Just another Saturday at Grinnell

Topics/tags: Grinnell, short

One of the things that I both love and hate about Grinnell is the sheer number of events that happen on campus. It’s nice that there are options. It’s less nice that choosing one option means that you have to give up on another option.

Let’s take this yesterday (21 April 2018) as an example.

If I count correctly, There were six separate sporting events on campus: men’s golf, softball, men’s tennis, women’s water polo [1], the track and field team’s annual Dick Young Invitational, and Dag field days [2]. I also saw Professor Whittaker setting up for Atl-Atl, but that’s a less formal competition. The Equestrian Drill Team was also running an event off campus. Since they weren’t competing, I wouldn’t call it a sporting event, but it was certainly an athletic event.

At the same time as many of these events, we had the first annual hackGC hackathon. As I’ve mentioned previously, I was really impressed by the design of that event. It also had six or seven talks on Saturday.

There was also a documentary film by a Grinnell alum.

Saturday evening included the annual ISO cultural evening, Bollywood Harris, and perhaps some other things that are not publicized.

I struggled to make it to all the events I wanted to see. I missed most of the hackGC talks. I missed seeing one of my students at men’s tennis. I didn’t get to the ISO cultural evening. But I watched some students at track and field, Dag [3], and water polo.

Friday night was worse. I had five things that I wanted to attend at 8pm: A talk on gender and technology, a talk on disability [4], a film on the NRA [5], a concert by Grinnell alum Rabbi Darkside ’00, and a voice recital. There were also a few things going on.

And, of course, doing all of the things that I did do meant that (a) I did not spend enough time with family and (b) I did not spend enough time on my normal I need to get this done on the weekend list. Still, I enjoyed the events that I did attend, and I found a little time for family.

As I said, I love that so much happens on campus. But sometimes I wish a little less happened.

Postscript: To be honest, this weekend is not necessarily representative. For example, we don’t usually have this many home sporting events in one weekend. But we certainly have weekends (and weekdays) in which similar numbers of events collide. The previous weekend, I think I counted three or four events with visitors that the President and Dean were supposed to introduce.

Postscript: What did I do Friday night? I went to the opening of hackGC and saw the opening of the alumni panel. Then I went to the panel on disability. Then I came home. I wish I’d seen the talk on gender and technology, but I’m pretty sure I made the right choice to see the panel on disability.

[1] Water polo is a club sport. But the team is certainly worth supporting. They were hosting the conference championship and they won! Go Firebalz!

[2] Anyone who does not think that field days are an athletic event has not participated in field days. One might say that they are not a traditional sporting event, but they are definitely a sporting event.

[3] Just for a minute.

[4] Okay, that talk started at 7pm. But it was still going strong at 8pm.

[5] That film also started at 7pm.

Version 1.0 released 2018-04-21.

Version 1.1 of 2018-04-22.