Pop a Molly
Roommates and Romans
Maybe the prospect of lumping together in pods of eight pals, pleased and prepared to spend the rest of their Harvard days together, lured many a pre-frosh into matriculation. Indeed, Harvard’s housing system offers freshmen the freedom to figure out their futures for themselves. But freedom means pressure, and pressure never cooks quite as high as during late February and early March, when blocking groups form and tension foments.
Extra Ordinary
My roommate said it, but I felt it. (We know not to plagiarize here.) A fear that first struck me during shopping week freshman year now gnaws at my mind at the open and close of each semester. Fast-talking, philosophy-quoting peers at the preliminary meeting of a humanities course—before I’ve gotten my section legs—engender in me a creeping sense of inadequacy. Final exams—reminders of my largely superior competition—bring it back once again.
A Phony and Her Boy
Head over heels with my nose buried in the crisp pages of “Catcher in the Rye,” I joined the masses of misunderstood middle-schoolers in their adulation of the novel’s hero: Guys want to be him, and girls want to be with him. Why? Like most things, it’s all in the timing.
