After a group of people in striped shirts teamed up with Duke last week to beat our men’s basketball team and depress the hell out of me, I decided that it’s time to take a look at this campus through rose-colored glasses. It’s time to consider the small pleasures that come with going to this university.
Like, for example, when someone falls off their bike. I saw a guy attempt to peel around a corner on his bike during a thunderstorm once, and I thought to myself, “There is no way the laws of physics will allow this man to continue upright.” Sure enough, he goes flying. That’s the kind of thing that makes your heart smile, like your first true love or a cup of warm soup on a cold, blustery day.
I’m going to get some letters for this one, but I stand by it: The Diner’s breakfast, which I woke up in time for while I lived on the campus perhaps twice, is delicious. Eggs and sausages and the waffles with the little Terrapin, hands on turtle hips. I couldn’t get enough of that stuff.
Speaking of the dining halls, how about when your underclassman friends have meal points left over and you score free food? For that matter, it’s any of the free food you can get on this campus – and there’s a lot of it. I’d like to personally thank the honors program for all the ice cream, the Society of Black Journalists for the pizza and the North Hill Community for the free barbecue. Am I a black honors student living on North Hill? No. Am I hungry? Hell to the yes.
Small victories. Like waking up to an e-mail from your professor saying class is canceled and going back to sleep. It’s like your own mini-snow day. For that matter, it’s any of the snow days we get. The day afterward – when it’s actually snowing and we don’t get our classes canceled – not so much. But the snow days themselves are awesome. And yes, I wear my pajamas inside-out and you should too.
It’s having an independently run student newspaper so when a university department is more messed up than Rihanna’s face (the Department of Transportation Services), we can talk about it without worrying. If someone needs to be called out, we can do it. David Allen. Dan Mote. Gary Williams. Nariman Farvardin, for whatever he does. Rob Gindes. Wait a minute. Let’s move on.
And how about all the fun traditions here? Today I saw someone walking toward the “point of failure” and asked myself this question: If the guy got close enough, would I sprint up and tackle him before he ruined his academic career? I thought for about .0002 seconds. Of course I would. And I rub Testudo’s nose every day, especially the one outside the alumni center, because he gets absolutely no love.
A few months ago, someone told me my columns are always too negative, but truth be told I’m pretty happy. Maybe housing sucks, maybe the economy’s in the crapper and the job market’s worse (plus, I’m in journalism so I wasn’t going to be anything but impoverished anyway). But sometimes it’s nice to think about all the fun stuff.
Next week: Back to why I hate everything.
Rob Gindes is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at gindesdbk@gmail.com.
