HARRISBURG, PA – Harvard Senior and Comparative Literature Concentrator Michael Beyer spent at least four hours talking about his senior thesis at Christmas dinner in order to avoid talking about the presidential election with his close friends and relatives. In fact, Beyer spoke about the thematic variations between the works of Guy de Maupassant and Mark Twain for so long, that he was able to make it to his second piece of pie without a single passive aggressive comment about "grabbing the ham by the pussy."