ithacation

For fall break last week, I headed north of the border with a fellow Sun editor to visit a friend from home who goes to school in Montréal. While I had visited her a couple of times before, I’ve always visited at the beginning of January when her spring semester is just starting and the mercury refuses to budge above 15F. Visiting during a more comfortable time of the year allowed us to explore the city for once, not to mention experience the autumn scenery on the six hour drive. And, since I was definitely not alone in my choice of fall break destination, I met up with three other Cornellians at a pub in Montréal, continuing the trend of the world being full of Cornellians wherever I happen to be (Shanghai, the Caribbean, JFK airport, etc.).

Fall break always seems to come at the point when your sleep schedule has been squeezed into the strangest hours, when exhaustion from piles of prelims and papers makes every day pass increasingly slowly, and when the idea of a change of scene is very welcome. While it was strange not heading home to Connecticut for fall break, the two extra days off were still exactly what I needed: a relaxing distraction. On Monday (Columbus Day in the US and Canadian Thanksgiving up north), I accomplished absolutely nothing besides procuring some Montréal bagels for my apartment; accomplishing nothing after weeks of tackling a seemingly infinite to-do list is a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

Upon my return to Ithaca, I was, of course, met with the consequences of my inactivity: a wall of work (some that I knew about, some that seemed to appear from nowhere) that made the short week seem painfully long. Also adding to that stress was the fact that it snowed on Wednesday. Not cool. Now I’m back into the swing of things, trying to tear down the post-it notes on the wall behind my computer as quickly as I put them up. At least it’s not snowing anymore.

I was wearing shorts last week, if I recall correctly. Ithaca was still basking in the seemingly endless sunshine that, in a normal year, would have ceased to exist after orientation week (or so it always seems…).

Then came this week. The mercury plummeted and the skies turned grey; we won’t be making it out of the 40s today, and the wind chill is in the mid 30s. Maybe not so coincidentally, this week marked the unofficial start of prelim season. Every professor on campus feels the need to get at least one major test or assignment in during the couple of weeks leading up to our long Columbus Day weekend. Seats will become harder to come by in the library, partially because nobody wants to play frisbee on the arts quad when it’s 37 and drizzling. Soon enough, though, we’ll have a long weekend to recharge. Judging from what I’ve heard from my fellow Daily Sun editors, I wouldn’t be surprised to run into friends on the streets of Montréal in a couple of weekends.