notes at the start of a difficult day

i sometimes forget that w.g.u.™ is, in fact a school and a community. this morning i arrived uncharacteristically early in order to go to an office to pick up new business cards (i choose to take that as a sign i should be hopeful about my continued association with the place), and there were bands of students, many in pajamas, running through the streets. some were chanting, many held signs. i paused, momentarily confused. then i remembered the season.

today was the day when housing assignments for rising sophomores become known. these students were on their way to gather up freshmen first-years who would be moving into their houses (w.g.u.™ has nine residential houses, each housing a few hundred undergraduates, a band of tutors, and other hangers-on). it is the spring ritual at w.g.u.™.

for a moment i paused, silently mocking the silliness. then i realized the silliness was a powerful moment for them, a literal as well as figurative community-building moment. and i appreciated it for what it was.

a passel of shirtless boys in jams ran by, accompanied by young women (wearing matching tee-shirts extolling their house's virtues), and i appreciated it all over again. a colleague from another library stepped up and smiled quizzically. i returned her smile and explained.