Editor's note

I did the math. On May 16, I will have been a student at Kent State for 672 days. That's 16,128 hours filled with walking to classes, sitting through lectures, studying for exams, writing papers, reading assignments, attending meetings and trying to be a good student. I could probably break those hours down even further if I included time spent showering, eating, watching television, exercising, socializing and reading. And then there are the hours the Burr staff and I spent putting together this magazine. That's what my days are like here at Kent State - each minute is carefully allotted to one of the activities and obligations listed above.

College students, myself included, have this unique ability to block out all those things in life that don't immediately affect us. Although I have sat in dozens of classrooms, I never gave much thought to the janitors who swept the floors after we messy students had gone home. I tend to take certain things for granted, like the hot water for my showers and the warm air blowing out of the heater in my dorm room. But these luxuries wouldn't exist without the hard work of certain university personnel who sometimes go unnoticed.

Therefore, the Burr is proud to present the photo story titled, "One day in the life at Kent State." I won't even tell you how many hours went into creating this collection of images. Each picture has a story behind it, and some of the best stories are those that I never took the time to listen to. Sometimes we all need to step back and see the big picture. In this case, there are 24 of them.

With the exception of the year I spent at the Ohio State University, the year I spent living in Germany and the summers I spent in Spain, I've lived in Kent my entire life. But I am the first to admit I don't know much about Kent's history. After reading Mark Watt's story, "Catching up with the past," I realized how much things change over the course of a century, even in a pretty uneventful town like Kent.

Although no one's life is perfect, I think I'm pretty lucky to have escaped the trauma one of our writers has experienced. Megan Jenny, a sophomore Kent State student, was brave enough to put into words what it was like to be a victim of criminal harassment. Her reason for writing the story was, as she says, "to make students aware that they need to take action if they're being victimized. My biggest mistake was to stay quiet and hope it would go away on its own."

On a lighter note, we also have stories about angels, dreams, marriage in college, the Kent State Neo Pagan Coalition and Ohio getaways. And be sure to check out the article on investing. Money is one thing that college students never seem to have enough of. In fact, some students are holding part-time or even full-time jobs while balancing all the other obligations of college. Staff writer Ellen Freiberg interviewed six students who have jobs that I definitely wouldn't want, but then again, they probably wouldn't jump at the chance to be editor of the Burr, either.

But I'm glad I did.

Enjoy the Burr and your days at Kent State. They go by faster than I ever would have imagined.

Yours,