583A — Today's another day to find you...
Liminal. This is a word that my writing professor has been using to describe states of being in which it is good to start a story because it's something in-between. A transitional state, a threshold, one full of uncertainty, an apt environment for both hope and despair.
All of MIT has been stuck in this liminal state for what feels like ages now. I legitimately could not tell you when the first email about coronavirus was sent—it could've been a day ago, it could've been two weeks ago. It is such a strange and draining state, and nothing normal can occur. I have no idea why I am up at this time on one of the days I'm supposed to sleep at 12:30 AM, but it's also the last day of its type for the semester.
Everything is a last of some sort, in a way. Last Maseeh lunch of the semester. Last 'it's Wednesday, my dudes' email of the semester. Last everything of the semester, and of my first year on campus. It feels so much like everybody is trying to wrap up, and to write about and cap off their first semester—and yet somehow it is also true that things must continue, that classes will go online, and that our work will continue remotely. Everything is over and yet it must continue. Everything is over and yet I still have classes to attend, work to do, a whole semester and a half worth of room to clean and pack.
There are a whole lot of considerations one has to make on a day-to-day basis that have been amplified. The volume of email I have received over the last few days has been immense, and all of it is important, and my capacity to handle things wanes. I feel like so many different loose ends need to be closed by the end of the semester, and it's not that they wouldn't have been closed otherwise, but the rushed timeline and all—I'm not sure I can handle it. So many new issues in the past few days—and yet I still have to go to class.
In light of this all, however, today was a mildly okay day. Everything still sucked—still sucks—but we did our best to make it feel like our world as we knew it wasn't ending or collapsing in on itself. I got up in the morning and headed to Spanish class, where we had a lively roleplay debate about the mining of lithium in Bolivia, among other discussion of how the class will be structured going forwards. I headed over to Reading and Writing Short Stories, where we discussed Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," and I began rewriting my current draft of the short story I'd been working on to be more action-focused, more third-person. It's already much more powerful than it was, but I suppose we'll see what happens as I expand it. Unclear.
Physics followed, with a lecture about resistors and DC circuits, which was nice since it began wandering back into the familiar territory of AP Physics II. We worked through everything we could for the day, and then took a few extra minutes after class to just talk through some of the concerns about the upcoming transition. Afterwards, I stopped by the student center to sign a card, and then headed over to Maseeh to meet a friend. They packed for a while while I just laid there, unable to really motivate myself to accomplish anything.
Eventually, the interstitial time passed, and we headed up to Lobby 7, where I returned my books from the semester, and then some subset of the Quiz Bowl team met up to head to Oath Pizza for an excellent dinner on Dining Dollars. After a nice dinner, we headed up to practice, for "Quiz Bowl: TPP", where TPP stood for "The Penultimate Practice", "Trans-Pacific Partnership", or "Trash Packet Party," since we read mostly trash questions, including an auditory clues one on video games, one compiled by our one and only senior, and some other assorted standard trash. Eventually, it was over, and I headed home.
I started packing a little when I arrived home, to little avail, calling my parents as I prepared the first small box that I was preparing to use. At some point, a friend came over and we just talked for a long while as I completed my Spanish homework, and we played a lot of protobowl and whatnot until late. This was followed by me heading out to main lounge where I talked to a lot of other people about the whole shebang. Eventually, one by one, they left, leaving me to write this. I stuck my head out the 4W window that still lacks a screen, breathed in a little bit of air, and returned to writing.
Tomorrow, more liminality. We can only see how it progresses.
All of MIT has been stuck in this liminal state for what feels like ages now. I legitimately could not tell you when the first email about coronavirus was sent—it could've been a day ago, it could've been two weeks ago. It is such a strange and draining state, and nothing normal can occur. I have no idea why I am up at this time on one of the days I'm supposed to sleep at 12:30 AM, but it's also the last day of its type for the semester.
Everything is a last of some sort, in a way. Last Maseeh lunch of the semester. Last 'it's Wednesday, my dudes' email of the semester. Last everything of the semester, and of my first year on campus. It feels so much like everybody is trying to wrap up, and to write about and cap off their first semester—and yet somehow it is also true that things must continue, that classes will go online, and that our work will continue remotely. Everything is over and yet it must continue. Everything is over and yet I still have classes to attend, work to do, a whole semester and a half worth of room to clean and pack.
There are a whole lot of considerations one has to make on a day-to-day basis that have been amplified. The volume of email I have received over the last few days has been immense, and all of it is important, and my capacity to handle things wanes. I feel like so many different loose ends need to be closed by the end of the semester, and it's not that they wouldn't have been closed otherwise, but the rushed timeline and all—I'm not sure I can handle it. So many new issues in the past few days—and yet I still have to go to class.
In light of this all, however, today was a mildly okay day. Everything still sucked—still sucks—but we did our best to make it feel like our world as we knew it wasn't ending or collapsing in on itself. I got up in the morning and headed to Spanish class, where we had a lively roleplay debate about the mining of lithium in Bolivia, among other discussion of how the class will be structured going forwards. I headed over to Reading and Writing Short Stories, where we discussed Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," and I began rewriting my current draft of the short story I'd been working on to be more action-focused, more third-person. It's already much more powerful than it was, but I suppose we'll see what happens as I expand it. Unclear.
Physics followed, with a lecture about resistors and DC circuits, which was nice since it began wandering back into the familiar territory of AP Physics II. We worked through everything we could for the day, and then took a few extra minutes after class to just talk through some of the concerns about the upcoming transition. Afterwards, I stopped by the student center to sign a card, and then headed over to Maseeh to meet a friend. They packed for a while while I just laid there, unable to really motivate myself to accomplish anything.
Eventually, the interstitial time passed, and we headed up to Lobby 7, where I returned my books from the semester, and then some subset of the Quiz Bowl team met up to head to Oath Pizza for an excellent dinner on Dining Dollars. After a nice dinner, we headed up to practice, for "Quiz Bowl: TPP", where TPP stood for "The Penultimate Practice", "Trans-Pacific Partnership", or "Trash Packet Party," since we read mostly trash questions, including an auditory clues one on video games, one compiled by our one and only senior, and some other assorted standard trash. Eventually, it was over, and I headed home.
I started packing a little when I arrived home, to little avail, calling my parents as I prepared the first small box that I was preparing to use. At some point, a friend came over and we just talked for a long while as I completed my Spanish homework, and we played a lot of protobowl and whatnot until late. This was followed by me heading out to main lounge where I talked to a lot of other people about the whole shebang. Eventually, one by one, they left, leaving me to write this. I stuck my head out the 4W window that still lacks a screen, breathed in a little bit of air, and returned to writing.
Tomorrow, more liminality. We can only see how it progresses.
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