Clocks – a thing of the past

The clocks in the library have disappeared.

Don’t panic. They’ve only been gone for a couple of weeks. I suspected it was only a matter of time before the library became like a casino: Bright lights, crowds of people, and no sense of time.

It’s not like students have anywhere to be. Being on time for class is overrated. At the library, The Powers That Be are telling you time is invalid, so just wander into class whenever you feel like it. Forget about being fashionably late – you don’t even need to know the time.

It’s possible that the removal of the clocks from the computers and the library walls have come with the addition of the new array of computers hidden behind the encyclopedias. Get a shiny new set of PCs, lose all ticks and tocks.

The glass classroom, a terrific sanctuary of peace and quasi-up-to-date technology, is the only space in the library that has any sort of time. Mounted above the entrance, a flatscreen dictates when a professor will come in and kick us all out. However, without a timepiece, we can’t even prepare for the eviction.

Perhaps the never-ending construction has scared away our clocks. The library has been undergoing renovations for what seems like an eternity.

The introduction of specialty study rooms, even if they are giant fish bowls, is welcome. However, the division of the hallway of computers at the back of the Commons into smaller sections seems like a waste of money, energy, and drywall. The search for a seat during peak hours now takes longer too, though with the lack of clocks we can’t even tell how long. Time goes by rather quickly when an infinite number of students pile into the Commons all at once. I assume the population of MUN has doubled this year. It’s that or computers have tripled in price. Otherwise, I have no clue why a sea of students has suddenly appeared this semester to give me agoraphobia.

Apparently some of these students also have no time because they can’t wait in line with the rest of us, meandering instead through the aisles of computers, jumping in any seat that becomes free before we can see the little green box on the mini-map. I guess they think I’m sitting in the row of orange chairs in an attempt to bring back ’70s upholstery.

Hopefully the clocks are just on vacation, ready to come back knowing the ins and outs of our exclusive time zone. But maybe, just maybe, they’re gone for good.

After careful consideration, however, maybe the missing clocks are the least of our problems in the library.

Only time will tell.