Riding to Campus

I don't know that I see the point of enforcing the no-bikes-between-classes rule during the summer. At this time of year, there are no more people walking about during the ten-minute break than there are fall/winter during the remaining fifty minutes. This morning as I rode onto campus at about 7:55, I fully intended to defy the University bike policy, except that as I passed the HFAC I saw someone in uniform walking towards me. So I hopped off my bike and walked it until I was out of his sight, and then hopped right back on to ride the remaining hundred yards or so to the bike racks between the Talmage Building and the JFSB. There were at least two other people riding their bikes on campus, and I almost didn't feel guilty at all.

The only reason I worry in the first place is that last summer a member of the campus police yelled at me as I cruised past on my bike (with no pedestrians in sight, other than him), completely unaware of the time. It was kind of humiliating, the way he ordered me off my bike and interrupted anything I tried to say, even if there was no one to see it. I felt absolutely horrible, not because I had been caught doing something wrong (if I'd been blatantly defying the rule, like I was this morning, I might have felt differently), but because I felt like I was being demeaned, like my character was being judged without cause - because I happened to be riding my bike on a short illegal stretch of sidewalk between the bike rack and the (legal) street by the Wilkinson Center, I was suddenly an Irresponsible, Disrespectful, Pridful Young Person, rather than the relatively mature, reasonably responsible graduate student that I am.

Maybe it's the green in me that keeps me from just letting go of this little incident. I find it somewhat amusing that even now, a year later, I seethe as I remember the event. I like to think that I am good at forgiving and forgetting, but even though I really do my best to give other people the benefit of the doubt and even though I really do forgive and sincerely love people who may have hurt me in some way, I'm actually not good at the forgetting part. I will never hold it over someone's head, and I don't believe I let negative events in the past define my relationships in the present. But I tend to be very aware of my emotions, and so feelings of hurt tend to stay with me. That is, I can look back on an event and remember the way I felt to such an extent that I almost reproduce that emotion, just while I'm remembering it.

And I don't let myself remember these things very often. It just surprises me sometimes when a little event (like seeing an officer as I ride my bike across campus during the ten-minute passing period) sparks a sudden and intense emotional reaction. Funny how I held onto that incident.