Stretch

A few weeks ago, I stopped counting the days. It seemed gratuitous. The count was and is meaningless to me. It's a substantively void thing pretending to represent something meaningful;

Day 1: A New Beginning
Day 18: Getting comfortable
Day 34: A Seasoned Veteran
Day 52: ZOMG 'XAMZ!
Day 71: Teh BurnOuts!

I've been feeling stuck out of time this semester, as if a series of things are happening all around me divorced from sequential order. The general linear feel of life and life events has been submerged beneath a thrumming torrent of concurrent everything. It all begs my attention simultaneously and it's all important. I reach out and grab what I can; repairing, completing, apologizing, thinking, reading, eating, drinking, re-reading, writing, fretting, testing, hoping, contacting, connecting, reconnecting, forgetting, at times in complete control, at times at the mercy of the maelstrom.

Again and again I'm finding that things aren't as unorganized or tumultuous as they appear to be. There's a "real" version of things that I'm able to view when I occasion to break the surface of this... stuff... and have a good look around. Everything is normal. And I'm ok.

That exam I thought I failed was a B. That paper? A-. I don't see the change because I'm living it. I don't feel it because it's gradual. I've grown so accustomed to the feeling of progress that I can't recognize it any more. The constant ache of moving to and fro is numbing, taxing, invalidating. I have no frame of reference.

I crave relative stillness to reflect upon. I crave boredom. I crave silence to balance all this violence.

Less than a month remains of this semester, including a week of vacation. It feel like I started yesterday. It feels like I'll begin tomorrow. It feels like I've always been doing this. Rest is an illusion. A fantasy. Stillness is my imagined heaven, existing only in my mind, desire making it both tantalizingly real and infinitely intangible.

I am burning out and it's ok. I have prepared for this. I am not breaking, I am bending. I welcome the wind. I can smell the wet-mud stink of tomorrow's improbable Spring. I can feel the earth warming sun insisting against my skin, fat cloud animals luxuriating above and about me. I am dreaming. I am wanting.

I need a vacation.

I have a little over 300 pages of reading and 25 pages of writing before I can breathe a finishing sigh. Until then, I am because I must. Or something. I'm almost done.

* * * * *

As a reminder, I'm working to raise money to study in South Africa this upcoming Spring. I've attached a donation button to the top right of this page just under the "About Me" section. If you're so inclined, click the donate button and make a donation in the amount of your choosing via PayPal.

Many many thanks to those of you who've already offered monetary support. It is both desperately needed and greatly appreciated.

Old School: South Africa

Thanks to a series of somewhat random and fortunate events, I now find myself positioned to be studying in Cape Town, South Africa for the Spring 2014 semester. Me and 20+ other undergrads will be leaving in mid-January and won't be returning until the end of April. While there, I'll be taking courses in South African politics as well as race and gender in a global perspective at The University of Cape Town. In addition to that, I'll have an internship (the specifics of which are TBD) where I'll be working three days a week. This will all be tied together with a healthy dose of adventuring, daring-do, and some good old fashioned activism. I'm very much looking forward to taking full advantage of this opportunity and am psyched  that OSH is going international.

ZOMGLOLBBQOBGYN!!1!!11!

Since I began this blog, many of you have offered tremendous support by reading, sharing, and commenting on my posts. More than a few of you have not-so-subtly suggested that I eventually compile this all into a book of some sort. And I might. I go back and forth on that one. But, for now, though, I could use your support. Like now. Before the book that may or may not be coming.

Just after I was accepted into the program, I was involved in a car accident. Thanks to that and a few other unexpected life events, I find myself spectacularly short of the funds I need to go to South Africa next year. I won't say just how short but short of selling my car and personal effects and prostituting myself for a few months, I'm not sure that I can make it own my own. Also prostituting is exploitative. And, frankly, I don't have the legs for it.

A number of you have expressed a desire to toss $ at me to keep writing/posting here and, until now, I've politely changed the subject with an "Oh... you guys!" or some such thing. But, if you're reading this and would like to help me achieve that end, I could certainly use the support.

I've changed my mind, in other words. The answer is now, "Yes! Halp!"

I've attached a donation button to the top right of this page just under the "About Me" section. If you're so inclined, click the donate button and make a donation in the amount of your choosing via PayPal.

I intend to go come hell or high water and will make do one way or another. But, with your help, the dream will come that much easier. Also I'll high five you*. If you're somewhat local*. And I don't have too much homework*.

Thank you in advance for all your support, gang, both monetary and otherwise. I look forward to serving up international shenanigans in the near future.

*let's just agree that, though the high five will be implied, they will be nonetheless sincere. 

Stick-to-itiveness

High on the news that I'd been accepted into UConn's honors study abroad program in South Africa next Spring, The last couple weeks have coasted by. Midterm grades trickled in and I was pleasantly surprised at my progress. I started seeing someone to discuss the anxiety and isolation I've been wrestling with, and began feeling better right away. I discovered that part of what I needed was just to talk about it with a live person. In nearly all ways, I felt like I'd hit my stride. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and was felt encouraged. Organized. Ready.

