A Slice of Life

By the time I decided to apply here, I was hyper-conscious about the Harvard thing. I noticed the kids in malls with crimson veritas t-shirts and caught the ubiquitous references to the school in movies and sit-coms. I was also struck by the virulent rhetoric used by then-presidential candidate George Bush. Bush, furiously trying to dewimpify himself, had a line in his stump speech about "Dukakis' Harvard liberals" and their elitist agenda on the left.

The former Skull and Bones member and son of a millionaire had a hard time convincing me of his populist mentality. But Bush's message was popular because he was preying on the pop-culture image of Harvard as a 350-year-old conspiracy against the ordinary person. "You can always tell a Harvard man." read a sign on my Yale brother's door, "but you can't tell him much."

The image many people have of Harvard involves cocktail parties in New England estates, or a collection of famous faces: John F. Kennedy '40, T.S. Eliot '04, Norman Mailer '43. I think of it more like a Rorschach inkblot. If you look carefully, you can see those old-monied types with caviar and martinis. But in my little corner of the inkblot you're more likely to see slices of pizza and newspaper presses. I've not been plotting to take over the world in the last three years. I've just been learning how to survive--with as much style as I can muster.

The first real character in my Harvard experience was my roommate Ashvin. Ashvin was born in India and moved to the States in the third grade. It must have been the enthusiasm of having met my first real friend at Harvard that inspired something I called Ashvin of the Day: Part I..."And on the seventh day," I wrote the second week of school, "the Lord created Ashvin. And the Lord looked down and saw that Ashvin was good. And the Lord smiled upon Ashvin." This started a series of messages that I posted each night on our entryway door. If Dwight, our proctor, noticed them, he never mentioned anything--he didn't talk much, that Dwight.

Someone in Grays discovered Pinochio's and that great Eastern institution, the slice. We would congregate for pizza just after midnight and come home to work and, in my case, fritter away some more time. On day four, I wrote "Critics are raving about Ashvin."

"Ashvin is sophisticated and marvelously humane." -New Yorker

"Raw Power. The American spirit defined. How do I get to Braintree?"   Washington Post

"Funky. Very Funky. Funkiest guy in the dorm. Extremely funky."   -Jenny Mayher

The daily series created a minor cult following in our dorm. I think people enjoyed the notes because they were so inexplicable--I certainly didn't have any explanation. My enthusiasm for college was tempered with some hard realities. I had a hard time with the work, didn't meet as many people as I wanted, etc. Charmaine and I remained distant friends and I began to get to know Jenny pretty well. But orientation week ended, and that easy familiarity with which a first-year could approach a stranger in the Union and strike up a conversation hardened into intense romances and newly-founded social cliques.

Consider this. My second day here I met Lauren in front of Matthews Hall. She had ablue bandana and was shining an apple. I assumedthat she was going to eat this apple but it turnedout Lauren just liked to shine apples. People atHarvard will surprise you like that. We had aconversation about becoming Friends of the FoggArt Museum. When I turned to leave she gave me theapple. I was hungry. It was fantastic.

Still, a few weeks into school it seemed thatmeeting people was increasingly a chore. So Icelebrated Ashvin. For a while, he was all I had.

In class I seemed to float from one lecture toanother, toughing out the papers and the labs.Still, the wisdom and enthusiasm of the professorswas astounding. I took E.O. Wilson's course onevolutionary biology. "you know," he said during alecture on reproduction, "each ejaculationproduces a hundred million or so sperm. you arethe product of a sperm that beat out millions ofothers--kind of like a genetic megabuck winner."

I made it through to winter break. All my highschool friends rushed to tell me how great schoolwas. I doubted that they were being completelyhonest with themselves. As far as I know no onehas first year free from emotional turbulence.

I should know. I was one of the "great" sayers.My first semester had been okay, nothing wrong,nothing truly fantastic. Spring semester was adifferent story.

