I’ve been getting a fair share of critical comments and emails for appearing overprivileged and “jet-setting” all over Europe, which would actually not bother me so much if it weren’t for the fact that neither is true. Contrary to claims made by commenters on my blog, I don’t come from a wealthy family (which is why I qualify for HFAI) so Harvard is pretty much my only claim to privilege. As far as claims go, I have to admit that I’ve got it pretty good, but simply going to an Ivy League school doesn’t make the rest of your life. It’s not like I showed up to Harvard and suddenly, I was given the trust fund I’d always wanted. Before this year, I worked during every summer since age 15 and during every academic term since college began. But after my last job ended in December, I vowed to concentrate more on my writing, so I decided to ditch paid-by-the-hour internships in favor of freelance work and personal projects. I completed my most recent assignment a week and a half ago, in the days between my London and Spain trips. Sure, I’m awfully lucky that I get to run around Europe, but writing remains a huge component of my life and I’m pretty much always working on columns or my manuscript here.

And though this is beside the point, I think I’ve made it fairly obvious that the majority of my time here thus far has been spent in an un-air-conditioned dorm room with my sometimes-suicidal best friend. Her roommates are probably wondering when the hell I’m going to leave. It’s not like I’m rocking out in lavish hotels. I’m essentially a squatter in student housing, not the Marie Antoinette these online snarks are looking to stone. I mean, when I was hungry today, I had to go into the kitchen to steal someone else’s cake and eat it. Seriously.

Anyway, I’m writing this somewhat defensive entry because I find it irritating that there’s a stereotype of Harvard kids as being spoiled brats who have had everything handed to them in life. Certainly, this holds true for a portion of the population, but on the whole, the students here are probably some of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen, and there are plenty of them who aren’t working for money but rather for causes and beliefs that don’t even benefit them. Occasional pretension aside, my peers deserve a lot of credit for that. Of course, plenty of us — even someone like me whose annual family income qualified her for free school lunches back in the day — have had inherent advantages, be they particularly supportive parents or the necessary college prep classes. Still, those advantages shouldn’t discredit the many things we have earned for ourselves. In my case, I think this summer of travel has been well-earned, given the fact that it’s the first leisurely summer I’ve had since … just about ever.

Unlike comments about my sexual history, I take criticism about perceived privilege and exorbitant spending (of other people’s money) very personally. I consider “brat” far more insulting than “slut”, because though I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with sexual appetite, I do think that ignorant wastefulness and entitlement are major character flaws. Besides, the truth is that I do feel bad about not working this summer. I put myself through enough guilt without needing commenters to remind me about it. And this guilt is definitely an irrational manifestation of the capitalistic, work-a-holic system in which I grew up. Why do Americans feel so bad about taking a vacation!

This autumn, it’ll be back to work for me … and it’ll be much more work than usual too. I’m taking the year off from Harvard, and I’ll be the Boston area, close to friends and lover (note: that was singular, not plural). I’m looking for a part-time gig to balance out my freelancing. Having my own hours as a writer is fantastic but at my age, at least, it’s no way to pay the bills on the regular. So ideally, I’d like to be working at a non-profit that deals with women’s issues, LGBT advocacy, or disadvantaged youth. Come September, I’ll be more than ready for real life and the comfort of work. I wouldn’t trade this summer for anything, but I wouldn’t extend it either. Besides, when traveling becomes a full-time occupation, it ceases to be a vacation.

This is a HUGE deal and a very significant increase:

“In a sweeping new financial aid initiative announced today, Harvard said it would significantly reduce the expected contributions from middle- and upper-class families and eliminate loans for all students.

Undergraduates whose families make between $120,000 and $180,000 per year will be asked to pay 10 percent of their yearly income in tuition, the University said in a statement.

The program expands on the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which in 2004 eliminated tuition costs for families making less than $60,000 a year.

In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, University President Drew G. Faust said that the program, which will increase College’s financial aid grant budget by $22 million—more than 20 percent—will be paid for using a variety of sources, including Faust’s discretionary fund and funds from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences… ” — The Harvard Crimson

Long, long day. Kind of a bad day, actually. But it ended with “Friends” and my friends, so I can’t complain about much.

We won 37-6. Snapshots from today:

Harvard-Yale 2007 The Crowd, originally uploaded by lenachen.

