(This is a blog post I wrote for my PLA course.)
My alarm sounded at 6:00 in the morning, and when I rubbed away the sleepiness that fell heavy on my eyelids, I found that the sky outside was still dark. Shortlidge Ave, the view outside my dorm window, was eerily empty and looked like a deserted movie set illuminated by the soft lighting of the moon. I’m never up early enough to appreciate a sight like this, but this morning duty called: it was the day of stadium cleanup.
My roommate and I threw on some clothes we knew we wouldn’t mind getting filthy and stumbled out the door, trying to let in some sense of alertness through the veil of exhaustion created by a mere four hours of sleep. It took everything in us to make our way to Beaver Stadium as the sky gradually brightened, but we knew that the journey would be worth it. We are both in club tennis, and those who participate in stadium cleanup get priority registration for the limited spots for indoor court hours during the winter. We figured that if there was no pain now there’d be no gain later, despite the fact that our bodies were basically screaming at us to turn around and get back under our covers.
We did stadium cleanup last year, and I have to say that it was one of the grossest experiences of my life. Last year it had rained right after the football game, and I don’t think I will ever be able to look at French fries the same way after having to scoop up hundreds of soggy ones left in soaked cardboard boxes. The dryness of this year’s cleanup made it slightly more bearable, but I can’t say by much. My back began to ache from hours of hunched over sweeping and shoveling miscellaneous trash items left by yesterday’s occupants of Beaver Stadium. The minutes ticked by slowly, and each time I picked up a water-logged chicken basket or half-full pint of Peachy Paterno it seemed as though another would materialize in its place. We were only there for four hours, but these were some of the longest hours.
Though I can’t say that I enjoyed stadium cleanup, I do have to admit that it was cathartic in a sense. Almost meditative. I spent the hours keeping myself occupied by letting my mind wander to wherever it wanted to go, and one of the things I couldn’t stop thinking about was the fact that I am so lucky to be able to attend a school like Penn State. You’d think that in that moment, cleaning up leftovers as my eyelids drooped and my calves burned from walking up step after step, that I’d wish I was anywhere else. But I actually thought to myself that even if I had to do stadium cleanup every single weekend, there’s still no place that I would rather be.
Like any school, Penn State has its negatives. The pervasive party culture gets the university into some very sticky situations, and there are definitely problems that need to be seriously addressed when it comes to student conduct, the way we treat one another, and more. But I hate when I tell people that I go to Penn State and the “frat thing” is the first thing they will bring up.
Why can’t they bring up the magic you feel in the air on game days, as if it’s something tangible, something that can be seen in every smiling family at a tailgate or every group of friends posing for a picture in their blue and white outfits? Why can’t they bring up the feeling of entering THON for the first time and seeing a crowd of thousands gathered for an amazing cause, with different colored shirts and signs blending together like watercolors on a canvas? Why can’t they bring up the craziness of the HUB which, though overwhelming sometimes, represents a huge group of people from different backgrounds and interests basking in the one thing we all have in common: that we go to an amazing school like Penn State?
Or why can’t they bring up stadium cleanup? Even in my hungry, aching, sleep-deprived state I could see how lucky I was to be at Penn State. I remember pausing for a moment and looking at the stadium around me and the field below. All of my surroundings were shrouded in a thick fog and it was quiet – a stark contrast to just twelve hours prior when the stands were filled with cheering students and fans. I thought about how happy I was with the decisions I had made that got me to that place, in that stadium, in that fog.
I was born into a life that allowed me my experiences at Penn State. Not many people get that chance. I am so grateful and so fortunate that I did. My school isn’t perfect – no school is – but that doesn’t mean I should overlook all that it has done for me in shaping my life as I know it and allowing me to create invaluable memories. Memories from things like football games and THON all the way to picking up soggy French fries early on a Sunday morning.
