A Thoughts from Places Attempt

One type of video that pops up with different vloggers that I follow is "Thoughts from Places". The general format is video clips of a person going about their day or exploring a location while they as narrator share their experience and reflect on life, their journey, and other philosophical topics. It can be quite introspective and always has this calming sensation.

I wouldn't call myself a vlogger these days (I tried to run a channel, but I didn't find a sustainable "groove" for it), but if I was, today's video would be Thoughts from Places. I know that in these types of videos, vloggers carefully craft their narrations, while simultaneously making it seem like a stream of consciousness from the various video clips. I don't have the time to meticulously revise my inner monologue and while it won't be the same without any form of visual cues, but I hope you would indulge me in trying out a Thoughts from Places - at least the narration.


After an all-too-short night of sleep and obligatory snoozing, I shuffled out of bed to the central office where I met up with Mike and Emily to discuss summer housing. I was initially daunted by the large pile of over-sized paper Mike had with all summer housing applications, but we quickly filtered this down into a much more manageable list of students that I would oversee for some or all of the summer. Even though the meeting yanked me out of bed an hour earlier than normal, it helped lift the cloud of mystery with summer operations... at least by a few inches.

As I walked back to my own building to do some work, it simultaneously felt like mid-morning and mid-afternoon, despite it actually being closer to 11:00am. Talking about summer so much made part of my brain think it was actually summer, although to be fair, it was a gorgeous day outside.

I went back to the central office after an assorted lunch which included Cajun fish and pizza fries in order to cover for some co-workers who were taking vacation this week. Perhaps this is just my own perception, but it feels like there's a difference between a co-worker and someone I work with. While working at a college, a co-worker feels like someone who performs similar tasks as you and is at the same level in the organizational hierarchy, whereas someone you work with can include supervisors, directors, housekeepers, police officers, and anyone who tries to make this college a place for students to learn and grow.

Getting back on topic, the afternoon turned into a continuation of the morning meeting as I prepared summer floor plans, knowing full well that we would need to re-visit all of our plans on Monday with the inevitable new wave of applications from over the weekend. A number of students did visit the office to ask questions about moving out for the summer, but it wasn't until I was I walking back to my building that I was reminded what day today was -- the last day of classes for the spring.

A large centralized portion of campus was blocked off for the end-of-semester picnic, so as I walked through the festivities with laptop in hand, I saw the bouncy houses, grilling, balloon artists, caricature sketchers, and other activities for the students to take part in. I also saw a few student staff members, and while I lingered for a few minutes, I got the sense that this was one last chance for the students to celebrate and have fun before cracking down with finals. I didn't linger for too long because I wanted to knock some last things off of the to do list. Plus, the lines were a little too long for my tastes.

An hour or so later, I left my office content with my progress and I found myself walking back through the end-of-semester celebration and onwards to a quieter part of campus. I sat down at the Shrine of Mary in a quiet corner of campus and thought about Thoughts from Places, among other things. One larger thought that rolled around in my mind was how my perception of the school year has started to change. As a student, I saw each academic year in a very segmented way: the semester had a very clear start and end date separated by winter break and summer, which were devoted to time with family & friends and devoid of the academic topics I had learned about in the weeks prior.

While working at a college means that academic semesters still define the structure of a year, my co-workers and I have been working on spring and summer tasks simultaneously to the point where spring and summer seem to melt together rather than be an abrupt stop between the two seasons. I know that part of this feeling stems from being in a 12-month position, rather than having a summer break alongside the students I oversee.

As I was sitting at the shrine, I told myself that if I made a Thoughts from Places, I should avoid strained metaphors and needlessly flowery language. However, I would also get distracted by seeing geese swimming along the river or hearing cars drive across the bridge. The shrine was a nice secluded place, but still part of its surroundings, which were ever changing and part of something even larger.


I think I'm going to end it there. I started to lose some steam towards the end, which hopefully doesn't show too much. Maybe I can do more reflective entries like this in the future - it definitely changes things up rather than simple daily updates or random lists of questions. Let me know what you think. Even though it's the weekend, I should get some sleep to keep me at least somewhat on schedule.

Tomorrow is National Mini Golf Day, National Train Day, & World Fair Trade Day. Heh, it's also Stay Up All Night, which seems fitting for the time of year.

DFTBA