Flashes of Panic

The CS department is sufficiently removed from the main campus that we get more than a little detached from the ebb and flow of the university. Some of my GA work, though, requires me to visit campus and use what I dubbed the “top-secret lab” in the basement of one of the dorms. I went by today, and even the incessant rain hasn’t reduced the traffic. Yesterday was one of the last days of exams; all the undergraduates except seniors and a subset of athletes are now headed home. Since many seniors live off-campus, this means the dorms are emptying out, and there’s a gridlock of SUVs, small vans, and other cargo-haulers in the residential sections.

I barely know any of them, only the ones who were in my labs, but I know what it’s like to close the door on an apartment for the last time. I think you have to be young to do that every year for four years; I don’t think I could bear it, now. Even without the rain, I think it would have a tinge of sadness to it.

Then again, I didn’t spend the last eight months in one of those cramped concrete caves. Perhaps if I had, I’d be seeing a taste of relief in all the activity as well.

Now Playing: Crashin’ In from The Charlatans by The Charlatans