By Hairee Lee
Cheers To Being Past Our Salad Days!
Last week, the freshmen of Harvard began to move into the dorms. I almost ran over a few of them while riding my bike to work. There were several ironies encapsulated in this brief run-in with the class of 2015.
Salad Days is the theme for this Dinner Series event, not only in recognition of back-to-school time, but also as a hurray to no longer living in salad days.
One irony was that September no longer holds the gross tang of fresh binders and buying other back-to-school stuff, thank God, but I still purchased mix-matched wine glasses from the student supplies bin parked on the north end of the main Harvard campus.
Harvard Freshmen moving into dorms last week
Two was that while I think I look and dress a helluva lot better now than back when I was a freshman, the 17 year-olds have that glow of youth, which in many ways is synonymous to beauty.
Three was that while I mentally shuddered and shook my head, ‘no’, at the naivete, the pimples, the exam cramming headed their way (pun intended), I still felt nostalgic. For the sense of everything being possible, the high metabolism, the astonishingly quick hangover recovery, the not having to worry about finding a job and making money.
I felt ambivalent. What gets me through these moments of ambivalence and unease and uncertainty, which is pretty much the steady state of my life, is a great meal, wine, and amazing friends.
Salad Days is the theme for this Dinner Series event, not only in recognition of back-to-school time, but also as a hurray to no longer living salad days, which, though awesome while it lasted, is in the past and, frankly, my life now is pretty fantastic.
