| Response sheet 27, for class, Tuesday | |
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Today is our last formal class; Thursday’s class is optional. I know everyone is a bit tired at this point in another peculiar and pressured semester. I well remember my own time in college back in somewhat more innocent times, when my habit was to study until the library closed at 2:00 a.m., and then to go for a nightly walk in Riverside Park to inscribe into my brain the most compelling elements of what I had read about and thought about and talked about that day — and also to admire the Hudson River and the Palisades and just clear my head by reminding myself of the universe beyond reading and thinking and talking. Toward semester’s end all the constant conversations with peers and friends and all the solitary walks always took longer, because unlike the rest of the semester, which felt like a time of experimentation, the end of the semester felt like a time of commitment. By commitment I mean making decisions about what had become important to me after a semester of being exposed to so many challenging new ideas, and making decisions about what I wanted to consider and grapple with next. For me, college unsettled everything every semester, but it also became part of me, new layers of bedrock. 1. So, this semester, your conscious new experiments?.... 2. And, at semester’s end, what might be your new layers of bedrock?.... Finally, some of you are about to graduate! For those who are and for those who aren’t, best of luck with all your future endeavors and/or studies. |