LIVE BLOG: Dean's Date, Spring 2022

5:07 PM: Arrival

You’ve made it. Your papers (or whatever you DID have time to write) are in. You’ve either caught all of your typos, or you skipped the proofread step and hoped you didn’t put “the” twice or use the wrong spelling of “stationary” (stationery). We hope so too.

Even if finals require a whole other flight of stairs, forget about that for a moment, and rest in how far you’ve climbed.

—RB

3:07 PM: The Honor Code

Right about now, you might (hopefully) be finishing up drafts of your Dean’s Date papers, and checking them meticulously for any mistakes or omissions.

But there’s one thing that you simply CANNOT forget to include on your assignments: The Honor Pledge.

To help you remember what it is, here’s the trusty Triangle Club with the Honor Code song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu1ZVWPi3NI

This song is now stuck in your head. You’re welcome.

—AA’23

2:00 PM: Worst Google Cal

And the winner (loser?) of our Worst Google Calendar Competition is... CS '25!!

...Are you okay? Are you sleeping?

-- EW '24

12:35 PM: Dean’s! Date! Playlist!

Hey Tigers,

Every year—whether through running around Frist, wiping away our sweat and tears, putting microphones in random stranger’s faces in true #investigativejournalist fashion, or through the much more calm and bougie method of this year’s online survey collection—we ask you which songs are on your Dean’s Date playlist, that are hyping you up and serving as the soundtrack to scripting your saucy syllables (peep the alliteration.)

No gatekeeping these ~fire~ songs here, babes. HERE THEY ARE! (We haven’t verified them for language/content. Listen with care!)

I Don't F*k With You, Big Sean

Bad Liar, Imagine Dragons

All too Well, Taylor Swift

“mitski interspersed with the steven universe soundtrack because i’m normal and doing just fine actually”

Oh to be in love, Kate Bush

I like being a b*tch!, Trip Kissing

“every single big bootie mix”

Everglow, Coldplay

Hundred, Khalid

Pirates of the Carribean sound track

About Damn Time, Lizzo (x2)

“everything lizzo duh”

Partners in Crime, Set it Off

Fairbanks, Alaska, the Front Bottoms

“The Art of Pleasing Princes demo soundtracks on soundcloud (saw the show last week and loved it!)”

Paper Rings, Taylor Swift

Fabulous (High School Musical 2)

Ready or Not, Bridgit Mendler

Waiting for love, Avicii

乾杯, Mayday

Avatar lofi

Envolver, Annitta

It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, Celine Dion

Don’t Stop the Music, Rihanna

—AA ‘23

12:20 PM: Wordiness at its Finest

Dean's Date papers still below word count? Need inspiration to write those final qualifier-filled, long-winded paragraphs? Here are some of the most pretentiously jargon-y sentences you sent to us:

• "The distractibility introduced by the sparkly and dramatic elements, the ones the show’s general audience seems to be focusing on, isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s certainly a more accessible form of enrichment to practice glittery makeup and create fan edits than it is to, say, access cocaine."
• "One cannot help but notice the irony in a tyrant attempting to battle the sands of time by erecting buildings to immortalize themselves only to have those very buildings crumble due to a shift in the sands it stands upon."
• "In the current climate of rampant, visible, and publicly salient transphobia (at least in the United States), getting cis people at large to adopt a novel gender neutral pronoun seems like an ivory tower pipe dream."
• "In the status quo, what the estate tax does is reduce the intergenerational advantage of accumulated wealth and provide revenue to the government on unearned income from transfers of wealth."
• "This redistricting provides an uncommon opportunity to analyze short-term electoral trends through the lenses of two different electoral apportionments."
• "This mastery of motion and trajectory melds with interesting instrumentation to create a truly special and identifiable style."

And lastly, this one:

• "My papers aren't very pretentious, but I do imply that Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender is Osama Bin-Laden in one of them."

-AC '24

10:55 AM: Topic Difficulties

If you’re struggling to decide which book to write about for your final paper … or maybe even to decide on your R3 topic (although hopefully that’s not the case) … fear not. You still have about six hours. Have you considered Baudelaire, Montaigne, or maybe Rousseau?

—RB ‘25

9:55 AM: Dispatch from the Field: Thoughts at Wu Breakfast

1. No tater tots this morning. God has forsaken us.
2. To the student asleep in a booth at 9:30: I'm sorry that this is how your Dean's Date has begun.
3. The dining hall is remarkably empty this morning. I hope this means that everyone has gotten an early breakfast. I fear it means that most students are choosing to skip breakfast.
4. Only seven hours to go. Then all of this is over.
5. Last night, this very same dining hall had chocolate chip pancakes. The options this morning pale in comparison.
6. By this point in the semester, students have given up all pretenses of dressing before breakfast. Pajama pants in the dining hall is the future.
7. A cloud of dread and anxiety hangs over the dining hall. May dinner tonight go differently.

