The destruction of the Boyd, Johnston, Aviation and Haskett buildings on Woodruff Avenue has been captivating passers-by since Autumn Quarter. The catlike claw of the giant excavator had students (including myself) stopping to admire its graceful peeling apart of a structure that once seemed sturdy.

But a feeling I experience more often than awe when I pass one of Ohio State’s hard-hat zones is a shade of jealousy.

At a construction site, I see adults. Tough, hard-working adults who are at the mercy of the elements for eight hours a day, but who also, after their eight hours of fresh air, get in their cars and drive to their comfortable homes and expectant families.

In contrast, I spend my days in class taking notes, and in the library staring at computer screen and the dry pages of textbooks. And after I’ve had all the riveting stimulation I can take, I trudge back to my cinderblock cube of a dorm, with its cold tile floor and peephole windows to be greeted by a slur of my roommate’s grievances against her professor, adviser, mom and ex-boyfriend.

Those construction workers aren’t laying in bed at night mentally studying for tomorrow’s exam, worrying if they’ve picked the right major or wondering what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives.

They already have their lives and I am jealous of them for it.

But, I must remind myself that I do not want to be a construction worker for the rest of my life, and they probably don’t either. I remember that as a college student, I have the blessing of opportunity. Yes, my future is wide open and uncertain, but it is also malleable, and that is a beautiful thing.

The power to construct my future solely from my imagination and hard work is a dream scarcely realized by the population, save Willy Wonka and Dr. Seuss. I do not know to whom or where I will come home in five years, but the element of limitless possibility fills my heart with ecstatic anticipation.