Yesterday, I meandered onto campus to run a few errands in what I will blissfully refer to as “the last golden days of summer”.

Summer (or any large break for that matter) on a university campus is a blissful time.  A peaceful time.  A time when graduate students can haul books around without fear of being held up by a large pack of care-free mozying undergrads taking up the entire sidewalk.  A time when a graduate student can be assured that librarians (or diligent hard-working student laborers) will be at the circulation desk and, thereby, will not be told that she can just “leave her books over there” when clearly she wants them checked in in front of her because she has 150 check-outs and can’t afford overdue fees due to some error or loss between her hand and the library’s tender cradle.  A time when on-campus errands can be accomplished in a breezy way since there are no lines at the public safety desk and thereby IDs and Parking Passes can be picked up in fifteen minutes rather than two hours.

In this last week of summer, I was smart enough to do all of my pre-semester business before the crowds arrive (a wonder in itself that I had the presence of mind since my brain is essential blown for anything that’s not theatre history right now, and even that is touch and go).  As I looked around I realized a few things:

1)   Wow, this was really smart.

2)   Some of these fresh-faced kids sporting around campus may be my students in just a few weeks.

3)   …I had probably better find somewhere else to practice my bullwhip.

Sixteen days to comps lift-off.  Headed back to the grind now.