Tensions Rise Ahead of College Counseling Weekend, Valentine’s Day
As the week wraps up, Exonians across campus begin to look forward to the welcome approach of another weekend. However, interrupting the usual rituals made in anticipation of upcoming Friday, many students are left in scrambles as they react to the coinciding arrival of Upper Parents’ Weekend and Valentine’s Day.
Many students, particularly uppers like Emmanuel Tran, expressed unease at the amount of preparations left to do with little hope. “It really just snuck up on me. Like boom, let’s go.” Dorms were especially active on Wednesday afternoon, working out alibis for their poor weekly performances, and ironing out their tales on what accolades all the future presidents in Abbot Hall had acquired. A few enterprising students even searched for the communal vacuum but could only get through half a room before they were ‘forced’ to attend to lights out.
More seriously, a sense of stretched time seems to pervade the stressful concurrence of scholastic and interpersonal obligation, and a decidedly small segment of students have shared their concerns. We were able to stop a weary looking upper Charles Preston on the path and probe him about which event he was most worried about. After a gulp and sigh, he let off what seemed to be a load on his chest. “I don’t know sometimes it just seems like right when we’re about to get a break from the constant flood of schoolwork we’re handed this other thing that serves the school’s ends and never really gives us a rest to relax and be ourselves, maybe if we want to be honest about putting our students first we’d just give them a true weekend off, and not just winter thaw which clubs capitalize on because it’s the only break.” When interviewers clarified that this was just The Exonian’s Humor Page, he curtly remarked “Valentine’s Day.”
Others, even those who have just as much work as me, Mom, are instead using these next few days to solidify and pursue relationships in honor of St. Valentine. Lower Otto Do expressed privately that he wanted to take some risks and ask a friend if they’d be willing to take the next step with him. “I’ve been looking for a workout partner for a while now, I think Anne is just the right person to help me get massive gains.”
For others still, Valentine’s Day can also be an annual reminder of the budding relationships that form around the Harkness table. Upper Adam Tuchler recalls, “I met Sarah when we were both in 330 Math together. First we were math partners, now we’re finally (just?) friends.”
Of course any celebration of the connections we’ve made with other people is also an unfortunate opportunity to highlight the loneliness some people feel during this season. The fact that Valentine’s Day coincides with CCO Weekend will undoubtedly compound these sentiments in the many students that will spend this weekend alone. “I like to lose myself in my work,” Managing Editor Felix Yeung reflected, sitting at his desk with a tub of Cherry Garcia next to him. His computer laid open to Netflix’s Great British Baking Show on mute. “I don’t really even think about it.”