As tradition dictates, the 'Prince' brings you P.G. Sittenfeld's poem "The night before Dean's Date." The poem was originally published in 2005.
'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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