-- GT '24

5:15 AM: Life Advice St.

Early birds and didn't-go-to-bed-yet birds: we asked the Pton fam to give us life advice for the 24 hours of Dean's Date and beyond. (Didn't see the survey?? Take it here!) And you definitely delivered.

Here are some of our favorite pieces of life advice: submitted by, and support for which is made possible by, students like YOU!

"A good essay is a finished essay!"

"pay attention in class kids. also don't eat a whole pizza right before sleeping"

"DO YOUR MF HOMEWORK"

"bubble." [editor's note: profound.]

"If you don't feel like taking your stuff out of the washer/dryer, just wait long enough and someone else will do it for you" [editor's note: plz don't be that guy]

"If you got here, that's half the battle won! You got this sh*t!"

"Start early, but because that's unrealistic find good all-nighter buddies."

"wear shower shoes"

"Rebecca Welton: Oh, do you believe in ghosts, Ted?
Ted Lasso: I do. But more importantly, I think they need to believe in themselves."

"Go to the gym"

"Stockpile chips from late meal"

I want a Dean's "Date" [editor's note: us too]

"madame universe rly be wildin rn my marriage pact match has the same name as my ex FOR WHY"

"5pm and 5pm are 24 hrs apart, not 12 <3" [editor's note: to whoever wrote this, it unironically lowered my stress levels. <3]

—AA '23

4:58 AM: Livin' on a Prayer

Keep going, Tigers. We've got this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk

—AA '23

3:05 AM: Campus Energy Heat Map

A pretty interesting tool to see where people are on campus is the Campus Energy Heat Map, which tracks power use across campus.

Campus Energy Heat Map current energy use

From the screenshot, it seems that Frist is pretty busy as expected. Forbes is using up more power than many of the smaller buildings in the rest of the dorms. It’s neat, though the power demand in a place like the E-Quad could easily be high-power lab equipment running overnight instead of a bunch of students working there.

-RBH '23

1:37 AM: Muse of Poesis

If you, too, are sobbing into your textbook as your inner perfectionist screams after the discovery that www.isitdeansdate.com is in fact fallible like the rest of us (see previous post entry), or if you simply need some creative energy to keep you going in this early stretch of a l o n g all-nighter, turn to poetry for inspiration and comfort.

I, for one, have been diligently annotating my readings all semester. And when Dean's Date rolls around, some of my annotations start to look like... blackout poetry.

May I present a collection of three Dean's Date blackout poems, found from three of my required readings this semester:

1. “untitled obvious”

from Freud’s Fetishism, 1927 (J. Strachey, Trans.), in The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol XXI, p 147-157.

2. “Dilemma”

from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, trans. Charles A. and Maria-Odilia Leal McBride, Theatre Communications Group, 1985.

3. “Ode to Summer”

from Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, a Touchstone book published by Simon & Schuster, 1968.

If you find yourself crafting your own ingenious blackout poetry this Dean's Date, email it to us at pressclb@princeton.edu for a chance at a live blog shoutout!

—AA '23

12:32 AM: It Is (Not?) Dean's Date

As the clock struck twelve, and the Whitman Wail reverberated off the white tents in the courtyard, I logged on to the trusty www.isitdeansdate.com for the sickening confirmation that it is officially Dean's Date — only to find that it isn't so trusty after all.

So for any of those that are confused, I am here to tell you that it is, in fact, Dean's Date (contrary to our old friend's reassurance that it is not). 12 more hours — get working!

-AC '24

10:15 PM: The Fantastic Lanterns of Princeton

This bookmark from Labyrinth has reminded me just how many lanterns can be found around campus: East Pyne, Firestone, Whitman, the RoMa vicinity, illuminating nearly every arch.

But if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably never noticed those lanterns, huh? When was the last time you checked to see if a “lantern” was decorative or actually lit? Perhaps out of order?

In any case—whether I have enlightened you on the wonders of Princeton’s lanterns or you’re a longtime connoisseur of campus lights, please do admire the fantastic lanterns on your way to or from late night breakfast.

—RB ‘25

9:15 PM: Forbes. Worth the Walk.

Your local Forbesian coming on to make their case for Forbes. Don't agree? Does your res college have a crepe station, smoothie bar, maple fried chicken, and poundcake with your late night breakfast?

I didn't think so.

I had actually planned to compile a comprehensive list of the free food around campus but somehow managed to procrastinate that too. I hope you'll forgive me. I will say, however, that if you walk into Frist, Campus Club, Murray Dodge, or any res college, I'd be surprised if you didn't find something to sustain you as you write your (hopefully) final pages of those Dean's Date papers.

