After five semesters, there are still a couple of things about Binghamton that give me a hard time. I’ve learned to deal with the issues and take advantage of the challenges and opportunities they present.
The weather, for instance, is not one of our city’s strong points. I saw a tour group the other day shivering and struggling to stay dry under the Engineering Building overhang. I empathize with that tour guide. Pitching Binghamton in the rain, sleet and snow is a hard sell.
Still, there are unique opportunities our climate presents unavailable in other locales. This semester I’m taking Skiing for credit. Every week I go to Greek Peak, just 45 minutes north, and get a few hours of a good skiing in on a modest-sized mountain. It isn’t the Alps or Utah, but it’s a good time. And I’ll always have Skiing on my transcript as a part of my college experience. That’s pretty remarkable.
We may not develop tans or beach bods, the way our contemporaries at U-Miami might. But we’re tough. If you can handle the Binghamton winter, you can do almost anything. It’s been documented.
There are specific issues on campus, too. The general conduct and accommodations in the Glenn G. Bartle Library are in need of severe reform. When it’s 10 minutes before class and you desperately need to print your paper, there’s not a computer to be had. Why must students occupy precious Pods with inane things like playing Tetris and watching anime and ESPN highlights?
If you are someone who does this, listen: your Pods habits are anxiety-provoking and endlessly infuriating for your peers. Can’t you watch “Dragon Ball Z” at home? The most likely reason people are going to the library is because they have work to do. Sure, you could technically use the computers there to play blackjack or shop for rain boots, but don’t you care about your peers at all?
I used to think that more computers would rectify this issue. But having a greater numbers of Pods stations, I now fear, would only lead to more of the same behavior. What’s needed is a general shift in perspective. The library, no matter how social a person you may be, isn’t a student union. Hopefully the reopening of the Food Court in the New University Union next year will divert those students just looking to kill time.
Next: when you send something to print at the Pods, but it doesn’t get there soon enough, where does it go?
Realistically, I understand that in order not to get bogged down, the system needs to clear itself after 20 or 30 minutes. But, I also like to think that there’s a mysterious figure who lives in the shadows of the bookshelves and gets dibs on everyone’s printed items after a certain amount of time. It is this ghostly, library printing goblin who gets all our PDFs, term papers and review sheets when we don’t print them soon enough.
Also, who rings the bell from the top of the Library Tower? Again, I understand that this is most likely computerized, but what if this mysterious Quasimodo is the same enigmatic figure who gets dibs on all our delayed printings? It could very well be the ghost of Glenn G. Bartle!
If there is a lesson here, I suppose it is to take advantage of the challenges life presents to you. Every challenge is either an opportunity for growth or creativity, depending on how you look at it. This shift in perspective opens great, otherwise unimaginable, doors. Walk through them with me. Walk through them.