pin oaks and finals week: or, what’s left after this weekend

As an Ohioan, I find it difficult to keep the topic of weather out of my daily conversations. I once read a book on language and dialect that explained how to approach and converse with a mid-westerner-—first you discuss by what route you arrived at your destination, then you discuss the weather, then you talk about what route you’ll use to get home. The weather part of the conversation lasts the longest and covers every possible subject, including farming, flooding, records made and broken, its effect on sports, leaf color, next spring’s bulbs, holiday traveling plans, traveling plans in general…you get the point. It was only a matter of time before the weather crept into this blog…

The weather in Ohio is known for its rapid changes. Sunny summer skies can quickly give way to powerful thunderstorms as the purples, blues, and grays roll in; cool spring mornings often belie a scorching afternoon; a snowstorm can leave behind several inches that disappear by the day’s end. We layer here. We must.

This weekend began unseasonably warm. Thursday of last week brought us 70 degree temperatures which continued until Friday evening. As I drove home on Friday afternoon, I rolled my windows down and watched the autumn colors whiz by. Although some of the trees had lost their leaves (ginkos, ashes, birches fall early), the majority of the trees still had leaves. The sycamores, maples, and oaks made up so many bright splashes of color out my window.

But then the wind kicked up, the temperature fell about 25 degrees overnight, and Saturday looked and felt like November should. We woke to a rain that lingered all day. Now, on Monday, the trees are mostly empty and the air has that cold, damp feel that permeates clothing and chills all the way through. Looking out the window of the library today, I see brown branches and gray skies. An occasional evergreen or pin oak brings a little opacity, but for the most part the view is buildings through branches.

The mood on campus today seems gray as well. I did not hear much friendly chatter as I walked to the library this morning. Granted, it’s Monday, and the beginning of the week lacks the energy of the end, but I saw more bent heads that I did eyes, more hands cupping lattes than carrying pop. And I didn’t see a single student talking on a cell phone. (Sadly, the last observation is the most telling…)

As I neared the library, one of the bent heads looked up. The young man, probably a first-year student, looked both tired and shell-shocked. His mouth hung open a bit and his gaze looked through me, past me, to the library door. I looked down and saw his calculus book, stuffed fat with notebook paper, its binding straining from the added thickness. And then it dawned on me. UC is on quarters, so finals week is rapidly approaching.

It has been easy to coast through this semester without attending to the administrative and academic—midterms went by unnoticed, as did fall “break,” Parents’ weekend, Greek week, and all of the other markers of time on a college campus. This morning was a bit of a wake up call, I suppose. Soon the semester will end and I’ll have to head back to the classroom. I’m not dreading it (although I did have a teaching nightmare last night—forgot my syllabus on the first day, then couldn’t find my new office to retrieve it before class ended) but I wonder about my ability to keep writing with the hassle of lesson plans and assignments to read and grade.

Time to get serious. That calculus boy and I have a lot of ground to cover before this semester ends…