Upon waking up in the morning, I, like most other Carleton students, immediately consider when my first opportunity to print will be. Much to my chagrin, it usually isn’t until the afternoon. The sadness this realization brings can only be solved by one thing: making a plan to print something.

Printing at Carleton is the highlight of many days, not because I don’t have other things to look forward to, but because of the sheer joy involved.

First, there is the chance to download something from Moodle. Moodle is fun to use, but involved in this step is a significant amount of creativity: I get to choose what to name the document and where to download it to on my laptop. Will it be in a folder? Will I leave it on my desktop to irritate me for the next few days? These are all choices I get to make when I decide to print something.

And then there is the question of which pages to print: Do I print the title page for organization? On the one hand, the title page is excellent for organizational purposes. On the other, trees are good and I would like to avoid harming them as much as possible—although at this point in the term, I doubt that one page per document will make much difference, given how many pages I’ve already printed. However, I would still rather save paper to respect the principle, so I don’t print the title page. Or the references. 

Once the process of reducing the number of pages I’m printing is complete, I get to pick a printer. My favorite printer is the one by the window in Sayles in that little room near the pool tables on the left when you walk in. If I were someone who often studied in Sayles, this wouldn’t be such a convenient printer to use. However, I live in Myers, so Sayles is the best location to print. As I and my OneCard walk across campus, I have time to think about how excited I am to finally get to print my reading for class. The joyful journey across campus reminds me of how much I love winter and how lucky I am to go to a school where I can walk across campus. I have the chance to say hi to the random people I run into. Sometimes, on a good day, I see a squirrel.

As a side note, one of these days, I will pet one of the Carleton squirrels. It will happen, and I will have then succeeded. This, however, is not relevant.

I arrive at Sayles. The walk to the printers is pleasant and I eagerly go upstairs. Arriving in that little printer-y room, I get to make one of the most important choices of my day: Which printer to use. 

There is the printer by the window. I like windows. They are cheery. But this is winter; There is no such thing as cheerfulness outside. There is the other printer by the wall to Sayles. This one is slightly awkward, because as one prints, one can see anyone else who is in that part of Sayles. It is also farther from the door. I choose that printer anyway, for reasons yet unknown to me.

I scan my OneCard and select the documents I want to print–all of them, as usual. As the documents slowly appear as if by magic, I wander around. I look at each stapler, searching for a way to attach the pages together. There is no way: the staplers have decided that each paper is an independent unit that need not rely on or be attached to other pages. I am proud of those pages. I aspire to be like them.

The pages are warm as I pick them up. They seem so clean and new. I put them in my binder wherethey are unlikely to stay neat-looking.

I return to Myers, my mission successful. My day is complete.