" - a whole bunch of random party-ish events for seniors, since all the underclassmen were gone. I was stressing about the housing thing - that really killed this period for me, unnecessarily. Still slapping myself. I was emailing all kinds of random people, sending blind emails, etc., and trying to find out when people could show me around. I thought at first that I would go down to Princeton on Thursday/Friday, but then realized that it wasn't really convenient for the people showing me around, and that doing senior week stuff would be cooler.
Although I didn't actually do a lot of that stuff, except hang out in the house and party with those people a bit. There was a talent show which was an amusing cultural experience...I remember a pre-game for a formal I didn't go to. I ended up hanging out with Joe and Mike Judge (aka Fudge) and a few other folks, watching the red sox game at a bar and then going back and chilling at currier. I hung out in the ten-man (the major party suite) more that week than I had all year (another criminal offense on my part, since I was pretty good friends with a few of the residents - but last year was all about work and pain...ugh!)
So I went down to Princeton sunday night, stayed at a real stripped-down joint for the night, and spent Monday checking a few places out. Mostly, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and the few places I saw weren't right. So I stopped by the office, where some of my former co-workers came up huge for me, and we worked some things out. I arranged to meet a guy who lived in a semi-collective house nearby around 4ish, with the knowledge that to have any hope of getting back to harvard that night, I would need to be out of there by five or so.
and lo and behold, this place was great! I was really enthused - the people seemed cool, the room was nice, the rent was fair (or even cheap), and the location was awesome! I called them and said the deposit was on the way, and they sounded stoked too...
unfortunately, they pulled the wildest, weirdest bullshit I have ever encountered. When I checked my email at some point Tuesday afternoon, I had an email from the guy saying that he had received my check - and torn it up! Why? the owner of the building told him that since there were currently 4 male and 1 female residents, the remaining room had to go to a girl, since otherwise no woman would ever live there ever again. now, I hate to say this nice boys and girls, but this counts as housing discrimination on the basis of gender...
I was in disbelief, and also quite upset. I contacted my legal counsel (my father), and he handled the situation, which was key, because I totally would have gone off on this guy. unfortunately, they were unbudgeable, and so I graduated without knowing where I would live...
Tuesday, June 5th, there was a senior wine and cheese run by hillel at the home of the assistant director. I was one of the first there because I had to meet the Shoags and work out some random details. So I got to hang out awkwardly with two hillel staff-people until some of the hillel folk showed up with their families - such a strange gathering...but I braved it out, yes I did! Incidentally, Avi showed up, which was the last time I would see or hear from him for a full week. he totally ditched me. sometimes you just gotta wonder what goes on in peoples' minds...
and then when I was about to leave I was unlocking by bike on the street below and notice that someone had jacked - my seat! re-fucking-diculous! and I actually biked all the way back (about a mile and a half) just standing up...
The next day there was a brunch at hillel followed by one at chabad and then "class day." and my parents and brother were coming in. They missed the hillel brunch, which would have been somewhat cool for them to be at, but hey - my parents barely ever hung around at Harvard while I was there, and maybe it was better that way...I did set them up with some food at chabad, and then we went and found some seats for the class day thing.
Class day is a series of humorous or poignant speeches by students and one celebrity guest speaker - we got Bill Clinton. I was pretty stoked. Also, one of the peeps from my house, Kiernan Schmidt, was giving a speech, which was hysterical! really, he crossed the line about a dozen times, and I was just surprised that they actually approved it...
Clinton was ok. My brother kept obsessing over how he kept listing great people who had spoken at the Harvard Class Day thing, people we should emulate, people like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and...Bono. he really did keep bringing Bono up for no apparent reason. What can I say?
Did I mention that to this point I had packed about two or three boxes? to give you an idea, in the end there were probably 10-15, plus luggage, plus stuff that I just left behind because of my hideously poor planning. but at least I got down to princeton for no reason...
and then my bro and I stayed up veeery late that night - nevermind that I had to be up at 7:30 to attend a "very special breakfest" (no, no alcohol or drugs were involved. I know, I was disappointed too...) and then march all together down to Harvard Yard.
I got about two hours of sleep and was late to breakfast, and also to the marching because I ran to my room for a minute. Then began the most hallucinatory experience I have ever had - and I mean ever (so far...). There were about 100 of us, in black caps and gowns, walking down the street and through Cambridge Common during morning rush hour, mostly tired but also giddy. When we got there, they lined us up in the middle of the yard, which was packed, and we got to stand in the center aisle while all these pompous people in ridiculous uniforms marched by - famous people, too, like Bill Gates and John Kerry &c.
Then we all sat together through some truly bizarre rituals, and then some awards and stuff, then we were officially "graduated." yay! Of course, my brother slept through it all...
Then we hiked back to our house (I made a frickin beeline in my cap and gown) where, after a brief intermission, we had our official roll-call degree ceremony. The weather was perfect, and I was just tired enough to be sentimental and teary-eyed. We go fancy programs and heard some speeches by classmates and tutors, and the house-master, then we all got our degrees.
After this ceremony was lunch, and the family discussed what the next move should be. I decided it would be sleep. which was awesome...
We went out to Taam China that night to eat, then my dad helped me and my brother move some boxes to the storage locale. I continued to neglect packing that night, and hung out some more in the ten-man instead, and reality seemed strange and somehow altered.
The next day, (Friday, the 8th) my brother and I had a hellish experience trying to throw all my stuff together. we had to have our cabbie drive us to the storage place to drop off more stuff, and then we got to the airport about 20 minutes before boarding time - we were lucky, because there was almost no traffic. I was sweating because we were coming in pretty close to shabbos...
but we made it onto the plane & everything. the final indignity - I was in the very last row of the plane! But oh the relief...
***Ok, so there will be one more chapter, but it will be briefer, hopefully, and focus mostly on my epic journey with all of my stuff from boston to Princeton, with a little detail about life since getting Princeton thrown in. I'm impressed with myself! and with you for getting to the bottom of this post. How do people manage to stay interested in all this mundane bs? ah well...love ya lots!***
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