Smith is a mystical place.
Aries: Stumbling to the bathroom in your house in the middle of a Thursday night to pee and Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” is blasting from the radio. What time is it? Your alarm clock was $10 on Amazon from China and doesn’t illuminate the numbers. Barefoot and desperate, you stumble into a stall. The bass pounds through the empty communal bathroom. Gaga speaks words of wisdom appropriate for any other time than now: “Just dance… it’ll be okay.. da dah doo da just dance… put on that record babe…” It was turned on the highest possible volume.
Taurus: Finding a bug in the fridge. It’s Thursday, which means it’s comforting homemade stew night. Gliding to the in-house kitchen with a wide variety of spices in-hand and smooth jazz playing from your portable speaker, you open the fridge. A giant bug scuttles out onto the floor, right next to your new Birkenstocks. Instead of organic stew, you have to eat pasta from Lamont. Again. And leave your dorm. Again. This is ridiculous.
Gemini: Leaving Smith to party. On the PVTA, the beautiful lights of the Hadley strip malls flash in your consciousness. This will be the night that your future spouse appears on a frat-house doorstep, recites the perfect Petrarchan sonnet to you, and asks you to join his very sophisticated book-club. Everyone at the party is sweaty and wasted. Their fathers likely contributed to the stock market crash of 2008, and none want to discuss Shakespeare.
Cancer: The ghosts in Sessions House. They were in love. You are in love, probably. You understand their ghostly plight. Your friend who lives in Sessions had her jacket stolen by a ghost. Various clickbait websites love these ghosts, too, which is why Smith is the “#1 Most Haunted College in America.” One time while listening to Lana Del Rey by Paradise Pond, you cried about the couple that became the Sessions ghosts. It was a rough week.
Leo: When your professor hasn’t replied to your paper-extension email request, but the paper is ¼ written and you’re en route to pound some sweet potato fries with your friends at Local Burger on a chilly Wednesday evening. A quiet darkness descends that the bright lights of the Burg cannot chase away. What if this professor never replies? You stare into your fry-basket wondering whether you’ll flunk out of Smith College and have to pursue a trade like boatmaking. This thought haunts you throughout the night. Your professor replies in the morning: “Ok. Sent from my iPhone.”
Virgo: Forgetting to log into Moodle for two months. You straight up forgot moodle.smith.edu existed. Your classmates have brilliantly analyzed the readings for weeks. The professor forgot that you were in the class. You scroll through miles of blog posts. Your world is in shambles. In a space pod in Young, you make a color-coded list of every decision you have made that has led you to this moment. You take an oath to yourself to never forget anything again, and make Moodle your browser homepage.
Libra: Seeing someone from a past class on campus. On your way to Seelye, someone from your history lecture last semester is walking past. How delightful. Looking into your classmate’s eyes, you muster a genuine, familiar and warm grin. This person’s eyes return no glimmer of recognition. You receive a blank stare, instead. The construction guys scale Neilson’s skeleton and the screwdrivers scream. There is nothing between you, anymore. There never was.
Scorpio: Oversleeping all of your classes. You wake up at 1:15PM, draw the blinds, and blink at the clock. Smirking to yourself, you reflect upon how entropy is inescapable. There’s no way you’ll make it to your 1:20, so you write in your journal, ignore the pleading texts from four of your exes which accumulated overnight, and go back to sleep.
Sagittarius: Everything in Northampton closing at 11 p.m. There is nowhere to absorb the late-night intellectual energies that would spurn you to pen your next manifesto on Sartre, which masterfully incorporates anecdotes of your personal relationship with the void. You get so depressed about the lack of public social prospects that you read Foucault on your phone and order McDonald’s via UberEATS at 11:48 p.m.
Capricorn: The gym is filled with mild acquaintances and your professor is on the stairmaster. You’re hungover, trying to get your life back on track on a misty Saturday morning. However, Smith Athletic Facilities is teeming with people you vaguely know. Your professor is sweating, in the zone of his workout. It’s time to leave. So, you stroll into Young, order five books from UMass on business law to read for fun, and go on your way.
Aquarius: A poorly facilitated class discussion. The professor paces around the classroom and smiles uneasily while that one girl talks about how a sexually suggestive text parallels her personal life. The one male Hampshire student in the class crosses his arms and looks at the door in discomfort. You thought it would be different this time.
Pisces: Citing sources in academic papers. The 10-page research paper on international politics is scratched with red marks. “C-, citations required.” It is universally known that war is bad, and that if we all loved each other war would end. Your heart told you this– no emotionally stunted JSTOR scholar would ever. So, you meditate for thirty minutes and leave a note with a soul-crushing Allen Ginsberg poem on your professor’s door.
