a calm transition to the next step

Last Thursday, the first day of finals, the students from my seminar on American religion came to brunch.  Of course some of our conversation was about the end of the world predicted for Saturday, May 21.  The seniors wryly complained about the timing.  If the world were indeed to end on Saturday they would have taken all their finals, the last step in their academic careers at St. Olaf, but they would be denied the satisfaction of marking that completion by walking across the platform on May 29 to receive their degrees (and empty diploma cases).  Then our conversation turned to summer plans, jobs, and housing arrangements.  Almost a week later, now that the end of the world has come and gone, the seniors can look forward to their graduation and all the students can take up their summer work.

So too the students in American Conversation.  We began the semester with a look at American fascination with apocalyptic predictions and the oppositional cosmology that supports it.  During the semester we witnessed revolutions, though not cataclysmic ones, and victory over a symbol of the axis of evil.  Nonetheless, the ending of the term was relatively calm.  Students showed up to turn in their papers and to enjoy a picnic of hamburgers, garden burgers, potato salad, and brownies.  Now they are making their way down the hill for summer occupations, the next step, the conversation, the next dense fact . . . much to pay attention to and to do before the world ends on October 21.