The Game is now less than 26 days away. The City is 80.8 miles away. The Bandit is Burt Reynolds’s best role. Try The Grouper, it’s great!

Why is it that these things deserve such capitalization? What makes these particular items standout from the category to which they belong in such a way that they claim their respective titles outright? Aren’t there other games (like Yale versus Georgetown, Checkers, Hi Ho! Cherry-O) that we trivialize by dubbing the contest between Yale and Harvard “The Game”?

Well, yes. But that’s the point, you see. And if you don’t get what’s so important about The Game, then FORGET YOU, MAN! It’s called The Game because it’s about a conflict so essential, so deep-rooted, that any other name would inevitably shortchange its grandeur. To illustrate the all-importance of the contest, we recently unearthed an old-time Harvard fight song. This should begin to explain why the November 19 game matters so much. It is about an ideological clash so profound and irreconcilable that it must be meted out at the Yale Bowl.

Here it is. It is really bad. Hate it with me:

Fight Fiercely, Harvard!
Fight, Fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.
How we shall celebrate our victory:
We shall invite the whole team
Up for tea! How jolly!
Hurl that spheroid down the field
And Fight! Fight! Fight!

Like, come on.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, taken by George R. Lawrence Co.

Taken not too long before the last Navy ROTC people were at Harvard.

News reports say that Harvard President Drew Faust will sign an agreement tomorrow that formally recognizes and funds the Naval ROTC on Harvard’s campus for the first time since the Vietnam War. Harvard, like Yale and other Ivies and universities, had stopped the ROTC program because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Now that Obama has repealed the policy, Harvard is bringing ROTC back. Will the same happen here? The YCC came out in support of an ROTC return in January, but many questions remain about the future of the program’s reinstatement here in the Have. Either way, our neighbors up in Cambridge have made their decision, and it will surely have an impact on the discussion here.

Image of a lovely Navy Wave courtesy of the George Eastman House Photography Collection.

According to Summers, Harvard’s final clubs–the 8 elite, clandestine institutions that Mark Zuckerberg battles in the Oscar-nominated film The Social Network–are feeling threatened by the unwanted attention the movie’s success has attracted. At a recent performance of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, students were amazed by the details concerning Harvard that the film gets right (down to a particular safety sticker on dorm room fireplaces).

However, students claim that the movie apparently gets wrong “the degree of depravity” at final club parties. This is particularly interesting considering that “last semester, with The Social Network and its sexed-up Harvard in theaters, alcohol-poisoning incidents originating at final clubs nearly doubled, according to a college tutor who has seen the privately held statistics.” Also, the clubs have been increasingly concerned with cellphone photos that make their way to Facebook, live (probably drunken) tweeting from people attending final club parties, and the ever-present threat of Four Square.

Ah, life in the highest social circle of one of the best universities in the country is difficult. What would happen if people found out that all that goes on in their houses is drinking and womanizing? Everyone would be so shocked.

So what are the “hardest classes” at Harvard? Among the 10 courses listed are “Statistical Thermodynamics” (which 95% of students would definitely not recommend), “The History of Modern Political Philosophy” (“Be prepared to give your life up”), and “Pseudorandomness” (random). “Looking for a challenging course this term?” No, we’re not Flyby, but thanks. We’ll stick to our gut lists.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Really it just depended on how you did in lotteries, whether professors sympathized with or were turned off by your pathetic emails, and if you slipped on the unsalted ice on your scamper between overlapping classes. As shopping period and that adrenaline rush of uncertainty comes to a close, some of us can take a breath and start scheduling standing lunch dates and thinking about those new year’s resolutions that are bound to fail, while others of us are still scrambling to secure jobs, seminars, and textbooks.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come. Take finals period, for example. Seems long ago, doesn’t it? The week probably went by much faster for our friends over in Princeton, New Jersey as they, too, got ready to pack up their books to take home. Except that they weren’t just going to line them up on the bookshelf to impress friends and confirm for their parents that it’s worth the fifty grand a year. No, they took their books home over winter break to read. Because upon a snowy return, they jumped right back into finals. And unlike Thanksgiving break, winter break is legitimately long enough that it’s hard to not study for exams looming like that. By now Princeton students have jumped back into that icy pool called finals, they’re submerged, and they’re barely beginning to see the light.

Remember our last Saturday of finals, the one all the econ kids were complaining about? It was over a month ago—the 18th. Of December. That’s the year 2010. Let’s skip the part where we pretend like schadenfreude doesn’t fill our little hearts, the hearts that are on our sleeves from begging professors for spots or deans for exceptions, and go straight to the conclusion that Princeton’s system is just plain silly. It’s even debatable whether their calendar (the dark side from which Harvard only recently switched over), is worse than the quarter system.

So as you take a moment to thank your lucky stars that shopping period is in your rear view mirror, linger a little longer and smile knowing that finals are even further behind. At Princeton, someone hates you right now.

Photo courtesy of flikr user somenametoforget.

We’ve been trying to figure out exactly why Harvard sucks forever. Is it their inferior “house” system? Their stupid finals clubs? Their imaginary mascot? Their utter lameness? Travis, a high school student from “Steamboat Springs, Venezuela” has figured it out. If you can make it through his endless ramblings about “the news” you may be able to figure it out.

* (Business ethics, not personal).

[New York Times]

Inexplicably, though, the Daily Beast list touts Harvard as America’s second happiest college. How did this happen? I mean, have you ever been to Harvard? According to the Daily Beast’s metrics (mostly borrowed from the College Prowler guides) Harvard’s nightlife options receive and A+, whereas Yale’s rate a relatively dismal B. If you were in Cambridge for last year’s Game (or really any weekend at Harvard, ever) you probably have some idea of how outrageously unfair this is. We’re talking about the School Where Fun Goes to Die.

According to the list, Harvard also edges out Yale on sunny days: apparently 56% of daylight hours in New Haven are sunny, whereas 58% are in Cambridge. Of course! If there’s one thing to love about Harvard, it’s the weather.

Currier
I saw you…walking around this morning cute in your blue shorts and hoody. i think we made eye contact at dinner last night…talk to me next time.

Lots of eye contact, not much else.

Winthrop
Posted at 2009-12-18 10:31:46, F spotting M
I saw you running around Winthrop celebrating after finishing your finals… You’re cute when you glow.

OMG HE’S A VAMPIRE.

Mather
I saw you… my window. My only link to the outside world. It looks cold; is it? I do not know…

Wasn’t A Beautiful Mind set at Princeton?

Stay tuned as they continue to struggle through finals!