It started with my Expository Writing course.Every first-year has to take Expos. For many it'sa nightmare, due to professors that are eitherincompetent, annoying or both. But since it's oneof the few courses at Harvard with a maximum classsize of ten or 12 students, it has a lot ofpotential. Landing Pat Hoy as a professor was justblind luck. Maybe everybody's first year isrevolutionized by pieces of luck like this, goodor bad.

In high school, I had an inspiring, thoughsomewhat twisted, English teacher who took meunder wing both to cultivate talent and to trip onpower. In any case, I left Cincinnati consideringmyself a writer. I had a few stories and essaysunder my belt and a pile of Wyoming Horizonnewspapers. all fall, though, I wrote a total offive paper--only two of them were more than fivepages. I came to Pat's class with a lot ofbaggage--illusions warring with great trepidation.

The first assignments were nothing complicated,just short writing exercises to be built laterinto larger projects. I was supposed to look forsome image, some event or story that had whatVirginia Woolf called "shocking power." What Icame up with was, well, nothing.

Next we were to find the idea behind thatimage--the simple truth that the image supportedas evidence. Then we were to write an essay. Ieventually wrote a stilted, halting piece aboutcommunicating with my dad. Looking back at thatpiece, I do see the seeds of somethinginteresting. But just the seeds.

Meanwhile, my roommate Christopher, who was taking Expos with another professor, showed me his first piece. Christopher is a computer science major with ambitions to study artificial intelligence. I was flattered when he asked me to read his work--itseemed he wanted my approval. Turns out he hadwritten the most fluid, mature, sensitive pieces Ihad seen in recent memory. And writing wasn't evenhis thing. That killed me.

Expos got worse. If I had trouble writing aboutmy dad, producing a critical essay on E.B. Whitewas a nightmare. By the time the third project wasdue, shortly before spring break, I experiencedenormous anxiety trying to describe my piece tothe rest of the class. As they sat looking at meuneasily, I began to cry.

This wasn't just the case of an overachieverhumbled by a tough college professor. I wasn'tconcerned in the slightest about grades. Reachingdeep inside myself for creative insight, I wasfinding only unexplored pain.

My first-year at Harvard wasn't my first brushwith emotional trouble. But until then, I'd justput off my anxieties, expecting the future wouldwork things out. When I broke down, my mom steppedin to nurture my confidence about the future. Weboth figured college would be a great place tostart. My high school class numbered about 120. Ihad friends, but few of them really related to myinner core. I thought that at Harvard I would meetpeople who would.

I was right. If there is one common threadamong undergraduates here, it's that our minds areworking non-stop--"Like sixty" as the GreatBrain books used to describe it. That mentalactivity isn't always concentrated on composingpoetry or theorizing on mathematical problems,though. A lot of it is obsessive and negative.Acute sensitivity to the rich pastiche of Life isa wonderful asset but it can also lead to a lot ofpain.

Fully understanding that paradox was shocking.It meant me and my mom were only partly right.Everything wasn't going to be just fine. Somethings would. Some wouldn't. And I was just goingto have to deal.

I was right in thinking that I'd meet new andexciting people. Bet I was wrong to think thatestablishing intimacy with such delicate andcomplex men and women would be easy. I've livedwith Ashvin for three years now and we've got onemore to go. That first year was only a tiny partof the development of our friendship. Happenedthat he had a girlfriend who demanded all of histime and went on psychotic rampages when heresisted. Jenny, too, had a boyfriend, although hewas quite sane. These people, and some others,would eventually bring me enormous comfort. But Ihad a ways to go before our relationships couldmature.

The weight of Expos and my other classes becamepretty overwhelming that spring. I rememberresearching a big history paper, absentmindedlywandering through the stacks of Widener, thenLamont, then the Law School library. I returnedhome with a stack of ten books--exhausted withanxiety, sure I could never put that knowledge towork for me.

