I first met Saumya, in a way, the summer before freshman year. After my class was assigned to residential colleges, the Facebook group "Rocky College-2015" formed, and Saumya, true to her gregarious nature, friended most of the people in it. I think I met Kelly while brushing my teeth, but I'm not quite sure. We lived in the same residence hall, and somehow she became one of my friends there. I did not meet Nikhila, our final roommate, until Saumya suggested the four of us room together. 

As Nikhila and I talked for the first time, we quickly figured out that we would both be spending the summer after freshman year on Princeton's campus, she to work on an independent project with the computer science department, and I to do research with the astrophysics department. On a whim, she suggested we room together over the summer as well, and I agreed. We both wanted to save money, so we found a couple of other students and formed a mini co-op to cook food. (You can see our creations from that summer here.)

The summer was fun, and I was eager to start sophomore year with the four of us together in Holder Hall. It was a busy two semesters, full of problem sets, late night conversations, eager trips to ice cream stores in Princeton and parties to watch Pixar movies. Through all the chaos, I got to know each of my roommates better and to respect them more and more—Kelly for her calm and organized way of handling challenges, Saumya for her unfailingly friendly nature, and Nikhila for her creative and out-of-the-box approach to life.

Junior year has brought us all closer together. My roommates are the people I know best at Princeton, and the people at Princeton who know me best, and I often turn to them for encouragement, advice and inspiration, which they never fail to provide. In one particularly memorable moment, Kelly and Nikhila organized a surprise Valentine's Day party after a busy week in February. I came back to the dorm late on a Friday and found a desk covered with flowers and cookies.

I also found a mug on my desk, which Nikhila and Kelly had hand-painted with a quote from George Eliot: "Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” Nikhila, Kelly and Saumya are my faithful hands at Princeton and will shape my memories of the school for years to come.

I think most students would agree with me when I say that Princeton is an incredibly safe place. Perhaps because the school is surrounded by quiet suburbia and protected by a very visible on campus police force, I had never felt endangered while on campus. But, that all changed on a recent Friday morning.

I lead a Runner Lifestyle because there are times when I need to clear my mind.

Amidst my busy Princeton schedule, it’s easy for me to get stuck in a rut. Although going to class, studying and finishing my assignments are integral parts of the college experience, I feel like I shouldn’t be restricted to this cycle. Sure, coupling in some extracurricular activities and my Mentor and Writer Lifestyles add more dimension to my work. But it is still essentially work—something that requires mental energy.

This mental rut is something I’ve striven to break so that I can get more out of everyday life. Running has helped me do that.

I became a long distance runner four years ago so I could focus my energy on something that wouldn’t tax my mind. People say running is a mental sport, and I agree to an extent. But it requires a different type of mental energy than learning or writing. Each run is a lesson in calming my mind. It’s the epitome of learning from an experience.

Running is a form of meditation for me. I consider it a unique type of catharsis. Compared with mentoring and writing, which draws my attention to other places, running grounds me in the present moment. While some people use running as a time to think, I use running to clear my thoughts. After using my mind to think all day, it’s refreshing to simply think about nothing.

At Princeton, running makes my days come alive. Every day is like a new adventure. Even familiar routes along the Delaware and Raritan Canal become exciting because I venture through them with the knowledge that every day is a new day, and I should appreciate the day for its singularity. Running gives me the opportunity to escape from the confines of my mind and live life.

I would like to share with you the story of how, this past Saturday night, I ended up onstage in a leotard and tie-dye leggings.

As many of you might recall, I began the audition process at the end of last semester for the Center for Jewish Life's annual dramatic production, which I directed. This year, I chose Wendy Wasserstein's "Isn't it Romantic," a coming-of-age story about two twenty-somethings, one a traditional Jew and the other of no religion, as they struggle to strike a balance between independence and love. Auditions went really well, as did the majority of rehearsals.

And then, tech week.  

The show is looking beautiful with all of the lights, sounds, props and set (pictures coming soon!). It is the Tuesday night of tech, two days before opening night, and we are two scenes into a full run-through when... CRASH. Well, one glass prop breaks.

Alright, don't need that one anyway! And we will just pull out the vacuum and—wait, what? Okay, so the vacuum is broken, that's FINE. That's cool. We're creative. We have a roll of tape, we can get the stage mostly clean, right? Back to rehearsal, then.

And then, a knock at the door: "Hello, we have the space reserved from 7-9:30 p.m., there is an event happening in here." Alright, we can work with this... "and dining services will be dropping off food for the event shortly."

Okay, so we'll do Act I and come back, the food can go on the side of the stage. This works. I think...  

