Remember, if you injure/kill a worker, it could result in a $7,500 fine and 15 years in prison
May 13, 2011
Chances are, if you are reading this column, you are on Allendale’s campus. If you are on Allendale’s campus, chances are, you’ve noticed that the men in yellow hardhats are beginning to out number the actual students.
Construction is taking over, Grand Valley. And not just on GVSU’s campus, but also a majority of The Lanthorn’s news section, and just the entire state of Michigan in general.
And that’s nothing new. The entire city Grand Rapids has slowly been under construction since, well, forever. New additions to the medical mile spring up more often than music videos by 13-year-old girls on YouTube and our highways have never-not been lined with orange reflective barrels and utility trucks.
When our 9-month winter finally begins to descend back into the hell from whence it came, our poorly paved roads thaw into a minefield of potholes and we’re all forced to play the brain-exploding game of try-not-to-jack-up-your-cars-alignment until county road commissioners trade in their salt trucks for whatever loosely packed gravel it is they use to fill in those road craters.
Despite all I’ve said here, don’t get yourselves down Grand Valley. You’re blue skies may be eclipsed by cranes (and not the cute bird kind, either) but the bulk of campus construction should be over by August, and it might be kind of cool to be able to say you were around while the most inconveniently named library ever built was still a pit of dirt and a metal skeleton.
So try to skirt around the makeshift fences with a smile, dodge manholes with grace, and instead shift the focus of your dysphoria on the fact that you are still on campus taking classes, and it’s summer time.
In the meantime, I’ll be coping with my depression from The Lanthorn office if anyone needs me.
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