'Nova Underground

It's the beginning of the year and this mini-person is asking for directions to Tolentine. Immediately the wheels begin turning. You can either tell the truth or send him on a long trek toward Bartley. If you lack a moral compass, you'd better hope that freshman isn't in one of those core curriculum classes you saved for senior year — art.  Then again, how can you be sure the person is even a freshman?

Aside from the striking baby face and naivete of campus geographics, the freshmen always stand out, even in the largest of crowds. I remember the days, dreadfully walking around with a copy of St. Augustine's "Confessions," accidentallly asking seniors, "Are you in my ACS class?" only to be shot down with the aged reply, "I don't do Fridays." And for those freshmen who do have class on Fridays after a Thursday night social life, I suggest you really take advantage of those excuse notes from the health center while you can. A young Augustine would have.  

This year's freshman class seems especially large and diverse; I find myself counting them, "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish." There are the freshman nurses taking their friend's vital signs — everyone has hypertension — it's the Spit pizza. The freshman engineer is tying plastic bags over the smoke detectors in dorm rooms. The freshman business student is using The Wall Street Journal as a napkin for the Hope's cookies he recently discovered in Bryn Mawr. The freshman liberal arts student, who's painfully realizing his mistake of signing up for every club at the Activities Fair, begins deleting the thousands of e-mails in his inbox. 

As a game, I try guessing their previous residence by listening to their hometown vernacular: "gnarly dude," "wicked cool," "hey y'all," "wooder ice." The West Coast kids still look like hippies and hipsters while the East Coast kids are all bling'd out. A word of advice for my fellow Californians: There is a difference between a fall coat and a winter coat, and you'll need a real scarf, not the trendy houndstooth ones from H&M, later this semester.

When I was a freshman, I too made some extravagant mistakes. Who knew hookahs were considered drug paraphernalia? Apparently anyone who read the Bluebook, as Dean Rost later informed me. And when ACS teachers required that we use the Writing Center, once again, I couldn't be bothered. There was the time I highjacked the identity of a Syrian princess at the international student's ball — my cover was blown when it became obvious I don't speak Arabic. And, oh, how I miss those late night conversations with Public Safety that sobered me up faster than a handful of crackers. So young and adventurous, it's no wonder VEMS is permanently parked outside of Stanford.

A student's first year of college is both frightfully embarrassing and dangerously fun. I wouldn't have changed much about it, but I'm also glad that it's over. I believe Marshall, the RA from the genius webisodes "Dorm Life" said it perfectly: "This is gonna be a big year, people are going to learn a lot, people are going to make mistakes, I guarantee you that one. People are gonna fall in love, people are going to experience more this year than they ever thought possible. But, there are no dumb questions allowed."