As a studio art major, I spend a lot of time in that two-part, geometric, angular building (sore thumb!) on the west side of Wake’s campus called Scales. After a few hours in the painting studio on Friday, I took a break at 1:30 pm and embarked on a quest for a six-inch salami Subway sandwich. As I departed, I marveled at the number of students practicing skits and dialogues, or making sweet conversation, pushing one another on the swings, or laying out on beach towels (with their textbooks, of couse) that graced Davis Field and the Scales sidewalks. After a 30 minute bout around Hearne Plaza, ordering a sandwich and soda and checking the mail, I meandered back to my work and discovered an eerily vacant Davis Field with the exception of a lone studier, under a tree in the distance. Weird. I quickly realized the reason for the quick disappearance.
It’s finals week.
Everyone had trudged off to their 2:00 exam.
The vacancy reminded me of how lonely Wake will be this summer without her students! Flashbacks from quiet moments earlier this week flashed through my mind: Kitchin dorm was silent with the exception of a relatively quiet KA lounge party on Saturday night, my usually lively ten-person suite’s silence was broken only by noise of parents helping move boxes, and even the Pit has seemed extraordinarily hushed.
A moment later, I corrected myself. Wake won’t be entirely empty this summer because of those many students staying for summer sessions one or two, taking Business Management and Organic Chemistry. Perhaps both sessions, in frantic preparation for a Fall study abroad (to get all those credits in!) Dear summer studiers, keep Mother-so-dear company over these next few months! We can’t have her getting lonely…