Pfoho's "Fuck My Life": Pfun?

Every house comes together in its own way. Pfoho, with its remote location, unpronounceable name, and endangered polar bear mascot, is a bit more conscious of its shortcomings than most (or so it seems to this chauvinistic Cabot cod). But its hardy residents, fresh off the shuttle, are happy to celebrate them.

An email the HoCo sent out over the house open to announce the second year of their newest tradition contains fully 10 instances of their ubiquitous “pf.” There are three “pfailure”s, followed by “pfun” and even “pflove." Why are these polar bears so emotional?

It’s pFML, or pFuck My Life—the Pfoho version of the popular blog “FMyLife: Get the guts to spill the beans.” More after the jump.

The blog that inspired the wall says it “is a space where you can let it all out and unwind by sharing the little things that screw with your day, and maybe realize that you are not alone in experiencing day to day crap.”

Pfoho’s version is a prominent swath of wall on the second floor of its dining hall. The HoCo’s message calls for students to “Pull out and iron out all of those job rejection letters and failed midterms wrinkled and inside your trashcan AND/OR think up all of your favorite recent pfail stories,” post them on the wall anonymously or signed, then “Smile & feel accomplished/cleansed” and finally “Read all the other posts and stop feeling like you are all alone in your troubles. Pfailure is pfun!!!”

The HoCo decided to divert a few dollars from stein club to purchase a healthy supply of notecards, pens, and tacks for students who want to post. Pfoho residents are confident it will fill up when midterms and job applications begin, but so far the results reveal mostly repression.

"I'm a virgin! pFML" wrote one poster. Another fantasized about a dreamy professor. And one student decided to write about finding poop in a shower (what would that mean to a creative psychoanalyst?).

Quelling any concerns for the awesomeness of we droppers of the H-bomb, two more confident posters showed the full range of Harvard swag. "I just got a BlackBerry last week. I dropped it in a garbage can on Saturday night. It's landed in a cup. The cup was half-full of beer. I no longer have a Blackberry," shared one conspicuous consumer. Another wouldn't have been impressed, and wrote in impeccable script (who needs to text?): "I love organic chemistry, and I don't mind that it has taken over my (social) life."

Though most of them have yet to open up, Pfoho residents seem to like their wall.

“I’m personally a fan of places where people write things on walls at 4 a.m. in the middle of an all-nighter,” said Pfoho resident Natalia I. Irizarry-Cole ’11. “It’s nice to know you’re not in it alone.”

When asked whether the wall would keep Harvard students from taking their failures seriously and learning from them as they should, new Pfoho resident Graham M. Frankel ’12 said that “we go to Harvard, and we end up internalizing failure and work hard regardless, and in the exact moment, it’s nice to laugh.”

Pfoho HoCo co-chair Laura Jaramillo ’10 said that the pFML wall is helpful because “in a really high stress environment, everyone needs an outlet.” She added that the wall makes the house closer: “Little things like that all help a feeling of community.”

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Robbot