Name: The Committee to Motivate Students to Do Dean’s Date Work (CMSDDDW)
Hometown: Grover’s Corners
Major: General
Club and Residential College Affiliation: Club Foot
Are you an animal, mineral, or vegetable?
We are argon-based lifeforms, straddling the boundaries between what is alive and what is merely sentient. So kinda like all three.
Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Goku from Dragon Ball Z. He’s a Princeton alum in many Dragon Ball fanfictions, which we hold as canonical.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
One of us once distracted Nancy Malkiel and gulped down several spoonfuls of some clam chowder she was eating.
Why are you posting such intensely fonted posters?
It is inexplicably acceptable at Princeton to procrastinate on papers, then wail and moan on Facebook as you pull an all-nighter and produce some half-assed essays on Dean’s Date Eve. We somehow find a perverse sense of camaraderie in this self-destructive tradition, punctuating it with fanfare and pageantry and silent discos. Our posters are meant to encourage skepticism about a culture in which we all act as if we’re all academic martyrs crucified on the amount of work we have to do, when we nailed ourselves there in the first place. We all have work. We all have time to do it right. It’s hard, but complaining makes it worse. It’s a privilege to have the education we do, one that hundreds of thousands of applicants wanted and were denied. Acting as if Princeton is pulling us through school by our hair disrespects that privilege and lowers the quality of the work that we do. If we saw Dean’s Date work and exams as challenges to be met rather than curses to be endured, we would write better papers, score higher on exams, and live happier, less stressful lives. If inculcating that kind of living takes some aggressive words in Impact font, so be it.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Acquire currency and the hatred of the entire Princeton student body.
What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Snarky answers to journalists’ questions.
Who is “sponsoring” your posters?
Microsoft and Mr. Pibb.
What is your relationship like with the font IMPACT?
Monogamous.
What’s hanging above your desk and/or bed?
The last reporter who divulged our identity.
What is your biggest fear?
An unwritten paper. Also, spiders.
What would you do if you were on the Presidential Search Committee?
Install the dictator android ENLIGHTENED DES-BOT and enjoy a thousand years of peace.
Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
TUNE EVERY HEART AND ROLLS-ROYCE
BID EVERY BEAR WITHDRAW
LET ALL WHO WANT A GOURD REJOICE
IN PRAISE OF GUINEA-BISSAU
No.
Do you know all the words to 50 Cent’s “21 Questions” featuring Nate Dogg?
TUNE EVERY HEART AND––
Nope, guess not.
What’s your drink?
The blood of my enemies.
What’s your personal anthem?
The soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Who is your mortal enemy?
Glorified procrastination. Also spiders.
Where do you do your best thinking?
In a fugue state.
When’s bedtime?
Between hammer time and tool time.
What makes you laugh?
A man with a gun to my head screaming, “LAUGH OR I’LL PULL THE TRIGGER.”
What do you have against Red Bull at 4am?
No one’s ever written something they’re proud of after 2am, unless you pat yourself on the back for drunk texting your ex-girlfriend “hey luv u ur still in my phone as boobasaurus rex”
What makes someone a Princetonian?
An earnest desire to learn, an abiding love for others, and an irrational tolerance for burning effigies.
Fuck you. You’re really an ass. I was almost in support of the posters but this interview just blew it for me. I don’t know if you were trying to be funny, but you weren’t. Questioning our campus culture, and working to change it in a compassionate manner, is one thing. Belittling the work ethic of students is another. Go away. You’re not welcome here anymore.
Yeah. Everyone here works very, very hard. There may be isolated cases where people routinely procrastinate to the very last minute and then bitch about it on the Internet, but I think this is the exception to the rule. And, to be honest, bitching about it on the Internet is cathartic sometimes. You find solidarity. It’s comforting to know you’re not alone under the enormous amount of pressure resting on your shoulders.
Thanks for adding to that pressure cooker. Interesting methods, bad taste.
@impassioned. Get over your self and go do your work.
Do you really think they actually found the guy? Obviously this paper is making up this interview.
yeah uh so hey @’14 learn to take a joke bitch
Why all the hate from the commenters? You can agree to disagree, but I thought that was one of the most interesting and insightful commentaries on the Princeton work culture I’ve heard so far. Of course people are under an enormous amount of pressure, but I know that I, like everyone else, buy into the procrastination mindset (mostly because I feel like I would go crazy if I actually did the thorough job necessary to finish a high-quality paper early), but it’s true that this method is unhealthy both mentally and physically. I won’t change my ways, but I appreciate someone calling attention to it.