And so, we take two hours off and then come back to rehearsal. We are setting up the space to continue the run-through when my lighting designer tells me: "Rachel, something's happening with the lighting board." Long story short, thanks to my wizard of a lighting designer and amazing cast and crew, we somehow get through the day-of-technical-nightmares with one of the most amazing rehearsals yet.

And opening night is beautiful.

But it's not over yet.

Fast-forward to Friday afternoon. Our next show is Saturday night, and I get an email: Oh no. One of my actors is unwell. May not be back for the show. My mind races. Somehow, before sundown that night I have a replacement for the role; luckily it is only a minor appearance in the show. And we're in the clear... or so I think.

Not 24 hours later, all that is calm is erased. Another actor is unwell. This time, a huge role. The show is in two hours. 

But the show must go on.

Fortunately for me, this is a female role. Fortunately for me, I have seen enough rehearsals to recall all of the lines. Less fortunately for me (or, perhaps more), this is one of the zaniest roles I have ever come across. I have to sing and dance and wear crazy clothes... all in an overdone Brooklyn-Jewish accent and with two hours to prepare.

And I did. And I had a great time with it, too. And to think that just a few days before the show, I had felt like everything was over. I'd lost props, rehearsal space, actors, almost the lights and definitely my mind. 

I guess it only goes to show that it's the crazy adventure along the way that makes everything worthwhile.

When most people think of Princeton the town, they think of Palmer Square, upscale shopping and froyo. So. Much. Froyo. What they don’t realize is that Princeton is home to a record store consistently ranked among the top 10 record stores in America.

Princeton Record Exchange, affectionately known as P-Rex, has been selling affordable CDs, DVDs and vinyl since 1980. As you can see in the picture above, the selection at P-Rex is enormous. It’s easy to find something for anyone and everyone. To prove it, I went with my friends Amy, Colleen and Chris.

Amy came to P-Rex with a mission. She and her friend Katherine are starting a Gilmore Girls marathon, and Amy needed to buy the first season. Luckily, she found it almost immediately, and it was $30 cheaper than the normal list price.

At P-Rex, you can find a lot of cult classics and TV shows that were canceled too soon. Colleen would have bought this copy of Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series if she didn’t own it already. Instead, she left it for you! Buy it—it will make you this happy.

When it comes to music, there are more choices than you could ever wish for: jazz, classical, rock, pop, electronic, R&B and more. Many of the CDs are used and can be purchased for next to nothing. Chris picked out Jama Ko by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba.

I went immediately to the record section. P-Rex is one of the few record stores I’ve been to that sells new as well as vintage records. I have a record player at my house in Chicago, so I buy records from P-Rex and then stack them up on a bookshelf in my dorm until I get a chance to bring them home. This one was an exciting find—Days Are Gone by HAIM!

The movie selection is also incredible. I’ve bought some of my favorite movies at P-Rex for $3 each. When we went, there was a little display set up for this year’s award-winning films. Chris and Amy picked out the French film Blue is the Warmest Color.

Basically, a trip to P-Rex is a perfect opportunity to indulge in your obsessions.

A convenient time to buy gifts for friends and family.

And a super fun study break for you and your friends.

Late meal is practically the watering hole of campus; you see everyone hovering somewhere nearby.

You’re seated at a long, sleek hardwood table. There’s a fireplace (alas, purely decorative) at one end. Across from you sits a board of people that controls tens of thousands of dollars. You want a slice of that money.

The setup vaguely resembles any number of reality shows, but instead of looking at Mark Cuban or Donald Trump across the table, you're just looking at the members of the Undergraduate Student Government Projects Board (PBoard). Every week, we meet with applicants from all kinds of groups requesting funds to go toward things as small as pizza or as broad as an entire conference.

Joining the PBoard last spring opened my eyes to what happens on campus. Before, I’d known what was happening relating to my own interests—I could’ve told you who was the latest politician to speak at Whig-Clio, or what sort of theater was happening any given weekend—but beyond that, I had huge blind spots. PBoard has a unique window into the dizzying array of events that occur at Princeton, and I’m continually amazed by the requests that come to us.

You want to go to a rooftop party and stargaze to the sounds of campus bands? We've got one, brought to you by the Princeton Astronomical Society.

How about a giant night market filled with the sounds and smells of East Asia? It's one of the biggest events of the year, organized by the various Asian-American Student Associations.

Would you be interested in attending a conference with undergrads from across the country exploring, debating and discussing prison reform? Or fashion and advertising? Or LGBTQ issues and activism? These are all happening on campus just this semester, and they’re all entirely student organized.

