THE ARCHIVE

From the moment winter releases its icy grip on Ithaca, the Cornell grounds department works furiously to make sure the campus looks pristine. One of their most ambitious tasks is to grow grass on the edges of paths where students continually step. They seem to believe that fresh soil and string fences will give the grass seed a fighting chance against its opposition, but rain continues to wash the soil away and students continue to veer off paths with their eyes in books. The outlook is not good for this new grass and I would be very surprised if it reaches maturity by graduation or reunion weekends.

Recently, however, I noticed a strange phenomenon. The grass appears to be growing quite well in the deep footprints left by hasty students on their way to class. The grounds department should take note of this ironic yet verifiable fact. Next year, I propose that they remove the string fences and invite students to trample the newly seeded soil.

Study breaks are an essential part of exam period, so I seized the opportunity last week to escape Ithaca briefly to see my family at home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

During the afternoon on the farm, we were a bit surprised to find a newborn foal in the pasture (the mare had shown no signs). The delivery went smoothly, but the colt’s first feeble attempts to walk landed him in a big patch of mud. Using a towel as a makeshift sling, we helped the foal to his feet and “walked” him into a clean stall in the adjacent barn.

It is now our task to choose an appropriate name for the little guy. He is a Connemara pony, so an Irish name would be most appropriate. My sister searched the word “surprise” in a Gaelic dictionary and found the saying “ubh ubh.” I’m a big fan of the name “Ubbah”, but other non-gibberish suggestions are certainly welcome.

As we near the end of the academic year at Cornell, the comfortable daily routine of classtime/freetime/worktime/sleeptime has been violently disrupted with a series of “last hurrahs” of both the social and academic sort. In the past two weeks, we have experienced a whirlwind of activity causing excitement, stress, sleeplessness, and relief. Final projects, reviews, and exams have sped past with Slope Day, Delta Chi formal, and a few (deserved?) study breaks interspersed.

The last few days of class were packed with the typical projects and presentations that always seem to slip toward the end of college syllabi. Aside from a last-minute Italian prelim and a final Drawing review, my week wasn’t much to complain about. Less fortunate friends had as many as four final projects due on the same day. Most students buckled down for the final stretch of classes, remembering that “all’s well that ends well.” The spring semester ends with Slope Day.

If you are unfamiliar, Slope Day is the annual University-sponsored day of live music and debauchery. The hill behind Uris Library transforms into a large amphitheater with a temporary stage on West Avenue and an expansive chain-link fence enclosing the entire slope. This year, the white suburban rapper Asher Roth sang about college life and child obesity and the Pussycat Dolls danced to some of their prerecorded pop tunes.

After this brief respite, my architecture friends and I returned to reality in Rand Hall to finish our projects before the final design review on Tuesday, May 5th. Just a few more papers and exams and the summer will be upon us…