Why so studious, Batman?

Let's put Bruce back on campus for a minute. Just imagine Batman pulling an all-nighter in Frist as he struggles to finish his 15-page midterm paper - no wonder he dropped out. If I had a butler and a bat fetish, I probably would have done the same thing. But seriously, how would Bruce Wayne have stacked up against the real Princeton superheroes?

Before you look at me quizzically and begin to wonder whether Superman was an alum, let me explain. As every undergraduate knows, life is divided into four areas: academics, extracurriculars, social life and sleep. Pick three; you won't have time for the fourth.

For us normal folks, the most popular combination is, in my experience, academics, extracurriculars and social life. A constant stream of coffee keeps us going through the week until we desperately try to catch up on weekends. Others choose to leave out a social life, leading solitary existences in the library.

Very rarely, however, we come across a person who can do it all - a true Princeton superhero. Who exactly are these people? I don't know, and neither do you. They keep their identities top secret. You may see one out on the Street stumbling drunkenly, and you scoff at what you think is his 2.0 GPA. Little do you know that he has a 4.0 and sleeps for eight hours every night. Perhaps it's the girl in your precept who gets straight As. "At least I don't spend all of my waking moments in the library," you mutter in an attempt to comfort yourself, but guess what? Neither does she, and unlike you, she doesn't lug a giant cup of coffee around with her everywhere she goes.

Batman may be Gotham City's golden boy, but whether he could actually hold his own at Princeton against our homebred superheroes is debatable. We can safely assume that academics probably wasn't his thing since he never actually snagged that diploma, and anyone who has time to pretend to fly around like a hairy winged mammal every night clearly is not involved with enough meaningful extracurriculars. As for social life, would you want to hang around someone obsessed with bats? Me neither. Finally, sleep. He spends his nights playing dress-up and his days spending money, leaving little to no time for shut-eye. Sounds like the Princeton superhero wins.

Navigating Princeton, after all, requires a different skill set from classic save-the-world behavior. We can't just excel academically; we put pressure on ourselves to excel socially and pile on our activities. Some people determinedly try to improve the world in their own small way, whether through charity work or even research. The difference between our version of world-saving and Batman's is that we try to do it while maintaining the appearance of perfection in all other areas of life. And we don't wear costumes.

So if you're one of those people who really can pull it all off, I tip my hat to you. You've got Batman beat in my book. Meanwhile, the rest of us will do far more than rot in our own mediocrity. When we look at those superheroes, we don't swoon or get worked up into a jealous rage. We simply sigh and move on. Heck, I'm imperfect, and I'm proud of it. Somehow I'll make it through here with a diploma, which is more than Batman can say. As for the Princeton variety of superheroes, they can feel free to figuratively soar to new heights ... just as long as they don't do it in a cape.

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