A one-week repose was well needed, and maybe even deserved. Not a weekend after writing my ethics exam, I was thrown into “high-finance.” What had I gotten myself into? The capricious summer was fraught with the vicissitudes characteristic of the industry. Lugubrious ordeals were instructive and victories offset the troubles. Summerlicious (34 restaurants in 17 days), midway through the summer, hurried the toil along so that four months ended on a cusp instead of in monotony.
And in the one week, I accomplished not more than read a third of Les Misérables, in preparation for the Hollywood production and Toronto’s revival of the musical. The book is masterly though Hugo rambles for tomes and tomes in socialist fashion about tangential plotlines and inconsequential ideas. One such misdemeanor is his description of Waterloo, the decisive end to Napoleon. When I arrived in Kingston on Saturday, the setting was all too familiar. I stepped into war-torn territory near the end of a weeklong engagement. The veterans of Queen’s University, tired and hoarse, saw victory only pints and millilitres away. I stood with a guilty conscience like a cripple given safe passage. Their droopy eyes, frazzled hair and incomplete memories were eclipsed by glorious grins of accomplishment and of resilience. And after a weeklong ceasefire, today they rise again to welcoming the real veterans for faux-coming. How inspirational.
I moved into a beautiful house behind Goodes Hall. Unlike my old lodgings, the new one is aptly described as a man-cave. Despite modern feminism and the prophesized “End of Men” this temple of masculinity, for which pilgrimages (and certainly not of a Catholic variety) should be and often are made, is undeterred. I cannot contain my excitement to live in such venerable conditions.
The rest of Kingston has not changed too much. Its leisurely pace of life is solace compared to the hectic metropolises of the summer. The sushi at Sima is still so fresh, the pizza at Woodenheads as thin as ever and the bike rides almost idyllic in autumn. QP emits a youthful exuberance seen only on campuses; its microwaved chicken avocado is a guilty pleasure. The Goodes Hall expansion is a footnote for the newly-minted Starbucks it houses. I can imagine the location doing quite well, despite some worthy competition from the man-cave just a minute away (rumour is, the establishment recently started serving lattes).
Classes have ensued and luckily, only one class requires participation (and only 6% for that matter). One professor barred laptop usage, a counterproductive policy that extinguishes any intellectual vivacity and forces students to trudge along with the professor at the prescribed pace unsympathetic to the needs of the diverse student body. To perform quantitative business courses without a laptop is like studying Literature without a dictionary. Students should be trusted to take control of an education they paid over $14,000 for. As such, I look forward to once again, assuming the role of recluse, a societal function that is deceivingly intellectual and productive.
These constructive outlooks suggest a reasonably delightful future to come. The job markets are indeed precarious and my future is unsettling. Clarity is non-existent. Yet I have decided to look forward to this semester for being happy is better than being sad and for hope is better than despair.