sevenblock
Swarthmore Ampitheater '92
Fall at Swarthmore is a tough act to follow. Students enjoy quite a formative relationship with the campus and the season.
First year, Swarthmore's fall campus is a bittersweet Club Med with sad-colored stone, wet from the rain, combined with newfound freedoms and upcoming wonders. Bording school kids mingle with the regular folks, and scare those of lesser experience with preparedness and tall tales.
Second year, fall at Swarthmore is a seasoned exploration of new faces and a fresh chance at housing, foods, friends, renewal and anticipation. Every sophomore's a tour guide of sorts. A few folks get freaked out and reject the place to leave for a semester .
Third year, it's a counterintuitive escape and recovery from a summer full of pressures, new-found power and gravity with lots of life-changing decisions hiding behind learned pomp and ritual or finely tuned distractions.
Fourth year, Swarthmore is a bittersweet and humbling reflection of smells and sounds- dreamy emotions sealed inside the campus...set against an odd backdrop of a frolicking incoming class. Finding one's small place in the cycle of institution and growth. Looking down the barrel of life after college.
If you happen to be around for a fifth fall on campus, it's a bit lonely- missing your friends and trying not to take advantage of younger minds. Loitering and smoking with the theater guild folks. Smirks mix equally with carefree smiles.
Few students see a sixth fall on campus. You're all alone... but finally, once and for all... you are truly a liberated king of the castle. You have no peers. You park where you want, and you break into Olde Club at night. You make candid and cynical remarks in class without fear. You puncutate your papers like Lavender Mist and end with prepositions. You zestily steal toiletries ...just to make sure it happens. I only know one person who saw six falls at Swarthmore. They spent most of the last fall in a band.
And then, even for the six year student... It's over. Graduated. Gone. Folded into an ever compressed memory, until even six years can be told as four, which can be retold as a resume item. Or an alumni bulletin update.
Quite a place, Swarthmore in the fall. Always wet and grey though... and friends help quite a bit.
Swarthmore Ampitheater '92
Fall at Swarthmore is a tough act to follow. Students enjoy quite a formative relationship with the campus and the season.
First year, Swarthmore's fall campus is a bittersweet Club Med with sad-colored stone, wet from the rain, combined with newfound freedoms and upcoming wonders. Bording school kids mingle with the regular folks, and scare those of lesser experience with preparedness and tall tales.
Second year, fall at Swarthmore is a seasoned exploration of new faces and a fresh chance at housing, foods, friends, renewal and anticipation. Every sophomore's a tour guide of sorts. A few folks get freaked out and reject the place to leave for a semester .
Third year, it's a counterintuitive escape and recovery from a summer full of pressures, new-found power and gravity with lots of life-changing decisions hiding behind learned pomp and ritual or finely tuned distractions.
Fourth year, Swarthmore is a bittersweet and humbling reflection of smells and sounds- dreamy emotions sealed inside the campus...set against an odd backdrop of a frolicking incoming class. Finding one's small place in the cycle of institution and growth. Looking down the barrel of life after college.
If you happen to be around for a fifth fall on campus, it's a bit lonely- missing your friends and trying not to take advantage of younger minds. Loitering and smoking with the theater guild folks. Smirks mix equally with carefree smiles.
Few students see a sixth fall on campus. You're all alone... but finally, once and for all... you are truly a liberated king of the castle. You have no peers. You park where you want, and you break into Olde Club at night. You make candid and cynical remarks in class without fear. You puncutate your papers like Lavender Mist and end with prepositions. You zestily steal toiletries ...just to make sure it happens. I only know one person who saw six falls at Swarthmore. They spent most of the last fall in a band.
And then, even for the six year student... It's over. Graduated. Gone. Folded into an ever compressed memory, until even six years can be told as four, which can be retold as a resume item. Or an alumni bulletin update.
Quite a place, Swarthmore in the fall. Always wet and grey though... and friends help quite a bit.