And then I wrapped my car around a telephone pole.

Suffice it to say I escaped with no major injuries, but the car was utterly destroyed. I sat on the side of the road talking with police officers for more than an hour explaining what happened, that I was sober and had felt fine before the accident, that I had, in fact, been singing along with the radio.

I knew better but I declined medical treatment and got a ride home. I was determined not to miss class and figured I could always take myself to the ER after class. I got a few hours of sleep and woke early to get to school.

I was walking down a flight of stairs when, suddenly, I was looking up at a group of concerned fireman. They told me I'd fallen unconscious on my way down the stairs. They told me they were taking me to the hospital. They told me I should have gone to the hospital immediately after the accident.

"Yes," I said, mildly embarrassed. "I know. I know."

At the hospital, I was poked and scanned and bled and rubbed and given more than one "talking to". Turned out I hadn't sustained any major injuries but that I was more than a little dehydrated. They pumped me full of fluids and, after a few hours, I was sent home with strict orders to rest and recover.

Even though I avoided major injuries, I was still extremely sore. I spent the next week recovering at home. With great effort, I resisted the urge to go to class.

After a week at home, I had had it. Still a little sore and stiff but really unable to afford missing more classes by staying home, I drove back to school this morning (at a reasonable rate of speed) for the first time since the accident.

All was going well until I was a half mile from campus. A deer jumped out in front of my car. I slammed on the breaks, my seat belt pressing hard against the old bruise.

The deer starred at me, blinking. "$#!& you, Bambi!" I yelled, shaking behind the wheel. The deer lingered for another moment, considering my insult before bounding off into the woods.

I looked to the sky. "Still going to class", I said, and stepped on the accelerator. The car lurched forward (at an even more reasonable rate of speed) and I with it, both now with our eyes peeled for sassy deer.

First class was thoroughly exhausting and physically painful to sit through. I winced and squirmed like a child in a barber's chair during the last 10 minutes of class.

Limped to and subsequently fell asleep in my second class. By the time I got to my third class, my hands were shaking. The professor stopped me after to class to welcome me back and ask how I was feeling.

"Exhausted," I said.

"I'm surprised that you managed to stay awake for the entire class."

I stretched generously and Mr joints cracked and popped like firewood. "Determination," I said.

"Good luck," he said.

I hobbled toward the elevator.

Took me nearly 20 minutes to walk from my adviser's office to my third class. I sat down in my seat with an audible grunt and paid for the sloppy effort with a bolt of pain through my upper back.

I reached up with my right hand to rub my left shoulder blade and my elbow popped like a firecracker. A young woman turned and looked, first at me, then my elbow, then back to me, her face a twisted mask of equal parts horror and disgust. I shrugged and smiled as cheerfully as I could. She looked away, no doubt with choice words of judgement dying behind her teeth.

Earlier, I'd explained to my adviser that I'd almost hit a deer earlier this morning. Her smile was brief but sympathetic.

"What do think the universe is trying to tell you?" she asked after a brief pause.

I considered that carefully, add if the universe could say anything, as if it would be concerned with the likes of me if it could, as if I'd ever be able to understand it. "Well I don't think I'd telling me not to drive!"

We laughed and I looked at my shoes. After a moment, I found more words. "I made a promise before I started this whole thing to finish no matter what." I looked out the window before settling my gaze on my adviser. "Maybe the universe is saying, 'No matter what? Ok. Prove it.'"

"Maybe," she said.

"Maybe," I said.

Outside her window, the path to my next class lay bathed in golden Autumn sun, like a trophy, like a dare. I stood with some effort and stretched.

"Almost done," I said, and headed for the door. "Almost done," I said again, this time to myself.

The universe made no reply.

African American

Just got an email informing me that I've officially been accepted to participate in one of UConn's study abroad programs*. South Africa, here I come!

*details to follow

Caught Alive

One, two, three, four, five,

I caught a fish alive,

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

I let it go again.

Why did you let it go?

Because it bit my finger so.

Which finger did it bite?

This little finger on my right.

I've taken on a lot. I am schooling. And working. And very short on time of all kinds. I'm tired. I'm low on confidence. And I'm broke as hell. 

And I'm only halfway done. 

Today, I finished the last of my midterm exams. Of my four classes, two had midterms that happened 'midterm', and the other two have two midterms that happen 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through the term respectively. I walked out of my last midterm exhausted and wandered a little, momentarily forgetful that I had another class in 15 minutes. Eventually, I found myself on a bench outside the building where my next class would be. I sat and watched the leaves fall, and tried to think of very little. 

This semester, school has brought with it the unexpectedly consequence of loneliness - deep, soul-crushing, nigh impenetrable loneliness. I am more or less constantly studying or working and, as such, haven't had much time to socialize. Parallel to that, I haven't been invited out much. Whereas last Spring, I constantly had to turn people down and remind them that I had to study, this Fall they're just not calling. It's a strange sort of feeling - on the one hand, I understand and appreciate it, yet on the other, I would much prefer to have to turn folk down. At least then, I'd know that I was being thought of and wanted. 

