Snapshot: a day.
Livejournal,
I'm going to finish a bachelor's degree. This semester. An event of such an unprecedented nature leads me to take a snapshot of my life, here at the end of college. To see where I am.
At something like 0715 I roll out of bed and attempt to look presentable. Since my car broke down, I've hitched a ride with the folks into A^2. I'd wanted to get an apartment, work, and pay for it since that incident, but...in the mess of miscommunications, that got lost somewhere. My folks intractably wanted me to invest in an automobile, something I decidedly didn't want to be paying for when I'd rather be in Nigeria, Gaza, Kenya, or...somewhere else very soon.
Rarely, I have a chance to fill up my thermos with tea before we leave, but most of the time, I stretched too far into the previous night to do anything of import in the groggy beginnings of the morning.
I'll usually arrive in Ann Arbor in time to sniff the city air and drop in for coffee on main street. I'm too cheap to eat real breakfasts, so I spend as much on a muffin and convince myself I've saved money. I read the news and brace myself for the day. It's not so much that it's stressful, or difficult, but that It's so regimented, so planned, and so far out of my control, that I tire of it.
The moment when I board the bus will inevitably tell me how I feel about life, the universe, and everything. Usually, I contemplate with dread sickening haze of the perforated-billboard windows of the bus. The epileptic nausea that subsidizes my bus fare leaves me less that excited on most days.
Then there's the bouncy, dilapidated road as it interfaces with the bus's poor seats and worse suspension. Citizens with no concept of citizenship cough their plague into the combined air and I anticipate the next week's sickness. My constitution was bullish before I resorted to public transport. I hadn't had so much as a cough for years, barring those caught from girlfriends. Now I can be sure of dozens of sore throats and sniffles, though each lasts only a day or so.
I discovered last year that I can't stomach reading on the bus. It awakens somethine epileptic, or at least carsick, in my mind. So I sit, and resent every harsh deceleration and inefficient stop. I revel in hating the whole process of the journey.
Getting off the bus is like escaping a boring family visit. Or worse, a job. Campus is cold, dilapidated, and mismanaged, but it has a library, and friends, and I look forward to the sparse moments of companionship that I might garner.
I walk around, waste time, and look for a moment that will open up a conversation with a friend. I've been stewing in my mind about the news, about the world's problems, and on my own critical analyses. Using language--speaking--ignites my mind and the day becomes better.
Classes are inevitably fair; they don't excite, but they place more bricks on the structures of my mind and help me feel that I've learned something.
Rarely, a social occasion for coffee will open up. Or lunch. It's a treasure, though an expensive one, and I revel in the chance to sequester my mind and a friend's for some genuine conversation. By now, I'm thinking on how it will all be over, how I'll have to ride bus x back to A^2 in a short time. There are new friends that I'd like to make, dates that I'd like to meet, and plots I'd like to excecute. But the spectre of finding an alternate means home in the cold winter deters such thoughts.
My mind is packed with new ambitions to learn. 'Wikipedia' and the other ill-demarcated provinces of the internet that offer some real knowledge, beckon. I'm also lonely. I realize that the end of the day also means the end of human interaction, companionship, and so on. There are three or four girls, and sometimes one or two men, that I wish I had the chance to know better. Just good enough to have a phone number saved in my phone that I felt as if I could call.
I'm thinking I'll write another chapter on my friends, on my loves and vices, and so on. So I'll leave that for later.
I've got energies pent up, I've got hobbies and loves that are unfulfilled. Guitars, women, games...there's not enough time, and there are rules, and...things. So by the time I'm home I'm usually of a mind to roll all of that unfulfillment up..and smoke it...by masturbating. Generally, this wastes a ±.75 hour or so of my life, every evening, and I don't really mind saying so. My analysis is that until I can find a way to live that fulfills more of my loves, the natural effect will be unfulfilling them by wasting time.
Sometimes, I'll waste time in some way that's less noxious. An indulgence of wandering in wikipedia without an learning goal. Or worse..worst of all...television. My parents worship the golden calf every evening, and it's almost impossible not to avoid it. the utter lack of interaction that a television provides...makes me cringe.
Dinner. Shower. Laundry.
By now I'm looking forward to talk on the phone. It's an appointment. It's one bit of contact that I know will be emotions-allowed. On a weekday, there's one thing I can count on, and it does count.
