If you’re going to “officially license” our name, you could at least give credit where it’s due.

I’M JUST SAYING.

We get a lot of crazy people submitting to Harvard FML. Mostly high school students. Who are extremely confused about the fact that Harvard FML is indeed, only for Harvard students.

And then sometimes we get this:

Yeah, so anyway.

Hi everyone! Hope your summers have been grand so far.

Some of you may have noticed that the submission process for Harvard FML is a bit different now. Instead of typing in your FML on the home page, you must now go to a submit page.

Although we realize this may cause some inconvenience on behalf of our readers, our previous method of collecting submissions was a bit glitchy (it was cutting off submissions, not processing submissions all together, etc.) so we had to resort to a separate submit page.

If you’re a computer whiz and can help us figure out a simple way of returning it to the old process of submission-through-homepage, shoot us an email at thehvoicemail@gmail.com.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Eric Balderas ’13 was four years old when he crossed the border. He was detained at a Texas airport this week and, according to the Boston Globe, is currently facing deportation to Mexico.

On Monday, he was detained when he tried to board a plane Boston (where he planned on doing research over the summer). Eric said he had lost his Mexican passport and instead tried to board using his Harvard ID. He was able to board a plane the next day but he awaits a trial in front of an immigration judge.

The Globe notes that our fellow Harvardian was arrested a year after Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard president, urged Congress to support the Dream Act, which would allow immigrant youths to apply for residency (it is a six-year-long conditional path to citizenship after they have completed two years of higher education toward a degree or completed two years of military service). Working off this angle a friend of Eric made a Facebook Support page urging immigration officials to let Eric stay in the only place he can really call home; the page is justly titled Keep Eric Home.

(Video by Daniel Garber ‘13. Accessed May 26th, 2010.)

For someone like me, the phrase “Annenberg card-swiper” conjures up frightening, embarrassing and (slightly) painful memories of being turned away at the door for having forgotten my Harvard University ID for the umpteenth time. For Nolan Pollock ‘13, however, an Annenberg card-swiper named Francine inspires romantic verses.

Earlier this month, attendees of Annenberg’s hot breakfast were treated to an impassioned and dramatic recitation of Nolan’s 4th-winning entry in the Harvard Slam Poetry Competition, entitled “Oh, Francine!” Nolan stood atop a table, bathed in the yellow light of ‘Berg’s Harry-Potter-esque chandeliers, looked into the eyes of Francine and sang her praises in a way that would make Shakespeare proud.

Here are Voice’s favorite parts, even though pretty much every line is quotable.

“As I wait in line for my chance to dine,
All I can think about is making her mine
[...]

Oh, Francine!
For you, I must stop and thank the Dean
You’re like something out of a magazine
When you swipe my card, it’s almost obscene!
[...]

How can you resist my youthful zeal?
What do I have to do? Get down and kneel? (cute kneeling action)
YOU are an orange that I must peel!
[...]

This is not some emotional lie
Know that I am your guy!
I think about you always, in PhySci
I think about you always, in LifeSci
I think about you always, and inside.

Oh, Francine!
YOU, are my Annenberg dream.”

Awwww <3 The procrastination bit is a very nice touch. Extra brownie points for keepin’ it real.

In his response to Voice, Nolan expresses that his biggest fear was “to lose the crowd’s attention,” and he was relieved to find that everyone loved it. Nolan wrapped up his poem amid maddening applause from the ‘Berg crowd. The reaction of Francine herself was priceless. “She gave me a great big hug and a kiss afterward and was apparently talking about it to staff members all day. She even asked for a copy of the poem to show to her kids,” Nolan recalls. I can testify to this because by dinnertime that day, Oh Francine!-related chatters still abounded among HUDS staff in the servery. Also, Facebook reports that Nolan, who is a member of the Harvard Heavyweight Crew, is single, in case anyone was wondering.

Everybody loves a random, cute act of romance in Annenberg. (Remember the dude who asked his girlfriend to the Snow Ball from the balcony, complete with giant poster boards? Those kids are still nauseatingly in love, much to the chagrin of their lovelorn and cynical blockmates. JK!) And this act deserves to go into the history book of the Class of 2013. (Sex on the balcony, proposals from the balcony and slam poetry atop a ‘Berg table. It is a tough job keeping up with this class.)

