The penultimate day
5.14.09
When I arrived on campus this morning, things seemed different somehow — expectant, perhaps.
There’s a sign warning motorists on Park Street that construction will begin on University Avenue on Monday, but, um, unless I’m missing something, University Avenue is already a big series of holes and large construction equipment. As of Tuesday at least, the big W that’s made of flowers that sits on that little slope in front of Humanities was covered by a really large tarp, but I assume that it will be fully planted and blooming for commencement exercises, which run tomorrow through Sunday. The cow sailboat debuted at the Union last week, and, if you’re not fully up to speed on other campus developments, Union South can’t even aspire to being a pile of rubble. It’s more like the Wide, Open Space Formerly Known as a Pile of Rubble.
What really struck me, though, was the human element. I suppose that some (many?) of the students have finished their finals already and have gone home. (I asked Sean the other day if there was, indeed, an exodus of “unnecessary” furniture and belongings from the Southeast Area res halls last weekend when Housing had asked parents to move things out early, but he said he hadn’t really noticed. Sheesh. You’d think he would have noticed something resembling move-in day, but then again, he said that Tony’s parents had come to take the little couch that had been sitting under Tony’s lofted bed, and they actually unlofted his bed while they were there — but Sean had slept through it.)
Those students who remain on campus seemed, this morning, to be marching solitarily toward their destinations with airs of resolve and zombie-like determination, or maybe I’m confusing the demeanor with that of deer in headlights. And for one guy, stumbling off of Langdon, it was an air of pure fog.
Tomorrow Sean will join the ranks of those who have finished their finals and gone home. Today, though, he has three finals and then goes right into the dress rehearsal for the show that he’s in.
It would hard to pull out a bigger cliché, but I’ll do it anyway: I can’t believe that Alex and I will pull up to Chad in our minivan tomorrow at 9am to move Sean out. We’ll have made it. Sean will have made it. Whether he managed to pull off that A or B that he needed in French in order to pass ‘Go’ and collect his 17 retroactive credits; whether he remembered to thank his music theory prof for allowing him to take his final early because it conflicted with his dress rehearsal tonight; whether he thought to say goodbye to his house fellow; whether he took the time to have a poignant moment with Tony to say, once again, how they feel so lucky that they were randomly matched up as roommates (because the matches could always be a lot worse)… all of that will be behind him. As the croupier in Casablanca so famously said, “Les jeux sont faits.”
There’s a sign warning motorists on Park Street that construction will begin on University Avenue on Monday, but, um, unless I’m missing something, University Avenue is already a big series of holes and large construction equipment. As of Tuesday at least, the big W that’s made of flowers that sits on that little slope in front of Humanities was covered by a really large tarp, but I assume that it will be fully planted and blooming for commencement exercises, which run tomorrow through Sunday. The cow sailboat debuted at the Union last week, and, if you’re not fully up to speed on other campus developments, Union South can’t even aspire to being a pile of rubble. It’s more like the Wide, Open Space Formerly Known as a Pile of Rubble.
What really struck me, though, was the human element. I suppose that some (many?) of the students have finished their finals already and have gone home. (I asked Sean the other day if there was, indeed, an exodus of “unnecessary” furniture and belongings from the Southeast Area res halls last weekend when Housing had asked parents to move things out early, but he said he hadn’t really noticed. Sheesh. You’d think he would have noticed something resembling move-in day, but then again, he said that Tony’s parents had come to take the little couch that had been sitting under Tony’s lofted bed, and they actually unlofted his bed while they were there — but Sean had slept through it.)
Those students who remain on campus seemed, this morning, to be marching solitarily toward their destinations with airs of resolve and zombie-like determination, or maybe I’m confusing the demeanor with that of deer in headlights. And for one guy, stumbling off of Langdon, it was an air of pure fog.
Tomorrow Sean will join the ranks of those who have finished their finals and gone home. Today, though, he has three finals and then goes right into the dress rehearsal for the show that he’s in.
It would hard to pull out a bigger cliché, but I’ll do it anyway: I can’t believe that Alex and I will pull up to Chad in our minivan tomorrow at 9am to move Sean out. We’ll have made it. Sean will have made it. Whether he managed to pull off that A or B that he needed in French in order to pass ‘Go’ and collect his 17 retroactive credits; whether he remembered to thank his music theory prof for allowing him to take his final early because it conflicted with his dress rehearsal tonight; whether he thought to say goodbye to his house fellow; whether he took the time to have a poignant moment with Tony to say, once again, how they feel so lucky that they were randomly matched up as roommates (because the matches could always be a lot worse)… all of that will be behind him. As the croupier in Casablanca so famously said, “Les jeux sont faits.”
