Time Flies at Pomona, Pay Attention
By Cory Forsyth
Opinions Staff Writer

As a physics major, I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with Relativity—dealing with Lorentz contractions, time dilation, and resolving the Twin Paradox. But Einstein had it right when he said, “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” Pomona, then, is my pretty girl, and there’s something ironic and slightly perverse about the fact that when I come here and my days are packed with activities, they seem to flow by like water.

I’m a senior, and over the past year or two, my impending, inevitable graduation has changed from a nebulous, far-off idea that I was never really able to envision into something a little more tangible. It’s come into focus, and I can actually see the path that I’ll be taking towards it. Post-grad plans, on the other hand, haven’t really changed much. That area is still very much in the gray, filled with romantic coming-of-age overseas-study types of ideas. At any rate, teetering on the brink of entering adulthood and “real-world” accountability has, at many times, given me pause to reflect on what I’ve gotten out of my education and what I haven’t but wish I had.

There are three causes for the seeming compression of time here. The first is that the sheer sensory overload compared to the lazy days of summer makes things seem to go by faster. Except for church, I can never remember being bored as a small child because everything was so exciting and new—an experience not dissimilar to the intense learning and exploration that, ideally, accompany one’s time in college. The second is that because there is so much going on it’s hard to focus on whatever’s at hand. There are dozens of other things going on that occupy one’s thoughts, detracting from the present. The third is chronic lack of sleep. Things go by more quickly when you’re a half-awake zombie. Or at least they produce hazier memories.

It would be silly to urge Pomona students to carpe diem. Ours is a vibrant community full of people already following their own diverse interests. But I think the key to really seizing the day (and night) at school (without ending up spending your time wondering whether the lunch you remember eating was today’s or yesterday’s) is to be consciously involved with what you’re doing, when you’re doing it. Live an active life by recognizing the importance of your time and knowing what to do with it. That, or sleep more.