Voice approves! <3 Almost makes me wish I could wake up in time for breakfast every once in a while.

ETA: The original version of this post misstated the owner of the Youtube video to be Daniel Goldhaber ‘13. My apologies to both Daniels! I blame the 102 degree weather. I really do.

These accounts may or may not be descriptive of real life.

Tuesday 3:48 p.m. Wow, I really need to start packing. They pick up my stuff on Thursday morning, you know? Like I have so much stuff, you don’t understand. It takes up the entire common room. All of it. I have taken over the common room. My belongings. They are the common room.

Wednesday 11:45 a.m. So much for getting anything done yesterday except for watching Kick-Ass online and going to a party that could not have survived on party dialysis. I’m just going to watch a few more episodes of Daria and then I’ll be good to go. I’ll be ready to put on my bandanna and hoist boxes as though I’m out of an episode of Home Improvement. All the characters will be there. In my mind of course, because no one will be helping me on this solo journey. All I have are my neck, my back…cue the song.

Wednesday 6:15 p.m. Going to dinner. Successively watched Daria all day and the movie Trainspotting, which MIND YOU is t.e.r.r.i.f.y.i.n.g. I mean I was bothered. Not hot and bothered. But bothered in a disturbed kind of way. But it did kind of revive the Scottish accent for me. And when I say revive I mean Ewan McGregor is really attractive.

Wednesday 9:01 p.m. Ok, the first cardboard box hath been bottom-taped. Time to begin…

Wednesday 9:04 p.m. My back is throwed. Not thrown. Throwed. #imbeingdramatic

Wednesday 9:35 p.m. DAMMIT I JUST PACKED MY HEAVIEST BOX WITH ALL THE BOOKS IN IT UPSIDE DOWN. I figured the only way to remedy this situation since there was no way in this Wetu-vandalizing age that I was going to unpack that elephant trunk, was to write a short but meaningful apology note in Sharpie on the side of the box with ubiquitous arrows indicating that if you turn this baby over you are going to crush something important. IT MIGHT BE A KITTEN.

Wednesday 9:58 p.m. One of the stacks of boxes has reached the ceiling. I repeat, one of the stacks has reached the ceiling. No, I don’t live in a Hobbit cave. THIS IS REAL LIFE.

Wednesday 10:18 p.m. Who, seriously, has a customized Muppet. In college. At Harvard. Oh wait. I do. #hisnameiscarlos

Wednesday 10:28 p.m. I just found a miniature bowling set sent via a care package from my brilliant mother. No, they are not bowling pins. They are shaped as scared children, that when I ascribe them names and personalities based on their horrified faces I can almost hear the pre-pubescent screams of when they are knocked down by the provided bouncy red ball. Did I spend at least ten minutes bowling with myself and not for Columbine? Yes. I also got the ginger kid every time. I’m like M.I.A. you guys! M.I.A.! #thatvideowascontroversial

Wednesday 10:49 p.m. I don’t know how I can do this for much longer. I have not even started clothes. CLOTHES. I’m still on trinkets. TRINKETS. From my desk, from my Muppet collection, cups, important things like an inordinate number of unnecessary pillows that I justified under the banner of DÉCOR…

Wednesday 11:13 p.m. Did I note that the bandanna is on? Like red, Rosie the Riveter bandanna. It’s on my head. I am perspiring. There is sweat from packing. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to become Doug circa the hit nineties animated series. My closet will consist of the same outfits daily and I will live a minimalist life. Next year when you see me walking around EXPECT A GREEN SWEATER VEST. And whistling, with that chikatapahchikatachikatapapa from the end of the song. You know what I’m talking about. But I’m keeping the television. And the fridge. And…Carlos.

Wednesday 11:27 p.m. Since when did mattress pads take up a whole box? I swear I put it in the box and it started growing like that scene out of Alien where an actual alien punctures through lady lady’s estomach—but instead of a green figurine this was just foam expanding into the stratosphere forever. The only thing that could make this ordeal better were if the cast of Friends showed up and gave me a personal rendition of the Friends Movie that needs to be made (ARE YOU READING THIS HOLLYWOOD? You can make two Sex and the City movies but not ONE Friends movie? I don’t see your logic. Kill it with fire. Etc.)

