Coming from my favorite little coffee-tea shop, Para Coffee (shameless plug, I know... it's on Elliewood!!!), I bumped into a friend on the Corner. It's the typical UVa scene. Two college students, a boy with a cup of coffee and a girl with a knapsack, talking in front of the bus stop on the brick-paved streets of the Corner. It happens all the time.
I guess what's different about this scene is that I knew this guy for only a month. I took three summer classes over two months, and we had met through one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with UVa's summer classes, the entire summer is split up into three sessions (session I, session II, session III). The maximum number of classes that you can take per session is two. Yours truly, being the overzealous and overachieving student that I am, took three classes and had a job. Needless to say, there was a negative correlation between the number of classes and jobs that I had and my grade.
My friend and I had met during the second session, where I only had one class and was more relaxed. It was a great class, simply because it was an actual Professor who was teaching, he was amazing, and instead of the usual several hundreds of students that he taught, there was only 25 of us. It was definitely an advantage over taking it in the semester. Because of the small class size, I got to know a good number of my classmates pretty intimately, considering that it was only 6 weeks long. We met often for picnic lunches in the Gardens, trips to Downtown, cooking adventures in my apartment, and study groups that actually worked. I must say, I was really impressed with myself that session. I was being social, I excelled in that class, and I still had lots of sleep despite the fact that the class was 8am every morning.
But summer feels like a dream. It was rainy today, I was feeling miserable from sickness, and I'm sure my friend was busy thinking about the things he had to do today, because he was holding a lot of books. It was such a contrast from memories from the summer season, with balmy sunny days and open schedules. We talked a bit about our lives. I told him about my bout with the cold and he told me he was enjoying his classes. It was short, terse, and almost static. Then he said he needed to go to a meeting. I nodded and waved him off.
There's a point in second year where you realize that you're not a first year anymore. For me, it was when I realized that a lot of my friends from first year (and yes, I was still a first year over the summer...) were busy with their activities in which they were leaders. My friend was an Orientation leader, another friend is deeply involved in Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development (SEED), and another wants to get involved in drama and work with children. I am not involved in any of these activities nor are they particularly important to me. Yet, with the activities that are important to me, I am deeply involved. As we progress and become third years and fourth years, I'm sure that we will all only increase our commitments to these activities, and be more involved in them. At what point will we be too busy for each other?
These were the thoughts that I was mulling over after my encounter with my friend. Typical encounter on the Corner? Oh yes. Typical College of Arts and Science student? Hell yea.
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