| Response sheet 27, after class, Tuesday | |
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Today is our last, celebratory class. I know everyone is a bit tired at this point in another peculiar and pressured semester — another truly historic semester, with the apparent waning of the pandemic. I well remember my own time in college back in somewhat more innocent times, when my habit was to study till 2:00 a.m. when the library closed, 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 clear my head, and remind 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 confront 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 layer of bedrock?.... Finally, best of luck with all your future studies and/or endeavors. |