Harvard-Yale 2007 Scoreboard 3rd Quarter, originally uploaded by lenachen.

Rushing the Field at Harvard-Yale 2007, originally uploaded by lenachen.

Autumn in New Hope, Pennsylvania, originally uploaded by lenachen.

The Game — as in the granddaddy of college football rivalries — is tomorrow so I’m leaving for Yale today at 5 p.m. with ZAP and my blockmates JB, Terra, and Sue to cheer for the (clearly) better school. Yesterday’s Fifteen Minutes, The Harvard Crimson’s weekend magazine, featured me and three classmates in their list of 15 People FM Wants To See Streak At Harvard-Yale:

6) Matthew L. Sundquist ’09. You may be running uncontested [for the Undergraduate Council presidency], but let’s see you run naked. (Sidenote: another junior has since announced his candidacy)
…
9) The True Love Revolution team, because we can only assume that you guys are getting a lot of exercise, or running around a lot.

10) Lena Chen ’09, because we assume you too are getting a lot of exercise, if of a different kind, and because you have to make a requisite appearance on any list about Harvard nudity.

11) Peter C. “Petros” Shields ’09. The boy can apparently make his body glow.

I’m not streaking (I save that for the biannual Primal Scream) but I’ve always wanted to be on the same list as Petros. Wish fulfilled!

Anyway, I’m not a huge football fan but this is the one time a year when I try to fake it as best I can. It’s also always fun to invade someone else’s campus (especially when mocking its glaringly imitative similarities to your own). Between Penn last weekend and Yale tomorrow, the past week and half has been a veritable Ivy tour.

When I get a chance, I’m posting pictures from my visit to the Social Ivy, which included a jaunt to New Hope, Pennsylvania (see above). I’ve also started to use Flickr again which I gave up on a few months ago because I didn’t see its point if I posted most photos on both Facebook. I think I’ll keep both accounts up since there’s a split between my older/web-savvy pals and my college friends on which service to use. (I actually prefer Flickr but requests for tagging makeme feel more obligated to post photos on Facebook).

I don’t know how I feel about hosting images on my website. It’s kind of cluttery and it’s a THIRD place to upload things. I am literally repeating the same action over and over again. Besides, just getting pictures on my computer itself is a huge pain in the ass and iPhoto runs sooo slowly on my PowerBook. Anyone photo-savvy have advice?

In terms of the New Haven party circuit for Harvard-Yale weekend, it seems like just about everyone I know is going to be at “Foul Play” (hosted by the Phoenix at Alchemy) tonight. I’m actually going with JB to the gay party “The Urge to Merge” at Oracle instead. I haven’t figured out sleeping accommodations yet but I think I’m going to be crashing at Mather’s sister house (Harvard and Yale dorms have sibs). I’d find Currier’s sister but my blockmates are all Mather-affiliated and none of my adopted Quad blockmates are heading to New Haven.

Go Crimson!

… this is how I would feel for him:

“He was the key to an unknown world. That I ended up not really liking the world didn’t matter. Everything in my universe looked new when he commented so oddly on it. No one ever made me question my liberalism before; I didn’t even know I was a cliché. This supposedly shallow man made me rethink my every trusted belief, more so than all my philosophy-major, underground-musician, prankster exes combined. I learned that a poor man is simply a rich man who hasn’t been tested. There’s nothing to brag about in having never lived a certain lifestyle, no matter what you think of the lifestyle.

I used to believe, vainly, that this Nietzsche quote applied to me: ‘Independence is for the very few, [for those] not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness. He enters into a labyrinth, no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes lonely, and is torn piecemeal. And he cannot go back.’ But I was never really lost before. I was never lonely. I had my gang of misfits, and my gang of ideas. They evaporated in the hot light of his cynicism. I can’t call him anymore, and my friends don’t want to hear about him or what he thinks — in the end, they decided he’s too cocky, proprietary, doesn’t recycle. Our love affair was a thrilling voyage into hostile territory, and now I’d returned home — to the things I think, to the things I know — and it didn’t feel like home anymore. I can’t make it in his world — can’t afford it for one thing, don’t like it for another — but I no longer wanted to be in mine. Having fallen into a void, now I was lost, now I was lonely. Now I was free.“

– Lisa Carver for Nerve.com