I have the above poster on the wall in my dorm room. It caught my eye in my grandmother’s resale shop this past summer, and I picked it up to bring to college. It’s a decoration that I’ve given some thought, and come to mixed conclusions on. At first glance, I got a strong scent of propaganda from this poster. The style of the illustration and text, the stars, the weathered appearance all suggested to me that this came out of some factory in the 40’s or 50’s. “Today will be a Good Day,” it told me, if you put on your hat and pick up your briefcase and go off to be a hard-working, productive implement of the capitalist machine!

But then I looked again at the man, walking cheerily off to start his day, and I wondered if he might not just be a robot. He does seem genuinely happy, after all. What if he really does put on his hat and pick up his briefcase and goes off every day believing that “Today will be a Good Day”? In this case, he’s found joy in the ordinary day. He takes pride in his day, no matter how menial or unremarkable it may seem, and is just as excited at the beginning of the next one. And that’s more than a lot of people can say, I think.

I’m still not totally sure what I think of this man and his slogan, but regardless, I’m glad they’re with me for my first year at Williams.

I love looking out at the world from a plane. The farmland looks like a big quilt of patchwork earth tones. All the miniature cars and houses and swimming pools are so cute. While you get a sense of how big everything is and how many people are out there living their own little lives, you also can’t help but be amazed by how everything seems to fit together– the tightly-packed neighborhoods of houses, the overlapping freeways, the perfectly rectangular fields.

I forget where these pictures are taken over.