Dispatches From the Buckland Basement: 1.9

The snow that was covering the grass has turned to ice, and the future Yale Law students have moved into the library with their sleeping bags and pillows to study without the inconvenience of walking back to their beds at night. They won't eat or shower for a week and a half, so it's important to get your books now, before they start to smell. It's finals season again, that time of year when the Mount Holyoke library becomes a refugee camp with an unusually high ratio of Chanel earrings to refugees.

Dean Bowie was missed by the Philosophy department at their meeting this afternoon, and shortly after the meeting ended, his absence was explained. It seems the first finals-related death of the season occurred this morning in one of the Rockefeller dorms. While students have not been informed of the events which caused the young woman's death, they are a well-educated collection of people and are likely aware that twenty-two year olds do not often die of heart attacks.

It gives one pause to witness the self-inflicted degradation of one's fellow students. It may even cause one to wonder if all of this is necessary. But those thoughts are quickly chased from one's mind by the immediate concerns of research not yet conducted, papers not yet edited, and dates not yet memorized, not to mention the irrefutable knowledge that not getting an A in Art History means you have no future.

Perhaps this culture of panic is purposefully cultivated, or maybe it arises organically from our desire for purpose and direction. Either way, it's a culture one must embrace, at least during finals season, in order to succeed in the ivy-covered world of Mount Holyoke.