Welcome to My Party

Vindicated, validated, and verified - Leverett is the best house ever.

HoCo put on an awesome formal (over 500 people showed up, more than twice as many as the previous most-successful formal). The praise has been overflowing, and quite frankly, we deserve it. We put in so much sweat and tears (and yes, sometimes blood), to prove that we had enough resources, creativity, vision, and dedication to make an in-house formal even better than it would have been at Top of the Hub. Who can complain about absolute classiness and a $15 open bar? Was it perfect, of course not. But it was damn near close, and for as long as I keep my sanity, I will remember Casablanca.

Here's looking at you, Lev.

Super Procrastinated

I turned in a gov paper 4 days late. We'll see what the penalty is. I'm currently writing a paper due at 4 this afternoon, with only one source entirely read....5 years ago or so. French homework I've put off for two days, as well as missing three days of class in a row and totally screwing up the oral final, and not studying for the written final in 5 days. Plus, I have 3 3-hour finals in 2 days.

What can I focus on? Formal. After a kind of rocky start to the semester, a financial flop at the 80s, and months-old controversy surrounding formal, I am determined to make Casablanca the best formal Leverett has ever seen. Now if only crises would stop popping up every few hours. Oh well, character through adversity, I guess.

Bright spot - My family's coming to Harvard for the first time in less than a month!

Birth of a Politician

So apparently, one of my HoCo co-chair campaign promises was to have Leverett spring formal at Top of the Hub, a restaurant on top of Boston's tallest skyscraper, the Prudential Tower. I was intrigued by this option last semester, when Lev joined Quincy, PfoHo (with whom we won Risk two years ago), and Cabot (who just tags along with PfoHo?) to have formal in a tent in the quad. It was a cheaper option that saved us a lot of money, sold out, and though not perfect, was a pretty damn good party.

Which is the stage for the current debate. This semester, Top of the Hub is again an option for formal. Tickets would be $30 and a cash bar only (where drinks are at least $8). Or, we could do something that's never been done before, have a multi-venue formal in our own house, for half the cost of Top of the Hub. While Top of the Hub does have an amazing view, and experiencing formal there for $30 is basically a steal, the arguments for Lev courtyard formal won me over both personally and as co-chair.

I think our Old Library, as a former HoCo member said, is one of the best kept secrets of campus party spaces. An elegant tent looking out over McKinlock's beautiful view of the Charles would be almost as good as Top of the Hub. And the cheaper price means a more diverse set of Leverites would come out. Plus, open bar.

In short, I'm reneging on a campaign pledge. It's sad what a politician I've become.

Best. House. Ever.

Leverett House 2009 from Leverett House on Vimeo.

I Respectfully Disagree

So the Crimson's new FlyByBlog is sizing up all of Harvard's houses in anticipation of Housing Day on Thursday, when the freshmen will be sorted, sadly using computers instead of a singing hat. Unfortunately, the Crimson editors got their series off to a rocky start when they gave Leverett a BBB rating. The truly sad part is that the author of the Lev post actually lives in Leverett. All I can say is he and I haven't been living in the same house this year.

In other news, I have two midterms this week (tomorrow, and Thursday, FML). I'm getting a little exasperated with Gossip Girl, hopefully tonight's slightly-less-horrible-but-still-off-its-peak episode was the end of all those silly, pointless side stories, probably created just to give Chuck, Nate, and Vanessa something to do. What pissed me off the most was that Chuck's little "I have to find this really hot chick and save her" adventure seemed to have nothing to do with his character development after Bart's death. If I'm not gonna learn anything new about a character, these masturbatory sidetracks are beyond useless. Gossip Girl is my guilty pleasure, but the pleasure is increasingly hard to find. CW, take note.

Loving These Crazy Times

The world's going to shit, but I'm having a swell time nonetheless. HoCo is amazing, my friends are great (my roommate since freshman year just turned 21!), and, some really good news: I PASSED the FSOT...YAY! Now I have 3 weeks to write a "personal narratives" which is basically 5 3000 character essays about how awesome I am and includes people to vouch my awesomeness. After that, they check to see if I lied/realize how I awesome I really am and then (hopefully), I get an invitation to take the Oral Assessment, which is an intense day-long interview. And on top of it all, I have classes with tons of reading and papers and midterms until Spring Break, along with a major HoCo commitment (Freshman Housing Lottery Day, woo!). Craziness. But I really am loving it!

Thanks Lev!

At Harvard, sophomores, juniors, and seniors live in houses, Harry-Potter-style. Houses function not just as dorms, but can really become communities of great friends. Leverett House has become that for me, and being on the House Committee (HoCo) that runs social life at the house has only made my Harvard experience better. Tonight, I got the chance to give back to HoCo and Lev.

Thank you to all my Lev friends who voted for me for co-chair. I ran with two amazing candidates and great friends, Jordan and Simin, who are really awesome people, nice, kind, and so much fun. I wish circumstances had been different and somehow we could all be co-chairs, but I know Jordan and I will have a successful year as co-chairs and make Lev the best house at Harvard!

Lev love!

ps. Another example of why I have the most amazing friends in the world. Thanks Izzy!