It wasn't just the schoolwork, either. My suitewas not exactly conducive to broadening one'ssocial horizons. Christopher firmly believed inbeing asocial as a way of life, except when itcame to women. His high school girlfriend was alsoat Harvard and, until they started having troublelater in the fall, I barely knew who he was. Wecalled him the phantom roommate. Takashi mainlydid his own thing. and then there was Bigley. Kenwas a special case. he really struggled hisfirstyear--spent most of his time in the roomhunched over the desk, springing up to lookthrough the eyehole every time he heard somethingin the hall.

Ashvin, as I've said, was great. But there wasalways the evil girlfriend Navarra, looming in ourroom. The stories about her are worthy of severalvolumes alone. I think the best concerns the timeshe threw a fit after Ashvin resisted going toboth nights of her four or five hour danceperformance, She came into our room, nodded to me,wrote a note on his desk and looked in his closetfor some clothes. I didn't think much of it--shedid that all the time. Turns out she wrote in thenote that she had "cut to shreds the thing youlove most--your crew jacket." She was bluffingAsbyin laughing at the absurdity of the situationwhile he anguished over how to reconcile withNavarra, insisted that we all read the note.

I wanted out. My brother David, my most trustedconfidante through that whole year, brought meback to reality every time I called him in acrisis. School is a pressure cooker, he told me.Bailing out of Harvard was not going to be myelixir, but it couldn't hurt to go home, eat somehome-cooked apple pie and collect my thoughts, ifthat was what I wanted to do. One day after RobertKiely's English class, I got up to leave, stunnedby his eloquent lecture and, again, frustrated bymy inability to concentrate and utilize thiswealth of intellectual opportunity. I shuffled outwith Charmaine and, as we passed through the doorof Emerson 105 I told her I was going to get someapple pie.

"Enjoy it," she said, I was not communicating my feelings very well.

Like any good writing teacher, pat didn't letme get off the hook by running away. Good writers,he insisted, engage their anxieties anddepression. Not by pouting, but by taking the painand trying to extrapolate a universal truth. hepushed me hard to write a third essay, and afourth, that finally satisfied me. All that year,I felt I was performing for my professors,roommates and friends while my troubles gnawed atmy insides. I learned that spring to fuse the twointo a cohesive, though complex and certainly notideal, whole. I wrote about suicide, hope and my"beautiful friend" Kathy. I think Kathy was usedto having men obsess about her. She dealt with itquite well.

Just before spring break, I sat down at theUnion with Lauren and told her about one of myfirst Crimson stories. The other day an enormousAdams House party had broken up after a complaintsthat plaster was falling from the ceiling below.As was tradition, the drunken group resumed theparty in the Adams House pool, where they strippednaked to swim. It was 3 a.m. when the senior tutorturned on the lights. She was not psyched. Thenext day the pool was drained.

"Sure," Lauren said. "It was the Bungle in theJungle party. I was there." The apple woman wasfull of surprises. As I got up to leave sheintroduced me to her roommate-to-be Amy Busch.

It was hard not to see Amy after I had met her.She has long, curly, fire-red hair. Later, afterour romance soured, I was haunted by thathair--never could go anywhere without seeing her.After exchanging hellos several times, I told myroommates I had met this woman with the warmestsmile I had ever seen. They found her in our classfacebook. Rocco called me from Lamont sometimetowards the end of April "She's here" he said Tenminutes later, I was there too.

I played games with myself for a few days andfinally asked her out. We did Thai food and sawthe awful film Cry Baby. I saw her the nextday. And the next. We both felt as if we had foundsomething really special. A couple of times duringthe next couple of weeks, our closeness threatenedme, as someone unskilled in dealing with intimacy.Apparently she had the same problem. The summerdrew near; she panicked and bailed.

I was pretty rational about it at first. "It'sokay to be upset," I told myself as she and I werehaving our Talk. "But stay on your feet." Sensingthat she was determined to break it off and wastalking just to smooth over the rough edges, Ileft just in time to get a slice at Pinocchio's.Later a friend of Amy's told me that she had said:"Everything seemed to be going okay and he justgot up and left."

