Dear Campus Crawlers, 

For some reason, parents only show up at Penn when the leaves start to die and clog Locust Walk in big, sodden clumps in the freezing sky-piss that God reserves especially for the fall.  We all know that the season wouldn’t be nearly as bad if it were possible to cross campus on rainy days without a rowboat, but as the nice people on College Green informed us, “Worship Jesus or Perish.”  Looks like all the naked keg stands with those 17-year-old pre-froshes are starting to catch up with us.

But so goes the cycle of the seasons, one of the most important component circles in what my personal philosopher once so elegantly deemed the “Circle of Life.”  Different cycles hold sway in other arenas, but in all walks of life, things come and go, and we are always traveling forward through the ebb and flow.  The life cycle.  The menstrual cycle.  The spin cycle. Recycling.  Everything is connected in a beautiful web of interlocking elements, of yin and yang, socks and shoes, Uggs and Great Neck (ZING!).

Another respected cycle, and perhaps one of the most prevalent here on campus, is the information cycle.  Four years ago, we consumed everything Penn had with bright, unspoiled eyes and the fresh souls of (technical) virgins.  Many empty bottles and bedfellows later, we come to find that not only do the old hook ups pop up around campus with the vengeance and inevitable regularity of a bitter winter, but the same stories begin washing up with equally awkward feelings.

Look around, upperclassmen.  Do you feel that itching sense of déjà vu?  Everything you see has happened at least once before, if not multiple times, and the eeriness of repetition, the inescapably bizarre sensation of facing the past in the present is enough to drive a man mad.  It’s really a good thing that it’s too early to die a tragic, artistic death.  Maybe next year.  If I’m good.

It is natural to begin anew with a fresh batch of experiences every four years or so, but the tragic thing is discovering that the Penn Universe is a limited constellation, with high walls keeping out most of the rest of the Milky Way.  Unless that other star is a gigantic, flaming ball of urban violence.  Those get through just fine.

The point, however convoluted with writery ostentation, is that it would sometimes be nice to be able to stick your head over the ivy fence once in a while.  Screw Malinowskinaya or Murderscankia or whoever is on trial for murder.  Does anybody even know her?  I may not be an Upton Sinclair, or even a skinnier, more alcoholic Thomas L Friedman, but certainly there’s something more to be had than this thinly connected “Penn” story. 

We’re in West Philly.  Have a beer at Natalie’s and deal with it.

Andrew Pederson

Comments

---

Post a Comment

Name:       Title:

Email Address:

Security Code:
Comment: (XHTML is allowed. Innapropriate material will be deleted.)