Campus is weird right now. I'm not sure if it's the summer heat, the fact that the ghosts of the regular student body have finally fled, a high number of vacation absences in the skeleton crew of staff and faculty, or something else, but it feels College of the Twilight Zone right now. I'm almost surprised to meet someone else as I pass through some of the bigger buildings or more out-of-the-way sidewalks.
The people I do encounter are often of un-Carleton character: lots of townies, taking advantage of the ever-running sprinklers,
and an even bigger number of Japanese students, on campus for an intensive English-language course. Looking at them is, in some ways, like seeing the future, especially in re. clothing. Not to say that these visitors are more uniformly uniformed than the average Carl (or Northfield kid), but the differences can be striking. First and foremost, black and white are pretty much the prevailing colors: it's rare to see anything bright at all. The men look pretty much like American peers, in polo shirts and long baggy shorts, though many have marvelously crafted hair, and few seem to wear sunglasses. The women most frequently wear (faux?) retro t-shirts with skinny shin-length jeans or capris with multiple sets of ties along the leg, lending a kind of Western-fringe look to them. And most amazingly, the predominant hairstyle among the women is a ponytail drawn up on the left and slung forward over the shoulder. On my way home today, I passed two different trios of women, all of whom had their hair done that way. I haven't seen any cell phones, so I can't tell if they're all using thumb-sized Japanese devices that we won't see in the States for years.
Visitors aren't the only way that campus feels a bit off right now. Outside the student post office window are several U.S. Postal Service bins, each heaped with magazines that the p.o. won't forward to the student recipients. They're all free for the taking: have one copy or ten of last week's Economist or ESPN the Magazine. I passed on the former, but accepted the latter as a way to catch up on all the slang the kewl kidz (or their manipulators in the culture economy) are using. Unfortunately, all I learned was why Travis Pastrana matters. Some things, you can't unlearn.