On Dean's Date eve, we bring back a very timely column from four years ago.
Twas the night before Dean's Date,
When throughout every college
Students were furiously typing,
Spewing late-gotten knowledge.
For the previous week,
They'd been in trivial pursuit -
A little book learning
A lot of Beirut!
Computer clusters were packed,
The printers were jammed,
Eager email-checkers
Rifled through spam.
Jane from Miami
Yearned to be my friend.
But could she help write a paper?
Make the dread deadline bend?
Eight pages by morning
On a book I'd not read:
A task which produced
Well-deserved jolts of dread.
At "Grapes of Wrath"
I'd not taken one look,
The formulaic response:
"CliffsNotes" + movie = book.
Through my cinder block walls
I heard wailing, sensed tears
From orgo-crazed premeds
And from poor engineers!
When what to my wondering eyes
Should appear?
A forgotten assignment
And with it, new fear;
A French oral report
Had been overlooked.
How could this be?
My night was well overbooked.
Now Bogan! Now West!
On Fleming! On White!
If to love them is wrong
I don't want to be right;
But the work they've assigned?
Tantamount to a sin!
Wherefore Princeton's promise:
The hard part's getting in?
Those damned disciplined students
Were snugly nestled in bed.
Why can't I be more like them?
Am I worthy, Dean Fred?
I knew unless I got started
My paper would bomb.
So I digressed for an hour
To facebook.com.
Then away to the 'Wa
I flew like a flash,
Needing caffeine and munchies
For this pre-Dean's Date dash.
Though things looked quite grim,
I mantra-ed, "I am a fighter."
And embarked with false hope
On a wretched all-nighter.
Victimized yet again
By my procrastination,
And to make matters worse,
Here comes grade deflation.
But my one cheering thought
Made me sort of elated:
How can one deflate
What's already deflated?
P.G. Sittenfeld is a member of the Class of 2007 and a former columnist for The Daily Princetonian.
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