| Day Three: Post Turkey Genocide Day
When you wake up and realize that you're going to have a hangover, it's always bad. When you wake up and realize that you are going to have a hangover, but on top of that will have to maintain a cheery disposition towards the people you will see, the feeling is nearly unbearable. Thusly did I find myself on friday. I tiptoed around (figuratively, of course. Tiptoeing with the headache I had would have clearly been a poor decision) everyone for most of the day, watching the Colorado-Nebraska game and just generally being subdued. Went to Barnes and Noble with everyone, and picked up a copy of "The World According to Garp," about which I've heard only that people tend to start and not finish it. Later on, I talked to a few friends, and decided to spend the night out with them in Boulder. I conned Emily into picking me up so we could go eat sushi on Pearl street, and then back to her place to watch The Count of Monte Cristo, a movie I like a lot but which I hadn't seen in a while. I like movies which are complex especially, because if you don't see them for a few months, you can go back and be somewhat suprised at a lot of the minor twists and turns. At least, if you have a bad memory, like I do. After that, it was off to meet Snedaku, Jon, Curt and Steve. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have had the foresight to realize that fitting five people (at least two of whom are fairly large individuals) into a car which is built for two people is difficult. I started having flashbacks to the airplane, and almost clawed my eyes out. Luckily we weren't driving very far and showed up at a place called the Sink, on the hill. I being the only person under 21 in our crew, was a little worried when I saw that they were carding. We got in anyway becuase we said we just wanted to eat. At the table, we immediately set to ordering pitchers of beer, when our waitress (a pretty cute girl) asked for mine. I said that I had foolishly misplaced it. She just put her hand on my shoulder and asked when my birthday was. Being the quick mathematical mind I am, I added a year to when I was actually born, and we were in business. We went through a couple of pitchers and a pizza, then just took off back to Snedaku's place for more drinking (White Russians this time). This was followed by the drive home (I got shotgun this time, thank the LORD) and the deposit of my head into a wall. I'm not clear on how exactly this happened, since I'm pretty sure I was mostly sober (if a little dizzy and nauseous), but it was a decent enough end to the night. I can't help but note that I really did, for the second day in a row, end up having a really fun day. Maybe I just haven't given Colorado a chance. The one thing which was really weird was being back on the CU campus. There's a certain stretch of it, roughly by the university center, which I walked past pretty much every day. Snedaku and I waited there for about five or ten minutes for the rest to show up, and I really started noticing how much I missed the campus. I remember my freshman year having to walk back from the Chem building after every major exam right past there, and always at night, and having so many strong emotions - crushing disappointment and depression over the "failing" exams I had just turned in. But always just feeling so much relief afterwards. That's the sort of thing I've just never felt since transferring. I can't help but wonder if maybe I gave up on college at some point. When I first got here, I was just so jubilent about everything. I had a group of new friends and a real feeling of being "in it" together with them. Now, I feel no real connection to the campus or as if I'm actually in another world, which is something I loved at CU. Even exams now aren't the huge productions they were - I have yet to really care about a single one of them. I've gotten so completely used to being in school that I've not just burned out on it, but really lost any feeling whatsoever. There's one specific night I remember at Colorado, it was our last differential equations exam. Sarah and I had walked to the chem building together, where a group of kids from our class and other sections were all sitting around, staring intently at books, notes, etc... trying to garner any last minute enlightenment they could. It was just barely getting dark, with the sun over the mountains but still shedding light on the square where they had recently finished the UBC addition and reinstalled the fountain. I remember feeling like a soldier about to into war. We all of course went inside, and Sarah and I finished first (something we did much more often in Calc III and Linear algebra - I normally took longer with Diffy Q) and then sat outside the classroom talking nervously about the exam and waiting for a couple other friends of ours. We even popped in and out of a GLBT meeting in an adjacent lecture hall. But when we left that building into the abnormally humid night, I knew deep down that I really did love what I was doing, and that through all my frustrations and anger and everything, I was still capable on rare moments of really believing that I could achieve greatness, if not on my own, then by being a part of something bigger. I wish I could still feel that way. cranked out at 5:52 PM | |
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