As you could tell from last week, I’m on a reflecting bender, which is something I like to call a reflender. But this week it’s turned into a productive exercise in my literacy. I did it. I read Things Fall Apart. I chillaxed with Okonkwo, finished up my Freshman Reading Project, only, approximately, 1369 days late, give or take. Again, since I’m on a roll in the spirit of reflending, Okonkwo and I have decided to tell the story of how things fell apart in my life, also known as “Freshman Fall.” We shall tell this story through a series of quotations that I found particularly illustrative from the book, quotations that did not make me sad when I hadn’t read the book before, because, in fact, it is the worst book ever written.

Since Cornell’s New Student Reading Project started eight years ago, it has been a rite of passage for all Cornellians –­­ akin to the swim test, climbing the 161 steps to the clock tower and finding that elusive apple vending machine in Plant Sciences. Last year’s incoming class read Lincoln at Gettysburg, by Garry Wills, and the 2009 selection is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Just as Lincoln at Gettysburg was assigned in time for Lincoln’s bicentennial celebrations, the themes discussed in The Grapes of Wrath echo the economic climate today.