Observe the majestic Furman waterfowl.
He is stoic. Even though rain and fountain water alike fall upon his developed plumage, he nevertheless readies himself to swim. Perhaps, the dreamers say, he even readies himself to fly.
In a lot of ways this is a metaphor for coming back to school after spring break, but for it to apply to me, you have to imagine the duck splashing desperately around the water because he forgot to swim. The fact he’s doing it in front of the entire school still holds true for both, though.
In all seriousness, coming back to Furman after a break is always interesting. On the one hand, you’re back to working hard and managing classwork, a social life, extracurricular obligations, and apparently also waterfowl photography.
Let me change gears suddenly and drastically for a moment. This is the sunrise as seen from Pretty Place, which is a common Furman activity – somehow, I had never been before now. With my time left at Furman, I had never made it out and seen this view before this week coming back from spring break. Part of me wanted to go this week just to blow off steam, and maybe part of me wanted to see something as dazzling as spring break was (I, for the first time, did a “fun” spring break and went to visit a high school friend in Madrid). This week we were blessed with really pretty weather – almost every night, I took my dinner out by the lake and watched the sunset as I ate.
Synthesizing these points: I think a lot of times we come back from a vacation and feel like the duck in the rain. No matter how hard you swim, you’re getting soaked. However easy it is to buy into that line of thinking, it rained once this week, and we had sunrises like that one every other day. I had classes and adventures and functions and practices and new friends, in one week alone. I think adventure hunting is a necessary part of any college experience. A week of no essays and readings is certainly welcome, but there’s plenty of fun waiting when you get back, too.
Quack quack.