Pine Chen has complained that contrary to the implications of the last article entitled “New J Goes Skiing (Sex)”, there was in fact no mention of sex in the article. Pine, my friend, look closely at the last word of that title.
Those of you sad enough to have read both the NJ and the NI articles a couple of weeks back may have noted Michael Echenburger, the NI Harbus Rep, describe our section as “utterly unremarkable.”
Our soul searching began in earnest. “How could he question our integrity like that”, said Paul Sims. “After all, was it not us that saved the Sadhu?” Indeed, if I remember correctly Paul, not only did we clothe him, feed him, and take him home, but we also sponsored him to come work here as an e-business software programmer for Nordstrom.
Raj Kapoor described his poignant experience-“I read the article and the next day I walked into the classroom. There was an eerier silence. You could here a pin drop. It’s as if our soul had been ripped out and nothing was left. Then I realized it was Sunday and went back home”.
“We are not really the boring uneventful section as Michael makes out, are we?” asked Isha Archer. I was just biting into a juicy, chewy Starburst candy and for me this act is always associated with a mute moment when coherent speech is not possible. But Isha mistook my silence to mean something else. “Tell me please”, she screamed, grabbing my all-natural, double cuff, linen shirt. “Tell me it’s not true, please…” saying which she collapsed onto the floor.
But then the tide began to turn. To inspire us, Jonathan Mendelson began reading aloud his “Describe a failure and how you overcame it” admission essay. And as if on cue, Maria Lee began to sing softly “We shall overcome…”
Christian or Hindu, black or white, consultant or non-profit, racist or bigot, Baker scholar or croissant baker, it did not matter-for at that moment, as we held hands and swayed, we were totally united. Even the blackboard cleaners joined in what was now frank mass hysteria. Kamran Moghtaderi tearfully summed up this Tsunami of emotion: “I have not felt this moved since I saw Ghost.”
What has made us special as a section over these past few months is not the fact that we are such a diverse crowd, nor that we are always friendly and loving, nor that we have fun, nor that we are so different and original in our outlook. This doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I’ll skip this bit.
As this semester comes to an end, and the long winter nights draw slowly in, and the sun sets early, and a chill wind descends from the north, and the log fires roar up once more, now is perhaps a good time for reflecting on climate prediction theory.
I say this because no doubt this is a time when many will attempt to sum up the past few months through amusing anecdotes or groovy section stories. I suspect that quasi writers like Echenburger might even go as far as to develop some grand summary of all his NI classmates presented through rhyming couplets, probably in the name of public service-but this is just a hunch because rules and ethics dictate that we submit our articles independently and only see each other’s articles until the Harbus is actually printed.
Here in section NJ we have just too many such witty incidents to choose from, like for example the time when Jeff Albee ordered salad as main course. However in the interest of brevity I believe that Henry Patner’s astute observation best sums up the sheer magnitude of the transformational experience in our section to date: Until I came to HBS, I thought I was the most intelligent person on Earth, but now I am quite sure of it.” Happy holidays.
