Remembering the Invasion

Three years ago, according to The Harvard Crimson, the University was "being invaded"--and, the lead paragraph concluded with a splash of Crimson wit, "it's not by extraterrestrials."

I was one of the pseudo-aliens interviewed for that article.

I was "Confer, the Nebraska native." The one who got her own paragraph explaining that she thought Harvard was nicer than Yale because Harvard seemed to have more trees. The one who made the astute observation that while Lincoln, Nebraska, wasn't exactly a "hick town," it was "much smaller than Boston."

With warped school selection criteria like mine ("How Many Trees Are There?") it's really something that I actually found pre-frosh weekend helpful.

But Harvard circa April 1990 was certainly not the Harvard I now attend. I liked--no, loved what I saw, but I was also kind of screwed up.

For one thing, I didn't stay in the Yard. I was put in Leverett Towers. It didn't faze me except that every night when I was trying to go back to my host's room, I got my towers confused. Did she live in F, or G? Did it matter? How the hell did people tell them apart?

It didn't occur to me that all the other pre-frosh were staying with their first-year hosts in the Yard. I didn't know that the Yard was specifically for first-years. And because I was living down by the river, ignorant of the existence of a Yard community, I had a messed-up conception of space. When I finally encountered the Yard, I think I thought it was some kind of park. And I thought the center of University activity was in Quincy House courtyard.

Apparently, everyone in the Class of 1994 was from Long Island, New York. Apparently, they all knew each other. Apparently, every other high school in the nation had their proms in May. "When's yours?" people would ask the Nebraska native. "Tonight," I'd answer. (That's right. I skipped prom my senior year to go to pre-frosh weekend at Harvard. So what?!?)

I thought Harvard was a math school. I was staying with another pre-frosh who was very good at math. I, on the other hand, had trouble counting change.

Nevertheless, we got along well. She was great about introducing me to all of her friends who had also gotten into Harvard and all of her friends who were already at Harvard. I knew no one at Harvard, period.

Many of my co-pre-frosh's friends were acquaintances from math competitions, math fairs, math conventions, math jamborees. And this is when I realized that by golly, while I had been splashing in wading pools for seventeen summers, other kids had been doing stuff. Math stuff. Had I picked the wrong school?

I pushed those worries to the back of my mind. I focused on absorbing The Harvard Scene. I noticed many things that, by now, I have discovered to be misleading or downright false observations:

I attended an Open House at The Crimson, and the business editor who gave the tour had a beer in his hand. "Wow," I thought, "they must drink like fish at this newspaper! They must drink all day long and into the night!" Wrong!

There were a couple nights when we couldn't find anything to do. "That's because people know it's pre-frosh weekend; no one wants you guys invading their parties," we were told. "There are parties other weekends," they assured us. Wrong!

We went into Boston on Saturday to go shopping. "Wow," I thought, "if I go to school here I'll go shopping all the time. I'll set aside a little time to go into Boston each weekend." Wrong!

There were plenty of little shockers in store for me that weekend: the fireplaces in the Wigglesworth common rooms I visited; the rumor of a swimming pool in Adams House; the guy I saw leaving one of my hosts' bedroom one morning. (Did people...do that? Here?)

Another misconception I had was that the people I met during pre-frosh weekend would be my best friends during college and beyond. Someday, they would be the godparents of my children. They would help me with my homework. We'd have long chats by those Wigglesworth common room fireplaces.

Wrong!

That's actually too harsh. I think there are some of you out there who did make lasting connections during those four incredible days. And that's very nice.

Let me just run down a short list of people I met, a kind of "Where Are They Now" thing. Humor me; it won't take long because I didn't meet that many people.

That guy in the Coop. I think he lives in the Quad somewhere.

The friendly girl in English 10b. I was sitting expectantly in a Sever classroom, waiting with a lot of other pre-frosh for lecture to begin. We sat and sat. I talked to this girl for a few minutes about how much it sucked to carry around the red folders that branded you as a clueless pre-frosh.

We continued to sit. When we'd been sitting there for half an hour, a woman came in and informed us that English 10b did not meet on Fridays.

Now I'm in English 70 with that girl. It doesn't meet on Fridays, either. And we're still kind of clueless.

My co-pre-frosh, the one who's good at math. She lived in the Quad last year. Then this year she transferred to Dunster House, where I live.

Our host. She graduated, then got married. Married. I wonder if my co-pre-frosh knows.

One of those girls I sat with at Pizzeria Uno's. I think she's on the UC. And of course, she lives in the Quad.

The guy I met at Princeton's pre-frosh days (which followed Harvard's), who had also been at Harvard and was absolutely sure he preferred Harvard. Sure enough, he's here.

The girl who came up to me at the Ice Cream Bash and, after I introduced myself, exclaimed, "Wow! I've never met anyone from Nebraska before!" She's one of my roommates. She's on The Crimson, too. Last night it wasn't her turn to do the editorial page. That's too bad, because I don't know if Joanna's ever edited anyone from Nebraska before.