Seasons

I assume that I wasn't alone in frantically dragging out the sweaters the day after I wore a t-shirt earlier this week, and that I'm not the only one who thinks that it finally, finally, feels like fall.

Which is a little depressing, considering we were already halfway to the start of winter before the world decided that it would wake up and start making the weather suitable for jackets and apple cider.

But don't get me wrong. I like warm weather, as it is a symbol for summer, a time when we're relatively worry-free, usually not needing to wake up before ten and being able to hang out with friends. Summer is a time when the weather is nice and warm and I don't need to wear layer after layer just to keep my body at a reasonable temperature.

Although I like summer, I absolutely love the season of fall. Which is a little strange, considering that I hate being cold and fall is when the temperature starts dropping. But all the vivid colors that appear on the trees really make up for the chilliness, and so do the squirrels. There are so many squirrels bustling about, darting up and down trees while preparing for winter in their own way. I think they're absolutely adorable. The trees prep for winter the same way every year, as do the squirrels. But this fall feels a little different, not because the trees are turning blue or anything like that. It's partly because the weather has been rather indecisive this year. It took a long time during the spring to decide when the weather would be warm enough for shorts. Once the school year rolled around again, we kept receiving false alarms for the start of autumn. I would start taking out my winter clothes and put warm weather things away for a day or two, then promptly switch them around again. This would happen multiple times a month, until I finally decided to keep a single pair of fall clothes out for the next chilly day instead of overturning my wardrobe every week. I got too accustomed to a September that felt like July, so once the temperature stopped coming above 75 degrees regularly, it felt very odd.

I think the other reason fall feels different this year is because we're all growing up. The people I remember as freshmen during my first year at Uni are seniors now, worrying about college applications. My classmates and I are experiencing the horrors of junior year as described to us earlier, starting to worry about the SAT and ACT and turning in school assignments on time. We're getting closer and closer to become adults and forced to become more independent so we can survive in the real world. When I realize that time is passing by so quickly, I sort of want to pause and rewind to summer so I don't need to think about all the tests, papers, and activities I need to complete by Monday. Thanks to the drastic increase in my to-do list since school started, I've started to associate the season of fall with stress. I see the little squirrels dashing around preparing for winter and I think, 'hey, they're more on task than I am. I should start studying for that Calc quiz.'

Now that it really is fall, I finally get to see the occasional splash of color here and there from a big ginkgo or a proud maple. But compared to last year, there are many trees that have yet to get with the program and stubbornly refuse to change color, as if they are loathe to let go of the long summer's warmth. And I don't blame them. I kind of want it to be summer again too.

Handprints

There are so many senior handprints decorating the halls of Uni. Sometimes, I just spend a free period scanning the walls, finding interesting and hidden ones. There are many beautiful handprints, especially among last year's graduating class. There are cute handprints, like the penguin and pikachu holding hands/paws/flippers near the senior alcove. There's a hidden pair on the ceiling of the little niche that leads to the girl's restroom on the first floor spelling 'Illuminati confirmed.'

One day, I noticed a big, bright red handprint near the north door. I'd seen it before, but it never really registered in my mind. I stared at it for a while. When I squinted, I could barely make out a handprint shape. Seems like that senior stuck his hand in a bucket of paint, slapped his paint-covered hand on the wall, and smeared it around. Since it was such a vivid red, with extra streaks on the outside of the 'handprint,' it almost looked like someone had recently bashed their head into the wall, then dipped their finger into their blood, wrote their name, and drew a smiley face.

(That was a little odd. Sorry.)

I wondered why this senior decided to make his handprint like that, in comparison to several of his buddies' handprints nearby, which were relatively neat and nice. Was he feeling lazy? Or did he deliberately make this his legacy? This senior's handprint left so much hidden information about him, forever memorialized in paint (well, forever until the paint chips off). In fact, each handprint tells a different story about their person. Several might say, "my owner likes art and making a big effort." Others say, "my owner did this to get it over with." Furthermore, most people wrote their names next to their handprint, which can also tell us much about their person. Several beautiful cursive names say, "my owner is neat." Some less elegantly written names say, "my owner's mind moves faster than their hands."

But who knows, perhaps that person with beautiful script and artistic handprint had the messiest locker in their class. Only if you knew them, would you understand the hidden clues they left. We're surrounded by these mysterious handprints everyday, so we don't think too much about them. But real people left these legacies behind, people that could be barely younger than your older sibling or years older than you parents. Chew on that for a little bit.