1. Woke up.
2. Futzed around on the Internet.
3. Showered, dressed, went to lunch; read a chapter of George Chauncey’s Gay New York.
4. Went to Small World and bought an iced coffee; checked out the Labyrinth sale tables.
5. Futzed around on the Internet.
6. Finally got off my ass and trekked (OMG, SO FAR) to the library, where there is air conditioning (I should point out that it’s almost 90 degrees out).
7. Ensconced myself on a third-floor windowsill, looking south.
8. Read two pages about post-9/11 immigration policy.
9. Futzed around on the Internet/wrote this blog post.
Yeah, I’m not the world’s most productive student. There’s a lot of Internet-futzing involved. But what could be more wonderful than sitting in the window on a beautiful day in a Disneyland of grass and trees and old buildings, reading? Sometimes I feel like a dork because I don’t do more traditional undergraduate things, like partying and having a social life. But, well, an environment that does accord me the opportunity to lead a nerdy life? That’s paradise too. I have my doubts about Princeton all the time, especially when I read the latest news about NOM or can’t work in my room on Saturday night because of the noise. But I’m dreading the end of the semester all the same, because it means leaving collegiate paradise, leaving my safe, tiny town; Sundays of Rocky dining hall, Nassau St. and Firestone. An Ivy League education is insular and isolating and it means you have to try very hard not to be put out of touch with reality. But I love it all the same, in part for reasons I can’t even describe. Days like this make me want to stay in the ivory tower forever.
Ginsberg: who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes, hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war… Relevant maybe?
Emily Rutherford 