Notes from the Desk The waiting game

Author: H. Kay Merriman

When I applied to Middlebury, back before the days of courting the Top 100 applicants, I was under the impression that Middlebury wanted you to come to them. Want a free Nalgene with your $50,000 education? Get in line. You have to demonstrate an eagerness, a desire, a sense of urgency. You can't wait to be at Middlebury, and in order to get there, you must prove to the College that they can't wait to have you either. Then, once you complete the lengthy application expressing all that you have accomplished to deserve instant acceptance, you must wait for their response. Call me eager, or impatient, but I applied early decision. Once my packet of acceptance was in hand (despite my impatience, I did not succumb to checking online and subsequently entering chat forums in order to speculate about our future collegiate lives in Vermont), I thought the waiting game was over. I had proven myself. Now, Middlebury would wait on me.

For the most part, I was correct in my thinking. I received a very warm welcome upon arrival to Battell, including a human tunnel to run through and a handful of JCs (that's FYCs for the "Top 100" students and their classmates) to carry my luggage to my room. I found strong communities in Cook Commons, the Women's Rugby Team and The Middlebury Campus that were more than helpful in guiding me through the adjustment of coming to college. Still, despite all the advice and free cookies doled out ad infinitum to new students, I could not help but notice in my classmates an overwhelming desire for something more. And what more could Middlebury College students possibly want, you ask? Time.

Midd kids, myself included, are impatient. We follow our set agendas of a combination of classes, clubs and - if time permits - culinary activity, and we can't stand if you do anything to change our schedules. We are compulsive e-mail checkers and expect responses within the hour. We operate on "Middlebury time" of running five minutes late to everything, but enter minor cardiac arrest when we have 200 pages of reading to do and our advisor is running 15 minutes late for our scheduled appointment. We pass each other on the sidewalks at absurd speeds, often not realizing that it was a close friend we were just cursing for his or her only moderately-paced gait. We prefer the instant gratification of a McCullough make-out to the long and arduous - yet rewarding - process of genuine courtship. We take shots instead of sips and texts instead of talking. We hate to wait.

Lately, thanks to budget cuts and the general restructuring of campus, students have been forced to wait and believe me, our collective patience has been tested. I feel like there is always a go-to topic of conversation each week that you employ whenever you sense an awkward silence coming on. This week that topic was the lines: the line for treadmills at the gym, the line for chicken quesadillas in Ross, the line to see Al Sharpton