Always a Duke student

Am I the only one who has had trouble sleeping recently? I have to believe that I'm not the only one who has been feeling a strange combination of stress and apathy about my current life at Duke that is in no way related to my impending exams. From exploding buses, disappointing basketball losses, sudden tragedies off of East Campus and within the Medical School, and the intense media attention over the alleged lacrosse incident, Duke has been a very surreal place to live recently. In being bombarded by all of these serious events, it has been hard for Dukies to recognize only one common enemy to fight against as we have been given so many choices.

In investigating the gloomy cloud known as the second semester 2K6 at Duke, I made some discoveries about life here that had otherwise gone unnoticed. Sure, this year has been undeniably and freakishly bad and shocking in an insane number of instances, but just because the bad karma train has slammed right into our campus and city doesn't mean that positive events and unifying actions haven't been taking place simultaneously within our "divided" campus.

If we can manage to avoid brain damage from the copious amount of potentially cancerous waves emanating from the cable equipment parked on every green spot on campus, then we can definitely tackle our final papers and tests this year with a new perspective and possibly a new ease. (Oh, the days when exams and final papers seemed to be the most important and stressful event of our spring lives.) If we can collectively face one of the toughest semesters that Duke has ever seen, and still find ways to support our peers who are struggling, then what can faze us in our collegiate future?

The proportion of real-world harshness that our campus faced over the past months has forced us all to put our values and the values of this University under a microscope. Though at first our campus seemed to be stunned into a state of confusion and disbelief, the actions and discussions I have witnessed over the past few weeks have been encouraging and earnest. Students of all beliefs and opinions are reaching out and connecting with others that they would never have supported before.

Perhaps these are hard times and dark days for Duke University that much of the world is seeing, but I have never felt more connected to the student population than before this semester, and I am still amazingly proud to call myself a Duke student. The tough and trying times in any life are simply periods of growth for exposing a strength otherwise unknown. This is a period of immense pain for our campus but also an opportunity to mature. You don't know what you have until you have to defend it to somebody else---much less an entire country and the media, and at the very least these last few months have taught me that Duke University is worth protecting and defending, and most importantly the students of Duke University are worth protecting and defending.

Situations can always go wrong, and things can almost always get worse. But, the strength of an individual-and a community-can be measured in how each individual reacts to the unthinkable. Bad things will always happen; we can't let this one semester paralyze our few final days, or let it leave us in a "gloomy cloud" haze or with a constant feeling of helplessness and despair.

Nothing unites a community more than an unfortunate event, and it is important to recognize the benefits of our community going through this time of struggle-unity, respect and admiration for one another. There is much to be proud of on our campus right now, and much more action to take in the name of our community during our last days of this school year.

We have been privy to a growth experience that public policy professors worldwide would die to be at the center of-for better and for all of the worse we've seen-and any preconceptions we had about the world or the media or Duke and even ourselves have been forever changed.