April 27, 2004

Blogging your way to free housing at NYU. Wasn't there always a story about an NYU student living in the library? I remember hearing such a tale when I went to NYU Law School (yeah, I know, it's "School of Law") back in 1978. So now it's front page news that someone is using the old technique of living in the stacks. Why? Because the school found out about it, through the student's weblog ("on line journal"), and now is giving him a free room in a dorm. (And other students struggling to pay the bills must be thinking, damn, why didn't I think of that?) I tried going to the web address given in the Times: http://homelessatnyu.com/home.php, but there was nothing there. (Wait, he had his own domain? Why didn't he have to use blogspot??)
As he put it on the Internet, where he has spent four or five months recounting his adventure, it was "the tale of a penniless boy and his quest to gain a college education." He said he took refuge in the library after being denied adequate financial aid, and described himself as "a furtive figure amongst dusty stacks of books, below the offices of the elite administrators of the university."

Could it really be true?

That is hard to say.
Hmmm.... he is a "creative writing major." Fiction writers deserve to get paid or to get their grants or whatever. He did engage the other students with his writing. What did you do, you other students who are struggling to pay your expenses?

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