This was originally posted on blogger. I struggle to read my book in the garden. There’s two reasons, so bear with me. The first is that the London sun seems to never settle. She’s like an angry child – either warm and overly loving or throwing a temper tantrum and not to be seen. So, you wonder, why don’t I sit in the shade and avoid this child altogether? The second reason is that I have allergies, and sitting in the shade means sitting in the grass, and that means that the sniffles start up. It’s hard to read a book drenched in flowing nasal discharge (trust me on this). So you see, for this simple task, location matters.

The students of Berkeley have recently been faced with a similar challenge. It’s because Doctor of Philosophy (etc.) Madam Carol Christ told us that basically school is cancelled. Distance learning, remote classes, Zoom University, it’s been called. And she went on, saying there’s an new offering called Semester in Cloud.

The University of California thinks we’re chumps and will take her up on this, since we just can’t get enough of this learning business. The worst part is that they’re right. Everyone from 1st years to super seniors are essentially taking classes as usual – except now, we don’t have to be in Berkeley.

In some ways this movement is a inevitable part of life. You see, back in the day our ancestors lived in the villages. Then they moved to the cities, maybe to find work and get a good education. Now the cities are out of favor, so some are moving to the cloud The Cloud (TM). So this whole idea – the Semester in the Cloud – raises some practical questions. What does the cloud look like? Does it have an address? How much does rent cost there?

Dr. Christ is smart though – and due to her name not completely secular – so I suspect there’s something more going on. Something spiritual. You see, just like Avatar Aang (the last Airbender, of course) is the portal to the spirit world, we can be the portals to the clouuuddd. Aang closes his eyes, his tattoos flash (are they made from fireflies?), and his spirit and body separate. His spirit is far more exciting, for it wanders around swamps and meets Avatars of the past and creatures older than humanity. Then his physical body just sits there, lotus position.

Just like this, I imagine that a Semester in the Cloud is a journey to the spirit world. When we go we shall shuffle off our mortal coils and transcend to a world grander than life. We shall explore the worlds of environmental economics, abstract algebra, or epidemiology – growing and changing and forming a better life for ourselves.  Meanwhile our physical bodies will pay lots of money to sit comfortably in a chair and stare at a computer screen most of the day.

The cloud is in our ears and in front of our eyes and frankly in our hearts. We have grown up with the cloud following our every move. Many of us think of it as a third parent. Yet, like some horrid divorce, we are forced to pin the cloud down to a location and make it sign a lease. Some say move to Boulder, Colorado; others pretend that the spirit world can only exist near UC Berkeley. Some may stay in their childhood bedroom, and explore academic life like a rather dull night-time dream. As the Philosopher Tynan said, it’s a continuum of options, ranging from loneliness to Coronaness. The world is our oyster.

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