From the archives: The night before Dean's Date

On Dean's Date eve, we bring back a very timely column from four years ago.

 

Twas the night before Dean's Date,

When throughout every college

Students were furiously typing,

Spewing late-gotten knowledge.

For the previous week,

They'd been in trivial pursuit -

A little book learning

A lot of Beirut!

Computer clusters were packed,

The printers were jammed,

Eager email-checkers

Rifled through spam.

Jane from Miami

Yearned to be my friend.

But could she help write a paper?

Make the dread deadline bend?

Eight pages by morning

On a book I'd not read:

A task which produced

Well-deserved jolts of dread.

At "Grapes of Wrath"

I'd not taken one look,

The formulaic response:

"CliffsNotes" + movie = book.

Through my cinder block walls

I heard wailing, sensed tears

From orgo-crazed premeds

And from poor engineers!

When what to my wondering eyes

Should appear?

A forgotten assignment

And with it, new fear;

A French oral report

Had been overlooked.

How could this be?

My night was well overbooked.

Now Bogan! Now West!

On Fleming! On White!

If to love them is wrong

I don't want to be right;

But the work they've assigned?

Tantamount to a sin!

Wherefore Princeton's promise:

The hard part's getting in?

Those damned disciplined students

Were snugly nestled in bed.

Why can't I be more like them?

Am I worthy, Dean Fred?

I knew unless I got started

My paper would bomb.

So I digressed for an hour

To facebook.com.

Then away to the 'Wa

I flew like a flash,

Needing caffeine and munchies

For this pre-Dean's Date dash.

Though things looked quite grim,

I mantra-ed, "I am a fighter."

And embarked with false hope

On a wretched all-nighter.

Victimized yet again

By my procrastination,

And to make matters worse,

Here comes grade deflation.

But my one cheering thought

Made me sort of elated:

How can one deflate

What's already deflated?

P.G. Sittenfeld is a member of the Class of 2007 and a former columnist for The Daily Princetonian.