December 31, 2025

It was the beginning of the fall semester and I wanted to get ahead on my senior thesis. I asked a professor if I could borrow some microphones to record conversations. She asked if I had an actual experimental design. I suggested that maybe I could track word frequencies but admitted that I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just wanted a head start. The first classes of the semester hadn’t even begun yet.

I walked into the cafeteria but it wasn’t fully open yet. Half of the stations were closed and long lines snaked around for the ones that were.

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I took out my phone and saw that my friend had uploaded more photos to their Instagram account.