Whenever friends hear for the first time that I’m on the PBoard and I try to explain what we do, most people are perplexed. They ask, “All you’re doing is looking over budgets and numbers, right?” with the clear implication that I must be significantly more boring than they’d thought.

I try to explain how much fun some of our meetings can be. I’ve definitely developed an appreciation for a well-organized line-item budget, but the heart of the meetings is really just talking about events with students. If you ever want a thrill, get somebody with a little-known interest to explain to you why it’s the coolest thing ever. That’s essentially what we ask people to do when they ask for funding.

I couldn’t even tell you how to turn on a soldering…thingy (I don’t even know the word – is it an iron? a gun? a griddle?), but last Thursday when the Maker’s Collective came in with an idea to build a giant water-activated LED panel installation, I got excited to give them as much money as we could because they were so excited to build it.

In my time at Princeton, I’ve come to realize that one of the best parts of meeting people here is figuring out what it is that gets them that excited. Everybody’s intelligent, of course, but what makes this place unique is the opportunity to work and live and study with people who have such varied interests, and that can’t be overrated. The longer I'm here, the more I try to appreciate others' unique and uniquely boundless enthusiasms.

I love to read, but I don't always carry a book under my arm or automatically analyze everything. I have favorite books, but I don't know the ins-and-outs of literature. And that'd always been fine to me. But somewhere in my early time at Princeton, this idea of a true, very best English major crept over my thoughts towards the concentration. I realized the good English major Aliisa is a literary buff who reads 24/7, and who loves to quote and speak extensively about a broad range of authors and niches of literature. And I realized I wasn't her.

Princeton physics classes are hard. In a typical week of lectures, a professor will cover around a chapter of material from the textbook. To accompany these lectures, the professor will assign a problem set meant to solidify our understanding of the material and encourage us to apply it in adept, creative ways. These problem sets require a lot of work. An "easy" problem set may take four hours, a difficult one 20 hours or more.  

Luckily, students are not alone in facing these challenges. Professors are always available at office hours, and it is very common for students to work together on mastering the material. Most physics classes run problem sessions once a week to facilitate this collaboration.  

Problem sessions are run by TAs, graduate students who assist the professor of a course. Usually, the TA will start the session by reviewing the material the class has covered in the past week. This can be quite helpful, because as graduate students, TAs have learned the material more recently than the professor, and therefore remember which topics they found confusing at first, and how they resolved that confusion.  

After this review, students will work together on solving that week's problem set. The TA will stay for a few hours, and we can ask her or him questions when we have trouble. The work is quite collaborative and very enthusiastic. This part of problem sessions is in fact one of my favorite parts of being a physics major. As I talk with other students about the week's problems, concepts that were previously unclear gradually come into focus.  

We also love to work problems on blackboards. There's something about drawing and doing math on a blackboard while talking with others that makes one feel like a real physicist. These blackboards can become quite messy, however, as we realize what we've done wrong and write corrections nearby. I've included some images of problem session work so that you can get a sense of what we do.

 

 

 

I lead a Writer Lifestyle because it helps me live life. However, I don't write about commonplace life, or anything that could be labeled "realistic fiction." I would rather live life than write about it, so I write fantasy.

There have been times that I’ve been criticized for writing fantasy. Some say that I need to grow up and face life, or better yet, just write about life. This view has always confused me, because since my early teen years, I’ve used fantasy writing as a way to enhance my own life experience.

This may sound contradictory. How can I get the most out of life when I’m busy living in my own fantasy world? And who would want to waste their four short years at Princeton living in an alternate reality?

To put it simply, writing fantasy rouses my spirit, my very “essence of being.” Whenever I need to refresh my spirit after tough bouts with reality, I withdraw into my carefully constructed world with all its rich history and diverse cultures. The longer I interact with the fascinating characters, the more I learn from them. Each character is essentially me in some way. Their struggles are my own, but by placing them in fantastical situations, I’m able to create solutions to their conflicts. When I return to reality, I usually come back with new insights about how to fix issues in my own life.

Then the thought comes: I need to write this down. It would be a true disservice to keep this world to myself. Furthermore, my spirit has been so imbued within the framework of this place that I’m essentially a part of it. I can’t let my spirit die, and so I write, hoping that one day my words will touch someone else’s spirit.

Both my Mentor and Writer Lifestyles involve me being somewhere else other than Princeton, but I don’t think I'm wasting my college years away at all. As a mentor conscious of my home community, I have expanded my mind beyond Princeton. As a writer conscious of reality, I have stretched my spirit beyond actuality. My life is better because of both.