Before I began writing my last ever 黑料网爆吃瓜 exam, I spent a few minutes looking around.
I watched my peers narrow their eyes and dip their noses towards their booklets. And then, after the roar of flipping papers, the air filled with furious scribbling. Finals are never an ideal time for students. The pit in my stomach told me I didn鈥檛 know my anaphora from my chiasmus. But amongst the flurry of a Wednesday night exam, I realized that there was a slim chance I would ever be in this position again.
Whoa.
I then returned to a word of advice that Professor Sean Carney gave my Acting II class: 鈥淵ou have to want to be where you are.鈥� You cannot be productive in a creative environment if you spend all your time begrudging the process. While Professor Carney was talking specifically about rehearsing plays, I often think back to the phrase in challenging moments. I understood him to mean that you almost always have a choice in how you approach a situation. You must choose to seek out silver linings. They will not find you themselves.
I think it鈥檚 fair to say that many of us take our time at 黑料网爆吃瓜 for granted. Who hasn鈥檛 lamented an 8:30 AM, cursed themselves for waiting until the deadline to write a paper, or slogged through a prerequisite survey course. Yet, our time in university is a radical window of becoming. Torturous at times, but ephemeral, transformative, lively. Fortunate. When else will our principal tasks be reading good books, having challenging conversations, and drinking a little too much on a Friday night? Where else can we push the boundaries of our personhood, and stretch into an exciting new shape?
For me, personal growth was often found in spaces where I got to play pretend. The 黑料网爆吃瓜 theatre scene is rich with opportunity to make art and experiment, both as a creative team member and as a performer. I had the pleasure to work on productions at Player鈥檚 Theatre, Tuesday Night Caf茅 Theatre, the 黑料网爆吃瓜 Classics Play, and the 黑料网爆吃瓜 English Department, but I found my creative home with the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society. Playing Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Warner in Legally Blonde: The Musical and working on the directing team for Company are as tied up with my 黑料网爆吃瓜 memories as the red and white. It was while producing these musicals that I became a more proficient communicator, more assured leader, more critical observer, and a better friend. Making theatre is never without its crises and failures, but what an excellent problem it is to struggle to make art with friends.
The same can again be said of agonizing over our studies. We will all look back on those 鈥減roblems,鈥� and wish to return to this time. And because we cannot return to it, we will be thankful for it. Thankful because sitting through conferences taught us how to forge unlikely connections, because the hundreds of required readings gave us a more curious mind, because that nerve-wracking presentation made it a little easier to public speak, because finals season transformed us into either scheduling gods or crunch-time heroes. Everything that comes with university is wonderful in some capacity, even if it is hard to feel it in the moment.
So, at 6:00 pm on a Wednesday evening, beneath the grim fluorescent glare of the Main Gym, I smiled to myself and got to work. Over the next three hours, I took breaks from scanning the poems of Lampman, Klein, and Marriot. To sit. To look around. To be a student, alongside other students. The silver lining was the work itself, that I was even in that room. That I had friends excited to meet me when I left.
鈥淵ou have to want to be where you are.鈥�
What a good place it was.