It's been a "productive" week. I've spent the last 3 days in a workshop reviewing job-finding techniques, resumes, personal statements, graduate school applications and generally how to make my life go in the direction I want it to go in. My peers and I (about 40 of us, mostly seniors or super-seniors), finished up the seminar with an hour-long presentation to the incoming honors college freshmen. They seemed so... taciturn, as they sat there quietly taking in what we had to tell them. I remember when I was a freshman and how overwhelmed I was by the waves of information that orientation weekend brought, but these ones seemed more than overwhelmed.

I worry about the new students here. I wonder if they'll have a productive first semester, if they'll drop out, if they'll join clubs and make friends and support each other. It's not because I know they'll be supporting me some day (the next generation will be doing that), but because they'll be working with me some day. They're the people who I may end up relying on. I want them to be successful, not apathetic. But there were very few questions asked of us, and very few laughs, and it felt overall more like a lecture that we were forcing them to sit through than a lot of useful advice headed their way.

It makes me wonder where we're all headed. Time is a frightening concept.