Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

“…it was interesting.”

That’s what I can say to describe my unexpected start to my spring break.

I’d been looking forward to spring break since the end of February. Sure, I didn’t have anything extraordinary planned, such as going with the Hopkins chapter of Habitat for Humanity to build houses in Miami. Like a lot of students, all that I had planned was to go home–and like a lot of students, I thought that was exciting! Still, I didn’t think that I’d have a spring break story to tell upon returning to Hopkins. After all, who’d really want to hear me talk about my home? The issue of me having a spring break that wouldn’t give me storytelling material has already been solved, however. In fact, it was solved at the beginning of spring break.

Let’s flash back to a little over 48 hours ago. It was past 5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 9, the last day of classes before spring break. I had been waiting with my luggage in my dorm room for about half an hour. As I stood in my room with the door open, I heard a few of my few housemates rush to finish packing by the 6:00 closing time of the dorms. Meanwhile, my dad, who was supposed to pick me up between 4:30 and 6:00, hadn’t even called me yet to say that he was near Baltimore, so I called him to make sure that everything was all right. I soon learned that the words all right have a relative meaning. My dad was fine when I called him, but a series of events at home had caused him to leave later than he should’ve left if he were to arrive at Hopkins by 6:00. Ergo, while there was less than an hour until closing time for the dorms, my dad was still over three hours’ driving distance away from Baltimore–and not factoring in traffic.

I was worried, but I couldn’t panic for too long, because…well…doing so wouldn’t get me anywhere. I ended up deciding to wait by the M-Level entrance of MSE with my luggage until my dad arrived at Hopkins, so at around 5:40, I trudged with my bags from AMR I to MSE. All six of my bags. Okay, I’ll give credit where credit is due, so I want to say thanks to my housemate Hugo for helping me bring my bags to MSE. Oh, and why did I have six bags in the first place? Half of the things that I’d packed to bring home were items that I intended to leave at home, such as books and clothing. For about three and a half hours, I sat at a bench inside MSE facing the M-Level doors, with my lovely luggage by my side. Sometimes, I entertained myself by listening to my iPod. At other times, I entertained myself by reading Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. (By the way, Ms. Nafisi is a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).) When my iPod and book didn’t entertain me enough, I went to a part of M-Level where I could surf the Internet on one of the library’s computers and keep an eye on my luggage. There eventually came a time when even that didn’t save me from boredom, so I returned to the bench where my bags were, took out my camera, and started taking pictures with it. One of them is in this blog entry, and it’s of the luggage that I had with me. Once my photographic fling for the evening had ended, I simply sat and watched people come and go from MSE. Believe it or not, even though it was the Friday night before spring break, there were quite a few people using the library.

My dad picked me up sometime past 9:00.  We didn’t go home immediately, though, because we first had dinner at Niwana, a restaurant across the street from Charles Commons (which is a dorm for upperclassmen) that serves Japanese and Korean cuisine. After that, we finally left Baltimore to go home.

Now it’s time to end the flashback and return to the present. I’m typing this blog entry from the warmth of my home, so it goes without saying that (a) my dad and I arrived here safe and sound, and (b) I’ve been here ever since for spring break!