The next day wasn't so easy. I was a wreck,crying, sleeping, crying some more. I found JennyMayher for some comfort. She has that Maine touchof gentle spirit and always appreciated me when Imost needed it. I even cried to my dad on thephone, the last thing I ever expected to do.

Any hurt me badly, but it wasn't her fault thatshe opened up a floodgate of insecurity stored upthrough the whole year. Turns out that it hastaken three years for Amy and I to make peace asfriends. I guess she is one of those people my momwas talking about, after all.

How to reflect on my first year? It happened. Imade it. I had good moments and some miserableones. The relics surrounding me now--a black andwhite poster of Elvis Costello, a piece of artdone by me brother, a photograph of my dog--areremnants of that first year, and so are many of myfriends. I hope to get up to Maine to see Jennythis summer, and maybe down to New York where Amylives. Ash and I are both in Cambridge, as is PatHoy. I discuss my writing with Pat all the timeand he has convinced me that I could give writinga go as a career.

It's almost comical for me to think of Bush's"Harvard conspiracy." The ivy may be foreboding,but there is certainly nothing grandiose aboutdorms with cockroaches and poor plumbing. Fame andpower don't really fit into the Harvardexperience. It's more subtle than that, morepersonal. "It's just a place," my Harvardinterviewer told me, groping for the best languageto debunk the myth. "There is no way to say thatHarvard is the best, there's no reason to saythat. it's just a great place. You'll see what Imean."

He's right. it can be great here. Just have todig in the heels and survive.

Joshua W. Shenk '93 is the Executive Editorof The Crimson

Still, a few weeks into school it seemed thatmeeting people was increasingly a chore. So Icelebrated Ashvin. For a while, he was all I had.

In class I seemed to float from one lecture toanother, toughing out the papers and the labs.Still, the wisdom and enthusiasm of the professorswas astounding. I took E.O. Wilson's course onevolutionary biology. "you know," he said during alecture on reproduction, "each ejaculationproduces a hundred million or so sperm. you arethe product of a sperm that beat out millions ofothers--kind of like a genetic megabuck winner."

I made it through to winter break. All my highschool friends rushed to tell me how great schoolwas. I doubted that they were being completelyhonest with themselves. As far as I know no onehas first year free from emotional turbulence.

I should know. I was one of the "great" sayers.My first semester had been okay, nothing wrong,nothing truly fantastic. Spring semester was adifferent story.

It started with my Expository Writing course.Every first-year has to take Expos. For many it'sa nightmare, due to professors that are eitherincompetent, annoying or both. But since it's oneof the few courses at Harvard with a maximum classsize of ten or 12 students, it has a lot ofpotential. Landing Pat Hoy as a professor was justblind luck. Maybe everybody's first year isrevolutionized by pieces of luck like this, goodor bad.

In high school, I had an inspiring, thoughsomewhat twisted, English teacher who took meunder wing both to cultivate talent and to trip onpower. In any case, I left Cincinnati consideringmyself a writer. I had a few stories and essaysunder my belt and a pile of Wyoming Horizonnewspapers. all fall, though, I wrote a total offive paper--only two of them were more than fivepages. I came to Pat's class with a lot ofbaggage--illusions warring with great trepidation.

The first assignments were nothing complicated,just short writing exercises to be built laterinto larger projects. I was supposed to look forsome image, some event or story that had whatVirginia Woolf called "shocking power." What Icame up with was, well, nothing.

Next we were to find the idea behind thatimage--the simple truth that the image supportedas evidence. Then we were to write an essay. Ieventually wrote a stilted, halting piece aboutcommunicating with my dad. Looking back at thatpiece, I do see the seeds of somethinginteresting. But just the seeds.

Meanwhile, my roommate Christopher, who was taking Expos with another professor, showed me his first piece. Christopher is a computer science major with ambitions to study artificial intelligence. I was flattered when he asked me to read his work--itseemed he wanted my approval. Turns out he hadwritten the most fluid, mature, sensitive pieces Ihad seen in recent memory. And writing wasn't evenhis thing. That killed me.

