Running in Circles
Literally, I ran in circles at UCI. I’ve been on this campus numerous times in the past, and now I live on it. But I never bothered to explore the full layout of the campus–never cared to, nor needed to. But I decided that it was high time, and running for exercise seemed like a perfect way to kill two birds (curiosity and fat) with one jog. So, I got on the main strip of the campus, and started running in one direction. I was quite familiar with the first few buildings, then I started passing the ones I’ve never seen before. They were very nice, architecturally speaking. There were so many… I never thought the school was this massive! Of course, at this point I thought I was running in more or less straight line on just one side of the campus. Then as I was thoroughly impressed with the school I thought I knew but totally underestimated, I reached a place entirely familiar–exactly where I started. What a let down! And how stupid I felt! Ha! But it turns out UCI was exactly the size I had thought. I didn’t discover a Narnian portal to a whole different side of the campus after all.
The lesson is this: (1) If you don’t know where you’re going, you could be running in circles–wholly unproductive if it wasn’t purely for exercise and diversion. (2) Gradual curves in a winding road can amount to a 360 degrees before you know it, so note to self: “gradual changes matter in a long-run!”
