Spring semester. First day of classes. Just when we all breathed a collective sigh of relief at the prospect of a snow-free start to a torturous semester, Monday night brought a casual blizzard that ensured reconvening of classes would be fraught with soggy shoes and sinking stomachs. Ferocious winds assure you lose all feeling in your face to an extent no botox injection can. Resolutions for 2012 are securely wedged in the back of your mind, loosened as you stare grimly at endless lists of textbooks costing a small fortune. Your happy new year seems about as buoyant as the infamous Italian cruise liner which tragically crashed off the coast of Italy.
And yet, as you are mercilessly crushed under a myriad of extracurriculars and readings, you grin with an uninhibited optimism. This will be the year, you’re sure of it. This will be the year that I proudly march my TSA compliant cupcake through the airport, because the Silver Spoon Bakery in Rhode Island observes the appropriate quota for icing. This will be the year, you proudly declare, when I stay on the T until its terminating stop just because I can. This will be the year, you promise, I will religiously observe the American electoral system in action, gasping in horror intermittently while you finally take political destiny into your own hands. This will be the year I travel the world, devote more time to community service, learn a language, write my personal manifesto on life and get it published. Dreams float around your mind on airy clouds whether you are sprawled on your bed or maneuvering through a crowded BU shuttle desperately trying not to fall face first into a perfect stranger’s lap.
2012 will be heaped with anticipation for the Olympics in London. It will be fraught with political conflicts as the Eurozone fights for economic stability and America chooses its new president. No doubt it will be bursting with new ideas, technologies, mind-numbing television, significant births, and heartbreaking deaths. There is no burst of motivation quite as potent as the blank canvas of a new year. Amnesia induced by throwing away an old calendar brings about hope as sweet smelling as fresh, warm laundry on winter’s night.
You walk down Bay State road at three in the morning. Apart from arctic winds blowing you off the quiet pavements, you walk by the dimly lit street lights and rustling leaves, internally panicking whether a rat will dart across your feet. You proceed to convince yourself perhaps if you live in fear of rats darting across your feet, you’ll never dare walk down any road at all. This will be the year, you think to yourself, you’ll take that risk.
Sofiya Mahdi is the Opinion Page Editor of the Daily Free Press and a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. Want to see your name here? Apply to be an Opinion page columnist! Send three 800-word samples to letters@dailyfreepress.com by Friday 27th January, 2012.
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