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Here are the signs of another school year starting: increase of population in Davis, bikes going wrong-of-way, and random people stopping you to ask for the directions. The most common destination I've given directions to, as far as I've kept track of, is the Silo where students can go and, for five bucks, get the sort of fastfood you'd expect to find located near gas stations on interstate highways.
The runner up is the arboretum, but then, this is Davis. The Silo directions are more often asked anywhere on campus and the arboretum directions are only asked if you are near the southern part of campus, but the arboretum directions are harder because it's a larger place and the people who are inquiring about it usually can't tell you which part of it they wanted to visit (Is it the headquarters? The Redwoods Grove? Putah Creek Lodge?).

Here are the signs of another school year starting: backpack checkouts outside of the bookstore instead of tiny backpack lockers in the bookstore, freshmen traveling in packs (who said that civilization's removed our evolutionary instincts?), and fraternity/sorority flyers everywhere. The clubs and the religious groups have their own solicitors, of course, and I plead guilty to designing the flyers for Botany Club. On the long run, however, the clubs and religious groups are mauled down and forgotten behind housing ads and last-minute "roommate wanted" signs, while fresh frat/sorority flyers appear miraculously appear on top of the bulletin build up every other day. Their sort of dedication borders the fanatical, but those who had to deal with the drunk members - well, we already knew that anyway.

Here are the signs of another school year starting: the last minute construction designed to finish just the day before school started, on the spot peer-to-peer training at all stations from the library check out desks onwards. There are the few roller backpacks before the students find out that roller backpacks are not the way to go in Davis. There are the cranky students, me included, complaining about the cost of textbooks.

And here it is: just one more day before instruction begins.