Opinion | Interterm felt different this year

Harry Lada, Art Director

I have a bad habit of romanticizing things in my life and I know it. But I can’t help it. There’s something beautiful about the way the sun shines through my window at 4:02 p.m. and how warm breezes on a spring day make me feel so happy to be alive. There’s something exciting about becoming familiar with roads after moving to a new city and how the soft touch on my hands from a lover makes me feel warm inside. And there is something so, so peaceful about interterm. 

Well, at least there used to be.

Interterm, despite the fact that I’ve only had one “normal” experience of an in-person interterm, used to be the peak of an academic year for me. Being able to focus on only one class at a time and fully immerse myself in the curriculum while also having plenty of time to do other things was a dream. I wasn’t worried about managing five courses at once. I was able to breathe.

Being able to physically be on campus and take in the serenity of an almost empty Attallah Piazza at 12 p.m. brought me such a peaceful state of mind. Being able to walk the hallways of Pralle-Sodaro Residence Hall, study with the same eight people and get closer with them than we ever could have been before brought an unmatched comfort. And being able to take all of Chapman in and be present in that month’s entirety without the intense pressures of juggling academia was much needed to start off the year.

But, interterm was different this time around.

I was taking two courses at once while also dealing with a pandemic worsening in the county around me. I was forced to watch three historic events unravel before my eyes — an insurrection, an impeachment and an inauguration — over the course of three consecutive Wednesdays. I was subjected to isolation and loneliness in the confinement of my apartment, craving the human connection I’ve been deprived of for almost a year. And, worst of all, I was left with no other choice but to reminisce on what interterm used to be. 

There were no afternoons in the Attallah Piazza spent eating a cheese platter from the Beckman Hall Starbucks, only homemade espresso. There were no birthday parties having a little too much fun with friends in the dorms, only texts sent in a tight-knit group chat. There were no days of being able to explore Orange, only watching the city go on through my apartment window. And there were no memories to be made, only memories to yearn for.

I don’t know where things are headed. Will I be able to experience interterm again for how it once was, or was it just a one-time memory of a lifetime? I do not know. And that’s the hardest part.

But for now, I’ll just have to adjust.