Author: Corrina Lee

Panic.

Exams are coming.

However far you run or blissfully ignore them, there is no way to escape their presence. You can see them in the steady stream of students swallowed by the library doors. You can see them in the coffees, the Red Bulls, the drawn tiredness of students who studied too long into the night. I can feel them now, as I hurriedly type. Should I be studying? Probably. Even a temporary respite feels like a betrayal. I won’t fail, can’t fail now, there is too much on the line. It is the culmination of weeks of studying, papers, endless reading assignments. So, I keep my eyes open, even when they yearn to slide shut. It may be 2:00 in the morning, but I don’t care. There is a strange adrenaline running through my veins. The type that only comes from absolute dread as I sense the monster approaching ever closer. I should have known when I first discovered the operating hours at the UGLi. I should have known when there were two therapy dog sessions within one week. I should have known after midterms. But the characters in a horror story always run into the abandoned asylum despite every glaring warning sign.

So, run.

But you can’t escape.

I hope that this gets easier because the tests certainly never stop. I thought the spelling tests in third grade were the biggest challenges, until I confronted the SAT. After approximately seven SAT study guides, there was AP testing and endless college applications. Tests are the perfect representative of a society that has grown more scientific, calculated, and objective. They are impartial, uncompromising, which is why we put so much faith in them. They give us clear black and white answers instead of relying on undependable humans to judge intangible qualities. They play on our need for approval. They are proof that we are talented, worthy, valuable. Unfortunately, they are also temporary bandages, a solution in disguise, because there is always another one. Although, tests may try to rank our best qualities, but I don’t think they bring out the best in us. I look around and hope that no one is judging me when I turn my back. I measure my conversations carefully in case that it is more than a conversation. It is a subtle paranoia that scares me as much as any haunted house.

It can’t be stopped.

I still wish I had a chainsaw.

So why do I keep trying to live up to these arbitrary standards? Like a trained seal, I keep jumping through the hoops for the treat that never seems to come. I know the answer that I’m supposed to give, the one that has been ingrained in me. It’s for the knowledge, the joy of learning. But ever-growing pit in the bottom of my stomach seems to disprove that theory entirely. I am perversely glad for the lack of clarity though, only to prove that life is not a test with clear rights and wrongs. I know I should be studying right now (Or at least sleeping….it is 3 am in the morning after all). My brain is gasping as I race to the finish line. This tortuous cycle is almost over. I’m glad we’re here together.

I collapse into sleep.

Peace.

I don’t remember the first moment I fell in love with sports. I certainly didn’t know what I was getting into. Being a sports fan is stressful, humiliating, and humbling. Sometimes, you think you can see pinpricks of hope in the distance, but it is all a mirage. If you’re lucky, your team will win, and you’ll get to bask in the glow of victory for a few months, before the next season begins, and the cycle of hope and despair begins all over again. It is an endless rollercoaster, where every high only promises a more terrifying descent. Some fans suffer for decades without the relief of a championship (Looking at you, Cubs fans). Some fans have had their hearts ripped out, one play away from euphoria. We are foolish a lot. Our obsession is almost always unrequited as we watch and suffer from afar. It is a strange abusive sort of love.

I am certainly not the first one to question our peculiar obsession. The goal of most sports is simple. Throw the ball. Catch the ball. Shoot the ball into the hoop. Actions so simple a child could understand them. This simplicity is often used as an excuse to deride fans. Why dedicate so much brainpower and time to athletics when the world is falling apart around you? But hasn’t it always been that way? There are surely great and terrible things that we could be doing with all that attention dedicated to maintaining a fantasy team, scanning daily headlines, or re-watching your favorite dunk of last night. But when I watch sports, I don’t need to question these things. Instead, I admire the grace and beauty that courses through every swing, every fluttering lob through the air. I admire the dedication that goes into every single movement, the hours of practices to execute one simple motion perfectly. I admire the extraordinary mixture of anger and euphoria on the athlete’s face.  When I watch as the ball go into the hoop, the simple action makes my heart pound. I cheer.

Most of these thoughts ran incoherently through my head after the result of the Ohio State-Michigan game. As I watched a red tide of fans swamp the field at the end of the game, I didn’t know what to think. All I felt was a pounding, sullen resentment towards all the fans draped in red. That happiness…it should have been mine, it should have been ours. It was certainly not the result I had imagined before kickoff or even the one that I had imagined two quarters ago. I was left sitting in the aftermath, quietly on the couch. My throat was sore from yelling. Before me sat an empty bowl. I had eaten half a bag of family size Lays. I only remember nervously grabbing, chewing, swallowing through every errant throw, every violent collision. It had been the fastest three hours of my life. By the end, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. Every effort, every scream of passion felt like it had been utterly useless. Every action had been as empty as my chip bowl. Instead, the entire game boiled down to a singular run and an unclear referee decision. I wasn’t very hungry that night.