I'm going to finish a bachelor's degree. This semester. An event of such an unprecedented nature leads me to take a snapshot of my life, here at the end of college. To see where I am.
At something like 0715 I roll out of bed and attempt to look presentable. Since my car broke down, I've hitched a ride with the folks into A^2. I'd wanted to get an apartment, work, and pay for it since that incident, but...in the mess of miscommunications, that got lost somewhere. My folks intractably wanted me to invest in an automobile, something I decidedly didn't want to be paying for when I'd rather be in Nigeria, Gaza, Kenya, or...somewhere else very soon.
Rarely, I have a chance to fill up my thermos with tea before we leave, but most of the time, I stretched too far into the previous night to do anything of import in the groggy beginnings of the morning.
I'll usually arrive in Ann Arbor in time to sniff the city air and drop in for coffee on main street. I'm too cheap to eat real breakfasts, so I spend as much on a muffin and convince myself I've saved money. I read the news and brace myself for the day. It's not so much that it's stressful, or difficult, but that It's so regimented, so planned, and so far out of my control, that I tire of it.
The moment when I board the bus will inevitably tell me how I feel about life, the universe, and everything. Usually, I contemplate with dread sickening haze of the perforated-billboard windows of the bus. The epileptic nausea that subsidizes my bus fare leaves me less that excited on most days.
Then there's the bouncy, dilapidated road as it interfaces with the bus's poor seats and worse suspension. Citizens with no concept of citizenship cough their plague into the combined air and I anticipate the next week's sickness. My constitution was bullish before I resorted to public transport. I hadn't had so much as a cough for years, barring those caught from girlfriends. Now I can be sure of dozens of sore throats and sniffles, though each lasts only a day or so.
I discovered last year that I can't stomach reading on the bus. It awakens somethine epileptic, or at least carsick, in my mind. So I sit, and resent every harsh deceleration and inefficient stop. I revel in hating the whole process of the journey.
Getting off the bus is like escaping a boring family visit. Or worse, a job. Campus is cold, dilapidated, and mismanaged, but it has a library, and friends, and I look forward to the sparse moments of companionship that I might garner.
I walk around, waste time, and look for a moment that will open up a conversation with a friend. I've been stewing in my mind about the news, about the world's problems, and on my own critical analyses. Using language--speaking--ignites my mind and the day becomes better.
Classes are inevitably fair; they don't excite, but they place more bricks on the structures of my mind and help me feel that I've learned something.
Rarely, a social occasion for coffee will open up. Or lunch. It's a treasure, though an expensive one, and I revel in the chance to sequester my mind and a friend's for some genuine conversation. By now, I'm thinking on how it will all be over, how I'll have to ride bus x back to A^2 in a short time. There are new friends that I'd like to make, dates that I'd like to meet, and plots I'd like to excecute. But the spectre of finding an alternate means home in the cold winter deters such thoughts.
My mind is packed with new ambitions to learn. 'Wikipedia' and the other ill-demarcated provinces of the internet that offer some real knowledge, beckon. I'm also lonely. I realize that the end of the day also means the end of human interaction, companionship, and so on. There are three or four girls, and sometimes one or two men, that I wish I had the chance to know better. Just good enough to have a phone number saved in my phone that I felt as if I could call.
I'm thinking I'll write another chapter on my friends, on my loves and vices, and so on. So I'll leave that for later.
I've got energies pent up, I've got hobbies and loves that are unfulfilled. Guitars, women, games...there's not enough time, and there are rules, and...things. So by the time I'm home I'm usually of a mind to roll all of that unfulfillment up..and smoke it...by masturbating. Generally, this wastes a ±.75 hour or so of my life, every evening, and I don't really mind saying so. My analysis is that until I can find a way to live that fulfills more of my loves, the natural effect will be unfulfilling them by wasting time.
Sometimes, I'll waste time in some way that's less noxious. An indulgence of wandering in wikipedia without an learning goal. Or worse..worst of all...television. My parents worship the golden calf every evening, and it's almost impossible not to avoid it. the utter lack of interaction that a television provides...makes me cringe.
Dinner. Shower. Laundry.
By now I'm looking forward to talk on the phone. It's an appointment. It's one bit of contact that I know will be emotions-allowed. On a weekday, there's one thing I can count on, and it does count.