Pit Stop Thought
Too many new places. New people. New experiences. New perspectives.
I guess if I had to complain about this summer I'd be whining about how all the amazing opportunities I've taken advantage of have left a dent in the endless span of lethargic afternoons and recurring evenings that I've polished into an art form through so many leisurely months of near nothingness over the years. The fact that I would never trade standing atop Mount Pilatus or soaring across Lake Tahoe for an afternoon sitting around the house doesn't make it any easier to leave behind the beautiful void of the same old things and the same old friends for bigger and better things.
I suppose that as I reach the final moments of a 38-hour pit stop between a journalism camp at the stunning Stanford campus and a service trip in the tangled mess of Tijuana, I just wish I had another day here at home to enjoy with Cara, Hal, Colin and everyone else out of the context of me leaving tomorrow morning. Maybe I'd take some time to enjoy materialism and privilege before it's ruined for me by an inescapable vision of poverty. Or cars before they're ruined by Asher's inevitable ten-hour vehicular commentary on I-5.
With all this talk about yesterday and tomorrow, I haven't even taken the time to so much as write about the fact that I got back from Europe over a month ago. Now that I've got my pictures back, I guess I'm out of excuses except for the fact that I leave for another country in three and a half hours. But I'll cover all that when I return. Should I kill any classmates while I'm gone and stay in the country to avoid prosecution, you might be excepting more delay.
Rolling back to last Sunday, I honestly had absolutely no expections of journalism camp except a bunch of nerds and my not taking it especially seriously. But instead of the socially retarded, awkard, achievement obsessed melvins I was expecting, I ended up spending my days with kids who were genuinely interesting and just generally fun to be around. These people who never even had ice to break in the first place; whom with I became closer to in four days than I've been with those I worked in drama with for months or hung out with for a summer. Now I'm just left with memories of Nick and Andy informing girls of their Cosmo-provided G-spot expertise, Josiah basically personally taking twenty bucks of an advisor's money at poker, and Caroline swooning over the Governator when we caught him leaving a Stanford event for his motorcade. I can't expect anyone here to care about the people I met and the stories only funny to myself, but I suppose that goes for everyone who returns from wherever they've been to this summer. During school we mainly hold the same experiences, but in summmer we make the sacrifice of comfortable lazy days with our familiar friends and seek out something new. And since we break off and wander away from our circle, most of our journeys, except for the most interesting anecdotes, will remain solely with us. But hell, if I was going to live through every trip one of my friends took this summer, I'd have absolutely none of those wonderful lazy summer days to throw away.
Anyway, I just wanted to take the time I wasn't going to use sleeping to check in with everyone and say goodbye to those I didn't get a chance to see while stopping by and the three others I didn't see nearly enough of. The constant coming and going Cara and I have been dealing with has been getting especially tough on both of us, so while Asher and Stephen Grider are showing me the time of my life south of the border, I'm sure she'd appreciate some company. I'm off to go on some life-changing trip nobody is really going to care about when I get back.
Except maybe the homicide part.
I guess if I had to complain about this summer I'd be whining about how all the amazing opportunities I've taken advantage of have left a dent in the endless span of lethargic afternoons and recurring evenings that I've polished into an art form through so many leisurely months of near nothingness over the years. The fact that I would never trade standing atop Mount Pilatus or soaring across Lake Tahoe for an afternoon sitting around the house doesn't make it any easier to leave behind the beautiful void of the same old things and the same old friends for bigger and better things.
I suppose that as I reach the final moments of a 38-hour pit stop between a journalism camp at the stunning Stanford campus and a service trip in the tangled mess of Tijuana, I just wish I had another day here at home to enjoy with Cara, Hal, Colin and everyone else out of the context of me leaving tomorrow morning. Maybe I'd take some time to enjoy materialism and privilege before it's ruined for me by an inescapable vision of poverty. Or cars before they're ruined by Asher's inevitable ten-hour vehicular commentary on I-5.
With all this talk about yesterday and tomorrow, I haven't even taken the time to so much as write about the fact that I got back from Europe over a month ago. Now that I've got my pictures back, I guess I'm out of excuses except for the fact that I leave for another country in three and a half hours. But I'll cover all that when I return. Should I kill any classmates while I'm gone and stay in the country to avoid prosecution, you might be excepting more delay.
Rolling back to last Sunday, I honestly had absolutely no expections of journalism camp except a bunch of nerds and my not taking it especially seriously. But instead of the socially retarded, awkard, achievement obsessed melvins I was expecting, I ended up spending my days with kids who were genuinely interesting and just generally fun to be around. These people who never even had ice to break in the first place; whom with I became closer to in four days than I've been with those I worked in drama with for months or hung out with for a summer. Now I'm just left with memories of Nick and Andy informing girls of their Cosmo-provided G-spot expertise, Josiah basically personally taking twenty bucks of an advisor's money at poker, and Caroline swooning over the Governator when we caught him leaving a Stanford event for his motorcade. I can't expect anyone here to care about the people I met and the stories only funny to myself, but I suppose that goes for everyone who returns from wherever they've been to this summer. During school we mainly hold the same experiences, but in summmer we make the sacrifice of comfortable lazy days with our familiar friends and seek out something new. And since we break off and wander away from our circle, most of our journeys, except for the most interesting anecdotes, will remain solely with us. But hell, if I was going to live through every trip one of my friends took this summer, I'd have absolutely none of those wonderful lazy summer days to throw away.
Anyway, I just wanted to take the time I wasn't going to use sleeping to check in with everyone and say goodbye to those I didn't get a chance to see while stopping by and the three others I didn't see nearly enough of. The constant coming and going Cara and I have been dealing with has been getting especially tough on both of us, so while Asher and Stephen Grider are showing me the time of my life south of the border, I'm sure she'd appreciate some company. I'm off to go on some life-changing trip nobody is really going to care about when I get back.
Except maybe the homicide part.