Tea, Fire and Boredom

Dean’s Date

I have had a remarkably boring Dean’s Date. I had no all-nighters to pull or papers to complete. So I went to bed as any other night and spent the day relaxing. I almost feel a little let down, as the time honored college tradition is to completely lose your sleep and sanity in the days before a major project is due. I may have lost my sanity long ago, but for a completely different reason.

I derive a kind of sadistic pleasure watching other’s frantically complete their projects, essays and other works at the last minute. And there is no shortage of those people around. It’s almost a sigil of honor to state how little sleep you have gotten/are going to get on a given evening. Somehow saying that you aren’t going to sleep tonight is not a sign of hard work, but a mind that is slowly crumbling away under the weight of too much work.

No, I spent my afternoon walking around enjoying the Farmer’s Market and other Dean’s Date celebrations around campus. It’s the last Farmer’s Market until next fall, and I had a chance to get some fresh apples. Living has made me more aware of the concept of a “growing season”, which is more flexible in a place like San Diego. Growing up, the main way I could tell the seasons had changed was that we got off school for the summer.

And because there will be no market again until the fall, I’ll miss out on getting berries and cherries and other summer fruit. It’s odd. Students spend the darkest and coldest parts of the year living on campus, and just as life returns, everyone leaves for home.  I suppose it’s for the best. If students have books to read and equations to study, they would be more likely to complete their work if it is 15 degrees F and snowing outside. (It wouldn’t for me; it would actually make me more likely to go outside. But I still consider snow a rare jewel of winter, not an annoying reality of winter). The days on campus when it’s 80-90 degrees are possibly the most fun and/or disturbing. Hundreds of students, pasty from a winter indoors, go out to enjoy the sun. Those are the days I suspect the least amount of work is done.