letter from the editor

If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a story.

I started college in the dark days of fall 2020, when a supposed “two weeks” online once again turned into a fully-digital school year. (Fool me twice, I suppose.)

Temple was a ghost town. I’d go to the dining hall, bereft of tables and chairs, and get food to take back to my dorm. I zoomed into classes during the week and went home every weekend.

In all honesty, I sometimes feel that I still don’t know how to be a college student—I missed out on all the little things I assume you’re supposed to figure out in your first semester.

Every story has a middle, though. Here’s mine: things are back to normal(ish). Campus is alive again: there are skateboarders on Cecil, students come and go from class, the streets are filled with the hustle-and-bustle of tens of thousands of students. And, I’m now tasked—we all are, really—with learning to move to the rhythm of this world we’ve found ourselves in.

There’s a line from my favorite musical, Hadestown, that goes, “To the world we dream about—and the one we live in now.”

I have a secret to tell you: I still don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing. And another: I don’t think anyone does. But we keep going anyway, talking and laughing and dancing and singing. And that’s what matters.

The end (for now),

Samantha Roehl, EIC