At this point, it's pretty obvious that whatever praise or criticisms I give will sound ripped off the commentaries of CU-Strike, Spec, and Bwog. So I'm going to let my commendations remain on the previous entry and move on.

It's easy to package campus events into convenient, airtight time frames; on Facebook, many happenings have set beginnings and ends in a typical "8:00-9:30 PM" fashion. It seems that the CU-Strike blog's sudden silence and packing up of South Lawn tents have marked an equally definitive end to the past two weeks' madness. The general climate on campus seems lighter and happier (partly due to the impending break). So has the wish, "We just want this shit to end", been granted? Can the groups against the Hunger Strike rest in peace?

During last night's IRC One Love/Open Mic event, over a heavenly plate of baked mac & cheese, a friend and I shared some casual conversation about these concerns.

And this is what I learned: Yes, students involved with the strike have consented to hitting the books again. Since South Lawn was cleared, the Kulawiks of Columbia/Barnard don't have to worry anymore about the Gentrification Octopus intruding on their finely-sliced-and-doused-with-wine lives. But they should savor the peace and quiet while they can, because Expansion into Harlem (Demand #3) has mostly been left untouched.

The Manhattanville expansion issue is another time bomb waiting to explode. The Harlem community and groups on campus have been working closely together since before the strike, so don't expect #3 to go ignored (Sorry, Colombo - we see how schlumped and bored you get after meetings). Plus, given the rate at which things have been going, I wouldn't be surprised if some campus riots were to take place in the next few days or weeks.

(Note: there's also a new Barnard dialogue tent. Figure it out.)