JESSICA GIANNONE — Opinions Editor
Alas, another semester of labor begins, accompanied by earthquakes, hurricanes and all. Not usually my idea of a back to school welcoming (but it sounds appealing, right?).
As if the start of another academic year wasn’t enough to handle. While most students are normally keeping themselves occupied with packing, buying books/supplies and moving in, some of us have just been a little more concerned with other things (such as, oh let’s see, our homes).
Though the past events have thrown some of us out of whack (and our stuff, hopefully not a lot of it), we have to adjust, nevertheless, to new weather conditions; the new semester.
So what can we make of this new beginning, after we have been set back a little? Some may be thinking the past occurrences are bad omens (because c’mon, how does Connecticut get an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week, not to mention either one of them, ever?). To others, the disasters are simply coincidences. Regardless of why they happened, they did, and that is that.
So again, what now? We obviously have to make the best of what we have. Do we really have any other choice? (Well, we could just say screw it and go jet skiing in the streets of New Jersey). OK so we’re a little behind, but it’s not like we missed anything.
I remember sitting in my room watching the weather and thinking to myself, “Great, now I have to move in, buy books/supplies, go to classes and work on the paper section in one day. Thanks, Irene!”
I was terrified of the storm, too, imagining the worst-case scenarios. I pictured trees falling onto my roof and crashing into my windows, glass bursting in on me while I was sleeping, or a tornado coming through and ripping my roof off while I’d be getting sucked in like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. (Seriously, I pictured these things). Call it pathetic, call it funny, call it whatever you want. But I was prepared for that hit. I wasn’t, however, prepared for school. To think that would be a little easier to get ready for.
Before, I spent all of my time worrying about the storm. Now it’s the other way around.
But, in all this chaos, we just have to remind ourselves that if we can survive the storm, we can survive the semester, right?
At least some of the worry is gone. I can say that although I had to squeeze all of my three-day responsibilities into 18 hours, at least I still had a room to sit and complain about it in.
I greet the new school year by anticipating some ups and downs, but the persistence to get through it. I say it’s looking mostly sunny, partly cloudy with a chance of papers.