Dear Hopkins,
I know, I know, I know. It’s not you, it’s me.
I should have tried harder. I shouldn’t have squandered my time as if I was immortal, browsing Tumblr and bad comedies when I had those differential equations to solve. I should have been smarter with my choices: less Ben and Jerry’s, more lettuce; less pseudo-philosophical discussions with potheads, more student organizations; less shopping at Towson Town Center, more office hours; less I-don’t-care, more How-shall-I-make-the-most-out-of-college.
You should understand though that when I say I hate you, I mean I hate my Hopkins.
There are about five thousand students here and I’m sure everyone has their own Hopkins. Some of those mini-Hopkinses must be illuminated by the radiant glow of absolute, profound knowledge. I guess I envy them a bit, since my Hopkins is more like a game of hide-and-seek with inspiration.
Some Hopkinses may be happier Hopkinses, with a better balance and easier laughter, while I am going back and forth between extremes. All of these microworlds, like beads and pebbles in a kaleidoscope, swirl and twirl to define and redefine JHU as we know it. However, you are my Hopkins, my shambles and my blunders, my dreams and desperations, all so overdramatic and so mine.
I hate my Hopkins like a sip of burning $1 Uni Mini coffee for a November all-nighter.
You are the, “We regret to inform you that” from organizations you were not sure you wanted to be a part of or people you thought were “special,” whatever that means. “We regret to inform you are not that… anything really. I am sorry your genes combined in such a way. Good luck with your future. You’ll need it.”
You are the him with her or them with them. You are all of these people who ask about grades all the damn time or a “B+” that stings like a “C-,” because of all the effort you put in.
You are dirty Baltimorean streets with dead rats and/or men who ask if you and your Mum are French lesbians.
You’re the friends who slowly fade out of your life, until there is nothing but an awkward “Hey” left. You’re learning the meaning of “lonely” after your family and friends are too far away to help you to be bold. You’re deadlines and sticky fraternity floors, you’re when you ask yourself, “Is this it? Is this as good as it gets?” because everyone says it’s supposed to be the “time of your life.” You are a crippling uncertainty and chaos of “not having it together.” Nice guys, who you would want to like but can’t, or stupid organic chips from Char Mar. Cold winds and reading about 4-cyclohexene-whatever. Locking yourself out of your room. “Someone has checked out that book.” The depressing saccharine sweet of sororities. Trying to help a friend and failing. Dropping a difficult class. No food being allowed in the library. Anti-abortion protests. “I can’t, I have to dissect 78 gummy bears for Thursday’s class.” Messy rooms. Snoring roommates. Construction. And the snooze button. Again.
I hate you, Hopkins, I really hate you and now you know why.
But wait, Hopkins. Don’t leave just yet.
You dazzle with opportunities and inspire actions. Actions, not words.
You are getting lost in the library just for the smell of old books. Nabokov, Kafka, Plath, Joyce, Biophysics, Tarkovsky, Fellini, C++, Leibniz, and more, and more, and more. You’re how I can be anyone, go anywhere, learn anything. You’re inside jokes and the illegally blurry view of the starry sky from an illegal Hopkins rooftop. You’re talks without censorship, without leaving out sex, violence or politics. You are before some of us turn Republican. You’re our petitions against Intersession fees. You are, “I’m starting a company, you should wife me up.” You’re sketch comedy shows and chocolate pancakes from wonderful RAs.
You’re gradually getting crazy about each other at the same time. You’re style and energy and change. You are hipster professors or ridiculously attractive TAs. You are stopping a moment to look – to see, to remember – how beautiful Hopkins is by night. To preserve, to steal for yourself a part of the light that illuminates the quad. You are loving your sisters and, to hell with it all, sisters of all the other sororities, too. You’re how good it feels to be smart among intellectual equals. It’s an “august institution” (in Professor Aronhime’s voice) and fine, I’ll admit:
I love you, Hopkins.
I love your marble stairs and having dates with challenging problems or nerdy suitors. I love how you accept me with everything that I am or trying or even pretending to be. I love what it means to get an A here. I love FFC cookies and, of course, the freshly squeezed orange juice. I love the Hut, hopping over construction, and going swing-dancing. I love the time “I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins” and the time I got kicked out of the Tutorial Project. I love my witty, crazy, wrecked up friends. I love how I can change my mind here and then change it again and again. I love the possibilities, the rigor, the people, the freedom. The really important kind of freedom, that, according to David Foster Wallace, “involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” It is when you’re trying that everyone around tries, too. It is when you love Hopkins that it loves you, too. When you have the courage not to dream it, but be it – organize it, redirect it, redefine it, apply, establish, change, decide – you have understood Hopkins. And Hopkins, I promise, will understand you, too.
Love,
Me.