Wednesday 11:54 p.m. It’s nearly Thursday. They pick up these boxes on Thursday. I am still not on clothes.

Thursday 12:01 a.m. Oh look what day it is. I would submit an FML if I still had a life to F. My life now consists of the sound of tape ripping itself from tape and being stretched onto boxes. It is a horrible noise. It sounds like an animal is dying in this room every 12 minutes, approximately. There are so many boxes in here right now. So many. I haven’t even printed the labels to go on the boxes. This room looks like a play fort from a warped room in Michael Jackson’s house where he would be like “go on little kids run into the room of boxes…foreverrrrr”

Thursday 12:18 a.m. gunfaceboom #help

Thursday 12:48 a.m. Ok, I’m onto clothes. I AM.

Thursday 1:09 a.m. When did I acquire a pink wig? No I’m really not kidding. Where did this come from? Is anyone missing a pink wig? I mean it’s fierce. I may be wearing it.

Thursday 1:29 a.m. So, I wasn’t planning on donating clothes…because I have attachment issues and am apparently a horrible person. But, in lieu of exhaustion and decreasing sentiments of separation anxiety from such items as a True Blood O-positive t-shirt, some of these babies are bypassing the boxes and going straight into the circulation of giving and love. You’re welcome.

Thursday 2:15 a.m. Oh my God the bed has to be re-bunked. (I mean I can’t CLIMB to go to sleep every night, I injured myself in the yoga rotation of P.E. in high school. Let’s get real). Paging all British boys that live below me, a.k.a. one.

Thursday 2:36 a.m. So helpful. So British. So Helpful British. That should be a song. Or a national anthem addition. Maybe they’re being helpful to make up for the taxation thing. #teapartyguilt18thcentury

Thursday 3:04 a.m. I’m nearly done with this. I am basically stripped down to a bikini, bandana, and pink wig, and if anyone across from me can see what’s going on in here they must think there’s a really effed up individual screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show going on but I have reached a level of NO SHAME mixed with APATHY mixed with I KIND OF LIKE THIS LOOK.

Thursday 3:46 a.m. Labels printed. Affixed. Passing out starfish style on the futon. I would pass out on the boxes to be really hardcore and claim them in a territorial manner but that would do nothing but give me further back problems and squish squish squish against Carlos and he doesn’t like that except when it’s September.

Thursday 7:39 a.m. Awake, have to be on call. They come anywhere between 8 a.m. and noon today. So I have to be ready. This is as close to becoming a doctor as I’ll ever be. The whole on call thing. No, no one is injured in here. Except me. I’m injured. Free massages welcome.

Thursday 11:46 a.m. They just called. I’m the last stop. The must have looked at the inventory. I hope they updated it. Because it’s at 29 now. Yeah 29. Ride on that number. Oh my God they’re going to be horrified. I should have bought cool lemonade. Or made thank you cards. Or invited Oprah so she could pop out of one of the vacant side rooms and give everyone a car! But I dreamt big a little too late. Cue JoJo.

Thursday 11:50 a.m. Horror. Their faces are filled with horror. I apologized all the way up the stairs. The whole way. I tried to cushion the blow of what they were about to see. “No, I’m not an international student.” That happened.

Thursday 12:06 p.m. They’re in front of the dorm now after taking out the last item—a huge futon frame. It’s all sitting in front like either a) a garage sale or b) someone just got hardcore dumped from a serious four to five year relationship and had all of their S.O.’s belongings taken outside of the building to display a sense of betrayal and heartbrokenness. But it’s over. IT’S OVER. I have worn out at least half of my vertebrae but at least the bending and snapping is done for at least another 12 hours before I bust that move out at the next opportunity to dance publicly. Now it’s just me and the bunnies of dust. They’re really large bunnies FYI. I was considering naming one Carlos Jr., but he would be mortally offended if his namesake was to go to such a disposable creature…that doesn’t even resemble a bunny #seriouslywhonamedlargeamountsofdustthat?

