But, being on a major college campus during the transition from summer tranquility to the busiest time of the year comes with no shortage of aggravations. Like the first cool breezes that foretell the arrival of autumn*, the precursors show up about a month in advance. Advanced orientation begins for incoming students, and one starts to see guides walking around campus holding large numbered placards, trailing several dozen lost looking former high schoolers, still sporting the latest styles of their home town.
By two weeks before school, college-sponsored camps and programs begin, and traffic around campus starts to pick up. The organized orientation groups are replaced by family groups, the parents regaling their kids with outdated wisdom and stories of past college glory. A short round woman and her short round son** stopped me in the student union a couple of weeks ago, and she demanded to know if there were anything to eat in the building besides McDonalds and Einstein Bagels.
Me: "Sure. If you go through that door there is a place where you can get a built-to-order salad or sushi."
Them: (blank stare)
Me: "Further on there are plate lunches, po-boys, and other sandwiches.
(crickets)
Me: "You will also find Panda Express, Chick-Fil-A, ..."
Her: "OH THANK GOD!"
And they wandered off without another word. This is a pretty typical -- and thankfully not that common -- interaction. For the most part it's people meandering from one side of the sidewalk to the other, or stopping dead in a group in the middle of a hallway, squinting at their phones.
Next comes rush week, generating hordes of identically dressed hopeful Greeks-to-be. The surreality of the whole thing is evident in the array of Hawaiian shirts, jerseys, and whatever other ridiculous garments the participants are required to purchase and wear. This is also when it starts to get hard to get a meal or cup of coffee on campus.
The green flag drops on move-in day, when every street on campus is infested with bumper to bumper Suburbans and U-Haul trailers packed with more crap than will ever fit in a dorm room. Crosswalks become kill zones, and the exhaust from a thousand idling SUVs provides the little extra push to turn the humid August air into toxic steam you can breathe. On the plus side, I am thinking it could give me superpowers.
After a month of this, the actual start of classes is almost a relief. Almost. Traffic now backs up several miles from campus, and every sidewalk and passageway is filled with students in a great hurry, most going the wrong way. I won't leave my office for at least two weeks, and it will be a month or so before Thirsty Thursday infects the rest of the calendar, and attendance drops by a quarter or so. By the middle of October, enough students will have stopped going to class that I will be able to walk the campus again. I might even be able to get lunch if I don't go between 11:00 and 3:00. By February, many will be back in their home towns or working full time at Chili's, and I will be looking forward to summer.
*Which won't actually show up here for another two months.
** Seriously, I thought they might be Weebles.
If the US were a civilized nation, you could take the month of August off... and bump sweaty armpits with throngs of Europeans on holiday somewhere even hotter than your hometown.
ReplyDeleteMade the mistake of attending a technical workshop at THE Oversized State University in my part of the world during the first week of classes one year. Threatened the professor who organized the workshop with elimination of all future funding if he ever did it again... i think he heard me.