People Watching

01.13.08

It's a chilled, dreary day before classes start, and all my friends are coming back to campus. The wind, as always, whips in and out of the buildings and freezes the smoke of my Camel No. 9 to the back of my throat. Occasionally, a group of guys walk by with a television set/couch/box of Christmas gifts. It's the annual furniture and crap swap on campus, as everyone settles into their places before the hustle of spring semester.

I'm very excited to see old faces and smoke cigarettes and talk politics with the Freshman VIP.

"Because, y'know, society... is like this cup! He points excitedly to a Styrofoam cup filled with bad coffee.

"And how is that, Michael?"

"Well, y'know... it is."

"Extrapolate, for us all."

"Well... well! It's full of coffee, right? You're full of life. And then SOCIETY! SOCIETY comes along and passes judgment on it. 'Oh, what a terrible cup of coffee...' What they mean is 'What a terrible life', right? Right? But they drink it anyway! No matter how bad, they... they SUCK the LIFE right out of us!"

"Your philosophy days are numbered, young one."

I can't wait.

I'm sitting in the desolate study area of the library and Jack Johnson encourages me to further research the situation in Afghanistan and Russia's views on it. I haven't gotten very far, but I'm getting there. I hope to get done in time for dinner. A real dinner, no more granola bars and bad tap water. Soda and pizza and salad and soup and pasta and sandwiches... I love this school when there are people in it.

Tomorrow brings French Cinema, Problems of Developing Nations, and Existentialism. I'm particularly excited about the first and last of this list, because I've always been a film nerd and I'm ready to expand into foreign territory (pun fully intended).

before after