21 Questions with...Veronica Shi '11

SACHS SCHOLARSHIP-WINNER VERONICA SHI '11 LOVES PERIOD DRAMAS, HAS HER OWN DRINK NAMED AFTER HER, AND IS TERRIFIED BY HER CHOSEN PATH IN ACADEMIA (BUT ACTUALLY).Name: Veronica Shi (friends call me "Ronnie")Age: 20Major: ClassicsHometown: West Covina, CAEating Club/Residential College/Affiliation: Mathey College (but was a proud Butlerite for three years) What was your initial reaction when you found out about the scholarship? Total astonishment. Three members of the Sachs committee met me in Frist on a Sunday morning - they were late too - and the first thing they said upon running in was, "We're usually not late to interviews." So I had every reason to expect a follow-up interview, and they did carry on for a bit like it was one, but eventually they dropped the pretense and told me I'd won it. I was stupefied. I still am a little. Quick: favorite Greek or Roman myth! Romulus and Remus. Read Ovid's Fasti and you'll discover Romulus won the kingship of Rome because he spotted twelve birds flying in formation overhead to Remus' six. The Romans were impossibly weird. Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional? So that I don't provoke invidia amongst my professors and friends - whom I all love - I'll say (and this is still a tough one) Provost Chris Eisgruber. The man's scarily brilliant without coming off as scary, and he can liven up any committee meeting with tongue-in-cheek references to Star-Bellied Sneetches and absurd drinking games. What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton? The Blue Point Grill -- you can point to anything on the menu and it'll be fantastic. Only the environmentalist in me feels guilty about eating big fish, so I try to avoid things like the tuna steak. In one sentence, what do you actually do all day? I do lots of things depending on what day it is, but no matter where I am, whether it be in my room in front of the computer, in the library, running around campus, or in the gym, I'm thinking endlessly. (So yeah, thinking.)What would you want to do less than writing your senior thesis? Actually, I really do want to write my thesis, or else I'd be crazy to want to continue in academia! You mean to ask me: what would you want to do less than writing a lab report? Laundry, I guess.What is your greatest guilty pleasure? Period films, especially ones set in the 18th century. It doesn't matter how corny or bad the movie itself is; I can spend the whole time staring at the costumes, picking out anachronisms, and sometimes just laughing at how quaint the characters (or their lines) are.Do you know all the words to Old Nassau? Embarrassingly, no! (Should I be embarrassed?)What is your biggest fear? Classics - indeed, serious humanistic education -- disappearing from all but a handful of wealthy, prestigious universities. No, really. I'm conscious of the fact that I've dedicated myself to a rarefied discipline, but I don't want to spend a lifetime training only to become a precious fossil. Everyone stands to lose from the decline and marginalization of the humanities. That's why I want to fight it.What do you hate most about Princeton? We've only four years here!What’s your drink? At post-Dean's-Date party last May, a group of friends actually named a drink after me, the "Ronnie": gin, cranberry juice, tonic and a slice of lime to garnish. The only downside of that evening was the embarrassment I experienced whenever someone said, "I think I'll have another Ronnie." What makes you laugh? Monty Python's Life of Brian- my favorite comedy, for many reasons in addition to the scene in which Brian is forced to correct the grammar in his Latin graffiti. What makes you cry? The ending of Atonement. Any star-crossed lovers' story affects me deeply, but that one rips me to shreds every time I contemplate it.Where do you do your best thinking? Prentice Library -- it's a small private library the Classics Department has which contains editions of every major Classical text, their translations and commentaries, and all the major reference works in print. This sounds impossibly nerdy, but having all of those book on hand, within reach, is the best thing a classicist can wish for. When’s bedtime? Midnight, if I've my act together; 2 am if I don't. What’s your personal anthem? "Don't Rain on My Parade" (the "Glee" version of it is amazing!) Who is your mortal enemy? Ignorance. "The humanities are useless" riles me like no other, but really, whenever people are unwilling to open up their minds or reconsider their presumptions and prejudices, I'm saddened but also reminded of the reasons why I want to become a scholar and educator.What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve done in the past year? Stumbled into Terrace's Green Room.In 25 years, you will be … A professor of Classics, maybe an administrator and leader in higher education, and (I hope very much) a successful novelist. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned at Princeton? In a class on Proto-Indo-European linguistics with Joshua Katz, I had the chance to learn about lots of strange, obscure dead languages. One of them, Hieroglyphic Luvian, takes the cake for strangeness. It's a pictorial language and looks essentially like a running cartoon strip, except it actually says, "I, Warpalawa, dedicate this altar to the bird goddess She-Ba-Ba in order to furnish carts for my donkeys," or something like that. There are reasons why certain languages are dead.What makes someone a Princetonian? Classiness, an energetic but gracefully concealed intellect, and a fierce pride for the place that has made us who we are.