Letter from the Editor 10.23.2019

As I write this, I’m toggling back and forth between Penn Course Plan, Penn InTouch, and the English Department’s homepage, because—and I can’t believe I’m writing this—I’m planning out what my last semester at Penn is going to look like.

However my classes shake out, I know one thing: it’s going to be a lot less busy. In a month and change, 34th Street will put out its last issue of 2019, and my team and I will close out our tenures as Street’s board. I’ll have 40 extra hours in a week and no idea what to fill them with. Maybe this is the semester I take the mural class, finally, or I try my hand at sign language. I know I’ll have a thesis to work on and hopefully some friends to see and job interviews, but I’m coming face–to–face with the fact that my life is about to change pretty drastically. 

I’ll no longer have to use en and em dashes (though I probably still will). I won’t have to come up with increasingly random topics for these letters from the editor. I will spend less time in a windowless office and a burgundy chair, wrapped in a Snuggie and listening to Charli XCX. I’ll have to take some of my decorations down to make space for the next person. 

Pretty soon, for seniors like me, life will change even more. I won’t have to deal with the mice in my apartment or haul my ass to Fisher–Bennett every day. And I have the sneaking suspicion that I’ll probably miss it all.