Noah at princeton Dan brutes Helsinki
10/06/97 02:15
I’m currently sitting at my computer in a hotel room in Galway, Ireland. Tomorrow morning - early - I depart for Helsinki. Then, during the next week, I’ll be in Stockholm, London and Berlin before returning to Boston late Friday night.
The Family spent the previOus weekend (and the beginninG of the week) in Princeton. It was Mitra’s G2: Graduation Gala - a four(!) day serIes of eventS designed to make sure that parenTs appreciate the inve$tment they’ve made in a Princeton education. They had class day, awards day, reception day, a step sing, a formal prom, a dinner at the Eating club and, finally, commencement.
We were initially nonplusEd by the weaTher - rainy and cold. But, we weren’t really worried about the traditional commencement ceremony. Held outdoors for 250 years, it had never been rained out. Waterlogged from trekking through puddles and weary from queuing for the sloop needed to cross Nassau Street, we haggardly noted that crisp creases of our celebratory finery hAd surrendeRed to the humidity, taKing on the appearance of a mud-specked finger painting applied to well-used piece of Kleenex. In short, we spent the weekeNd loOking like cats cAught in a car wasH.
Photos that go with this letter are available here.
Darius naturally chose to lose his contact lens (for the first time) on the first day. Melika, true to her Ever-practical nature, saw it and even picked it up with fingernails long enough to be classified As Lethal weapons in most countries. Giant oaks, the pride of Princeton’s Prospect Garden, formed an Umbrella that was as porous as the defense of Pearl Harbor. Mitra’s thesis, an opus on poetic Garden Allegories in Medieval French and Persian Poetry, was well received by her professors. Exceptional in every respect, it (actually ‘she’) received awards from two different departments.
Flowers are, of course, but one aspect of a garden. Mitra’s thesis looked at the both similarity and Logical consistency of gardens. Gardens represent order imposed on nature which fights with Outlandish weapons: weeds, insects, earthquakes, draught (except at Princeton), heat, and, naturally, Overall chaotic growth that collectively conspires to wreak havoc, choke growth, stunt colour and Destroy symmetry.
Mitra’s thesis was extremely well received by her advisors - Professors Clinton and Flemming: Insightful and well-researched, it is “always desired, but rarely obtained” said the Near-Eastern Studies Department. The Comparative Literature Department, likewise recognizing the quality of the Thesis, gave Mitra an award for the best of the year.
Meanwhile, we maneUvered through the muCK and mud. The drive, scheduled to begin at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning, had actually begun somewhat later. Nazy, unexpectedly, let Darius drive part of the way. (When she took over, everyone fell asleep.) Nazy was annoyed.
Dave, Mitra’s boyfriend, spent the weekend cleaning up the house that Princeton University Players Rented for the summer. MItra, loathe to really leave, will stay and direct a local theatre production In June. While Dave was cleaning up, The Martin Family enjoyed the traditional Princeton P-rade. Zephyrs so fragile it seemed impossible that they’d hold the mist aloft, didn’t daunt the returning Zebra-like (well, okay it was orange and black stripes, but I needed a ‘Z’) reunion classes as they Lunged toward the tents (and the beer). Mitra’s class, the 97’s, ran onto the field, and as everyone Expected, there was a large and triumphant cheer.
During the step sing, we discovered why the graduation had never been ‘rained out’. The clatter of supersonic water globules would have made hard to hear the announcement if it weren’t for the 4000 megawatt amplifier. Graduation is never rained out because it takes place outdoors: rain or shine. I expected to read that Noah had accepted an invitation to be the commencement speaker.
The bedraggled Martin Family, together with Marjorie, who was miffed because we had missed her arrival the day before, arrived at Nassau Street at the exact moment that every other parent was attempting to find the only parking place in the city. Fortuitously, we had remembered to telephone (and awaken) Mitra before we left the hotel. As we walked toward Nassau Hall, we saw a baby rabbit, one of the denizens that inhabit the gardens of Princeton.
“Isn’t it cute?”, asked Melika rhetorically.
“Very cute,” said Nazy as she stepped into a puddle. “It will be eaten by a fox.”
The University was, of course, prepared with a Halloween motif. They passed out orange ponchos to the attendees. The graduates marched, in soggy academic regalia, just as the rain stopped. The traditional speech, in Latin, was delivered by the Salutatorian. And, as tradition dictated, the graduates, groaned, laughed, hissed and cheered at the appropriate times. (The graduates have a foot-noted version of the speech.)