So yes, sports are pointless endeavors that will inevitably lead to disappointment, failure, and the over-eating of chips. They are also endlessly enjoyable and relentlessly addictive. I’m not sure that sports are a necessity. What I do know is history. For nearly as long as the existence of humanity, there has been games and competition. They act as instinctive expressions of our need to compete and test our skills. They act as conduits of real passion and fervor. And on special nights, such as the cool November evening when the Chicago Cubs broke a 107 year championship drought, they can make grown men cry.  Sports may be just the smallest piece of a much larger picture. But the image would not feel complete without it.

College is a world unto itself. It has unique rituals, food, and even clothing. We revel in our culture, coming together every Saturday in a ceremonial march to the Big House, our common temple, and raise our fists into the air in unison. “HAIL!”, shout a hundred thousand voices. “HAIL TO THE VICTORS!”. Young or old, we are together. And when, not if, we win, we celebrate in thousand little nooks and crannies in Ann Arbor. On Saturday evening, no matter how cold, you will find a welcoming party awaiting. Even outside of those special days in the autumn months, there is a sense of unity among the student body and all the staff on campus. When you don’t know what to say, you ask about school. When an awkward silence strikes, you complain about class or the dining hall food or the lingering hangover from the raging fraternity party last night. There are endless branching references, but all come back to the University, to the thing that connects a million strangers from all over the world to this one special place. When you are on campus, it seems like the outside world ceases to exist and that this little bubble is everything.

Stepping out of that bubble during Thanksgiving break was a shock. It was a shock not only borne of the lack of overtly friendly squirrels (although that was certainly one factor), but also of the sudden lack of structure. Abruptly I was cut off from all the little things that had come to dominate my schedule. Math homework was safely tucked away. Backpack was left sadly abandoned beside the bed. I didn’t even need to hurry to the dining hall at certain times or make sure to attend a club meeting. And I realized, as I did during every break from school, that I had nothing to do with the free time that I had been so eagerly anticipating. School has been a part of my life for more than 12 years now. I may have graduated from one grade to another, but I have never outgrown the mindset. Always, it’s the next short term goal, the next assignment. I think Thanksgiving is most important because it reminds me more than ever that as overwhelming as school seems at times, there are truly more important things than homework (No, it is not binge watching the latest TV show).

So as I sat watching TV, surrounded by friends and family, I still could not help but think about homework. I don’t think I will ever shake that off (I’m a perfectionist by nature). But if I have learned anything over the course of school it hasn’t just been calculus. No, it’s been the friends and community I’ve gained along the way that has made school important to me. It’s coming to the classroom and smiling at the teacher beaming back. That is what I’m going to miss most.

“Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?”

       This is the first line of West World, HBO’s  lavishly futuristic science fiction epic and my new favorite Sunday night treat (Sorry, Walking Dead fans). It features robots, cowboys, villains, heroes, and everyone in between. In this future, West World is an amusement park that allows visitors to role play in the Wild West. Hyper-realistic robots populate this world, mostly to satisfy the baser, and often bloody, instincts of the guests. Some robots are fated to die during the storylines, only to be revived for the next day. HBO has spent a fortune to bring Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s vision to the screen and it shows. Long tracking shots revel in the majestic Arizona landscape and the glass laboratories of the future. But at the heart of all the technical achievement is a deeper question: How do we interact with narratives? How do we construct them in our own lives?

There has always been a visceral thrill in immersing yourself in a someone else’s story. We like to pretend; whether its dressing up as your favorite character at Comic Con or daydreaming in math class. It allows us the freedom to be anyone, anywhere. There are no restraints, not even moral ones. In 2016, it is more popular than ever in every medium to be someone who you are not. Sometimes, the stories allow us to discover more about ourselves. By viewing the world through different perspectives, we gain empathy for others, an appreciation for situations we could never experience directly. Yet, even this can be taken too far. Assuming that a movie or a television show is a correct representation of real life is a mistake as well. I can’t possibly claim to be an expert in African American culture after watching Empire after all. Unfortunately, it seems to be one that we are making more than ever. Pretending can make us feel morally superior without doing anything. Sympathy for transgender rights after watching Transparent is great, but ultimately the show only raises awareness. It is up to us to carry out the real work needed to create change. It is not enough to pretend to be the hero, we must take that role for ourselves.

All the world’s a stage as Shakespeare famously wrote. I have always loved to create storylines. Sometimes, I was the charging hero. Other times, the rouge with the heart of gold. But always I was the main character, the one who mattered. Watching West World has made me realize that this is not only untrue, but also unintentionally harmful. The guests feel free to treat the robots with malicious abandon because they see them only as tools to advance the plot. If we only see others as disposable, supporting characters to our own, we lose any sense of perspective for their stories. It is too easy to look at other people and see them as side quests that we can explore at random or books that we can close when it gets too uncomfortable. It is too easy to treat real life from the perspective of a faraway bystander and retreat to our imaginary worlds. But this is the only true reality that we share together. I want to treasure it.

