Review.
This school year began on August 24. I got to town two days earlier. I wasn't registered for classes. I didn't have a place to live and didn't really even have a place to stay. I just assumed I could depend on the kindness of strangers, I suppose. Well, strangers and those friends I had when I left town for summer, tail between my legs, broke and at least a little broken.
I think I had $200 in my pocket when I got here. I think that was Tuesday. I'm pretty sure I spent Monday with Mark at his school, spent that night with Jessica, and then made my way to the university. And my dad's prepaid cell phone. A phone, a couple hundred bucks, and a tank now half full of gas. That was it.
I registered that Tuesday. I took a decent course load, packed with reading-intensive English classes. Honors Seminar was the only thing I particularly looked forward to, and that turned out a little differently than I had anticipated.
Classes started Wednesday. I went to them. Somewhere in there, I ran into Girl Kris, and she told me about an apartment. I checked that out Friday. It was cheap as free, and I could move in the following Monday. I went home for the weekend, quite satisfied with all I had accomplished.
I got a phone that Monday night. That first night in my apartment was the night Hurricane Katrina hit. I woke up with a swimming pool on the floor thanks to a leaky window. I actually moved all my shit in that Thursday. My da helped.
Fall was pretty much downhill from there. I didn't have any particularly strong friendships in the town. There was Jessica, but we weren't nearly as friendly since that whole bailing on me when rent was due thing. I had other people to hang out with, and even to fuck around with, but that was all they were, really. I talked to Mark a lot. I moped in the new apartment a lot. I fucked up a whole lot, especially in the work and school related departments. I got a cat. It perked me up a bit, and we bonded a good deal in the first few weeks I had her.
I was happy to go home for Christmas. I was happy to not be moping around the school. I was happy to not feel guilty for knowing I had something to do that I wasn't doing.
Christmas was another one of those odd, abbreviated things. It seemed too short. I house-sat for a professor. That was fun. I was home for Christmas Day, then gone to Atlanta and eventually Florida the day after. I got back late New Year's Day, which was a Sunday. I got random weird calls from the Athens Wal-Mart that weekend. I know it was the Athens Wal-Mart because I needed to call back when I noticed the missed calls. To no avail. I think that vacation was when fall semester ended for me, really.
Monday, Jan. 2 I woke up somewhere around 10 a.m. I didn't wake up because I wanted to wake up. I woke up because my fucking phone was ringing, and because it wasn't a recognized number. After the other weird calls, I figured it was worth tending to. If you had asked me Sunday night who I would be talking to the next morning on the phone, this person would not have been in my top 100 answers. I don't even know 100 people, to make this point entirely clear. But when Pat asked me what I was doing, I didn't tell him to go fuck himself. I told him the truth. I told him I wasn't doing anything. Would I like to hang out? Why the fuck not.
Never undervalue the "Why the fuck not?" response.
So I came back to school refreshed. I was actually pre-registered, for the first time in my college career. I had a place to live, and a reliable source of income. I had, if somewhat tenuous there for a bit, the emotional support that I had needed and lacked the previous semester.
Classes got underway. I dealt with a lot of the fucking up I had spent the previous semester doing. I didn't deal with the fucking around, but hey, no one's perfect.
I collected more friends. I bonded and rebonded with a lot of people. Ah, bondage...
Sorry, I'm back now.
And now, this school year is slowly winding to a close. I'm a little leary of the time after school when I'll have to start measuring things in real years. Those 12 month years seem daunting. These 9 month portions are hard enough to manage. Pat and I have bonded, rebonded, mended, feuded, and had various cat fights. We're getting along fabulously. Joel and I have some kind of codependent relationship built on cynicism and negativity. I haven't fucked school up nearly as bad this semester. And it's all almost over.
It's been a hella long week.
It's the last week of school. It's that week that is both magical with gleaming potential and fraught with terrifying reality. I didn't really have class this week, but I did have most of my finals. It's kind of cheating for my teacher to do that, give the finals before finals week, but I guess I didn't mind in the end. And the end is what matters. It's kind of a time of endings, lately.
The French final was, well, I'll say "spoken" since I'm tired of getting funny looks for saying "I had an oral French final." I don't like such things. I get terrified and forget all the things I know how to say when I know I'm getting a grade for saying them. I can only handle public speaking because I can usually fake my way into saying something else worth saying, even if it's not what I meant to say originally. My French vocab does not allow for such graceful BSing.
Contemporary Poetry was easy-peasy. History of Film was a joke. All I have left now is Grammar, which doesn't concern me, and my internship portfolio. The portfolio makes me shudder and become nauseous.
My mother and step-father are separated. I don't know that that's actually an ending, but hey, whatev. It seems violent, if not terminal. And maybe part of me wants it to be an end. Maybe that's a large part, even.
I started something a couple Novembers ago that I've ended today, I think. It wasn't love and it was only barely lust most days, but it was something, I suppose. And it's a little sad that it's over.
It's a little sad that it's all over, the adventure that was the 2005-2006 Academic Year. Summers always represent a shift in the paradigm. Things become unsettled in the summer, a little muddled, and then gel into something new come fall. It's a time of endings. Ends of beginnings, ends of middles, ends of ends.
