We’ve all experienced that awkward lull between classes. There’s just enough time where you could trek back to your dorm or house, but you’d have to leave again after 30 minutes and book it back to class.
The alternative is that you could find a spot on campus to wait out the time until you’re due back in the classroom, tinkering around on your laptop or reading a book you found buried in your backpack.
On the first day of classes, I found myself in one of those lulls. I decided to bide my time on the steps of Wilson Library – people-watching was my activity of choice.
I had been turning over the question of “to return home or not to return home” in my mind, but after the flood of people had retreated inside their respective buildings post-class change, a new question replaced the old one.
“To athleisure or not to athleisure?”
As elementary school kids on the first day of class, we’d dress up like it was its own occasion and beam at cameras for commemorative photographs.
As college students on the first day of class, we don shorts and T-shirts and tennis shoes. There might be one commemorative photograph, but now it's about dressing for comfort rather than first impressions.
On those Wilson Library steps, athleisure passed by in a blur.
Athletic shorts made to look like athletic skirts. Polka dot exercise dresses. Basketball shorts. Sweat wicking tees. Nike, Adidas, Lululemon and everything in between. It looked like there had been a mass exodus from a group workout class, and everyone was herding across the Quad to hit the showers.
