By the time I decided to apply here, I was hyper-conscious about the Harvard thing. I noticed the kids in malls with crimson veritas t-shirts and caught the ubiquitous references to the school in movies and sit-coms. I was also struck by the virulent rhetoric used by then-presidential candidate George Bush. Bush, furiously trying to dewimpify himself, had a line in his stump speech about "Dukakis' Harvard liberals" and their elitist agenda on the left.

The former Skull and Bones member and son of a millionaire had a hard time convincing me of his populist mentality. But Bush's message was popular because he was preying on the pop-culture image of Harvard as a 350-year-old conspiracy against the ordinary person. "You can always tell a Harvard man." read a sign on my Yale brother's door, "but you can't tell him much."

The image many people have of Harvard involves cocktail parties in New England estates, or a collection of famous faces: John F. Kennedy '40, T.S. Eliot '04, Norman Mailer '43. I think of it more like a Rorschach inkblot. If you look carefully, you can see those old-monied types with caviar and martinis. But in my little corner of the inkblot you're more likely to see slices of pizza and newspaper presses. I've not been plotting to take over the world in the last three years. I've just been learning how to survive--with as much style as I can muster.

The first real character in my Harvard experience was my roommate Ashvin. Ashvin was born in India and moved to the States in the third grade. It must have been the enthusiasm of having met my first real friend at Harvard that inspired something I called Ashvin of the Day: Part I..."And on the seventh day," I wrote the second week of school, "the Lord created Ashvin. And the Lord looked down and saw that Ashvin was good. And the Lord smiled upon Ashvin." This started a series of messages that I posted each night on our entryway door. If Dwight, our proctor, noticed them, he never mentioned anything--he didn't talk much, that Dwight.

Someone in Grays discovered Pinochio's and that great Eastern institution, the slice. We would congregate for pizza just after midnight and come home to work and, in my case, fritter away some more time. On day four, I wrote "Critics are raving about Ashvin."

"Ashvin is sophisticated and marvelously humane." -New Yorker

"Raw Power. The American spirit defined. How do I get to Braintree?"   Washington Post

"Funky. Very Funky. Funkiest guy in the dorm. Extremely funky."   -Jenny Mayher

The daily series created a minor cult following in our dorm. I think people enjoyed the notes because they were so inexplicable--I certainly didn't have any explanation. My enthusiasm for college was tempered with some hard realities. I had a hard time with the work, didn't meet as many people as I wanted, etc. Charmaine and I remained distant friends and I began to get to know Jenny pretty well. But orientation week ended, and that easy familiarity with which a first-year could approach a stranger in the Union and strike up a conversation hardened into intense romances and newly-founded social cliques.

Consider this. My second day here I met Lauren in front of Matthews Hall. She had ablue bandana and was shining an apple. I assumedthat she was going to eat this apple but it turnedout Lauren just liked to shine apples. People atHarvard will surprise you like that. We had aconversation about becoming Friends of the FoggArt Museum. When I turned to leave she gave me theapple. I was hungry. It was fantastic.

Still, a few weeks into school it seemed thatmeeting people was increasingly a chore. So Icelebrated Ashvin. For a while, he was all I had.

In class I seemed to float from one lecture toanother, toughing out the papers and the labs.Still, the wisdom and enthusiasm of the professorswas astounding. I took E.O. Wilson's course onevolutionary biology. "you know," he said during alecture on reproduction, "each ejaculationproduces a hundred million or so sperm. you arethe product of a sperm that beat out millions ofothers--kind of like a genetic megabuck winner."

I made it through to winter break. All my highschool friends rushed to tell me how great schoolwas. I doubted that they were being completelyhonest with themselves. As far as I know no onehas first year free from emotional turbulence.

I should know. I was one of the "great" sayers.My first semester had been okay, nothing wrong,nothing truly fantastic. Spring semester was adifferent story.

It started with my Expository Writing course.Every first-year has to take Expos. For many it'sa nightmare, due to professors that are eitherincompetent, annoying or both. But since it's oneof the few courses at Harvard with a maximum classsize of ten or 12 students, it has a lot ofpotential. Landing Pat Hoy as a professor was justblind luck. Maybe everybody's first year isrevolutionized by pieces of luck like this, goodor bad.

In high school, I had an inspiring, thoughsomewhat twisted, English teacher who took meunder wing both to cultivate talent and to trip onpower. In any case, I left Cincinnati consideringmyself a writer. I had a few stories and essaysunder my belt and a pile of Wyoming Horizonnewspapers. all fall, though, I wrote a total offive paper--only two of them were more than fivepages. I came to Pat's class with a lot ofbaggage--illusions warring with great trepidation.