Back T’werk

September 27, 2013

The Trials of Princeton

It was the first night without my parents in some hotel on US Route 1. I was alone and somewhere near East Pyne, brimming with the feeling of being lost and alone in a new city, juggling the oversized, color-coded freshman orientation specialty map that a volunteer organizer had gravely slipped into my purse.

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Alexandria Herr

When I tell people my name, people often ask if I’m named after the city, or, if they’re particularly bookish, the library. I’m actually named after neither. For a long time before I was born, my mother couldn’t figure out what to name me. She really liked Caitlin as a middle name, but had no idea what would be good for my actual name.

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Standard Grievance

Many fine newspapers have recently lamented over the future of our beautiful planet. We are told that polar bears grow hungry in the Arctic, oceans threaten to drown skyscrapers, and that we—poor, frail humans—must swelter as Earth becomes Furnace.

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Who’s Smoking That?

Istanbul is for the most part a very clean city. So clean that the only litter on the streets are cigarette stubs. So naturally, on my first night bar-hopping with some friends, when we had settled in to waiting for our cocktails, smoke in the bar wasn’t a big deal. There weren’t that many people in the bar, so maybe we could have evil-eyed the smoker in our midst and gotten him to stop.

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Polka-Dotted Play

I thought I understood the general order of Lawnparties: live music, free food, and somewhat unsettling numbers of drunken upperclassmen at ten o’clock in the morning. When a roommate first let me in on the “preppy” dress code, however, the tradition struck me as strange. While I knew Princeton was widely considered to be among the “preppiest” of the Ivies, the label had always held a negative connotation to me, and I puzzled as to why students would actively work to perpetuate that stereotype.

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Geography Lesson

Before the war, I often perched on the fence of the cow pasture to watch the trains go by. That was well before I was unable to stand the sound of trains. I had nothing else to do besides throwing rocks in the muddled Risle and memorizing geometry and morality lessons until everything mingled irremediably in my head. My only friend was Adam, though sometimes his cousin Anne, who was a year younger than we were—but just as sharp if not more—would tag along with us when we went down by the outskirts of town to smoke cigarettes and kick a ball back and forth.

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Mars.

“Make all due haste through airless waste,” say Terrans who’ve not been.

“Work quickly with your regolith,” say Lunies in their bin.

But those who moil in blood-red soil to their own ends indulge

Oft meet their doom gasping vacuum crawling the Tharsis bulge.

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Putin’s Opinion

On September 11, 2013, The New York Times published an op-ed by Vladimir Putin arguing against unilateral American military intervention in Syria without the blessing of the United Nations Security Council.

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Fear and Loathing on Cable

This summer I have taken it upon myself to tackle John Steinbeck’s American epic East of Eden, a modern retelling of the biblical Cain and Abel story set to the backdrop of post-Gold Rush era Northern California—that is, Steinbeck’s own backyard. Summer is, for students at least, that blessed time of intellectual freedom during which schoolwork means almost nothing to you and you are free to read, write, study, and contemplate whatever you wish.

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Destiny’s Children

I am fulfilling my destiny!” These are the words I heard billowing from a field to my left, as I thumped down a running path in Central Park. Startled, I looked towards the source of the voice; my eyes met a massive, sandstone obelisk, referred to as “Cleopatra’s Needle” by some, and “Central Park’s Dick” by others.

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Orange Is the New Black

This summer, I went to prison. Well, not actually, but I did watch Netflix’s original series “Orange is the New Black,” and therefore feel as though I am something of an authority on the subject of federal penitentiary. Piper Chapman, the show’s WASPy, neurotic protagonist, has led me on a tour of prison life, providing a kind of personal “scared straight” program.

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Photo by Flickr user r0sss.

Three Moments

This summer, I lived at the very northern end of the 1 train, in Riverdale, Bronx, New York, place names I’d unpack one by one like parts of matroyshka doll whenever anyone asked. Obviously, getting anywhere and back was a little bit of a pain but it was really fine, very feasible, and especially once my roommate and I figured out the quick changes, the express trains, and the fastest bus routes, the commute became a challenge, an adventure, a training in swiftness and staying cool.

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Brief Interviews with Terrified Men

“Well, look here. Your grandma started out with a neurologist at Sound Shore. An older gentleman by now, recommended, respected, you know what I’m saying to you. She gets dizzy sometimes. Dad tells you when she goes to the hospital.”

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Verbatim

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Overheard in Forbes

Blue blood female: There were only two Jewish kids at my high school.
Jewish kid, nodding sagely: That sounds about right. If there’s horses, there probably aren’t Jews.

Overheard on Facebook

Tower member: Straight up encountering bunnies on the way home from the street makes my night they are just so chill

Overheard during frosh week

Terrace senior boy, upon meeting Tower junior girl: What are things that you like?
Girl: What do you mean?
Boy: Literally anything.
Girl: ...Cake. Running. TV.

Overheard at Lawnparties

WASP, wistfully: I went to prom with a guy named Cotton.

Overheard in Chancellor Green Cafe

Sophomore girl: I know people are always afraid of Big Brother, but I’m like, maybe if Big Brother existed, he could tell me where I put my sunglasses.

Overheard by Wawa

White girl: T-Pain? Was he in Men in Black?

Overheard at Ivy lunch

Pi Phi senior, to peer: You’re making literally millions, what are you doing a street person’s drug for?

Overheard in Williamsburg

Bro at Kendrick Lamar concert: Vine’s gonna be fucking SICK tonight yo!

Overheard at Terrace

Dog person: You’re not a dog person?
Free spirit: No, I love animals, but not in a domesticated state.

Overheard outside Frist

Debate female, to debate male in yarmulke: Oh, you’re Jewish? I love Jewish boys.... I’m a Jewish girl. Also, I’m drunk.

Overheard in the LGBT center

SHARE peer: Everyone in this school is ratchet and everyone is thirsty.

Overheard on cosmopolitan.com

Picture caption: The mother of womb-tingling hot dad and tiny baby pairings is the Thor star and his daughter, India. Just look at the way his massive forearms dwarf her body.

Overheard in New York

Ivy alum: I’m so glad I wasn’t born in
Nebraska. I’d rather be an AIDS baby in Africa—at least that would be interesting.

Overheard on the Class of 2017+ Facebook group

Freshman: the realest niggas lay in Wilson.

Overheard in Mudd Library

Caller to Mudd: Hi, I was wondering, is Cap & Gown still a club?

Overheard over fine beers

Tattooed Lothario: I would give her like a smolder look and she would have to sit down cuz her knees would be shaking and stuff.

Overheard at academic expo

Freshman to PHI Professor John Burgess: I spent a gap year in Ghana and now I find myself asking what is happiness. Does your department cover this question?

Overheard in the Nass office

Bearded male: What is early Sufism? History of Sufjan Stevens?

Overheard in Terrace

Girl: On Thursday Jesus has dinner with his disciples and he’s like, guys, I’m going to die, and they’re like, oh my god.