But if you've been sitting in Firestone for one too many hours, need some fresh air, or are craving some delectable crepes, you know where to go.

-AC '24

8:03 PM: Doors or wheels

Here’s a question that went around social media to procrastinate on: Are there more doors or wheels? 

Like all highly debated, nuanced questions, it depends on your definitions. There are a lot of examples of wheels, like the billions of cars out there with four or more wheels each, or the over one billion bicycles and motorcycles, but there are also billions of buildings that are each going to have tens of doors. A family with one car might have a house with several doors. And then you think about how each car has car doors, and there are also doors on lockers, closets, drawers, refrigerators, and more. Does Team Door have it?

But besides cars, think about the massive piles of discarded tires sitting in landfills, and you can have toys, chairs, and shopping carts that can have wheels. Hot Wheels have produced four billion toy cars, each with four wheels and no doors [1].

This conference room might have more wheels than the building it's in.

Some crazy folk at Berkeley decided gear wheels counted as wheels, meaning bicycles have more than two or four wheels and factories are filled with wheels. In response, the definition of doors was expanded to anything that has a hinge, including “lids, laptops, gates, or any openable object” [2].

I stopped myself from going any further because I actually have papers to write, but my takeaway from investigating this question is that I am writing this post on a door.

References:

[1] https://berkleyspectator.com/3521/opinion/the-polarizing-debate-doors-vs-wheels/

[2] https://phhstrailblazer.org/opinion/2022/03/11/are-there-more-doors-or-wheels-in-the-world/

-1.5 points for improperly formatted references

-RBH ‘23

7:00 PM: My top 5 most hated stairs on campus

Everything is irritating during reading period. But especially these stairs. So instead of turning in my last final, I decided to spend my time categorizing the following staircases from my least hated (5) to most hated (1).

#5: These stairs on the way to RoMa. Why are they so steep? Why are they slightly slanted? Why does one of them have an entire chunk broken off?

#4: The main stairwell in Patton Hall. There are so many stairs, and they're all confusing, and they all run into each other in places where stairs shouldn't intersect. I tried to use these to exit the building once, and I somehow ended up in the basement. But I also kind of like their intrigue, so my love/hate relationship with them lands them toward the least hated end of my stairs-hating spectrum.

#3: This half-step at the top of Blair Arch. If disappointment itself were physically embodied as an object, it would be this half-step.

#2: The long stairs outside the LCA. Does it make perfect sense that the steps are this long, considering the ground the staircase has to cover? Yes. Would it be arguably much worse if it were really short and steep for no reason? Also yes. Do I still hate taking two horizontal steps just to go up one vertical step? Absolutely, 100%, yes.

#1: THIS STAIRCASE leading toward Frist South Lawn. To the unsuspecting viewer, these might seem like perfectly normal stairs - and during the daytime, the unsuspecting viewer would be right. But anyone who's used these stairs to head back from Frist at night knows every trip down that inky black descent is a brush with death. Seriously, would it kill Christopher to install a few ground lights?

-- EW '24

6:06 PM: That timing...

"I also met a kid named Owl." - quote I overheard immediately after making that last post.

-- EW '24

6:00 PM: Overheard quotes

Let's continue kicking off with a Dean's Date liveblog tradition, overheard quotes -- overheard in this case by yours truly. Picture yourself innocently milling around in the dining hall or walking down the sidewalk, when you suddenly hear:

"...the fuck's a horseshoe crab?"

"Your existence is an L."

"I look like an eighth grader in a production of Les Mis."

"You walked into that that one. You dove into that one. Like, you had a swim cap, and swim trunks, and goggles on, and you swam right into it."

• "I hate that bitch."
• "Woah, enemies to lovers arc?"

• "You disagree with the fact that I'm the main character of this university?"
• "Uh, I think you'd get an arc to yourself, but I don't know about main character."

These aren't even all the people I've overheard talking about their "narrative arcs" on campus. Y'all know we're real people and not fictional characters, right? ...Right?

-- EW '24

5:00 PM: Here we go again ...

well, here we are. dean's date is officially 24 hours away. here's a poem to the tune of ozymandias to kick us off ...

image from the Prox

I met a president from an Ivy school,

Who said — “The inner bowls of Firestone

Stand ready for your tears, coffee and Juul.

The deans no longer will let you alone —

No more extensions. They will, sneering cool

Deny your heartfleat pleas. If you can, scream

Or howl or wail your way into a manic state.

You’ve only time for coffee now, no cream.

Try to save your grade from missed attendance,

All those times you decided to be late.

And now, in your moment of deliverance,

What remains are paltry jubilations:

‘This represents my own work in accordance

With university regulations.’”

-- GT '24