Thursday 12:07 p.m. I don’t leave for another two days. I have nowhere to sleep. I’m going bond with the runaways in the square. Maybe I’ll get tatted up so I can fit in and survive the streets for the next forty-eight hours. If anyone has ever watched A&E they will know, as I do, that the first forty-eight hours following a crime are the most crucial in garnering evidence.

Start.

Now.

Someone’s VES thesis was a graphic novel. 1. Who is this person? 2. How do I meet them? 3. Why the hell am I in Gov? FML

(Source)

Last Friday, I had the honor of seeing such thesis and the wonderwoman who created it in person. As part of Dunster House’s Senior Theses Series, Mariah Bush, a senior VES concentrator, presented in front of a 20-odd person audience Elite, a graphic novel about a group of elite superheroes that was inspired by her time at Harvard. (We would inspire a superhero story, what with our fighting Gov, Math, five thousand extracurriculars and a horrifyingly non-existent dating culture at the same time. Duh.)

After a good 10 minutes struggling with the JCR door, I finally managed to get in by realizing that I was, in fact, supposed to pull. Just in time to see someone take the last piece of Finale dessert. Great. But I digress.

Usually, a thesis isn’t the kind of stuff that generates excitement. Conan O’Brien wrote a thesis during his senior year at Harvard concerning the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. In his words, “nobody is ever going to care.” That is perhaps putting it a little too harshly. But as I stood outside of Dunster JCR and saw a guy presenting his research project on a bug-eyed insect, I felt like going home (or more precisely, back to my comfy chair in Lamont, where I was cramming for my HAA 1 final the next day).  I’m sure it is all hard work that might potentially turn into something monumental, but it definitely isn’t the stuff I would joyfully jump out of my Lamont chair the night before a final exam and take a shuttle to see. (But I’m also a humanities nerd who’s too lazy to walk to Annenberg, let alone Dunster House, so what do I know?)

(Image: Mariah Bush ‘10 with her senior thesis, Elite – A Graphic Novel)

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From Noice reader “Anon Ymous”:

Title: How my blockmates study.

A: Study is not fun
My attention it does lack
My wish is to sleep

Later…

A:So silly finals
I do not like them one bit
Just give us all As.

Yet later…

A:To my Professors
You are so dear to my heart
Let’s not have exams.

C: I cannot read this.
Where’s my attention span gone?
Time to check email.

A:Finals period:
Full of pain and misery
Please make it be done.

Later…

A: Let’s forget exams,
And I’ll give you my haikus
Won’t that count instead?

C: I’m afraid it won’t.
As much as we may daydream,
We must take exams.

We appreciate reader submissions. Submit your thoughts, haikus, whatever to thehvoicemail@gmail.com. GODSPEED WITH FINALS.

While we were in the first floor reading room finishing an Expos paper due at midnight, we witnessed some shocking, random, and hilarious displays of intense exhibitionism.  Perhaps our Gmail outbox best represents the events in the hour leading up to Primal Scream:

10:52 PM:

There currently is a girl across from me in Lamont who has been taking off article of clothing by article of clothing while studying.  This has taken place over more than a half hour.  She is now down to literally just her underwear.

Nobody has reacted.  I actually don’t think many people have noticed.

Oh, wait…there are multiple girls doing it.

I think, at least five.  This girl across from me is the least afraid and got down to bra and panties first.  But another one just took her shirt off and three more are definitely on their way.

Anybody know what is happening?

Shit, paper due in an hour.  Focus, focus, focus…

Reply:

I think what’s happening is that you’re getting mentally tired and hallucinating what you want to see.

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Did you know that… even universities have Facebook fan pages? Uh, yeah. Does anyone else feel a little weird about this?

#1: Miley Cyrus’s new music video. Homegirl needs to chill and quit trying to be like Rihanna/GaGa/Britney and stick with making music vids in sparkly tunics and leggings. YOU ARE FIFTEEN YEARS OLD*, for Godssake.

*We actually don’t know how old she is, nor do we care.

#2: Tyra Banks pretends she’s rabid. Yeah, exactly what you think it is.