What better place is there than Rochester during the start of fall? I have only been on campus for a short time and I am loving it so much.
But now that fall is upon us, it is really taking my breath away: the changing of the leaves, the cooling of the weather. The aromas of apple cider, pumpkins and the constant construction going around campus.
Man I love it.
Oh, did you not hear about the new UR policy?
It seems that UR is hard at work on a new program, one that is benefiting us all without a doubt. It’s called Operation Get-Around, and in an attempt to allow students to innovate and be creative, cones, plastic tape and construction equipment are randomly set up in front of various stairways, just to see how students will best try to get around them.
Using highly advanced tools, they have also made sure that these roadblocks are only set up during the most busy of times and whenever a student is running late for a class.
At first I was a little skeptical of this plan, but I quickly saw just the kind of innovation that our great University’s students are known for.
See, a simple road block was not going to stop our fellow students from getting to class, no siree. So what did they do? Why, they trampled right through these construction zones, by passing any tape that warned them to the contrary. What a great and smart solution, for I have no doubt that it would have been totally out of their way to walk around the stairs that were being worked on.
I’m not going to claim to be innocent of these moments of innovation, and I just wanted to make sure to applaud all of my fellow students for the great respect they showed by walking right through these work zones.
I also wanted to make sure to compliment the University for the great timing for fixing the main steps to the Eastman Quadrang. I mean, they could have fixed them over the summer, when there were no students there to attempt to walk past them.
But instead they were ever thinking and turned what could have been a simple construction project during the summer into yet another creative learning experience for us all.
My only hope is that they leave these stairs roped off for Meliora Weekend, so that everybody else flooding the campus can see the great innovation on both the student’s and the school’s part and are also allowed the fun opportunity to try to find another path to get to where they are trying to go.
It really is a blast. There is nothing I would rather do at 9 a.m. on my way to class, let me tell you.
Another interesting piece of construction equipment caught my eye a few weeks back, and this one really excited me. I had just gotten back from the Carolinas for the weekend, and right in the front of the Residential Quad was a giant blue crane apparatus.
It may have been an lift, now that I think of it. But I remember for sure that it was big, blue and taller than any nearby building.
Now my first thought was that I wanted to jump in this machine and ride it. But then I wondered what it was here for, why it was where it was, and what it was going to do?
Before my questions could be answered, however, it was swept away probably in the dark of night, as I never saw my giant blue crane friend again.
My only guess is that it was part of another construction plan, one that I am not lucky enough to be in the know about.
Maybe it was moving the bricks that lay all around the sidewalks on campus.
Or maybe it was there to help tear down the very pretty green fences that were encircling what could have been a dull, drab campus.
All I know is that I hope the rest of the construction doesn’t soon make like that blue crane and leave. I am not sure what I would do without it going on all around me.
And just like that mysterious machine, I am quite sure I am going to miss it once it is all done.
Clark is a member of the class of 2012.
