I’m home now, and sick. They say that it happens, and it makes sense : weakened and worn out after the high stress of finals, college students get home, get sick, and sleep a lot. I’m not gonna let some paltry sinus complaint stop me from enjoying my winter break, though. I’m going to the city, I’m getting my haircut, and I’m going bowling, darn it.
I watched Dogville yesterday. I don’t think anyone else should watch it, and I can’t imagine having been one of the people who participated in making it. It’s got some interesting technical aspects (the filming is really particular) but it is twisted, twisted, twisted. That’s all I wanted to say : don’t watch it.
I am cozy in Wooster. Stewart’s taking an exam. The wind is making people stagger and claw hair out of their faces on the sidewalk outside the window.
Life is good.
Today we’re going to go to Cleveland to see a promising art exhibit. Tomorrow we’ll say goodbye again. I had thought that it would get easier to handle being separated. It doesn’t. It gets harder. Being together keeps getting better, though, so I can’t complain. Anyway, in a few short weeks I’ll be in Houston!
This really is the end of my semester. My finals are over and I’m almost finished with my seminar paper. I felt myself approaching the end of my work and decided to pause before the final plunge, just to savor the proximity of freedom.
It’s a good thing, too, because finals have translated into egregious mistreatment of my body. I’ve spent most of every day immobile, breathing computer exhalations, embalming my insides with liters of coffee and Diet Coke, and soothing the upwellings of stress with chocolate and monkey bread.
TOMORROW. Tomorrow things will be golden.
Addendum.
One thing that bugs me : people who answer small-talk questions with too many details. It’s particularly aggravating right now, when everyone’s stressed. I take it for granted that “great” is too simple and optimistic an answer to honestly cover how people are doing, but when person after person goes into a recapitulation of due dates and page lengths, I turn off. I’m busy, too. I guess it’s improper to admit to such impatience, ’cause it doesn’t make me look good, but I imagine someone out there shares my complaint.
Things are going crazy. The kid who lives in the Underground has been wandering around Bosler all night. A passel of banshees rumbled screaming back and forth on the floor above the language lab, then clattered screaming but unseen around this floor, and finally banged into the stairwell, silent for a moment. We heard them shrieking as their feet slapped away on the asphalt outside, too.
Today I had a mishap. I was tranquilly studying for my 9 AM English final over breakfast in the caf when a person from my Arabic class came up to ask me a question “about our exam today.” I had supposed erroneously that Arabic was on Tuesday (whoops). I booked back to Goodyear for my Arabic books and made it to the exam on time, disorganized and completely unprepared. Thankfully the test was open-book, but I still teared up when I explained my mix-up to the prof.
I’m so close to being home free. I don’t understand how people (pretty much everyone else) can write ten pages in a day. I burn out.
Tonight’s Exam Treats are monkey bread. I think we can expect a riot. I hope nobody gets trampled.
It’s as if there’s a regime change going on in my internal organization. I don’t think of myself and my future the way I used to. At the beginning of this year I realized that my old friends have new friends. I felt adrift. Now I’ve gotten close to people here, but the freshness of these friendships makes me wonder whether they’ll be able to last beyond the limestone walls.
We’re only twenty. I just keep getting ahead of myself, wondering what kind of life at forty I’m setting myself up for. Everyone knows how much I depend on structure, but everything’s so uncertain from here on out. I just want to be happy.
If I don’t find a job for next year, maybe I should start a death metal band. It looks pretty easy (although this guy would beat me up for saying that). All I need to do is think of a gross name – Phlegm Nuggets? Kitten Slaughter? – and start making noise. The only obstacles I can think of are my insufficiently long hair and, perhaps, my dignity.
Number one. I hate people who make weird phlegm noises in computer labs. Two days ago it was the rapid-fire noseblower, and today it is clear-your-throat-already boy. EW. I spend tense minutes between bouts of glottal rattle just waiting for the next one. It’s distracting.
Number two. Who goes to a restaurant to order “a big pile of food?” I challenge you to find a place with that on their menu. Also, I dare you to order one. You’ll probably get a look like I gave this guy on Saturday: quickly-concealed disbelief and not a little disparagement. For a pile of food, you eat at home (or in the caf). Restaurants assemble things. I’m amazed that college students get so used to lumping it all onto a single plate that they forget it doesn’t work that way beyond the limestone walls (we compromised with a Special Gyro, packed with the things he had asked for in a pile).
I had a stress build-up weekend and a disturbing dream last night. I’ve been going all day, but this paper is still thumping around in my skull, not clattering out onto the screen. Once it’s done, I’m a free woman.
Is the world ending? It’s December and it’s WARM outside.