Expos got worse. If I had trouble writing aboutmy dad, producing a critical essay on E.B. Whitewas a nightmare. By the time the third project wasdue, shortly before spring break, I experiencedenormous anxiety trying to describe my piece tothe rest of the class. As they sat looking at meuneasily, I began to cry.

This wasn't just the case of an overachieverhumbled by a tough college professor. I wasn'tconcerned in the slightest about grades. Reachingdeep inside myself for creative insight, I wasfinding only unexplored pain.

My first-year at Harvard wasn't my first brushwith emotional trouble. But until then, I'd justput off my anxieties, expecting the future wouldwork things out. When I broke down, my mom steppedin to nurture my confidence about the future. Weboth figured college would be a great place tostart. My high school class numbered about 120. Ihad friends, but few of them really related to myinner core. I thought that at Harvard I would meetpeople who would.

I was right. If there is one common threadamong undergraduates here, it's that our minds areworking non-stop--"Like sixty" as the GreatBrain books used to describe it. That mentalactivity isn't always concentrated on composingpoetry or theorizing on mathematical problems,though. A lot of it is obsessive and negative.Acute sensitivity to the rich pastiche of Life isa wonderful asset but it can also lead to a lot ofpain.

Fully understanding that paradox was shocking.It meant me and my mom were only partly right.Everything wasn't going to be just fine. Somethings would. Some wouldn't. And I was just goingto have to deal.

I was right in thinking that I'd meet new andexciting people. Bet I was wrong to think thatestablishing intimacy with such delicate andcomplex men and women would be easy. I've livedwith Ashvin for three years now and we've got onemore to go. That first year was only a tiny partof the development of our friendship. Happenedthat he had a girlfriend who demanded all of histime and went on psychotic rampages when heresisted. Jenny, too, had a boyfriend, although hewas quite sane. These people, and some others,would eventually bring me enormous comfort. But Ihad a ways to go before our relationships couldmature.

The weight of Expos and my other classes becamepretty overwhelming that spring. I rememberresearching a big history paper, absentmindedlywandering through the stacks of Widener, thenLamont, then the Law School library. I returnedhome with a stack of ten books--exhausted withanxiety, sure I could never put that knowledge towork for me.

It wasn't just the schoolwork, either. My suitewas not exactly conducive to broadening one'ssocial horizons. Christopher firmly believed inbeing asocial as a way of life, except when itcame to women. His high school girlfriend was alsoat Harvard and, until they started having troublelater in the fall, I barely knew who he was. Wecalled him the phantom roommate. Takashi mainlydid his own thing. and then there was Bigley. Kenwas a special case. he really struggled hisfirstyear--spent most of his time in the roomhunched over the desk, springing up to lookthrough the eyehole every time he heard somethingin the hall.

Ashvin, as I've said, was great. But there wasalways the evil girlfriend Navarra, looming in ourroom. The stories about her are worthy of severalvolumes alone. I think the best concerns the timeshe threw a fit after Ashvin resisted going toboth nights of her four or five hour danceperformance, She came into our room, nodded to me,wrote a note on his desk and looked in his closetfor some clothes. I didn't think much of it--shedid that all the time. Turns out she wrote in thenote that she had "cut to shreds the thing youlove most--your crew jacket." She was bluffingAsbyin laughing at the absurdity of the situationwhile he anguished over how to reconcile withNavarra, insisted that we all read the note.

I wanted out. My brother David, my most trustedconfidante through that whole year, brought meback to reality every time I called him in acrisis. School is a pressure cooker, he told me.Bailing out of Harvard was not going to be myelixir, but it couldn't hurt to go home, eat somehome-cooked apple pie and collect my thoughts, ifthat was what I wanted to do. One day after RobertKiely's English class, I got up to leave, stunnedby his eloquent lecture and, again, frustrated bymy inability to concentrate and utilize thiswealth of intellectual opportunity. I shuffled outwith Charmaine and, as we passed through the doorof Emerson 105 I told her I was going to get someapple pie.

