always the baby

Like any regular Thursday morning, I was busily scribbling notes from The Crimson's cliquey front row of Professor Harvey "C -" Mansfield's moral reasoning lecture, when from a few seats behind me I heard an old woman burst into a garbled, phlegm-filled hacking fit. If I were mature, I would have disregarded this disruption of Book Eight of Plato's Republic like everyone else in the class. But I'm not, so I giggled at the funny noise. My outburst was audible for just a second because I clenched my body to hold in the laughter. I shook violently as I attempted to hide behind my smirk, but I wasn't fooling anybody. The two upperclassmen sandwiching me on either side shifted their eyes to watch me convulse a foot away from the professor and then shook their heads in disapproving pity.

To me, this incident proved something I have known for a while, but had not forced myself to admit. As I, along with the rest of '02, prepare for the imminent plunge into the murky waters of blocking, I need to confess my one secret to my roommates: You're living with an eight-year-old. Banish me from the R-rated bathroom conversations. Stop using bananas as lecture aids. I am just not old enough to hear about that. Any aging processes, any internal maturation, any sign of leaving my Punky Brewster days behind--it's all null and void. I am getting younger the longer I stay at college.

For years, I had always believed that college would be my time to finally become an adult. Youth has suited me quite well, but a small part of me was looking forward to the day I would toss aside the whims and fancies of childhood in order to pursue older pleasures. What these entail, I do not know, but I was going to find out.

I am the youngest in my family and, as such, it has always been my proud duty to remain the child. It took my mother several years of urging to get me to move on from Limited Too getups. And although I never liked being roped into reading the four questions at Seders long after my Bat Mitzvah had passed, it allowed me to play the perennial child. No matter how I appeared on the outside, I was a baby to my family and myself. And I loved it.

As I aged in years and saw signs that my ubiquitous smiley face would not keep me cute forever, one of my consolations was that I was, and always be, two days younger than Macaulay Culkin, who, of course, the world will always see as a 10-year-old. But then he screwed everything up by getting married, and I realized then that I too would one day have to admit defeat, forget about my Peter Pan tendencies and grow up.

So at college I was convinced everything was going to change. No longer the "Mommy, wow!" child of the family, I would become just another 18-year-old on campus attempting to act older with fake IDs and put-on airs. But as is the story of my life, nothing is going according to plan. Instead of growing up at college, I have concluded I am growing down. Listen to the facts:

It all started, as most things do freshman year, in Annenberg. Although I had been a caffeine-hungry Coke aficionado, in the past few months I have switched my beverage genre entirely. Instead of uniting with the soda lines, I have followed my own path to the majesty of the chocolate milk dispenses. The novelty of constant chocolatey goodness sends me tumbling through mental ecstasy and I yearn for the creamy sweetness coating my tongue and throat. I am hooked. I drink it at every meal.

Except of course when I have apple juice. Thirteen years ago, when he was in fifth grade, my brother and some friends made an amateur movie called "Junkheap One" about a bunch of kids who build a space ship. My favorite character, the one I had provided the inspiration for, begged to leave outer space because of the glaring lack of apple juice. But as huge as apple juice was in the first five years of my life, I lost my way for over a decade and virtually abandoned the drink. But now, with the amber, foam topped glasses at my disposal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I live in the midst of an apple juice revival. Also, my food choices also place me squarely in the kindergarten camp. Chicken fingers on the menu? Super-duper. And I could never cope in a world without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on those chop-suey days.

My academic experience has only compounded the regression. Over break, as I chatted with some friends about school, I casually mentioned that TFs grade response papers with checks or check pluses. What, do you go to elementary school again? Do professors reward extra hard workers with a gold star sticker? When I tried to change subjects, I mentioned that I was thinking of concentrating in Social Studies and the sarcastic comments resumed. What, you decided not to do arithmetic or spelling? No one understands.

Harvard encourages freshmen to be babies. The Yard is the playpen where all of the kids can frolic together. Annenberg is Harvard's answer to the kid's table--no grown ups allowed. Proctors are our parents and, prefects are the older siblings in the know. For me, it's perfect. I get another year of childhood. But what will become of me in the future? I am not ready to stop giggling. And I won't.

So when I get frustrated with Plato and Professor Mansfield, there's only one thing to do. Get a carton of chocolate milk, slip into my comfy, plaid pajamas with feeties and curl up into the fetal position for a nice, long nap.

Vicky C. Hallett is a first-year living in Holworthy Hall. When not hunting down members of final clubs, she can be found sucking her thumb in the corner of her common room.