A skewed little world called princeton

I can't help but notice how skewed our perception of reality has become since we came to Princeton. Not skewed like Dali-skewed or Hitler-skewed, but we're seeing this place through the eyes of a group of people who have become very well accustomed to a lot of strange rituals and traditions, all of which we are more than happy to pay a large tuition to experience. Things that would seem weird to normal people outside our peacoat world are commonplace to us. It snowed for the first time when I was here over break, and my first urge was to take my clothes off and prance around outside. Granted, I don't normally require snow, but, still, it's an odd connection for one to make.

Walking around recently, I have noticed a lot of tired people. It's not unusual to look around a lecture or a seminar or an open field here and find a number of people asleep. Does anyone stop to think that passing out spontaneously in the middle of the day is not a normal occurrence and actually is usually cause for concern? If old people were to sit down and immediately slump over in their desks, sirens would wail and crowds would part. And yet just because we are all young and virile, when a student crashes on their notebook, there's just an occasional giggle and someone draws a mustache on him or her with a Sharpie marker. When's the last time you heard "Hey, would you stick a mirror under that auditor to see if he's still breathing?"

The love of the abundance of ivy also worries me. Has anyone ever looked at it up close? It is one creepy plant. There are thousands of these little tentacles that grow out of the stalks and latch onto things. Right now ivy's only sticking to stone walls and window frames, but it's slowly crawling up our windows where the little feeler thingies can reach into our rooms and grab whatever they want. That is one messed up plant that we're all fond of.

Do you remember Monday holidays? We all got a taste of one this past year when Christmas happened to fall on a Monday, but what about the other ones? They aren't even acknowledged here. Martin Luther King, Jr., dies trying to make the world a place of equality, thousands of men die in war, the first European discovers our whole country, and we here at Princeton acknowledge these feats by calling them "Monday." Even doctors and government officials don't go into work on these days, and yet Princeton keeps on working. It's like the University is one giant 'Wa.

I've become far too comfortable with the fact that any number of people walk into my bathroom when I'm taking a shower. Who actually knows all of the people that share their bathroom? That means that several times a day you are buck-naked in the same room with a stranger. Kinda dirty, huh? Way to go, Housing Office. Maybe they should think to include a few extra supplies in those Dentyne cups.

Not everything is so major. There are little things that give me pleasure in a very toolish way that really just shouldn't. When I'm writing a paper and I see that little dotted page-break line come up in Microsoft Word, I experience a silent leap of joy. I compliment people when they use a big word. Whenever I start using a DayGlo highlighter, every single time I think how pretty all the bright colors are. And I delight in paper still warm from the photocopier. Don't deny it, you all feel at least some of these things, too. What have we become? I fear that we can't face the rest of the outside world ever again.

All I'm saying is that we are changed people — part of a strange sweater-clad culture worthy of anthropological study. I won't even go into our mating rituals. Princeton is our cult, the campus our compound. Except I bet even in Waco they didn't all wear orange. Jen Adams '01 is a psychology major from Ogdensburg, N.Y. She can be reached at jladams@princeton.edu.