Author: Arielsie L.
At 9:40am, I opened my eyes. The eight hours of luscious sleep faded the alarming veins in my eyes, providing evidence of my innocence from pink eye. My heart filled with joy and gratitude for our most wonderful Dr. R and Dr. Andersen as I — for the first time in a week — stepped into the dining hall for breakfast. Walking into the classroom at 10am, a similar happiness tinted the faces of my fellow classmates. We smiled, knowing that today will be a day of indulgence and glee, thanks to the removal of the morning lecture. And even though we still have three hours of afternoon lecture, the termination of MoG entails the termination of mathematical equations in Dr. R’s lecture slides. In other words, we know for sure that we would have a fun lecture.
Oh so wrong was I to dream of happiness. By 3pm, the doom of the afternoon astronomy lecture slaughtered our brief moment of morning elation. How could we continue to celebrate the completion of our f&g functions, enjoy the stunning sunsets, or even stress about endless grasshoppers and bug bites when we were just told that the world is ending and that we are all going to turn into bits of iron? How could we continue working on our Psets knowing that nothing we do can possibly salvage us from the impending doom of the universe?
So, here’s the deal. What this lecture taught us was that in the future, protons may or may not decay (there’s no way to predict if they will, btw). But that doesn’t really matter, because either way, the universe will inevitably perish into nothingness. SSP, how cruel of you to place us into this dreadful crisis — you gift us with joy and knowledge over four weeks, you build us into better people, you plant the belief in our heads that the work we do will “change the world,” only to let us know in this last moment that nothing we did matters. Or, perhaps this is your way to protect us with a distraction from a shallower sorrow: the ending of you. Even at lunch (prior to the devastating news of the end of the world), an unnerving tinge of sadness lurked in the air as our conversations drift naturally towards a repeating sentence: “I can’t believe we only have one week left!”
But now, writing this blog that was due two days ago, I think maybe really this is just a way to tell a room of 36 workaholic achievers to indulge a little in some hedonic fun. As everything burns down around us with no escape, why don’t we have some fun and create some memories that will die with us but keep us happy for a lifetime? Maybe in 10^10^76 years, a wrong Starbucks name wouldn’t matter…
Maybe a pretty sunset would no longer exist…
Maybe silly cow drawings would never be produced again (and cows would be dead)…
But today, we had fun.
See you in the dark era!
About me:
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy baes! Arielsie here, though people call me Ari and I guess Starbucks call me Elsi. I’m originally from Beijing, China, though now I go to boarding school in Massachusetts. At home, I’m a pen-spinning enthusiast and a butterfly knife connoisseur (pinky promise I did not bring one here) and I enjoy math rock and IDM (which no one else seems to like other than Lara <3 since they always tell me to turn my music off). At SSP, you can see me bothering the professors with dumb little questions, making origami, or taking walks with some friends 🙂
