I am that windblown Forbes freshman you sometimes see bundled against the cold, waiting at the traffic light on Alexander Street. I nod awkwardly to the dodgy taxi-drivers that idle by the Dinky station and often move to the other side of the sidewalk to evade the mysterious pair of foreign-born evangelists that circle the Wa, asking people to begin one-on-one Bible study sessions. Indeed, I spend most of my life at Princeton powerwalking; during my first few months of school, I assumed that I was striding through Princeton life at the usual pace. Then I met the students who have the courage to take a stroll at their own speed.
I had a bike, but it sabotaged its own brake cables, worn ragged by the daily voyage to and from Forbesia, and desperate for a quiet retirement. Bereft of other modes of transportation, I have taken to my feet; every morning, I pass through the Spelman wind tunnel and stride along the wide boulevard of asphalt next to Dillon Gym. I glance at the rows of wide-windowed common rooms; the building always strikes me as a lattice of glowing fishbowls, revealing luminous snapshots of its inhabitants' lives.
The unobstructed glass panes display Bob Dylan posters hung below strings of paper lanterns; the windowsills are lined with emptied jugs of moonshine, dusty wine bottles and the siren silhouettes of ornate hookah bongs. One group of Spelman students uses the wall opposite their common room window as a projection screen; the window perches two floors above ground like a flickering aquarium, swimming in the pale blue light of a foreign film. Looking up at the checkerboard of rooms, the windows float above my path like abbreviated images of Princeton's bohemian underground.
Given that I'm a day-planner-touting-bookie who has been told I look like a praying mantis from Wisconsin despite being from Southern California, I'm surprised that I've even met the mysterious upperclassmen who inhabit the Spelman apartments I walk by every day. They're the type of people who wear beanies they've knitted from all-natural, organically spun Chilean yak's wool and look good. They're trilingual tea-sippers who ride skateboards in the snow and bake delicious cookies in the middle of the night. You never hear about them taking distribution requirements, yet they manage to squeeze courses like Intermediate Photography into their schedules while teaching themselves how to play guitar. Rarely seen eating full meals and forever pulling all-nighters, they lounge in Murray Dodge Cafe listening to French rap and Ella Fitzgerald.
I met some of these bohemian types while performing in a play earlier in the year; it was a small cast with intensive rehearsal hours, and I spent the greater part of my first months at Princeton getting to know its motley crew. A freshman still adjusting to the idea that I no longer had a bedtime, I was astounded as they nonchalantly accepted me without charity or condescension. Towards the end of the production, our cast decided to have a room party in Spelman. When I arrived, I felt like I'd stumbled into a modern-day Cafe Flore; wreaths of smoke curled through the half-lit air, rising from glass ashtrays and wrapping around delicate paper lamps. People chatted animatedly, nodding their heads to the pulse of Portuguese jazz.
The most frequent piece of advice I received during freshman orientation was "Be adventurous. Experiment, don't tie yourself down to anything." But once the year got underway, I was pressured into taking the Princeton path, locking myself into a restrictive schedule and living by my day-planner. At the Street, I was expected to party at a certain eating club based on the campus activities I was involved in; I was already categorized, my social life colored with a specific set of connotations. People were genuinely surprised when I talked about wanting to study abroad, asking "But ... how could you leave?" Two weeks into my first semester at Princeton, people started asking me what my major was.
The most shocking thing was that I didn't really notice that I was living in the bubble. Princeton was a natural transition from my blinders-on existence in high school. Then I met the cast of the play I was in. They defied the typical Princeton pace of life and challenged most of its categorizations. But in resisting the social norms, these students hadn't taken up the one-dimensional "I hate Princeton" social martyrdom gig. They had simply decided to live for their own interests, however contradictory. Personal pursuits outweighed the resume-friendly activities that drew so many students.
I was amazed to find that such Princeton students existed. But why should spontaneity, living your life at your own pace or defying stereotypes be an anomaly at Princeton? Every time I walk underneath the glow of the Spelman fishbowls, I wonder what would happen if we all swam against the current. Would the Orange Bubble burst? Becca Foresman is a freshman from Del Mar, CA. She can be reached at foresman@princeton.edu.
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