To the prefrosh, with regards

This is the true story of the completely fictitious boy named Leonardo Oliver Lovemoney III, known to his friends as Leo, to the general public as "that arrogant kid," to the computer science majors as LOL111, and to the mirror as someone constantly standing in front of it. To himself, of course, Leo was a minor deity, though he certainly had his days where he thought he was a major one. He arrived at Princeton determined to show off his wealth and snobbishness. Some uninformed layman had once told him that Princeton was a bastion of elitism, where rich kids liked to use big words, spend big bucks, and talk about their big mansions. "How perfect!" he thought happily to himself, dragging suitcases full of money into his dorm.

When he started to actually meet people, however, reality knocked down his twisted perception like a WWF wrestler without the intimidating name. Everyone at Princeton was very down to earth. Oh the horror! With a cringe he realized that the majority of students were on financial aid. Gasp! Where were all the rich snobs?

In a panic born of desperation, he ran to the closest dorm. "Come buy expensive things with me!" he begged the occupants. They looked at him like he was crazy until one bluntly informed him, "We're college students. We shop at Wal-Mart." The very name of that store made him want to take a shower, so he did and then resumed his panic. The more he investigated, however, the more desperate he became. People at Princeton were nice, intellectually engaged and incredibly friendly. In the morning he went to classes filled with people dressed in sweatpants, not designer clothing, and he found that when groups of people worked on problem sets at 2 a.m., they couldn't tell who was wealthy and who wasn't, especially since the only thing they wanted to buy was more coffee. Even the kids who were wealthy had on-campus jobs because they were too responsible to crawl to Daddy every time they wanted something.

In one final spurt of wild-eyed madness, Leo burst into a philosophy precept in which 10 students and a professor were engaged in a lively debate. Looking up with alarm, the professor started shouting wildly about his conduct violating some Kantian principles, as the class nodded enthusiastically and took notes on the meaning of life, pausing briefly to question whether they all existed. "Get me out of here!" Leo screamed, unable to stomach the friendliness of the student body.

Suddenly, a certain Daily Princetonian columnist egotistically inserted herself into her own story. She sat down, took out her laptop, opened up the Microsoft Word document that contained her column and typed Leo out of his misery. He exploded with the kind of loud boom that only an exploding stereotype can produce, and the students in the philosophy precept, having determined that they did indeed all exist and that Leo most emphatically did not, cheered loudly for the symmetrical contrast, though more than one questioned the meaning of "cheer" and "loudly" and quickly ran off to consult Peter Singer about the utility of these actions. And then some politics majors burst into the room and started a sword fight with the philosophy students, mostly because this ‘Prince' columnist will soon be signing into the politics department, and she likes it when her stories end with a swashbuckling cliffhanger.

So there you have it, little prefrosh. You may have noticed that there was a point to this story sometime before the action-packed, totally irrelevant ending, but I don't have to tell you that; you got into Princeton. All of the bias in my tale is due to an intense, unabashed love of Princeton to which other students and alumni can relate. Enjoy the next few days as you learn how to bleed orange and black like the rest of us. But for now, little prefrosh, close your eyes and let visions of Old Nassau dance in your head, if, indeed, an institute of higher learning is capable of performing the jittery movements collectively known as a dance. And if I catch you muttering "Princeton Class of 2012" to yourself in your sleep, I won't judge you. It's got a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Christine Brozynski is a sophomore from Mendham, N.J. She can be reached at cbrozyns@princeton.edu.