This year, Fort Worth, Texas had the privilege of experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime event in the sky! People all around the metroplex, including us TCU students, were watching this year’s eclipse unfold in front of our eyes. As someone who loves people watching, I was more than entertained at what I saw before, during and after the eclipse had happened and I’d love to explain what I saw!
Unfortunately, school doesn’t necessarily stop for an eclipse, even since classes were mostly cancelled that day, so I needed to get some homework done. I stopped at one of my favorite coffee shops before the eclipse started to get some stuff done and everyone was talking about the events of the day, mostly their plans around the eclipse.
As I was leaving, I noticed tons of teachers, office workers, and people all around, looking up at the sky. It was honestly quite eerie looking around at everyone and seeing every person standing up and looking up at the sun.
Campus looked like I’d never seen it before. TCU barely ever sees students and staff of that magnitude gathering outside together, but today was different. The entire campus was covered in people wanting to get a glimpse of this eclipse. The absolute totality drew professors, staff from the food hall, students and faculty alike, out to the lawns littering TCU’s campus. People had picnic baskets, brought NASA glasses for their friends, saw people they hadn’t seen in awhile, and made pure, long-lasting memories with the rest of the student body.
Once everyone was settled, and I found my friend over by the University Union, students started yelling “oohs and ahs” at the sky, seemingly as a way to get other people to join in on the bandwagon. Were they just trying to get everyone’s attention or to rile them up? This all stopped once the eclipse started to take shape, and we all looked on in awe, as the moon perfectly covered the sun. The whole atmosphere changed, and the sky went completely dark, as if it was 12:30 in the morning. Everyone took off their glasses to be able to actually see the eclipse, and students’ phones were out and pointed at the crowd or at the sky.
The part I found the most hilarious is when a good amount of people started clapping! As if the moon could hear us congratulating it for a great show. This human behavior is very interesting to me; why in the world would we clap for something that naturally occurs in nature?
Why don’t TCU students and staff spend as much time outside? Why is people gathering together so rare? What would TCU’s campus, or college campuses in general, look like if we spent more time all together? What would that do to our general happiness on campus or student well-being if this happened more often? I hope that one day TCU’s campus looks like it did on the day of the eclipse more often.
I hope this was interesting to you all! I always wonder why people do certain things and I hope that you’ll be able to notice these things too!