Ten signs that the start of the school year is nigh:
- Big and small clusters of athletes are wandering between the sports facilities, the dining hall, and the dorms.
- The faculty members who have been contemplating those distant September grant-proposal deadlines are now either fishing or cutting bait.
- The squirrels are aggressively securing every acorn they can.
- The grounds crews are working at 125% speed getting everything ready for the arrival of the new students and their donors parents.
- Staff on part-year contracts are suddenly back in our midsts.
- The hungry and the thirsty wander past the snack bar all afternoon, reflecting on the injustice of its closing just after lunch each afternoon.
- Rather than getting a dozen email messages on a busy summer day, I’m getting that many in a busy hour.
- Colossal stacks of textbooks are making the lower level of the bookstore into a pyromaniac’s dream.
- I’m obsessively checking and re-checking the dates on which we’re supposed to be notified about the results of springtime grant submissions.
- The oaks are slowly losing their lustrous green.