"Enjoy it," she said, I was not communicating my feelings very well.

Like any good writing teacher, pat didn't letme get off the hook by running away. Good writers,he insisted, engage their anxieties anddepression. Not by pouting, but by taking the painand trying to extrapolate a universal truth. hepushed me hard to write a third essay, and afourth, that finally satisfied me. All that year,I felt I was performing for my professors,roommates and friends while my troubles gnawed atmy insides. I learned that spring to fuse the twointo a cohesive, though complex and certainly notideal, whole. I wrote about suicide, hope and my"beautiful friend" Kathy. I think Kathy was usedto having men obsess about her. She dealt with itquite well.

Just before spring break, I sat down at theUnion with Lauren and told her about one of myfirst Crimson stories. The other day an enormousAdams House party had broken up after a complaintsthat plaster was falling from the ceiling below.As was tradition, the drunken group resumed theparty in the Adams House pool, where they strippednaked to swim. It was 3 a.m. when the senior tutorturned on the lights. She was not psyched. Thenext day the pool was drained.

"Sure," Lauren said. "It was the Bungle in theJungle party. I was there." The apple woman wasfull of surprises. As I got up to leave sheintroduced me to her roommate-to-be Amy Busch.

It was hard not to see Amy after I had met her.She has long, curly, fire-red hair. Later, afterour romance soured, I was haunted by thathair--never could go anywhere without seeing her.After exchanging hellos several times, I told myroommates I had met this woman with the warmestsmile I had ever seen. They found her in our classfacebook. Rocco called me from Lamont sometimetowards the end of April "She's here" he said Tenminutes later, I was there too.

I played games with myself for a few days andfinally asked her out. We did Thai food and sawthe awful film Cry Baby. I saw her the nextday. And the next. We both felt as if we had foundsomething really special. A couple of times duringthe next couple of weeks, our closeness threatenedme, as someone unskilled in dealing with intimacy.Apparently she had the same problem. The summerdrew near; she panicked and bailed.

I was pretty rational about it at first. "It'sokay to be upset," I told myself as she and I werehaving our Talk. "But stay on your feet." Sensingthat she was determined to break it off and wastalking just to smooth over the rough edges, Ileft just in time to get a slice at Pinocchio's.Later a friend of Amy's told me that she had said:"Everything seemed to be going okay and he justgot up and left."

The next day wasn't so easy. I was a wreck,crying, sleeping, crying some more. I found JennyMayher for some comfort. She has that Maine touchof gentle spirit and always appreciated me when Imost needed it. I even cried to my dad on thephone, the last thing I ever expected to do.

Any hurt me badly, but it wasn't her fault thatshe opened up a floodgate of insecurity stored upthrough the whole year. Turns out that it hastaken three years for Amy and I to make peace asfriends. I guess she is one of those people my momwas talking about, after all.

How to reflect on my first year? It happened. Imade it. I had good moments and some miserableones. The relics surrounding me now--a black andwhite poster of Elvis Costello, a piece of artdone by me brother, a photograph of my dog--areremnants of that first year, and so are many of myfriends. I hope to get up to Maine to see Jennythis summer, and maybe down to New York where Amylives. Ash and I are both in Cambridge, as is PatHoy. I discuss my writing with Pat all the timeand he has convinced me that I could give writinga go as a career.

It's almost comical for me to think of Bush's"Harvard conspiracy." The ivy may be foreboding,but there is certainly nothing grandiose aboutdorms with cockroaches and poor plumbing. Fame andpower don't really fit into the Harvardexperience. It's more subtle than that, morepersonal. "It's just a place," my Harvardinterviewer told me, groping for the best languageto debunk the myth. "There is no way to say thatHarvard is the best, there's no reason to saythat. it's just a great place. You'll see what Imean."

He's right. it can be great here. Just have todig in the heels and survive.

Joshua W. Shenk '93 is the Executive Editorof The Crimson