Freshman Year Rantings
October 14, 2002 by David BlackmanI'm out here, putting my heart on my sleeve, and my life on the line, to rant about being a frosh. Freshmeat. Everyone can remember the awkward first few months of dorm life, figuring out how to peacefully cohabitate with 80 other freshmen, many of whom are members of the opposite sex. The rough transition from being an all-powerful senior in high school to a lowly, stupid, pitiful freshman.
If you're in the class of 06, ("000-6" - I can't believe I actually have school spirit. When did this happen?), I hope you can gain some solace knowing that we're all in the same boat.
I promise somewhere on campus at 8 a.m., someone is wondering whether or not wearing a "Chicks Dig Me" t-shirt would give people the wrong impression, or at 3 a.m., the previous night, someone is thinking that the parallels between Plato and Saddam Hussein are so clearly the perfect thesis for an I-Hum paper.
And to the upperclassmen who have walked these roads before us, I hope you can feel sympathetic towards us youngins, and nostalgic for simpler times, when professors still accepted "I don't know where Bldg. 70 is" as a valid excuse for being late to section.
There are so many things I still need to figure out, and I have so many questions about how to survive life here at The Farm.
I still haven't learned all the wonderful new rituals of dorm life. The dances we do with each other. How to take group showers - Do you wear sandals? Strip in your room? In the shower stall? Where does your towel go? If you put it in the stall, you run a high risk of your towel getting soaking wet, but if you leave it outside, then you need to take the naked walk of shame back to get it. Does anyone else worry about being the one in the hall who clogs the shower drain with hair? Or clogging one of the toilets?
When to dress? Should you go back to your room to put on underwear, then come back to shave? Is shaving with just a towel permitted? Is preening in front of the full length mirrors in the bathrooms allowable? If you're a guy hanging out on an all girls floor, and you really need to go pee, is it okay to use the girls bathroom, or should you break the rhythm of the conversation and go off in search of a men's room?
And that's just the bathroom.
While I'm busy worrying about bathroom etiquette, I'm also trying to devote the maximum amount of mental effort necessary to remembering people's names.
I still don't know all the guys on my floor. And the 60 girls in my dorm? I can name about 10. The worst part is that everyone knows my name. And not just in my dorm. Everyone I've ever met in my entire life remembers my name. And not just my first name, people remember the whole thing "David Blackman." People I knew in first grade when I was a chubby kid with long bangs and aviator glasses can recall my name at first sight - 10 years later, me twice as tall, twice as thin, hair three times as long, facial hair and contacts. I have no idea who they are. Not only do I need to greet all these new faces and remember their names, but I also need to come up with things to talk about. Ever spend a day meeting people, retelling the same opening numbers over and over again like a crappy lounge warm-up act, feeling cheaper every time you tell it? Just wondering.
I have this fear that failing to respond to one of these challenges properly will determine how people perceive me for the next four years. Some minor faux pas in Otero will be a permanent stain upon my character.
But, I don't worry about self image at all. That's definitely what these first few weeks have taught me.
David Blackman is an undeclared freshman. Got answers to his questions? Email him at blackmad@stanford.edu.
David Blackman is an undeclared freshman. Got answers to his questions? Email him at blackmad@stanford.edu.
