Madness

I considered writing about something important this week. I thought about describing how giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (quite a mouthful) all but eliminated the small amount of credibility the once-illustrious award had retained after squandering it on such unworthy recipients as Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat in 1994 and the wonderfully vague 2001 prize to the entire organization of the United Nations "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." What exactly organization has to do with peace I will let the reader decide. I assume it follows the same convoluted logical pathway as that from global warming to international peace.

It appears that I have just expressed in three sentences what I would have filled this entire column with, had I actually written about it. But now I have written about it. Oh well, we must press onward.

Two facts should be apparent by now. First, it is quite late (Or is it early? I never can tell) as I am writing this. Second, I have no real topic to discuss, and as such this is sort of an experiment in stream of consciousness. The problem that I am noticing is that my consciousness wants to correct my grammar, such as that clause that ended in "with" in the previous paragraph. But if I moved "with" elsewhere, the clause would just be convoluted. As painful as it is, it must remain as it is.

I guess I lied a bit. There is a point that I am trying to get to, but I just don't know if I am ever going to get there. This is particularly true if I keep doing things like using contractions, which is really bothering me right now. I just went back and replaced "I'm" with "I am." Trust me. Why would I lie about that?

But I did lie about my point. There is something here at Princeton, something that pervades the social and intellectual atmosphere at this fine institution, something that is particularly apparent during weeks such as the next, when midterms finally arrive. My roommates are talking in the background about Le Corbusier. What a hideous architect. Not that I am in any position to have an opinion.

Excuse the pause, though I guess you don't even know I stopped writing. A short architectural debate ensued after my architecture major friend noticed my Le Corbusier comment. I will probably be a politics major, but I fought the good fight. Only at Princeton.

Well, back to my point. There is this thing at Princeton, that my roommates and I call "the madness." In fact, one minor symptom just showed itself at this very moment. Upon discovering that an e-reserves reading contained not one, not two, but four columns of text, my friend emitted a long, moaning "nooooo." This is but a small example of the effects of the madness.

Oh yes! Upon minimizing all the open windows on his computer, a roommate has discovered yet another thrust in the ongoing desktop background vandalism war being waged in my quad. It is of the utmost importance that I lock my computer before going to bed tonight. Fortunately, it is not I who must be wary of the riposte (I have been told that this word is a must). Though I am, for the moment, innocent, I must not be complacent.

My goodness, where do the words go? I need to more fully describe the madness before I reach 750 words. As work increases, so does susceptibility to the madness. The symptoms most often show themselves late at night, when most normal human beings — at least those in this time zone — have been long asleep. But at Princeton at 3 a.m., as students complete papers due the next (or previous) day or struggle to finish and, more importantly, to understand dense texts, the madness often presents itself as a shot of adrenaline. Our eyes get wide. Our typing quickens. But, more often than not, the madness does not aid productivity.

The excess late night (or early morning) energy compels us to stop, to give up, to capitulate. I love writing in lists of three. We no longer care. We feel the need to chat about inane things with roommates and laugh hysterically at jokes and puns that would elicit but a chuckle at any other time. As such, the madness is contagious and can quickly infect a suite or even a hall.

I'm at 814 words (including these). I can only imagine what my editor will think of this. I think I'll have to do some editing myself. Now this will make even less sense. I guess I will have to consciously break my previous stream of consciousness. Strange.

Time to do some laundry. Brandon McGinley is a sophomore from Pittsburgh, Pa. He can be reached at bmcginle@princeton.edu.