Last year I was caught up in a thousand adventures. Spontaneous ones, planned ones, colorful ones and dirty ones. Some left me breathless from exhaustion, some left me breathless from laughter, and others breathless from awe. This may sound melodramatic, but I really didn't breath last year. I saved my lungs for whip-its. #justkiddingmostlyjustkidding.
This year, as I compulsively take on responsibilities and arrange fun things to do, I realize that the four major problem sets that I am assigned each week will suck all of the time away from those adventures of yor. The math problem set last week took Eric and I 6 hours. The physics that's due tomorrow at 10 am took Justin and I 7 hours to do half of. This is not an understatement. My breath has found new places to be sucked into.
The weird thing is, I'm getting a new kind of adventure high. I only know that the problem sets took so long because they took from 12 am to 6 am, or from 7 pm to 1am, respectively. The time flew, it was fun, I laughed from sheer excitement and my heart leaped at small steps for physics-kind. It's was exhilaration. It was adventures.
This goes beyond me coping with my workload by pretending that it's fun. I wouldn't be up at 1:20 am after Justin and I called it a night to write about my rationalizations. I found another strange similarity between these brutal problem sets and my funtimes last year.
The memories I have from them mirror some of the best adventures last year. Sort of a vivid snapshot, that in the moment screamed out a thousand little details. For instance, when Lyle and I had biked to Voodoo after Rocky Horror and we were sitting with our bikes outside of commons at 3:30 am. I remember his face peaking out from under a helmet, the red sheer shirt over my black velvet dress that I was never to see again. The expression he had while talking about his family, a mix of acceptance with a little bit of pain to keep it sharp.
On Friday morning in the early hours, Eric laid his head on one of the armrests of the blue Chittick couches, his knees drawn up to a subtly obtuse angle. A notebook rested on them, his fancy pencil in one hand. The cap from the eraser of his fancy pencil peaked out of his mouth, scooching his upper lip a little bit up and to the left. And he sat there and thought, while I absorbed the moment.
Less than an hour ago, Justin sat on his porch with a cigarette between his fingers. It was reluctant to ash, in spite of his fingers' agitated taps. In the other hand was a gallon of milk. He was wearing the silly 'spikeball' t-shirt that had been suddenly drained of its color as a housemate shut off the last of the lights. He exhaled smoke looking past the railing, still thinking about the problem. And he drank some milk and finished the cigarette and we went back to work.
Ta fucking da. No really, it was all very intense. I hardly do it justice. It was adventure. I'm starting to understand why we do what we do. I just can't explain because I'm getting sick and I promised to stop writing at 1:30 am.
It doesn't take a Renn Fayre to make a Reedie. It takes a 7 hour half problem set.
No comments:
Post a Comment