Hello All!
First things first. I had a very odd and typically Princetonian experience today. I woke up around 9:30, assuming that I could get to the Creative Writing open house I wanted to check out by the time it started, at ten. My first mistake was that I spent time arranging one outfit only to look outside and find it pouring down rain. So I picked another outfit and set out, still with plenty of time, at 9:45. Feeling slightly cocky at my success in navigating the campus yesterday, I decided to take a shortcut. Now, I've seen more movies than the average person and I know that in all the more dramatic instances of life it is a BAD IDEA to take a shortcut unless you've lived somewhere fifteen years or more. Nonetheless, I was hopelessly lost in the engineering quad before I stopped to think and reflect that maybe this had not been the best idea.
By this time it was 10:04 and I wasn't horrendously late but I knew that I should find 185 Nassau as soon as possible and hope that I hadn't missed too much of the presentation.
I broke through the scientific hell of badly planned buildings and emerged onto Nassau St. to discover that I had overshot my goal by two blocks. I trudged back, cursing the delectable mix in my genes between my mom's terrible, almost constantly contrary sense of direction and my dad's I-Need-No-Map-Because-I'm-Never-Lost approach.
I quickly found the James M. Stewart (took me longer than I care to admit to figure out who that was) Theater and went in to discover proceedings not very far under way. I found a seat in the back between two professor types and listened excitedly as Professor and poet James Richardson discussed the course offerings and how to go about getting into them. I was comfortable, dry, and had enough leg room, so I didn't think much about the people on either side of me before James Richardson introduced them (as part of a general staff introduction) as Joyce Carol Oates and Jeffrey Eugenides.
!
Needless to say, finding myself seated between one of Princeton's famous names and one of my own personal favorite Pulitzer-winning writers was a highlight of the day, as was signing up for courses with my adviser. This semester I am taking 1) Molecular Biology 101B, From DNA to Human Complexity, with Bonnie Bassler, winner of a genius award, 2) Religion/Women and Gender 328, Gender, Desire, and the Body: The Islamic Tradition, a course on the roles of men and women in historic and modern Islam, 3) French 221, The Rise of France: French Literature, Culture, and Society from the Beginnings to 1789, which my adviser recommended I take in lieu of an easier course, and the one I'm most excited about 4) English 133, Princeton University Reads, in which we'll read novels written by current faculty members and then have them in to discuss them!

And now back to our riveting tale.

Day Two in Gangland
On our second day in Trenton we awoke at 8:45 and ate breakfast in the spacious but somewhat dilapidated basement kitchen. Honey Nut Cheerios tasted strangely out of place in this new location, but they woke me up, as they used to do at home. The group was still pretty much silent at this point, awkward at meeting so many people at once and being transported somewhere entirely foreign. This was not long-lived however, when we met Pastor Karen, a very open, warm, Latina who ran the church and it's community center, and Linda, her assistant, who sort of reminded me of someone from the faculty ghetto at home (think Birkenstock's). They told us the history of Trenton and the afterschool program that we would be helping with. Then I spent the rest of the morning cleaning out a supply closet with a girl from San Francisco and discussing my, surprising for a playwright, ambivalent/hate attitude towards Shakespeare (I love him in theory but not in practice).
After a lunch of ham and cheese (YUM.) we began painstakingly tying little ribbons through the sides of 1000+ fliers to be hung on doorknobs in the not so great surrounding area. These fliers advertised the Back to School Event and Carnival, two events that we oversaw during the week. One of the highlights of my day was walking around in a group of three and hanging the fliers, mostly because it reminded me of my dad's stories of his youth when, because of the heat, everyone would sit outside and listen to their radios in the dying light. Additionally, I got babyed. Not as in, "Hey, Baby, shake that thang," but rather, "Nobody lives there no more, Baby," from two older women as I attempted to hang a flier on their neighbor's doorknob. To be madamed and babyed in the same summer is a goal everyone should aspire to.
The Trenton YMCA, where we ordinarily shower when on this program, was closed when we finished so we drove back in to Princeton for my first shower in their dorms. It felt really great. (And they're still awesome; it wasn't a dirt thing.)
We rounded off the day with a barbecue at another group's cite (a squeaky-clean church in a lovely area of town) followed by more games and bonding, this time until 1:30 in the morning.

to be continued...