I'm sad and spacey and a little excited.
the end
I think I had $200 in my pocket when I got here. I think that was Tuesday. I'm pretty sure I spent Monday with Mark at his school, spent that night with Jessica, and then made my way to the university. And my dad's prepaid cell phone. A phone, a couple hundred bucks, and a tank now half full of gas. That was it.
I registered that Tuesday. I took a decent course load, packed with reading-intensive English classes. Honors Seminar was the only thing I particularly looked forward to, and that turned out a little differently than I had anticipated.
Classes started Wednesday. I went to them. Somewhere in there, I ran into Girl Kris, and she told me about an apartment. I checked that out Friday. It was cheap as free, and I could move in the following Monday. I went home for the weekend, quite satisfied with all I had accomplished.
I got a phone that Monday night. That first night in my apartment was the night Hurricane Katrina hit. I woke up with a swimming pool on the floor thanks to a leaky window. I actually moved all my shit in that Thursday. My da helped.
Fall was pretty much downhill from there. I didn't have any particularly strong friendships in the town. There was Jessica, but we weren't nearly as friendly since that whole bailing on me when rent was due thing. I had other people to hang out with, and even to fuck around with, but that was all they were, really. I talked to Mark a lot. I moped in the new apartment a lot. I fucked up a whole lot, especially in the work and school related departments. I got a cat. It perked me up a bit, and we bonded a good deal in the first few weeks I had her.
I was happy to go home for Christmas. I was happy to not be moping around the school. I was happy to not feel guilty for knowing I had something to do that I wasn't doing.
Christmas was another one of those odd, abbreviated things. It seemed too short. I house-sat for a professor. That was fun. I was home for Christmas Day, then gone to Atlanta and eventually Florida the day after. I got back late New Year's Day, which was a Sunday. I got random weird calls from the Athens Wal-Mart that weekend. I know it was the Athens Wal-Mart because I needed to call back when I noticed the missed calls. To no avail. I think that vacation was when fall semester ended for me, really.
Monday, Jan. 2 I woke up somewhere around 10 a.m. I didn't wake up because I wanted to wake up. I woke up because my fucking phone was ringing, and because it wasn't a recognized number. After the other weird calls, I figured it was worth tending to. If you had asked me Sunday night who I would be talking to the next morning on the phone, this person would not have been in my top 100 answers. I don't even know 100 people, to make this point entirely clear. But when Pat asked me what I was doing, I didn't tell him to go fuck himself. I told him the truth. I told him I wasn't doing anything. Would I like to hang out? Why the fuck not.
Never undervalue the "Why the fuck not?" response.
So I came back to school refreshed. I was actually pre-registered, for the first time in my college career. I had a place to live, and a reliable source of income. I had, if somewhat tenuous there for a bit, the emotional support that I had needed and lacked the previous semester.
Classes got underway. I dealt with a lot of the fucking up I had spent the previous semester doing. I didn't deal with the fucking around, but hey, no one's perfect.
I collected more friends. I bonded and rebonded with a lot of people. Ah, bondage...
Sorry, I'm back now.
And now, this school year is slowly winding to a close. I'm a little leary of the time after school when I'll have to start measuring things in real years. Those 12 month years seem daunting. These 9 month portions are hard enough to manage. Pat and I have bonded, rebonded, mended, feuded, and had various cat fights. We're getting along fabulously. Joel and I have some kind of codependent relationship built on cynicism and negativity. I haven't fucked school up nearly as bad this semester. And it's all almost over.
It's been a hella long week.
It's the last week of school. It's that week that is both magical with gleaming potential and fraught with terrifying reality. I didn't really have class this week, but I did have most of my finals. It's kind of cheating for my teacher to do that, give the finals before finals week, but I guess I didn't mind in the end. And the end is what matters. It's kind of a time of endings, lately.
The French final was, well, I'll say "spoken" since I'm tired of getting funny looks for saying "I had an oral French final." I don't like such things. I get terrified and forget all the things I know how to say when I know I'm getting a grade for saying them. I can only handle public speaking because I can usually fake my way into saying something else worth saying, even if it's not what I meant to say originally. My French vocab does not allow for such graceful BSing.
Contemporary Poetry was easy-peasy. History of Film was a joke. All I have left now is Grammar, which doesn't concern me, and my internship portfolio. The portfolio makes me shudder and become nauseous.
My mother and step-father are separated. I don't know that that's actually an ending, but hey, whatev. It seems violent, if not terminal. And maybe part of me wants it to be an end. Maybe that's a large part, even.
I started something a couple Novembers ago that I've ended today, I think. It wasn't love and it was only barely lust most days, but it was something, I suppose. And it's a little sad that it's over.
It's a little sad that it's all over, the adventure that was the 2005-2006 Academic Year. Summers always represent a shift in the paradigm. Things become unsettled in the summer, a little muddled, and then gel into something new come fall. It's a time of endings. Ends of beginnings, ends of middles, ends of ends.
I'm sad and spacey and a little excited.
the end