There is a surreal quality to waking up. The world transforms in an eyeblink from darkness to color. From vague, meandering dreams to vivid life all around. The mind doesn’t adjust quickly enough and it seems, for a moment, that this world, with all its confounding complexity and striking beauty, can’t possibly be real. Then, you remember: You’re in your bed, laying on your sofa, or dozing off in the math classroom (the worst of the three). Truly, sleep is an amazing thing. It is interdimensional travel, a trip to a different realm and restorative all at once. It can be disorienting to return to a world that seems infinitely more ordinary and logical than your dreams. Sometimes I prefer the infinite possibilities of sleep and other times the orderliness of consciousness is safer and preferable. However, during the last few days, the boundaries between imagined fantasies and reality seem to have blurred more than ever. If anything, this election cycle has proven to me that anything is possible even in the real world.

As I watched the final hours of the election tick by, I could not help but feel as if I was dreaming. Last Tuesday night passed in spurts, at first very quickly and then mind-numbingly slow. On CNN, the reporters seemed to be in a state of panic themselves, unbelieving. They cut frantically from the map to the individual states to the main panel sitting at their desk. Everywhere there was flashing updates, yet they, too, were helpless, waiting for the final polls to close. Some states would never be called. They did not want to fall silent lest they be forced to reflect on what was truly happening. It was a paradox that could have driven anyone insane. By the time Pennsylvania was declared for Trump, it was 2:00 am. I had neither the time nor the energy to contemplate the vast changes that had passed me by. Somehow, the world had changed entirely, but I could not yet see how. Only time would reveal the alterations to come.

Even throughout the next day, the sheer implication of the change was impossible to confront. The election made me realize that the world I thought that I knew so well was only an illusion, a fleeting dream. In fact, my world was in complete contradiction with what others wanted. My foundational values were not, in fact, universal laws. It was as if every physicist had suddenly told me that gravity no longer applied. I had been rudely awakened and could not seem to adjust. We always see the world in half-realized glimpses from severely limited perspectives, beautiful bubbles that need to be popped. Even when moments of clarity are gained, it is far too easy to lose them in the following hubbub.

You don’t get to wake up many times in this world, not nearly as many as you think. More and more, people talk only to those who share the same opinions, only click on the articles from certain publications. There is always an “us” and a nefarious “them”. Democracy represents a choice and the people’s voice, whether we like to hear it or not. This election was not only a mere wake-up call, it was a blaring fire alarm. There are serious problems in the real world and there is no point in seeing it as only a bad dream. No more hiding. It can’t be worse than realizing that your entire math class has been staring at you while you’ve been asleep.

It’s quiet in the Hatcher Library Reference Rooms today. But it’s never silent. Not even the strictest rules could prevent the variety of sounds that echo throughout the library. The door clicks as a new acolyte enters the sacred temple of books and laptops. Of all the students sitting in neat rows down the length of room, few even look up. The soaring white ceiling and murals are sadly ignored, as much as the shelves of books that line the walls. The amazed stares and slight gasps have been abandoned long ago in favor of resigned yawns. Most have their headphones plugged in. We may be sitting together but we are all in our own separate worlds, lost in swirls of half understood equations and tedious texts. Today, mine revolves around writing this blog post and the math homework I’m postponing. I’m sitting next to a girl with a knitted grey sweater and blonde hair braided neatly. Her feet move relentlessly under the table. I wonder if she has somewhere else to be.

There’s always somewhere else to be at the University of Michigan. Besides the uncompromising schedule of class after class, students often have many other obligations. Responsibilities to clubs, a can’t miss fraternity party, sports practices. That is why there is always a sense of urgency sitting here in the library. Homework must get done, so that we may all rush off to our next responsibility. The Hatcher Library even removes any social distractions. No need to spare any time on a few wasteful words. Concentration is forced upon us, silence envelopes us. The library allows me an opportunity to gain a singleness of mind that is rarely achievable in any other environment. Even walking outside, my mind rushes faster than my steps. What do I have to do next? Am I forgetting something? Of course, I’m forgetting something. But here in the library, I can savor the feeling of usefulness. The feeling that I am being productive, I have achieved something here today.

I wish sometimes that I did not need the library to force me to work. I wish that I could create quiet spaces anywhere just for me, myself, and I. I wish I could stand still in this moment. But my mind can’t and won’t. Often, it feels like being a helpless passenger on a runaway train or constantly dodging never ending obstacles in some sadistic video game. You are never in control. Most of the time, I ignore this reality. It is simply too emotionally exhausting to consider every singular stress in my life. So usually I put on my headphones and my favorite Spotify playlist. Yet, the library offers me a place of quieter reflection, a place beyond the everyday problems to look at the big picture. It seems to me, that as students, we spend too much time worrying about the homework, the classes, and the parties without considering exactly why we do things. Life is greater than a couple of assignments. That is why as I sink into the only open armchair and close my eyes, I can relax if only for a few fleeting moments.

When I open my eyes again, the world hasn’t changed. It is still only a room. I’m still only a student. But the library is a special place for me, always has been. When I was a kid, it was my wonderland. When I was a high schooler, it was a refuge from the drama within and without. Now, in college, it has become a study hall. But always, it is where I go to be alone but not lonely.