Of Waffles and T-Bones

DID YOU EVER WONDER why when you and about 450 other Harvard students are shuffling from large lectures in the Science Center to the Yard at oh, say, 11 a.m., only one of the three gates is open? And why it's always the small one on the left, never the big one in the center?

Harvard, a university whose gates predate modern science, probably could use its engineering process to facilitate such mass morning exoduses. But in the shadow of sweeping improvements like renovating the Quad and spraying the Yard with an unidentifiable green substance, the little things sometimes get overlooked.

Why, for example, are all the clocks on the second floor of Sever at least three minutes fast, so when you're just ready to stuff your notebook in your backpack and run off to lunch, you realize you still have to hear the professor's startling conclusions? On the other hand, that's better than sitting on the first floor, where the clocks are three minutes slow, so you end up at the back of the lunch line.

Maybe Sever clocks are kept out of synch to prevent jamming at Thayer gate.

You also might have wondered why, when you take an exam or two in Memorial Hall each semester, the temperature inside in always frigid or sweltering--no matter how comfortable it is outside. That ancient Gothic building must have a demonic spring possessing it determined to recreate the fortures of old for unsuspecting undergrads.

And once you complete your spring exams, your fancy might turn to a friendly game of frisbee in the yard. But after a few minutes, a College official will direct you to take you game over to Tercentenary Theater. Does Harvard, as the Handbook says, want you to refrain from playing, "boisterous games in the yard," or does the University prefer that you trample on the grass in the area where Commencement will be held?

BUT HARVARD'S OWN special brand of illogic extends beyond the Yard.

Those of you who had private bathrooms as freshmen may have wondered why you were allowed four rolls of toilet paper at a time, but that ration was reduced to only two when you moved into certain Houses. Or why any House would have a toilet paper quota to begin wish. Are Masters afraid, you'll spend all your time "squeezing the Charmin" instead of studying, or do they just want to prevent you from t.p. ing the Yard?

Another thing: Harvard makes a special effort to accommodate its taller students by furnishing all rooms with extra long beds. Why, then, does Harvard Student Agencies still provide bottom sheets that are too short for College matresses and aren't fisted to boot?

You might who find it strange that, in order to cat eggs and waffies for breakfast, you have to get to the dining hall a full 40 minutes before you 10 a.m. class, even though eating the meal only takes 10 or 15 minutes. Is Harvard telling its undergraduates that after that all-nighter through which they dutifully suffered, they should be up and shows before 9:30? Harvard's expectation of our abilities might be a bit too high.

And isn't it arrange that Harvard tells you to go home on steak night? The Food services administrators really think that without a "no-interhouse" rule, we would all go to each of Harvard's 13 dining halls and collect T-bones?

Another thing: why does the Athletic Department's office door on John F. Kennedy St. still insist its address is 60 Boylston St., even though the thoroughfare was renamed John F. Kennedy St. before many of today's undergraduates entered the College?

Furthermore, if you need to go to UHS's emergency entrance, you have to descend a sleep hill. If it's icy and you didn't already need a body cast, you will need one by the time you slide through their door.

Once you get out of UHS in cast or wheelchair, you may attempt to go to classes. After squeezing through the narrow Thayer Gate, you try to enter the Science Center's convenient handicap entrance, only to find out that the door is so heavy that not even half of Kirkland House could open it without a struggle.

But don't despair. By the time "Late Night with David Letterman" is over, at about 1:30 a.m. (1:33 on the second floor of Sever), you probably will have figured out how to overcome these inconveniences. But don't stay up later than that worrying about it--or you'll miss breakfast.