I am in Austin for two days for a recruitment drive as part of a delegation from Toyota Financial Services. We reached Austin yesterday evening around 8pm and soon went to bed.

In the morning, after breakfast, we walked to a nearby CVS. The campus was already in motion. Students poured across ita in a loose, restless current, headphones in their ears and phone in their hands, some carrying backpacks slung over their shoulders. They were dressed in leggings, athletic wear, fitted tops, shorts, sneakers, and every variety of casual clothes, looking half-sleepy and half-awake unbothered by the world around them. They crossed paths, slipped around one another, called out to friends, checked their screens, and hurried toward morning classes with the easy, slightly chaotic energy of youth.

There was something rejuvenating about simply being around it, watching the morning unfold for them in the ordinary sense and for me in another.