Welcome back everyone. Spring break has come and gone, and I’m sure that most of you spent it somewhere outside of Grinnell. Probably somewhere considerably bigger than the bubble that is our sprawling, 120-acre campus and the budding metropolis of a downtown.

Did you go somewhere where you had to drive a car to get from one place to another? How long did that drive take? I bet it took longer than however long it takes to drive from the East D parking lot to Chuong’s going the speed limit. And if you did drive a distance shorter than that, then I hope you were in Siberia and you couldn’t walk because it was so cold and windy that if you had walked, you would have died.

I bet that a few of you visited friends at other schools. Listen to Asher Roth much? And I bet your friend’s campus was bigger than Grinnell’s (I’ll even bet my fake tooth on it.) It takes your friend half an hour to get to class? And that’s if he catches the 8 a.m. bus to get across campus? Oh, so that’s why he never goes to class. I see.

People, this school is small (we are a small liberal arts college, after all). 120 acres isn’t that big. Most of our peers would kill to be able to get places as fast as we do. That’s why it pains me to hear people moan and groan about walking from Norris to Burling, or East D to Bucksbaum. I know you’re walking all the way across campus, but honestly, it’s not going to take you more than 15 minutes, ten if you walk briskly.

But I’ll be honest, I’m definitely guilty of having complained about walking to somewhere on this campus. Living in such a small world, it’s easy to forget just how good we have it with a school of our size.

Let’s face it—we Grinnellians live by convenience. If you live anywhere in Younker South, it takes you less than five minutes to get to a class in ARH, and less than ten minutes to get to a class in Noyce (granted you’re some kind of science major and actually know your way around Noyce).

A friend recently expressed to me how much he loved his current living situation. This gentleman has a sink in his room in Main, and is steps from the elevator that leads to the laundry room and food at Bob’s. “Carlos,” he says, “I never have to put shoes on!”

Sometimes at the end of the day, I stop and think about all the things that I did that day, all of the different classrooms and dorm rooms I walked to, all of the people I stopped to talk to. Sure, it’s pretty much the same group of people for most of the year, but I knew that coming in. I knew that there would only be 1,500 other kids at my school, and I hope you did too.

There are six weeks left in the academic year. It’s crunch time people, so get in that driver seat and do work, son. Take advantage of how easily you can go from studying in Burling one minute, to hanging out with friends on Main loggia the next.