'Tis the season of anticipation. Winter break was the time of wish lists and guest lists, and now, with the New Year and new semester, the campus is buzzing with expectation. I can't help but feel, though, that things are often better before we have them.
It all began with Christmas.
I added items to my wish list, detailed what I wanted and where to get it, and shamelessly circulated all of this to my family. Finally, the day arrived. The tree - laced with cheerful lights and gaudy tinsel - was surrounded by crisply wrapped presents. Days of anticipation have finally led up to this point.
I proceeded to unwrap my gifts, place them in a pile and then completely forget about them - at least until the next gift-giving occasion where I will most likely re-gift the majority. This plot - anxious anticipation and the indifference that follows - now that I have become aware of it, seems to dominate my life in more ways than I previously realized.
I see it in the eagerness with which I notice the red notifications in the upper-left-hand corner of my Facebook and the speed with which I forget the ‘likes' I've received.
I feel it when the vibration of my pocket indicates a new text message and the speed with which I realize it was, in fact, just my hopeful imagination.
I hear it in the cheerful ding of my microwave finishing and the speed with which I realize I am going to be eating leftover Five Star Pizza.
I smell it as the wafts of holiday drinks at Starbucks strike me at the Hub and the speed with which I realize the line is massive and I have five minutes to get to class.
I sense it in the unbearable anticipation of the newest Harry Potter movie, and the speed with which I grasp that I am, indeed, still a Muggle.
Disturbing quantities of my life are spent in this cycle of anticipation and indifference, with, sure, the occasional stop at fulfillment. What better example of the allure of anticipation than the expectation that comes with the New Year. After almost a month of break, we come back to school with a fresh semester, a fresh 365 days and a fresh start.
More than usual, around this time we reflect on the past year of our lives and try to compartmentalize and analyze what happened. Just throw an arbitrary date at us, give us the opportunity for renewal and we toss away our usual indifference and resolve to change. Southwest Recreation Center is crowded with people looking to slim down or buff up. The first chapters of textbooks are over-highlighted in anticipation of good grades. Classes are crowded with those resolved to finally attend. Inevitably, the gym crowds wane, the highlighting abruptly stops and class attendance dwindles.
I know I certainly made resolutions to which I now expectantly resolve to adhere. New Year's resolutions for which I expect to go to the gym every day, expect to get straight As and expect to find love. Will these things happen? Probably not. But the expectation that they will is fulfilling enough. I am satisfied telling people of my plans, hoping they will come true — at least for a short time, until my anticipation dissolves into inevitable indifference as new goals and new expectations enter my life.
And so, students of UF, savor the perfection of this moment. This moment in the beginning of the semester — in which none of your resolutions are broken, all of your grades are high, when you cannot possibly get any fatter and when you haven't yet drunk-texted your ex.
In the meantime, have you heard about the new Hunger Games movie? I heard it's supposed to be amazing.
Garrett Bruno is a political science sophomore at UF. His column appears on Thursdays.
