A Guide to Freshman Week

week in class time alone, and your class will probably meet at some obscene hour like 10 a.m.

I took the test in Spanish, which I figured I had a shot at passing after 8 years of the stuff. The written part was uneventful; at the least the words looked familiar. But the oral comprehension was another matter. "Pedro--" began the woman on the tape, promisingly. "Yatakatakatakatakatakatakatakataka." "Dios mio!" came the response. "Yatakatakatakatakatakataka." I gave up after the second line and just laughed. I was not alone. Some guy got up and did the flamenco. My score on the test was 415, which, by the law of averages, I would have scored on the placement test in Urdu.

The point is, plan ahead. If you can possibly get to Madrid or Paris or Hamburg in the next week, go.

****

I loved the Placement Test in Math. That's because I'm an English major and never plan to take a math course. I just sat and drew little pictures of my high school algebra teachers, which I then impaled on slices of percentage pie. Of course under the new Core, you may have to take a Math course. Still it may be wise to do as badly as you can, so you can slip through with a core equivalent of Math Ar.

It's pretty hard to fail the reading test. At worst it can frighten you into taking the Harvard Reading Course. The writing test is new, surely prompted by Time magazine cover stories like "Why Johnny Can't Write." Until we know what this thing is about, you might want to take it halfway seriously.

****

As you probably know, our darling, huggable Governor Eddy King is responsible for raising the drinking age to 20. This will complicate things. If you want to purchase liquor in the state, you must theoretically have either a Mass. Driver's license, of a special Mass. drinking card that will cost you $5, issued by a department headed by one of King's cronies. Most places--except for Father's Six, a townie dive--don't card you unless your voice cracks when you ask for the Wild Turkey, but during Freshman Week places in the Square may be a little more cautious.

It doesn't really matter. As one Crimson editor pointed out last year, Ed King can't raise the dope age.

****

So you were president of the band, star soprano for the chorus, leading chamber music player and organizer of the jazz band in high school, huh? Join the club--everyone else was, too. During Freshman Week you will have a chance to show your stuff in endless auditions held by the marching, concert and jazz bands, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, Collegium Musicum, and the Bach Society.

But be prepared--the auditions can be grueling, and, especially if you play a popular instrument like the flute, very tough. The worst hazard isn't the auditions themselves but the aspiring freshmen musicians, who will sidle up to you while you're waiting to try out and just happen to mention that they've played as the visiting soloist for the Cleveland Symphony, or studied with Jean-Pierre Rampal. Don't let them psych you out--they probably won't get in either.

****

The service at Mem Church Sunday morning, specially prepared for freshmen and their parents, is nothing special. Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and minister of Mem Church, puffs himself up and then bellows forth from the ornate wooden pulpit in one of the most secular sermons you'll ever hear. Your attention is still bound to wander, though. After all, this is church.

For Catholics, church is usually St. Paul's on Mt. Auburn street. Join the assembly line of featureless flesh that rolls up in front of the huge sanctuary to receive its sacrament in the appropriate slot and return to your pew.

Hillel, opening a new building on Mt. Auburn this fall, has famous deli banquets on Sunday nights. The Sunday brunch for freshmen may be considered a preview. Hillel holds dances and other events during the year and is far more fun than gentile religious groups.

****

Your proctor won't have much beer this year, but he'll have plenty of platitudes. These meetings can be very weird. Everyone's usually trying to make a good impression, and if excess amiability makes you want to puke, I suggest you bring a vomit bag. You'll be asked to stand up and introduce yourself, just like when you first started school, 14 years ago. Only now you might say, "I'm Hank from Pittsburgh and I wanna get laid." That's always good for a laugh. If you want to make things interesting, tell them you are President of an organization "out to prove that the Holocaust was a hoax."

Your proctor will try to be "one of the guys/gals," but the other guys/gals don't fill out forms on you at the end of the year. Beware.

The Crimson Key shows Love Story every year, so that you can ogle the Harvard settings and release all that pent-up aggression by jeering at former Yale professor Erich Segal's heart-burning drivel. You can also think about the decay of Ali McGraw's and Ryan O'Neal's careers since then--proof, I guess, that there is a God. Last year, as Ryan whined, "Love--(beat)--means never having to say you're sorry," the film got caught in the projector and a big brown blotch quickly bubbled over his face, smote, perhaps, by that great Film Critic in the Sky.

****

The Freshman Mixer is a dark, mobbed, messy, Felliniesque vision of Dante's Inferno, a more pretentious version of Daytona Beach in April, populated by frumpy clones and bespectacled, acne-scarred nerds, a freak show, a nightmare. Sensitive people last about five minutes, the hots or no. Wanna dance? What? Dance, wanna dance? You're barely five feet. But I can ball like the Jolly Green Giant.

See the busloads from Wellesley, Simmons, Tufts, Pine Manor--like it? So do a lot of people, panting up the steps of Mem Hall, tonight's the night guys, eh? Eh? Whatever you say, man.

Want some advice? Get as far away from Cambridge as possible. Go to Walden Pond, Dorchester, Cape Cod, go to Worcester for chrissakes, but steer clear of this.

****