No one ever forgets that anxious child-like manner everyone has revealed once or twice in his or her lifetime. Think you’re exempt? Think you are mature and grown up enough? Remember those days of middle school and junior high when you sat at the edge of your desk watching the clock with expressions varying from apprehension to anxiety? “Will that bell ever ring?” That is something we can all relate to, and it was no different as I personally marked each day off of my calendar during finals week. As if the stress of completing (on average) five final projects per day was not triggering borderline insanity already; crossing out the beginning days of May was like watching each grain in an hourglass drop through the miniscule funnel.
By Tiffany Gilbert
Editor-in-Chief
No one ever forgets that anxious child-like manner everyone has revealed once or twice in his or her lifetime. Think you’re exempt? Think you are mature and grown up enough? Remember those days of middle school and junior high when you sat at the edge of your desk watching the clock with expressions varying from apprehension to anxiety? “Will that bell ever ring?” That is something we can all relate to, and it was no different as I personally marked each day off of my calendar during finals week. As if the stress of completing (on average) five final projects per day was not triggering borderline insanity already; crossing out the beginning days of May was like watching each grain in an hourglass drop through the miniscule funnel.
Even the day I packed up my little silver car to journey home for the summer was scheduled and compressed into a time frame. Finding the time to say goodbye to various college friends also presented a challenge, but somehow I did it. Where there are multiple tasks to be completed in only a short period of time, you tend to feel suffocated and restrained as if you’re not in control of your own life.
Summer vacation was my getaway, my paradise away from the cramped, single window dorm room. Did my expectations of summer actually reveal themselves? The answer to that question could pertain to the fact that I am currently sitting at my summer job at a golf course writing this editorial on a forest-green placemat. Sure, I love my job and it will be sad the day I actually have to begin a career and fend for myself in all aspects, but in regards to summer of 2009, when will I get a moment to myself? I anticipated these four months since the end of January and I still find myself trying to meet deadlines for various projects and Setonian work. I assume I expected all hard work to disappear, kind of like the way it used to. All school obligations always ceased to exist at the beginning of June.
Perhaps at first, I had been a bit disappointed at my summer vacation, but when I subtract my summer job and delete my Setonian obligations, the solution equals pure boredom. My alternate plans could consist of me staring blankly at the television for eight to ten hours everyday. For those who know me well enough, I could never sit still long enough to even accomplish that goal, so I’ll nix that thought.
The inconvenience of working six days a week and meeting constant deadlines really is no different from each previous semester that I spent at SHU. Summer at home is a change of environment and as much as I dislike the heat on Mondays and Thursdays when I have to work outside, I am capable of reading an entire book. (Those are slow golfing days). As boring as it is, would I rather be sitting indoors, typing another boring paper as the sun shines and the breeze blows through the window beside me? No. That time would drag on and on and it would be pitiful for someone to even watch me do that.
As busy as I am now, I may as well make the most of it, because come fall when it is cold and rainy and I have seven projects and four papers due each week, I surely will be wishing I am back on the green grass reading a lengthy book in the breeze. Even as mad as I was last week when the Geek Squad took my laptop (and still has not given it back) when my battery, wireless internet, and graphic card decided to fail simultaneously, that catastrophic occurrence in my life is now something I can brush off of my shoulder…at least in comparison to the two dreaded semesters of my upcoming senior year.
I can still be hopeful that I can miraculously score a day off of work, kind of like when you anticipated snow days in elementary school so you could spend the whole day sled riding. I can still wish that my boss calls to tell me the golf leagues cancelled tonight. And I think to myself, “Will that phone ever ring?”