Ode to an impending summer

| Staff Columnist

It’s official. The dog days of summer are right around the corner. The weather outside is beautiful, the skies are a perfect, clear blue and students swarm outside onto open fields with their book bags and homework, though not much work really gets done. Even allergies can’t keep us away from the gorgeous outdoors. It seems that all anyone wants to do is break out his or her summer wardrobes and soak up some sun. As a girl, I especially would like nothing better than to gracefully drift around campus in a breezy sundress, donning flip-flops and basking up the warm weather. Unfortunately however, I haven’t been able to do much of this yet.

There are two major impediments to my enjoyment of the spot of good weather St. Louis has been having. As any science student knows, one is NOT allowed to wear summer-friendly clothes inside the lab. God forbid a Chem 152 student wear anything less than full shoulder, leg, and foot covering attire, because Professor Mao is ready to pounce on the poor soul at this time of year. Even the seemingly less strict biology lab courses are adamant about leaving summer outside the lab doors. But Professor Cruz? It really only taunts us when you play Hawaiian music during lab, yet make us wear pants and shoes that enclose our feet. Your efforts toward ambiance are sincerely appreciated, however.

Even on the three days I don’t have lab, I’ve been gravitating toward winter-appropriate wear because most of my classrooms are absolutely freezing cold. After three hours sitting in LabSci 300, I usually feel like a slab of ice. For this reason, I am well on my way to becoming known as the girl who carries a sweatshirt with her everywhere she goes. I simply can’t get any work done if my teeth are chattering as I am trying to study in the library.

There are now only three and a half weeks between the student body and summer vacation. This means fewer than three and a half weeks until the end of labs and frigid lecture halls. This spring semester has flown by in a blur, and now it’s time for that last end-of-term push as classes wind down and exams roll around the corner. It will certainly be tough to sit in the library and imagine that we are wasting the lovely weather outside, but the thought that’s been motivating me thus far is that the reward at the end of the road will be far sweeter after having worked hard through the end-of-semester crunch. In the meantime, I plan on making my friends and myself a paper chain counting down the days left in the semester. Every day means one less paper link in my chain, and every link gone brings us one day closer to summer and carefree (at least for a while) enjoyment of the beautiful summer weather.

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