Coming Out of the Dark

Spring break will be soon upon us and I cannot wait. By the time you read this, I will be zooming my way to a better place, gliding silently over the landscape to where the air is sweeter, the food tastes better, the work seems less daunting, the alarm clocks are not pressing and the rooms are bathed in light. OK, perhaps some of these claims simply reflect the misty-eyed longings of a college student more than ready to bolt out of here for a week, but one thing is for certain--at home things look better because I have enough light to see them.

For a while I thought it was me and my glasses prescription preventing me from seeing the blackboards in the distance of the Science Center lecture halls or, more alarmingly, the books on my lap as I sat in my bedroom. The weak light of the overhead fixture's faint beams of light were blurring the letters even at nose-distance from the page. Yet if the problem stretched beyond my room, I figured, there would be signs.

Around campus my suspicions were confirmed: suddenly I noticed more and more people were showing up to section with glasses. In late-night jaunts to the laundry room, countless more wore spectacles, admitting that they are closet contact-lens wearers. Friends began to complain how their vacation time would be dominated by trips to the optometrist and to pick out frames. My poor vision, for once, was not at fault; that number of eyes cannot be wrong. Harvard dorms are dangerously dim and campus vision is at stake.

Poor dorm-room lighting might be excusable if libraries or other study spaces were Harvard student's places of learning. Rooms are rightfully the place of choice for schedule and fashion reasons--in whose library can you read in pajamas and slippers and have an alarm set to wake you if you happen to doze off? And besides, House libraries and those in and around the Yard do not themselves have such good lighting--beyond the Lamont reference room, the light fixtures provide more ambience than illumination. We can't read by mood alone.

Last year, I had nothing to complain about; my first-floor corner Hollis room had big windows which let in plenty of light (and tourists' glances). Now, my north-easterly-facing bedroom receives direct sunlight only between 6 and 8 a.m. No matter how good this arrangement might be for early-morning study sessions I sometimes plan but always seem to sleep through, my room is a cavern after 10 a.m.

In my halogen-filled environment, I fear for first-year eyes. Since halogens were banned from the Yard this year, the steps down the path to squinting adulthood have been brought to historic Harvard standards. This class of first-years has something new in common with the former residents of their rooms, with John Quincy Adams, Class of 1787, and Horatio Alger, Class of 1852: they too can experience the Yard dorms as if by candlelight, huddled over their books in the corners of dark, gaping rooms.

Such dim wattage for high-powered learning cannot be attributed to mere burned-out bulbs. The problem exists across campus and may even stretch to other colleges. A friend at Amherst told me that a housing administrator admitted to him that dorm room lights were only supposed to be sufficient to find the switch for another light. If this is also the case at Harvard, a serious ocular injustice is occurring here. We may not need cable TV, and we now have two-ply toilet paper, but we desperately need light.

Lighting has been an issue all year, of course, but I write now because I have a new problem to share: the Second Sun is failing. The Second Sun system has been Lowell J-52's secret plan to light its room: turn on the overhead light and the two desk lights in the common room, bring both torchiere halogen lamps out of the bedrooms, and place the halogens in front of the doors. For the piece de resistance, we close the doors to reflect the light and voila!--there is almost enough light to make reading bearable. Months of experimental positioning ended in this perfect arrangement, and one needed merely ask for the Second Sun to see my room snap into shape.

As our ingenious system begins to falter, my room returns to its normal dim self. The light has become a yellow that isn't quite white and at times even seems brown--which is a lot like black. The darkness is creeping in, leaving me squinting inches from the page. Extensive searches of the halogen bulbs and considerations of the (negligible) overhead brightness have come up with nothing. I am beginning to worry that I too will see my optometrist next week and he will strengthen my prescription.

So, this Spring Break, remember your plane ticket. Take a true break from studying. Take a peaceful walk. Exercise more. Enjoy the company of family and friends. Keep your hands far away from keyboards, or at least your wrists level and your RSI-prevention exercises numerous. Get some rest and, most importantly, sit under a good light. There aren't enough carrots in the world to cure all this squinting.

And when you get back, let your House superintendents and College administrators see that the current lighting situation is unacceptable--take them to your room.

Adam I. Arenson '00 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.