Rise or fall?

There comes a point in every construction project when it's hard to tell whether it's a new building going up or an old one falling down, and our new dorm has reached that point. Standing bleak and forbidding on the edge of campus, it could be the ruin of a totalitarian Ministry of Obfuscation, a gateway to some bleak bureaucratic hell.

The artists' renderings indicate that this building, when completed, will present a warm and welcoming face to anyone approaching that side of campus, but right now it looks as if someone ought to hang a sign: Relinquish hope, all ye who enter here! But then the sound of nail guns and heavy equipment reminds me that this is not the ruin of something old but the promise of something new. It's exciting to see the steady progress day by day.

Now if I can just see similar signs of progress in the students who will live in that dorm, I'll be happy.