Chapter 6.8: College Time (And A Special Guest Appearance)

A peculiar thing happens when you enter college. Maybe this is even just part of being on your own for the first time as an adult, but since I've noticed it here at Western, that's my frame of reference. Maybe it's even more noticeable simply because on a college campus there's such a glut of newly free adults. And I didn't notice this phenomenon at first, so sly is it at creeping into your consciousness. But I've come to realize that college has it's own clock and sense of time.

I first noticed this last year on the weekends. I feel incredibly lazy if I sleep past 10 and tried to be up and moving by nine or so. What I noticed though, is that a college campus is incredibly dead before about noon on Saturdays and Sundays. Seriously, it's almost eerie to stroll to the library or even just through the halls of the dorms. It's like Armageddon has happened. Or the zombie apocalypse came in the night and scoured the campus of late night party-goers. On the plus side, this makes it the ideal time to do laundry in a room that you usually need two week advance reservations to get into (well, maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe you only need to book one week in advance ;)).

But, this quarter, I have noticed an even more pronounced version of College Time and have been affected by it myself. I like to refer to this as Time Slide. Because the basic accepted ideas of early and late in reference to time have slid. For me, 10 is still kind of late in the morning to wake up. But 11 at night is still early in the evening. 1 has become the new midnight. And of course there's the odd block of time from about 2-4 where I just want to curl up and take a nap (this is not so much an example of the time slide theory as it is of just college time being wacky).

Perhaps I've slid into College Time because I don't have class until 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays which means that I basically get to live on a modified version of Weekend Time two days a week. Whatever the reasons for it, college time means it make sense to not eat lunch until two or dinner until close to seven. And that even at midnight you can still hear people talking in the courtyard or laughing loudly on the street.

On a completely different note, I now have this guy hanging on my wall:

Look at your calendar, now back to mine, now back to yours, now back to mine. Sadly, your calendar isn't mine, but if you loved Old Spice Guy as much as I do your friend might make you one like mine. Look down, back up, where are you? You're in front of the calendar your calendar wishes it could be. Anything is possible when you have good friends. I'm on your wall. :)