Not finding summer lovin' in job search

As part of my preparation for the summer job search, I have finally figured out where the Career Services building is. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I'll probably never make it out there.

I was really hoping it would turn out to be in West College or part of the secret bomb shelter complex under Cannon Green or something, but instead it's right out there with my other favorite errand destinations, the flower stores and CVS.

Now I'll have to synchronize the job search with buying contact lens solution and bouquets. I always found it easier to go blind and single, but blind, single and unemployed? I'll have to think this over carefully.

If office location is a form of social engineering, it really makes me wonder what the school had in mind with, say, the E-Quad. Not that I'm questioning the logic, but if I were an engineer I would integrate something in protest.

Instead I find myself brutally awake at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m. for another round of COS 226: Algorithms and Data Structures, which I view as a series of mental inoculation shots against my preferred career path, starving poet.

Judging by my grades in computer science and the fact that I am enjoying a hearty lunch of Tastykake glazed doughnut holes right now, I am well on my way to enlightened malnutrition.

The prospect of living on doughnut holes for extended periods of time is rather disturbing. I mean, they're not even physical entities in their own right, but a form of sustenance defined by not being a doughnut.

How long can you eat un-doughnuts before you become an un-person yourself? Where's Sartre when you need him? Probably trapped in some sort of philosophical doughnut-shaped loophole.

On the other hand, can you imagine Sartre having a summer job? It's a truism that in any contest of strength between a philosopher and a photocopier, the photocopier will win.

So what did Sartre do? I've often wondered what happens to famous people before they become famous. Some of them are celebrities their whole lives, burning meteors of human passion lighting the existence of all around them.

Sideshow Bob from "The Simpsons," for example. But then there are those who have to grow into fame — late bloomers, I guess. I look around at my classmates here as they do their Princeton thing, micturating upon stairwells and breaking lamp posts with their heads, and try to imagine them running the world.

Actually, I usually start with trying to imagine them running something smaller, like a 7-11.

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It should come as no surprise that while most people here would feel completely comfortable running the world, we would all be miserable failures at doing anything useful.

This, after all, is why elitism was invented in the first place — to shunt off the members of the cream of the crop before they start going around breaking things.

But, noble reader, I digress. This column started out pretty keen on doughnut holes, and now we're off lambasting the rich and powerful again. No wonder I'll never get a job.

I think about how my interview would go if I ever made it down to the Career Services office to set up an appointment. Probably something like this:

"What do you do in your spare time, Ed?"

"Well, I mock societal norms, question entrenched values, attack stereotypes. You know, the usual."

"Yes, yes, we know you work for Tiger, what else do you do?"

"Oh. I play frisbee . . ."

I would probably get the usual responses: Don't call them, they'll call me. Great.

Fortunately, there is a seemingly infinite quantity of doughnut holes in this box. It probably has something to do with particle packing. And while I'm waiting for the world to validate my existence with a job — a lot like validating parking tickets, actually — there's always the chance that I'll make it out to CVS and Career Services to pick up some saline and a resume. After all, it can't be that much farther than the 'Wa.