I’m a Nerd. And let me be clear, I’m not one of those fake nerds who loves to play video games and wears intelligent-chic glasses. I’m not an adorkable Zoe Deschanel-esque Quirky GirlTM who loves cats and is “sooooo nerdy omg!” I’m a Nerd with a capital N. My nerdiness cannot be reduced to endearing idiosyncrasies. It consumes me. I study with the same rigor for S/NC as I do for letter grades and compulsively annotate to the point where I might be writing more notes than there are words on the page. You can find me in the throes of my affliction every day in the main room of the Rock because I’m not only a Nerd, but also an exhibitionist.
Needless to say, my habit has resulted in many hours spent in the library, and I’ve grown fond of the place. The Rock and I have been through a lot together: problem sets, essays, caffeine addictions, caffeine withdrawals, caffeine relapses. We have a committed relationship. I no longer get butterflies when I see the Rock. That passion faded long ago in freshman year. But over the course of my college career, the Rock has been my rock, so to speak.
I feel very territorial over the main room of the Rock. I’ve spent enough time there to really stake my claim. I deserve—or at least feel entitled to—the glory of natural light and high ceilings in the main room. I refuse to settle for less and submit to the doodle covered desks in the claustrophobia-inducing stacks. As midterm season hits its stride, the kids who haven’t stepped foot in the Rock all semester infiltrate my beloved library to cram for exams, and take up the limited spots in the main room. Last Saturday morning, I took my sweet time in the Ratty to revel in the luxury of brunch and sauntered over to the Rock a little past noon. Apparently I didn’t get the memo that everyone decided to skip the hangover and hustle to the Rock at the crack of dawn. To my horror, the main room was filled to the brim, and I had no choice but to leave defeated.
Luckily, I have friends who are not crippled by an arbitrary allegiance to a specific room on a specific floor of a specific library. They suggested I loosen my iron grip from the main room to go explore College Hill’s other libraries. It felt wrong to abandon the Rock, but my only other option was to descend into the fiery pits of the absolute quiet room, or worse, literally anywhere in the SciLi. Hesitantly, I took the quick, one-block-long jaunt down from the Rock to study at the Athenaeum.
As I approached the Athenaeum, I was relieved to see it had a grungy stone façade that was very similar to the Rock. But when I entered the building, I was shocked to find myself in what I can only describe as a Wes Anderson wet dream manifested as a library. The symmetry of the interior shelves seemed made for a slow motion wide shot. The natural rays of light streamed through the skylight windows and illuminated the warm hardwood floors and pristine white columns of the floor to ceiling bookshelves. It was utterly divine. It was a Nerd’s paradise.
I was thrilled to work in such an astonishingly beautiful library. I sat down at a vintage desk that struck the right balance between antique heirloom and practical utility. While surrounded by my personal cove of books, I felt overcome with library envy. I was shocked that my supposedly pretentious, elite university didn’t boast such a gorgeous, picturesque library for young intellectuals to get off on their seamless syntheses of esoteric musings and theories. Ironically, as I sat in a utopian study space, I was too distracted by the beauty and my jealousy to actually get any work done. I left with a blank problem set and an aesthetic shot for Instagram.
Embarrassed and begging for forgiveness, I retreated back to the main room in the Rock feeling guilty for ever straying. I felt ashamed that I fell for the slick charm of a pretty library. I was so vain. The beauty of the Rock lies below the surface in its authenticity. It’s a product of architectural brutalism, and its jail-like cement block walls seem quite appropriate for the academic struggles that occur there, deep in the basement in the early hours of weekday mornings. From this point on, I promise to never fool around with other libraries. Full disclosure, I still work at Dave’s Coffee every once in a while because I look fucking intellectual as hell when I’m posted up there on that hip minimalist bench with a nice hardback book and a black coffee. But other than that, Rock, baby, you’re the only one for me.