Zach Braff has class

I have a friend. Let's call him Stephen because that's his name.

Stephen and I like to play the schedule game. He always wins. And I don't even think he knows we're competing. It's like having a Facebook photo-off with James B. Duke. The man died decades before the birth of the digital age and he still has more Facebook photos than me.

Stephen's schedule always trumps mine. If I manage no Tuesday classes, he has no Friday classes. If I have take-home finals, he has no finals at all. If my classes are on East, his are in Italy. I can't win.

But Stephen's one year older than me. So I always figured my turn was just on the horizon. Next year in Jerusalem, as they say.

But Jerusalem never met Stephen (probably because he wasn't eligible for Birthright). Year after year my schedule never measured up to Stephen's previous year. Stephen graduated last spring and I'm certain his job has once again given him a better schedule than me. And that's not even possible considering college is the time in your life when 10 hours of class is considered a full load.

For years, I've waited more faithfully for a quality schedule than most Duke students have waited for a Duke football victory against a Division I-A school. By the way, here's an old journal entry of mine I dug up from the last occurrence:

"November 13, 2004. We beat Clemson in football today! It's definitely the first of many wins over my next three years at Duke. But even if we do lose 24 of our next 25 games (yeah right), at least I'll get to see Duke go to a Final Four while I'm here. BTW, Steve has a great schedule for the spring. I can't wait until I'm a sophomore! This Alberto Gonzales guy seems like he has a lot of integrity."

So while my predictive powers of perception were clearly unparalleled as a freshman (somehow I knew about Gonzales months before his nomination), one question still confounded me. What elusive quality did Stephen possess that he perpetually dined on milk and honey while I munched on matzah?

The key theme in all this is the importance of context. It's all that matters at Duke. Really, substance matters very little. Duke is basically a bag of Baked Lays potato chips. It looks like you're getting a lot of chips on the outside, but when you open it, half of it's air.

People (read: my parents) ask me all the time, what exactly is public policy? And I have no idea. I'm going to be honest. I became a public policy major for the Sanford Building. The deli is the "Gilmore Girls" of campus eateries (that's a good thing). After three years, I'm pretty sure a collective action failure involves a PPS 55 class buying out the entire stock of Turkey Cristos. Plus, Sanford's the sweetest structure on campus next to the statue of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen and the camel. The building looks like that M.C. Escher drawing. Good luck if you have a class on the third floor.

But there are many Pratt students who roam this campus completely oblivious to the splendor of social science. Take a minute out of your day to stop and read this column to them. I say "read" because most Pratts only speak three languages: Java, C++ and Klingon. (It's OK. I have a friend who's Pratt.)

So since this week is the last for drop/add, I want you to know that there's still time to change. It's not what class you take, but when, where and for how long you take it. I urge you to look at yourself and your Duke career only as seriously as someone would look at AIDS. The class of course. You know what I mean.

Brandon Curl and ZACH BRAFF are eating together at the Sanford Deli right now.