At times, I feel like every little thing I have to complain about can be reduced to an unimportant childish whine. It's borderline pretense. Or conceit. There are people that have it much harder than this. MUCH harder, even. I should just suck it up and do stuff. Also things. 

I had a dream that Ellen DeGeneres and I hung out and played video games. She told me to relax. Aside from the fact that she was who she was, the whole thing was pretty mundane. And it was nice that way. And sad. Sad that, instead of dreaming of hanging out with my actual friends, I have to imagine hanging out with an imaginary friend. And, even though I have no reason to believe that Ellen isn't a real person, I have no reason to believe that she IS a real person, having never actually met her. I'm pretty sure I'm about as real to her as she is to me, and yet I'm the one having dreams about video games. And brownies - there were delicious brownies too, as I recall. We were playing God of War 3 or something like that. It's not important. She's not real and neither am I. 

This is what I've been reduced to. I find myself in the position of needing to get out more and do more stuff, but not having much time to do so or anyone to do stuff with when I DO have time. Also I want a cheeseburger real bad. 

Also I think the midterms fried my brain. That would explain the smell. And the overly loud Bob Dylan music:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine 

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? 

People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall" 

You thought they were all kiddin' you 

You used to laugh about 

Everybody that was hangin' out 

Now you don't talk so loud 

Now you don't seem so proud 

About having to be scrounging for your next meal. 

How does it feel 

How does it feel 

To be without a home 

Like a complete unknown 

Like a rolling stone? 

Plus One

There's a sinister hidden element to this whole going back to school adventure that I've hesitated to talk about, mainly because it was personal and felt necessary but also because I felt it would take what I had hoped would be a light-hearted, awww shucks, fish-out-of-water type recounting of my return to school and stain it with some dark and dirty realness. But it's here. And it's real. So here goes.

It's lonely. I'm lonely, rather. Or the process is a lonely one, and I am made lonely by it.

Or just plain I'm lonely. I'm lonely as hell.

At school, being more than a decade older than most of my classmates stopped being novel months ago. It's just plain alienating now. We're in the same place and doing the same sort of things but I'm just not there with them. They're still sorting through a number of things I've already tackled and managed and they're on their way to 100 or so mistakes that I've already made. Or something like that.

By that I mean I can't relate. I feel like I'm talking with my nephews and nieces.

It's unsettling when they talk about sex and beer and drugs. It's upsetting to hear them swear. Sometimes, I have to suppress an urge to correct them. And, while I'll admit that this says much more about me than it does about any of them, it is, nonetheless, a wedge between us.

At home, I've noticed a change as well. School work and other commitments have taken away the bulk of what was once 'free time'. I don't go anywhere. I don't do anything. I can't afford it.

I worry about the huge investment I'm making here and about the loans I'll have to pay off after I'm done adventuring. I worry about not having enough money for basic things like bread and eggs and gas and whiskey. I'm constantly broke or very much near broke. And, while by itself that's not an awful thing, it's certainly a thing that keeps me lonely. I don't go out because I can't go out. I can't afford it.

And it's not just because I can't afford it. I'm not invited out as often. Maybe people have taken the hint and stopped inviting me out. Maybe I'm turning down more invites than I suppose I am and this whole thing is of my own manufacturing. Either way, lonely.

I school. I school lots. And it's taxing. And I'm lonely. And this isn't an original complaint. And I get that. And that doesn't make it any less legitimate.

I didn't expect to be jealous of my friends going about their daily lives with 9 to 5's, but I am. I am jealous. Sure, there's something to be said about keeping your head up, your eyes on the prize, focusing on a tomorrow in which you'll be proud of what you've done, Drew! You'll be so very proud of what you've accomplished! And you'll serve as a model to your nephews and nieces! And you'll get a job that isn't awful! And the stars will align and the birds will sing and Baby Jesus will descend from heaven on a pair of handcrafted discount polyester wings to bestow fried pickles and honey mead upon thee!

But there's also something to be said about the honesty of the moment - the TRUTH of the moment, even. And, for now, it's just lonely.

It's just lonely as hell.

Herd

Day 7: We've only just begun the second week of classes and already the mobs in the lecture halls have thinned. Part of that is due to students dropping and switching courses, but another part of it is students just plain skipping class. If last semester is any indicator, the classes will be even more sparsely populated in the following weeks.

I mention this only to celebrate that I can find a seat in the front without having to get to class 10 minutes early. And to vent a little frustration at what I know will come next - students freaking out about midterms after only having been to a class or two subsequently dominating any and all review sessions with bullshit questions that could easily have been answered if they had just come to class instead of now taking away from legitimate questions and concerns of the people who made an effort to get out of bed and learn something.

You can't see it right now, but I'm shaking a cane in my knotted arthritic fist.

Get off my lawn, damn it!