An e-mail from the USG, in preparation for tomorrow's Yale game:
Maybe there won't be a bonfire this year, but there will be a...
BULLDOG PINATA!
Tonight--11 pm--the steps of Whig
with...delicious treats from the Bent Spoon
Seeya there!
Rob
Above is Handsome Dan XVI, tonight's piñata in the flesh. Princeton has a chance to spoil Yale's chances for an Ivy League Championship tomorrow, and end their undefeated season. Yale overestimates Princeton at its own risk: when the bulldog above was chosen as Yale's mascot in 2005, according to a Sports Illustrated Story, it was praised during mascot tryouts for biting at a crimson blanket (for Harvard) rather than a toy tiger (for Princeton). Of course, we all know who was celebrating a Princeton victory the next year:
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It's November, and some of us know what that means. Yup, National Novel Writing Month is upon us again. Dust off that muse and stock up on coffee, because it's time to churn out 50,000 words in the next 30 (20 by now, actually) days.
Well, okay, you don't actually have to. But come on, where's the fun in that?
No plot? No problem! (As proclaims the title of the official NaNo book.) All you have to do is keep typing. Your fingers will amaze you, I promise, if only with the hilarity of your typos.
What's the prize for winning, I hear you ask? Well. Hm. I guess you get to have written a novel. Now that's something money can't buy.
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If you're familiar with Avenue Q, this button might make you laugh. If you're not familiar with Avenue Q, it might still make you laugh. I bought it and stuck it on my bag because
a) I know Avenue Q, and it makes me laugh,
b) I feel like this a good chunk of the time, and having the button makes me laugh,
c) I wanted to buy something at Avenue Q and it was all I could afford, and
d) the proceeds were going to charity, and the more you give, the more you get.
But, clearly I didn't give my purchase enough thought, because having this on my bag says all sorts of interesting things. One of them might be "I'm a spoiled little brat." Which, I am, at least compared to 90% of the world's population. Understandably, this was probably what the University worker who told me that I had the wrong button on was thinking, when she told me that her life sucked more than mine. Delicious irony: that's what the song's all about, people happily competing to get the title of whose life sucks most. (It's Gary Coleman in the show.)
The lady probably had a point. Of course, there's a whole bunch of people on the planet whose lives suck more than hers... But, it set me thinking about it for the rest of the day.
So here's an invitation: Does your life suck? Is it petty to say that our lives suck, or are we entitled to self pity just as much as the next guy? Feel free to rant and rave, wax philosophical, or tell us how your life couldn't be better. Meanwhile, I have an original cast recording to listen to.
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Because the one thing every Princeton student needs is some other way to procrastinate, I thought I would share the wealth.
The New York Times has an interesting blog which ties in with Freakonomics . If you've taken ECO 101 or ECO 100 it's worth a look. Some of the stuff is really amusing. Or terrifying. Or both. Take this post on middle class suicide bombers for example. Also interesting is this related article on Halo 3. Some of the comments on the post are really priceless, like this one:
This guy is just awful at Halo. Running towards your enemy while shooting them is a viable tactic, except when he gets close, he should be attacking them with a melee attack instead of the grenade. By using the grenade, which takes a few seconds to explode, he solidifies his own (virtual) death. If he just used a melee attack, which is essentially a pistol whip (or a machine gun whip, or a rocket launcher whip… you get the idea), he’d probably not only survive most encounters, but come out victorious as well.
Because the issue at hand is clearly Thompson's Halo 3 skillz. Not.
If you're not really into reading, but prefer just to look at clever diagrams, I suggest you check out Jessica Hagy's blog, Indexed.
(I also found this via Freakonomics...) I was going to put up a really nifty image from her blog regarding trees and tuition, but Blogger is being stupid.
Anyway, having procrastinated I am now going to go do work. I am in no way, shape or form responsible for any damages that might result from your decision to procrastinate!
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The Stata Center, pictured at left, has often been listed to me as one of the (few) redeeming features of MIT architecture. To give credit where it is due: it is an interesting building. I can't say that I'd really like to look at it for very long, and it's not the pleasantest building to walk through, but it does have a Dr. Seuss-y charm to it.
Of course, it's what one would expect from Frank Gehry. Apparently however, all those zany angles have come with an unintended cost, and now MIT is suing Gehry Partners. Apparently there's all sorts of design flaws. You can read a fuller version of the story here. According to Wikipedia, this might actually be a pretty consistent problem with Gehry's work, which is especially troubling given the fact that Gehry is currently building a library for Princeton.
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I read somewhere (I think that it was in The Making of Princeton University) that it takes two years to make a college student, and two more to make a college graduate. Freshmen don't know anything; sophomores think they know everything; juniors know what they don't know. Seniors? As a responsible junior, I must admit I don't quite know what seniors know or don't. Hopefully what they're doing with their lives. And yet, does anyone really know that? When he was 21 Louis XIV threw off the yoke of his regents and declared quite calmly that he was the State. But did he know at that point that he would be the Sun King? I mean, come on! The friggin' Sun King.
Among the things I know I don't know is this: what to do with my life. I also don't have the advantage of being King of the Kingdom of France. (Rather redundant sadly.) It's terrifying. But I suppose the point is that worrying about not being Louis XIV, or Napoleon (a general by 26) is rather pointless. It could be worse. I could be Marie Antoinette. Instead I'm me. Martha Vega. Maybe some day that name will mean something. Maybe it won't. But either way, I'm going to go get lost in the Firestone stacks. I've still got two more years to be a college graduate, and a whole lot more to find my destiny. Meanwhile, I don't want to miss out on everything Princeton has to offer (Firestone, apples, free T-shirts...). Who knows, maybe I'll even meet myself as I wander through the subterranean labyrinth.
For just this instant, however, it is the end of an era, albeit a little one. The time has come to end this post, and with it my relationship with this blog. And so as a worthier pen than mine penned: "Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow."
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There's something electrifying about thunder isn't there? The rain sounds so heavy I have half a mind to go out of doors and wash my hair in the rain.
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A List of Things I Have Learned to do at Princeton
1. Knit
2. Cook
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