The Strange Phenomenon of Parents' Weekend

I never quite know what to do with parents' weekend as a phenomenon. One is going about your regular life as a student, and suddenly there's this deluge of parents wandering around. Few if any of them are yours or associated with you in any way, but you're both supposed to be welcoming them and showing them your regular life at college/university. I don't know what it's like to actually have your parents there for the event- mine visit at other times to avoid the crowds, and I'm glad of it- there seems to be less pressure involved that way. But in the meantime, there are all sorts of other people's parents to meet/avoid/deal with all over the place.

Freshman year, my folks came up the weekend After parents' weekend, and while when they did come, it was wonderful, but the parents' weekend thing itself was pretty lonely- it was fairly early in the year that year, and most of the folks I knew had parents there, and dinner in Levin was huge and I had no one I knew well at all to sit with, etc. The next year I escaped to a dinner with friends, and other than that hung out with other folks whose parents also hadn't come- I think after freshman year, it does get easier. But the crowds were still kind of bothersome, although I don't remember that much of it. Mostly I remember making friends with chinchillama. LAst year I ran off and spent Shabbat with fleurdelis28, which was quite pleasant, and fairly quiet and peaceful, barring a few oddities that don't bear going into.

This year, although I had at one point thought of running even farther off and visiting calliope_epic in her current abode, I ended up staying on campus. So I made dinner for a few other folks who were also sans parents, which was very nice and low key and pleasant, and from which I have tons of dishes that I'm going to go wash in a moment. Davenning was insane- the chapel just isn't built to hold anywhere near that many people- the seats were crammed (they asked students to stand and let parents sit- a nice gesture, but which felt a little odd: I mean, don't parents want to be with their child if that's who they're visiting? I wasn't planning on sitting anyways- I knew I'd be squished and really, I'd much rather stand than that), the back of the chapel was more than full of people standing, and a whole bunch of us stood in from of the seats, just in front of the bimah. If there were any more people, people would have been davening in the hallway and/or on the bimah itself. As it was, there was barely room to breath. There must have been some breach of fire codes in that... But other than Friday night, services weren't Too obscenely swamped (Saturday day, there were enough seats for everyone, without being squished). And so zodiacmg and I pretty much spent all of Shabbos together, and hence avoided either being lonely because of a lack of parental presences or feeling out of place. It worked out very well. I had one slightly odd conversation with the parent of a friend- I couldn't tell if she was actually trying to get to know me, or just quiz me to finish her mini-profile of who I was. I thought to former, but she didn't seem interested in actual conversation at all- when I tried to sneak in something outside of a survey-question type answer, she seemed sort of confused and curt about getting back to quizing me. I learned nothing about her, except whose mother she was. Very confused by that. Oh well.

The Strange Phenomenon of Parents' Weekend

I never quite know what to do with parents' weekend as a phenomenon. One is going about your regular life as a student, and suddenly there's this deluge of parents wandering around. Few if any of them are yours or associated with you in any way, but you're both supposed to be welcoming them and showing them your regular life at college/university. I don't know what it's like to actually have your parents there for the event- mine visit at other times to avoid the crowds, and I'm glad of it- there seems to be less pressure involved that way. But in the meantime, there are all sorts of other people's parents to meet/avoid/deal with all over the place.

Freshman year, my folks came up the weekend After parents' weekend, and while when they did come, it was wonderful, but the parents' weekend thing itself was pretty lonely- it was fairly early in the year that year, and most of the folks I knew had parents there, and dinner in Levin was huge and I had no one I knew well at all to sit with, etc. The next year I escaped to a dinner with friends, and other than that hung out with other folks whose parents also hadn't come- I think after freshman year, it does get easier. But the crowds were still kind of bothersome, although I don't remember that much of it. Mostly I remember making friends with chinchillama. LAst year I ran off and spent Shabbat with fleurdelis28, which was quite pleasant, and fairly quiet and peaceful, barring a few oddities that don't bear going into.

This year, although I had at one point thought of running even farther off and visiting calliope_epic in her current abode, I ended up staying on campus. So I made dinner for a few other folks who were also sans parents, which was very nice and low key and pleasant, and from which I have tons of dishes that I'm going to go wash in a moment. Davenning was insane- the chapel just isn't built to hold anywhere near that many people- the seats were crammed (they asked students to stand and let parents sit- a nice gesture, but which felt a little odd: I mean, don't parents want to be with their child if that's who they're visiting? I wasn't planning on sitting anyways- I knew I'd be squished and really, I'd much rather stand than that), the back of the chapel was more than full of people standing, and a whole bunch of us stood in from of the seats, just in front of the bimah. If there were any more people, people would have been davening in the hallway and/or on the bimah itself. As it was, there was barely room to breath. There must have been some breach of fire codes in that... But other than Friday night, services weren't Too obscenely swamped (Saturday day, there were enough seats for everyone, without being squished). And so zodiacmg and I pretty much spent all of Shabbos together, and hence avoided either being lonely because of a lack of parental presences or feeling out of place. It worked out very well. I had one slightly odd conversation with the parent of a friend- I couldn't tell if she was actually trying to get to know me, or just quiz me to finish her mini-profile of who I was. I thought to former, but she didn't seem interested in actual conversation at all- when I tried to sneak in something outside of a survey-question type answer, she seemed sort of confused and curt about getting back to quizing me. I learned nothing about her, except whose mother she was. Very confused by that. Oh well.