EDITOR
Doug Kouma
OPINION
EDITOR
Anne Hjersman
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Doug Peters
Matt Waite
Paula Lavigne
Mitch Sherman
Anthony Nguyen
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4
Get the drift?
As snow piles up,
drivers out of luck
Two weeks ago, the City of Lincoln pub
lished a full-page map and a step-by-step ex
planation of the city’s snow removal plan in
the Daily Nebraskan. This week, ice sheets
coating Lincoln’s streets reminded students
there would be many a_
days ahead of wishing
for snow days that just
don’t happen.
As the weather
grows colder, more and
more students will be in
clined to drive to cam
pus, but when the snow
starts falling, fewer and
fewer parking spaces
will be available as
streets are closed for
clearing. Still the univer
sity maintains its posi
tion: Come heck or high
snow drifts, school must
go on.
If the university
wants its students to fol
low the policies it sets
forth, administrative
policies should jibe with
other rules students are
expected to follow.
Here’s two that don’t
jibe: the city’s snow-re
ww
The
university
maintains
its
position:
Come heck
or high
snow
drifts,
school
must go
on.”
movai panting oan ana me snow-aay poli
cies (or lack thereof).
UNL has been criticized for having no
solid snow-day policy. Administrators huddle
together in a warm room close to their re
served parking spots and make a “judgment
call” on whether or not to hold classes. In
the last two winters, die only class cancella
tion was a late start — a two-hour delay.
School officials have always checked with
the UNL police and weather services in or
der to make a final call.
Perhaps administrators would be wise to
check first with city officials who enforce
the parking bans for their snow removal pro
gram. Parking bans creep onto the UNL cam
pus from all sides, from Ninth to 17th streets
and Holdrege to R streets.
Yet, on days when there s enough snow
to plow, students are still expected to come
to school. One catch: there's nowhere to park.
Compounded by the closing of a commuter
parking lot by Memorial Stadium, parking
will be outrageously difficult on days when
it has snowed and half of the city’s parking
spaces are shut down for plowing.
There is no immediate answer to where
students can find more parking (unless ad
ministrators take a bit of their own advice,
give up their red lots and take the bus in the
morning).
If the snow is so bad that it needs to be
plowed, it may be dangerous for students to
come to class anyway. If UNL ever does de
cide to adopt a clear snow-day policy, park
ing bans enforced by the City of Lincoln with
threat to tow should have something to do
with it
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of die
Fall 1996Daily Nebraskan. They do not nec
essarily reflect the views of the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, its enqdoyees, Us stu
dent body or the University of Nebraska
Board of Regents. A column is soley die
opinion of its author The Board of Regents
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policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Edito
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tablished by the regents, supervises the pro
duction of die newspaper According to
policy set by the regents, responsibility for
die editorial consent of the newspaper lies
solely in die hands of its student employees.
V-;
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In the now
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The student life is no life at all
Editor's note: This column ap
peared in The Yale Daily News and
is reprinted here courtesy of 11
Wire.
A wise classmate of mine once
said: “When you have one foot in the
past and one in the future, you’re
bound to piss on the present.” A
magazine my roommate once
received corroborated: “Going to
college is like placing a bet that
you’ll be alive to live later.”
Last month during the rosy days
of Parents Weekend, I accompanied
my parents to a panel on “Education
at Yale.” Both President Levin and
Dean Brodhead presided on the dusty
stage of Woolsey Hall, flanked by
well-respected and well-spoken
professors. A microphone was in the
aisle so inquiring parents could ask
the “experts” questions about any
minutiae of Yale existence.
The questions were what you
would expect: “...affects my son’s
chances at getting into law school?”
“Is it true that Yale Med School
accepts a lower percentage of...?”
“... but wouldn’t that lower little
Susie’s probability of going to a good
grad school?”
I cringed behind my Parents
Weekend brochures frill of beaming
students as parent after parent tried
to determine how best to shuttle their
little genius into grad school. No
parents asked how to help their
children to best relish their time at
Yale.
Last week my best friend at
Stanford sent out a despairing letter:
What happened to spontaneity? I
don’t want to walk this carefully
manicured path from here to power
mini-skirts on Wall Street. I don’t
want precision. I don’t want to take
this class because it may {wove useful
later on, I want to take this class
because I actually wonder about the
life cycles of invertebrates. I want to
throw a picnic for a pal and not grow
- paler in the computer cluster.
We dictate our lives here in
pursuit of the sensible and the
prudent. “Oh, I guess I’ll major in
Econ, at least it’s useful.” Anything
interesting—be it a class, an event,
or even a person—is sooner or later
u
Anything interest
ing — be it a
class, an event, or
even a person —
is sooner or later
sacrificed to
the deity of future
benefit.”
sacrificed to the deity of future
benefit.
What are we doing anyway?
I have never been the paragon of
Carpe Diem. The best part of my day
is squandered on daydreaming about
what hip city I’ll be living in after
graduation with which hip cats and
remembering a time when L had a life
and less flab. The present doesn’t
have the fortune of being seen
through a film of nostalgia or through
the selective glasses of wishful
thinking,
I thought I was the only one
sleepwalking through Yale. What a
pity that girl doesn't get out more—
maybe this summer I will. What a
shame that girl was studying on a
Saturday night—but I used to be the
life of the party. But then I see
acquaintances vowing that they
would, if only they could.
Maybe I move in more dour
circles than most, but when I stop to
lift my head from my computer, I see
a lot of miserable people—not
depressed, perhaps, from the clinical
psychiatrist’s standpoint, but not
particularly alive either. I see a lot of
people wandering through a colle
giate Gothic limbo, a textbook
clutched in one hand, a law school
application clenched in die other,
wishing they had time to see the play
that just went up at the Yale Reper
tory Theater—whether or not they
were railroaded into bursar billing a
«.
Student Pass. Last fall I only went to
one play at the Yale Rep, because I
had more pressing engagements, like
sitting petrified in front of the latest
term paper for half a day.
The pain we put ourselves through
seems laughable in the context of the
decades of life we have left. Had a
mental breakdown because of a
Chem lab? The stress is not any less
because of our circumstances—just
more frustrating because it stems
from our artificial but necessary
constructions of GPAs, career tracks
and resumes.
A roommate laments: “I don’t
read books for pleasure anymore.” A
friend apologizes: “I just don’t see
people much anymore.” No one
seems to have the time to do anything
now. Next week. Next semester. Next
lifetime.
A classmate laughs: “I was
walking down the street when I
overheard two New Haven residents
talking about how much they would
hate to go to Yale. ‘They’re such
robots.’” 11
The way I see it, we have two
choices. Either we quit college and
all it entails in pursuit of living in the
present, or we stop ordering our lives
by what an imagined interviewer
would approve of five years down
the road. Stay at Yale. Be a student
—but resist governing each second
by what you ought to do. You are not
living for the 30-year-old executive
success a decade down the road.
So, take that rumba class at the
gym. Start writing the first half of
your first book. Put down this week’s
(or last week’s) history reading and
surprise your freshman-year room
mate for the first time this side of
Labor Day. Stop hiding behind the
catch-all response of “I just don’t
have time.” The only time to spend,
waste, or lavish is now.
Of course, one shouldn’t shrug off
all responsibilities and classes and
plans for the instant gratification of
playing hooky. If worst comes to
worst, you can always tell your TA.
that the reason you ended up at a
Brazilian kick-boxing workshop
instead of section was the subliminal [jj
message in this column. S
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