As a bi-college student I’ve been living in constant fear—and not just of Abstractions. (That’s a reference to Ezra Pound. I’m not crazy, just an intended English major.) A new peril seems to lurk around every corner. Even weeks after Halloween Bryn Mawr and Haverford can be scary places to live. Among the things to fear: Red Bull overdoses, sleep deprivation, H1N1, and being consumed by fire. But not in that order, of course.
The first two are givens. What student doesn’t go to the computer lab hoping her head won’t slam into the screen at 4 a.m. or that her fourth Red Bull won’t send her into a caffeine-induced fit? These fears just come with the college territory, particularly when you’re trying to maintain a social life amidst all the academic madness. The other two fears are what may just push me over the edge.
Primarily, I have a very real concern that one morning I’ll wake up with the telltale curly pink tail of swine flu. If you’ve ever seen that episode of “The Twilight Zone” featuring the pig-faced doctors you should understand my nightmare. I had a false alarm a few weeks ago when I woke with pinkish skin. Luckily enough I only had the seasonal flu. I was so afraid that Health Center nurses would lock me away in a cell that I elected to quarantine myself instead. No big deal. Just a fever, headache, fatigue…
To make matters worse, every time I consider getting the swine flu vaccine I think of that video circulating on Facebook. You know, the one with the girl named Desiree who can now only function correctly when running—a freak side effect of a flu shot. Sure, Desiree was one in a million, but my luck hasn’t been great these past few months. And you may not know this, but I cannot function correctly while running.
On top of that, I have ringing in my ears. See, Rhoads North, the very lovely dorm I elected to live in, has a fire alarm problem. The alarm seems to go off twice every hour, particularly at night. Word on the street is that these frequent false alarms are a result of malicious interaction of shower steam and overly sensitive sensors. Okay, fine. Fire or no fire, I have work to do. If the fire alarm goes off while I’m in the shower, I’ll take a chance and fight the flames with my soapy water. Maybe I’ll even let the flames just take me. I will absolutely not be running outside in my towel, no matter how bizarrely warm the weather is these days. Maybe I’m just not a typical Bryn Mawr woman, but I like to be fully clothed when I go outside. So instead I take a risk every hour that the fire alarm is just as harmless as the one before it and hope something unpredictable never comes to pass.
And now Hollywood has added even another worry to the list: the 2012 apocalypse. I’ll be graduating the year the world is supposedly coming to an end. So much for my education. In light of all these fears, the conclusion I’ve come to is simple: living at Bryn Mawr is either really dangerous or has made me paranoid. Maybe if someone would silence the fire alarm I could make up my mind.
Williams, a sophomore intended English major, can be reached at lewilliams@brynmawr.edu.
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Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
