Monday morning, I awoke to find the universal sign for a Bowdoin Blackout: a garbage can holding the door of the bathroom open to let a small flicker of light enter the stall from our common room window.
I groaned, knowing, that after walking down 15 flights of stairs to a dining hall buzzing with the artificial energy of a generator, I would have to fight for an outlet to "do homework" in the campus refugee camp.
After years of study and data collection, I've concluded that the severity of Maine's mid-coast storms fluctuate with the workload at Bowdoin College. Monday's power loss, our third of the year, fell two weeks before Spring Break, when midterm assignments are all the rage.
The one before winter break happened about eight hours before my English seminar had a 20-page term paper due. The class sat huddled around a booth in the back of Thorne, sharing one power cord, typing furiously and debating how kosher e-mail submissions were.
With no e-mail, and no light or heat outside of Thorne, what's a Bear to do?
We have no choice but to seek relief and shelter in Thorne, victims of a violent storm. Under severe duress, students will gather in packs on the floor, sitting cross-legged next to coveted outlets.
The scene echoes Stephen King's spectacularly corny made-for-TV movie, "Storm of the Century." The title readily gives away the premise: the scariest storm of the century approaches a small Maine village, and its inhabitants must huddle together in the generator-run city hall. The handsome chief fireman and his lovely, concerned wife boldly try to maintain hope in the shelter. It's no wonder King is from Maine.
At the end of the three-part series, the little Maine village overcomes their hardship, and goes on to lead their coastal lives. The arrival of the anti-Christ in the middle of the storm gives their story an off-beat twist, but the principle of camaraderie remains.
Power outages at Bowdoin, while certainly a logistical blow to our weeks, have the extremely rare effect of forcing the campus into one place, where, under the same trying circumstances, we must solve our same dilemmas.
My term-paper-writing seminar found out together that our professor had extended the deadline. In a cathartic and comic moment, seniors whom I'd never interacted with outside of our classroom were suddenly jumping up and down, shouting for joy, and slapping one another high fives. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that we are part of a small group of comrades here, with a lot more in common than we often recognize.
I wouldn't wish a power outage on Bowdoin on a weekly basis; I think three times a year is plenty. But I do think that the silver lining on the dark, incapacitating storm cloud that sometimes passes over our campus is the ability to look around Thorne, and remember that we're part of a community—a campus whose common bonds can bring us together in hard times, electrical or otherwise.
And I would plan on gleaning that silver lining out of a desperate situation soon, because according to my calendar, reading period will be coming up in several weeks, no doubt accompanied by a 24-hour blackout.