It’s Week Four: Some of you freshmen may have just gotten your first D on a paper (ever) while others may have been too preoccupied with learning the Buffalo Shuffle to care.
Be you a freshman or a veteran Lancer though, the daily grind of 8
a.m. classes or even that senior seminar class available only in a three-hour marathon every Tuesday night, must have taken its toll.
Surely, the cream of our youth is more than debates of how Immanuel Kant can’t even? Our life certainly amounts to more than Power-Point slides and term papers cited three different ways.
On your way to D-Hall yesterday, you were barraged with all that Longwood has to offer to supposedly remedy your rote existence: something quite close to the 200 clubs and organizations listed on the Student Involvement page. Not to mention, all those tables for the local employer showcase for the more enterprising amongst us.
You may even have seen yours truly running between booths hosting his fraternity brothers, DJs making noise for WMLU, and, yes, even amongst the writers of this very publication.
In some way since I transferred here some four odd years ago, I found myself to be on either the board or staff of all these organizations. Somehow, between hosting three different shows, writing for this column, shooting the breeze with my brothers, training for a 5K and Crossfit, running amok administratively, writing a thesis, watching Adventure Time with my permanent roommate, stocking 40s at the local pharmacy…oh wait.
I crawled into bed at 3:38 a.m. last night. And the night before that. And the night before that.
While I can’t deny that I love this community and that these clubs and organizations have given me more than I knew to ask for, I can’t help but wonder if I had just opted for a rat race instead of a life of monotony.
Isn’t youth about serendipity and discovery? Where did the time go for late night runs to the Richmond Dunkin Donuts with my brothers? Whatever happened to the art of making Saturday brunch and having a mug of tea too?
I can’t even remember the last time I sat down to read a book of poetry or written a sonnet on my love-hate relationship with being an immigrant. I mean, shouldn’t I make time for this since I signed up for college to become a poet?
Somehow, in the midst of the work that we have signed up to do academically or in our community involvement, we have to remember why we are here.
And maybe it’s not too late to make time for that – at least, before I graduate.
