Winter Is Coming

Week Eleven - In the upper floor of a university hall, adjacent to a major stairwell, lay a small collection of seats and tables. This is an area is perfect for a moments rest between classes, a short period of study, or a small gathering of students partaking in a noon lunch.

Given the approaching winter an decreasing length of days, there seems to be less occupants of the upstairs hall alcove in the later hours of the day, a time of day that earlier in the semester would have seen more visitors.  Despite six in the evening being the same time of day regardless of the levels of light outside, I would suppose that the sun’s place in the sky does more to orient student’s perceptions of time then they let on.

As a result of this, there is once again a low period of alcove attendance and moments of interest are far and few in between. In addition to this point, there would seem to be less studying going on in this time of year as opposed to other periods in the semester. Considering that finals are only a couple weeks away, this is an interesting observation. Perhaps these students have finally gotten in the mindset of their classes and know what to expect, or maybe they are all at home or in their dorms studying, which would explain the low number of visitors in the music hall at the moment.

Despite all this, the most engrossing thing that seems to be on the minds of the students in the hall is the weather. New Mexico has always had a reputation for throwing out weird weather, the kind that generates rain showers in half of your backyard and bright sunshine in the other half. Regardless of the odd weather and changing seasons, its often frowned upon in our society to talk about the weather, for sake of not spurring awkward encounters between strangers, Yet, it would seem that this is exactly what is occurring within the alcove. One by one students are coming in to sit next to one another and discuss the changing weather. This is a excited discussion. If these students could show this much attentiveness to their lab work, I’m sure they could be making leaps in their academic career. The most avid speakers in this group are the warmest dressed, who are comfortable enough to speak loudly and in excited tones. However, the students who chose to wear less clothing and are now paying the thermal-price for their decisions are not so loud. In fact, one might go as far to lay the claim that temperature is direct stimulant for conversation. By way of relatedness, one could also claim that one’s comfort, as determined by their temperature, is directly related to their charismatic presence at a given time. This, I suppose, would be a pretty common sense piece of information, but it’s an interesting one to be stated none the less.