Campus struggles to cope in aftermath of tragedy

By Marcelle Richards
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The whirr of a blender was for once audible in Kerckhoff
Coffeehouse in the absence of the usual mix of Portishead pouring
from the speakers.

Library mugs in hand, a scant line of coffee enthusiasts trailed
up to the counter to get a refill of “the usual.”

They just want their normalcy back.

“When people are going through intensely traumatic events,
there’s a period of shock,” said social psychology
professor Shelley Taylor.

“The first thing people do to convince themselves things
aren’t as bad as they appear to be is they stick to their
normal schedules. It doesn’t mean we stop grieving,”
she said.

Solitary readers prepared for summer school finals as a couple
picked at a blueberry muffin together.

Fourth-year English student Matt Pfeffer looked up.

“I’m a pretty structured kind of guy,” he
said, preoccupied with the book before him. “I study and work
out and watch the news during breaks.”

Life will go on, he said.

“The world doesn’t just stop because of the plane
crash,” said Blair Araihara, a fourth-year political science
student and employee at Wetzel’s Pretzels, where the girl who
always orders a large Diet Coke with extra ice, no pretzel, came by
for her daily fix again.

“The first day, I was mad,” Araihara said.
“But after a while, it wears off ““ the news goes into
overkill to present the same facts.”

Away from the television sets tuned to CNN in Ackerman Union,
sunbathers monopolized the plots of sunshine that made their way
through tree boughs above.

An art student sketched in the sculpture garden, then closed the
notebook, half-finished.

A United Postal Service truck drove its daily route past the
flag pole in Royce Quad, with the flag at half mast.

A student walked past Janss Steps, then stopped. The bag in his
hand dropped to the ground as he continued to gaze below to see the
emptiness.

Most of the people were on their way home or back to their
offices after today’s noon memorial service.

Eyes fixed, he leaned slightly to the right to regain hold of
the straps of his backpack, and trancelike, turned and walked past
buildings that withstood the altered ambiance.

“We’re not seeing people getting back to normal now
““ we’re seeing people trying to get back to normal and
there’s a great distinction,” Taylor said. “We
will all see a lot of strange behavior from the people we know and
love.”