Third-Grade Inflation

I have decided my whole life revolves around a desire to be nine years old again. In this ivy world of midterms and mailrooms, bubble forms and blue phones, recruiting and robopound, I would gladly submit my resume to reenter the third grade. Sometimes the glamour of course-packet-filled days and coffee-stained nights becomes too much, and I think back to a time when the teacher would announce a spelling test, and half the class wouldn't immediately enter it into their Palm Pilots. I just want to be a kid again.

This campus is a jackpot for born-again kids. Where else on Earth are there scores of people hired to blow millions of leaves into big jumpable piles on the sidewalks, not to mention the hundreds of trees that are waiting to be climbed? The buildings look like castles for courageous knights and pretty princesses. Art history graduate students dressed in the traditional black make every nighttime walk like a haunted hay ride. This campus is full of places and people perfect for make-believe and after-school games, but in our mature big-kid state of mind, we don't take advantage of them. I guess it's just not as fun to play "Investment Banker" or "Hide-and-Go Write a Thesis."

When I was little, I would start "did not . . . did too!" arguments. Actually, I got into one of those in precept just last week. But back then, my best defense was, "Did not times a billion!" Our endowment is more than $8 billion, and the sad thing is, I still have no real grasp on how much one billion really is, other than the fact that I have one billion pages due on Dean's Date.

Name-calling was a beautiful thing. Think of how much time it saved. I have sat through billions of precepts where a few long-winded students argue on about pre-Aristotelian revolution and boring things like that, using SAT words and books covered in those little sticky tabs marking their favorite passages. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just looked someone straight in the eye and said, "You're dumb." Forget sticks and stones and literary analysis, I guarantee my way would be a learning experience.

I remember back to when I wasn't a food snob. Not that I'm a connoisseur of delicate cuisine or anything, but I used to be able to eat things like SpaghettiO's, goulash or Legos and be perfectly content. Now I have to hike across campus to my eating club, where inevitably I will complain about something, because that's what college students do. I used to hope I would have to get my tonsils out (no luck) so that I could eat ice cream and JellO for days. Imagine if you arrived one day at your club or dining hall and there was just a big trough of pudding. The whole dining area would turn into a scene from Oliver Twist. I think you truly have become your parents the day you turn down the opportunity to have dessert for dinner.

In the days when we were learning long division and our parents had dreams of us getting into Ivy League schools, our schoolwork was so hard. Carrying ones and writing book reports seemed just as difficult to us then as oral presentations do now. But imagine that your Sunday workload this week involved memorizing the state capitals and doing three pages in your workbook. Isn't that a lovely feeling? Now get back to your problem set.

We could all be nine again. We could jump on beds and frolic in the courtyards. We could go to bed before 10 p.m. and grow milk mustaches. We could even get carded for a PG-13 movie. In a world as stressful and busy as ours, I think there is something to be said for returning to a time when everything was simple and carefree, and days could pass without having anything to do. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but midterms can never hurt me. Jen Adams is a psychology major from Ogdensburg, N.Y. She can be reached at jladams@princeton.edu.