TRIVIAL TRUTH

I CAME TO HARVARD BECAUSE MY TOUR-guide had great sunglasses. I suppose l should be embarrassed by such an admission; l would hope to be more analytical, less superficial. Such a profound--some say life-changing--choice could not have been founded upon something as tenuous as appropriate eye wear. Nevertheless, sunglasses lay at the heart of the matter.

Pre-frosh weekend began and ended dismally. Upon arrival l quickly shooed my dad away, determined to have a stab at college self-sufficiency. After calmly navigating the mess of paperwork, "warm fuzzies" and eager parents at the admissions office, l gratefully received my room assignment. At the time, the word "Currier" was just a name on paper--it did not signify "the Quad." My host had left me a message: l could drop off my things in her room but she wouldn't be there. Several inquiries and two wrong-turns later l found myself at the entrance to Currier. My relief was short-lived; l still had to make my way, key card-less, through a gauntlet of obstacles--unsympathetic entrance-person, coded doors and maze-like layout--before l arrived at the room. A note on the desk said she'd be back in 15 minutes. After about an hour, when l had determined that only three out of the "500 Reasons Why I’m Obsessive Compulsive" applied to me, l found myself studying the "Ziggy" ("Look Out World, Here l Come!") poster above her bed and abandoned the idea of meeting my host before dinner.

l headed down to the Yard and made the 1 p.m. tour--sunglasses were in full force. Certainly it had been an inauspicious beginning, but it seemed to be turning around.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. That night l trekked back to the Quad around 2 a.m. only to find that my host was not home. Stuck without a key card or a companion, l waited until 3 and then made my second trip from the Quad to the Yard, annoyed and disappointed. It was at this very moment of bitterness toward Harvard when the conundrum of the pre-frosh experience became clear to me, distilled into two essential truths: (1) this weekend, with its tours, jams and bashes would not really tell me anything about what my experience at Harvard would be like, and (2) l had no alternative but to make my decision based upon this weekend. Up until this point l had been hoping for a striking epiphany that would reveal to me the place l was meant to be--a quasi-religious recognition of `home' in the Yard. Now it seemed clear that l would have to find some alternate criterion.

A girl l met at the ice Cream Bash confirmed this hypothesis: "Harvard only uses Coke products," she complained. Yale, on the other hand, had Pepsi products. It. was not political passion but simply an inflexible taste-preference that made her shun Coke. Yale it was.

And so, l told my dad that even though l hated every moment of the weekend, l would definitely go: The tour-guide had great sunglasses. A shallow rationale, but then again, pre-frosh is all about engaging in the superficial: People trying out new "college personalities," judging the climate, and engaging in five-second conversations about whether or not you'll decide to come.

In the spirit of pre-frosh, FM offers a similar list of trivial reasons why Harvard sucks. Read them, enjoy them, forget them--you'll be here next September.