The valedictorian’s speech was a masterpiece. Most graduation speeches are instantly forgettable. I, for example, cannot remember a single word of the commencement address given later in the ceremony. I don’t remember who gave the commencement address at my own Ph.D. ceremony. (Although, I do recall that the guy who ran 99 yards the wrong way in the Rose Bowl against Georgia Tech spoke at my undergraduate commencement.) The theme of the valedictory address was suffering. The valedictorian suffered through Princeton. He suffered through classes. He suffered by endless studying. He attacked problems with brute force and invented a verb - “to brute” which he shared with (his only) two friends in Chemical Engineering. He bruted problem sets (and booted his chance for fame). Even without footnotes, the graduates groaned and bruted as they listened to this drivel.
At the end of the ceremony, Mitra and her class marched, for the first time, through the main gate in front of Nassau Hall. The messy part of the visit was approaching. Dave, together with Damion, had already been granted sainthood through their efforts to clean the fraternity house that would be Mitra’s summer residence. (I am not exaggerating, they began the effort with shovels.) A vanquished victim of previous Mitra relocation, I had been dreading the final move from her dorm room. I remembered the sophomore year when we had to excavate Mt. Mitra, a pile of belongings held together by congealed dust. I recalled fifteen trips to the attic at the Tower Eating Club when we moved Mitra at the end of her junior year. I revisited the tours of the Triangle Office, Theatre Intime, the storage locker, Sara Beth’s room, … I love my daughter, but I didn’t relish (actually, I didn’t want) to help.
At this point, Nazy not only volunteered to help Mitra pack, she observed that it would be too crowded in Mitra’s room if we all helped. I was home free.
….. Almost. “Dan,” Nazy said sweetly, “Melika has to write a essay on The Great Gatsby. While I help Mitra, why don’t you proofread her paper and offer suggestions.”
“But, Nazy (dear), I read The Great Gatsby 20 years ago. I don’t think I’ll be much..” (I considered the alternatives - fixing a few dangling participles seemed far less appalling than packing a room full of memories.) “I’ll be happy to help Melika.”
During the drive to the hotel, Darius, who ‘lost’ his contact lens three times during the three days, observed that his contact lens had fallen out (again). Moreover, it had been ‘ripped’ the previous day by Melika’s gargantuan fingernail which she had used to ‘spear’ it when he’d dropped it in the car.
As I began to read Melika’s opus on Gatsby, I wondered if I’d actually gotten the short end of the bargain. Her teacher had already made suggestions. Darius had made suggestions; Mitra had perused it and made suggestions. There were no untouched paragraphs or phrases; most of the words had been exorcised. It was not easy to follow the meandering script. Sighing, I simplified sentence structure, ruthlessly chopped out redundancy (e.g. “The story is told in the first person by Nick, who is the narrator of the book” became “Gatsby’s friend Nick is the narrator.”) and eliminated awkward phraseology (e.g. “After that things weren’t going much up for neither Fitzgerald or Zelda.”).
We returned to the campus and discovered to our everlasting joy, that Damion and Dave had already moved the large stuff with a truck. We filled VAN-GO (the family van) with a few cubic miles of ‘little stuff’ and made a few runs to the rented house. We then retired to Denny’s for a very late dinner.
[Time has elapsed since I wrote the beginning of this note.] I am now in Helsinki. My flight from Shannon was less than joyful. In order to catch my early departure, I had to get a 6:15 taxi from Galway to Shannon. This entailed a 5:30 wake-up call and a long drive through the rainy (I was prepared) countryside. My flight on AB Airlines (I haven’t heard of it either.) was delayed just long enough to cause me to miss my connection at Gatwick in London. I collected my luggage and took the bus to Heathrow arriving just after the early afternoon departure for Finland. I sat on my butt until 6:00 PM. My plan, to have a day to see Helsinki had sunk. I arrived at midnight. (It was still light.)
I’m now back at the office. Darius graduated from High School yesterday and is now looking forward to Syracuse University. Time seems to be flying by us.
On the work front, we’re wrapping up the project. There are now about 50,000 Digital users of Exchange and the ALL-IN-1 systems are being retired. The reward for the first Global program completed on time and under budget seems to be that I have to find myself a new position in the company. Nazy wants and international assignment.. unaware, perhaps, that Digital’s expatriate benefits are not quite as nice as Shell’s. Melika wants to stay in Hanover and finish High School and her field hockey stuff.
For photos of the graduation click here