Five Senses Friday
As we close out this week, I thought I’d do a Five Senses Friday – where I park myself in a spot on campus for 15 minutes and tell you what I see, hear, smell, feel, and maybe even taste 🙂 Today my perch is the courtyard between Tribble Hall, the Benson University Center, and the ZSR Library around 1:30 pm. Here goes.
I see…
A handful of wooden picnic tables that are now silvery from a year’s worth of sun beating down on them.
A pretty girl in a tube top. Aside: start of school is always so fun to see what is in fashion for the 18-22 year old set. I did not realize tube tops were a thing again. Also, shorts are short again this year y’all 🙂
A faculty member who had taught me 30 years ago. They don’t recognize me in my older, greyer, masked look. They look remarkably the same though, good for them.
A guy come out of Tribble walking with a motorized scooter. As I try to [discreetly] get a look, turns out there are like four of them. They speed off, one going in a different direction than the other 3.
Most students appear to have backpacks. In some of my 22 years at Wake, a backpack was not the go-to for book-carrying. Apparently it is now.
Most of the students coming through the courtyard are unmasked – which is OK, because we are outside. A few leave them on anyway. I can see a visible mask in just about everyone’s hand or on the picnic table they are using, which is a good thing, given the mayor’s indoor mask mandate.
Lots of guys in black t-shirts.
A few students wearing jeans, which is surprising to me given this heat.
Around 1:45 or 1:50, a huge stream of students are coming and going through the Tribble Hall doors as class periods change.
Surprisingly few students in sunglasses. It is super sunny out and I would have thought they’d all be wearing them.
I hear…
A constant metallic whirring hmm-hmm-hmm from air conditioners at Tribble Hall behind me and Benson off in the distance.
Laughter. Two guys walk by me and they are having an animated conversation.
A student speaking Spanish. Possibly practicing with a classmate?
The sound of a skateboard, then the sound of its owner stepping on the end to pop it up into his hand to carry it into Tribble. Must admit, I am impressed.
Jingling keys. A female student has a lanyard with her ID and her keys on it, and the keys are slapping back and forth as she walks.
A crinkly brown paper bag. A student has one in his hand – likely his lunch (it’s about 1:30).
Snippets of two girls talking as they leave Tribble: “Oh my god!” “No, don’t worry!” “I was so stressed out” “No, no worries” – two female students walk by and I catch some hint of perhaps canceled plans or mixed messaging about an outing. They have reunited and all seems well.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you! How are you?” says one student to another – maybe they are bumping into each other for the first time.
“It’s SO hot!” from a languid female voice.
A male student I know greeting a female friend with “HELLO, LOVE!” They hug a friendly hug. He says “I love you!” to his friend as he leaves.
Several people call a friend out by name as they see them from a distance. I won’t say their names here, just for their privacy.
Four female students sitting at a table and chatting. Most of them have an iced coffee.
I feel…
Hotter than a [insert your favorite hot joke here]. I start my Five Senses time in full sun, and even after just a few minutes, it is toasty.
Immense relief, because a student who was at a table that has an umbrella gets up and leaves, so I scoot over and grab it. Honestly, with the shade of this big umbrella, it is like 15 degrees cooler here.
The hard metal bench I am sitting on. It’s sort of a chain link pattern and thankfully it allows the little bit of breeze we have to come through.
Sweat starting to form on my forehead. At my elbows.
My hair blowing around my face as the breeze picks up.
I smell…
Humidity. I don’t know how to describe it better than that, other than to say it smells hot and wet. It’s strange, because normally you can smell more things: either perfume/cologne, or grass being cut, or smoke from a cigarette or something. But today it only smells hot.
I taste…
Diet Pepsi. I had to stop and get a drink before I did a long stretch of time sitting outside in this heat.
Tzatziki sauce and a warm, soft pita. At the very end of me writing this Five Senses post, I got some chicken souvlaki from Yamas, since I was right next to Benson. It is straight up delicious.
Hope this made you feel like you were on campus with me! Have a great weekend, and remember that Friday afternoon is the best time in the week to call your Deac.