11.18.2008 - 2:17 p.m.

Today I was preparing a workshop about creative non-fiction writing. In planning it, we'd decided to collect a bunch of pictures of campus as an exercise for the students--we'd ask them to write a bit about a seemingly-unimportant moment in their days, and have them use the pictures to help them think "What happened to me the last time I walked by there?"

I'd volunteered to bring in a selection from my own pictures. I've been here since 1997, after all, so I have pictures of most parts of campus.

However, looking through them this morning, I have fewer useful pictures than I thought. I have:

Pictures taken in dorm rooms, mostly halloween costume records, which are still good, though most of the furniture has been replaced.

Pictures of the point or the waterfront, most of which are good, but some of which won't be familiar. Most students still recall the old boathouse, but none have ever seen the campus under snow, or the beach on the point without retaining walls.

Pictures of a campus center, a temporary cafeteria, and a field that no longer exist, and have not since before the current crop of students were fourteen. No good.

Pictures of the patio of the arts and letters building, which still exists and would be fine... except that the subject of those pictures was the peacocks we used to have. Back when the current crop of students was, you guessed it, fourteen.

I am so old. Or they are so young. Or ten years is a long time.

-stonebridge

previous | next