Running to the Bus

If you’ve ever been to USU in the winter, you know that the shuttle buses are pretty much a lifesaver. These big white vehicles also provide for great entertainment, provided mainly by the freshman. Now I don’t want you to think that I’m picking on the little guys here. I was a freshman not too long ago. The spread of a campus like USU can be a little frightening, especially when everything is foreign and the map is listed in three letter abbreviations. It’s really easy to get lost if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Being lost isn’t totally funny, but the bus situation kind of is.

The buses used for the Aggie shuttle have two doors. One near the back/middle of the bus and one right next to the driver. Social Norm dictates that when the bus stops, anyone getting off exits before the new passengers board. Not all freshman, or new shuttle bus riders, understand this. There is a dance that ensues as the coming and going try to navigate around each other before the bus takes off again.

Being an on campus dweller, I have been fortunate enough not to have to deal with the shuttles for the last two years. I did have many an experience with them during my freshman year when I lived in the boonies of campus housing. The worst of my experiences surpassing bad B.O guy and winter overcrowding, was missing a bus.

The buses come at scheduled times and in the morning it’s almost crucial to catch the right bus if you want to make it to class on time. Running to catch the bus is totally acceptable if it means you’ll be late for class because ten extra minutes of sleep seemed like a good idea. What I find funny are the people who run to catch the bus going back to their apartments or the parking lot.

Obviously, people have lives and things that may require them to make it back to their places at a certain time, but if they waited five minutes another bus will come. There is no need to make a fool of yourself, booking it down the street like the bus is the last Twinkie at a fat kid’s party. Another bus will come.

Waiting for that bus is like life. Sometimes there’s a really great opportunity, or something we want to do (like go to the M83 concert) but we miss it for one reason or another (like we have a final the next day in your 9 am class). If we wait and make the best of those five minutes by studying or talking to the other person waiting, the next bus will come and it will probably be better and have less people. Basically what I’m trying to get at in this weird, messed up analogy is that sometimes the opportunity or situation we think we have to have, isn’t the best thing for us. (Like I missed the concert but passed my class and didn’t have to pay to retake it.)

In the end, it’s your choice. You can either run down the street while on-lookers chuckle to themselves, or you can sit and wait and maybe make a new friend.