Construction on Campus

You’ll know it when it happens

Photo courtesy of A.J. Banas, Vice President of the Filipino Student Union

Today is a beautiful day. Possessed by an overwhelming feeling of generosity, I decided to donate blood; I was turned away. On my way back to my residence hall from the Union, I noticed something quite peculiar about my surroundings, arising from a sudden awareness that the area felt more spacious than usual. Then I realized the reason behind this peaceful feeling of openness: the sprinklers were gone, or at least most of them. This observation turned my would-be generosity into gratitude almost immediately, although if I lived on the south side of campus, I would be concerned, because realistically that is where they are going to end up next if they do not remove them from campus completely.

Anyways, on the topic of south side, last Thursday (or maybe Friday) I decided to take a walk, both to give myself something to do, and to figure out what exactly I was going to write about for my upcoming article. As I reached south side, I was struck by a similar sense of peculiarity as I had today, and the root of this feeling happened to be very similar as well. Not only was there a severe lack of sprinklers, there was neither a single sign of any construction…yet, it seems these sprinklers have migrated amidst the writing of this. 

I found this odd as, especially after all the wonderful things I had heard about Onondaga, the area actually looked very nice, from the outside at least. In fact, it looked significantly nicer than north side does, where even after the removal of the majority of the hellish tripods, there are still plenty of little wonders strewn all over the place: chain barriers, wooden barriers, chainlink fence barriers, and, well, just a ton of random barriers. Now mind you, unlike the sprinklers, these barriers are serving their purpose, blocking off wet concrete and not-so-wet grass that’s been in the process of receiving transplants for at least a couple of days now. And even though some of them seem a little out of place, they are still a massive improvement over what was; they also don’t give you a midday surprise shower while you are on your way to class either. 

The only barrier that I have seen so far that really looks to be a nuisance is one just outside of Jones, the comically-oversized chainlink fence blocking off one of the entrances to the building. It could be for a good reason—the path it is now blocking off was all gravel from what I remember, so maybe they are doing the residents a favor by giving them a nice concrete walkway, or they could be doing it for the sole purpose of spreading their misery, or maybe it’s a mix of both. 

Either way this work is probably all for the greater good, especially since, if you think about it, all we have to do is wait just a little bit longer and all these marvels of modern construction and landscaping will be dumped on south side for them to enjoy for a month or two—maybe even longer if they are just that lucky. I am sure the thought of all those sprinklers, and maybe even some barriers too, in one tiny little cramped area is enough to make your skin crawl.

Well no matter what happens in the future, you should keep in mind the fact that one man’s liberation is another’s subjugation, and I’m about 95 percent sure that everyone in south side is going to be subjugated to all the horrors—or pleasures if the thought of getting thoroughly soaked after leaving your dorm in the morning sounds wonderful to you—that modern irrigation technology has to offer And you better hope that whoever decided to place the sprinklers the way they were on north side is not doing the same work on south side, and if they are, you better hope they are not as miserable as they were back then. There’s a good chance  your experience is going to be at least ten times worse there than it was here, complimented by the area’s confinement. I also would not be surprised if they end up putting those things right on the edge of the two crosswalks there, just to make them that much more of a pain to evade than they were here. 

So you better start praying that they do not end up changing locations instead of disappearing completely, because that’s unfortunately the way that things seem to be shaping up for the time being. Well, not unfortunate for north side, but you get what I mean. Just remember that if the worst becomes reality, the option to knock them down will always remain.