It's amazing how your opinion of something can change so fast. This time last week my blog was hopeful, fun-filled, and anticipatory of the coming week. Oh how I so greatly was wrong. While the Week of Welcome (WOW) was fun, it was also hectic, stressful, and way too much to handle. Between running from class to class, finishing my homework (yeah, I wish), Judo, Iaito, and Zumba, there just aren't enough hours in the day. Yes, and we are just beginning the start of the brand new week 2 of the semester. I have well over 200+ pages of reading due by Friday. There's already a group project due in a few weeks for my Environmental Science class, as well as many weekly journals to do. Those aren't really journals though. They're the way the professor checks that you're doing your homework. Mostly though, it's not the amount of homework, or the fluorescent lighting. No, it's the fact that these classes are dull and boring. I feel as if I should just be out doing what I want to do with life. Not sitting in a classroom learning what those who are "knowledgeable" believe I should know. (btw one should note that this little rant here is probably in fact, due credit to one of my current professors)
I don't think it would all seem so bad if there was anywhere here to get a moments solace. My dorm is small, crowded, and as of the current moment a mess. Neither myself nor my roommate have the time to straighten up at the moment. The libraries, my past (and typical) place of escape are crowded and I suppose you could even say noisy. Or at least as noisy as a library can be. Here in the city it's hot and crowded with people and stagnant, exhaust-filled air. There are no stars here. Instead the sky glows orange from the lights which are supposed to keep away those who mean us harm. Can you believe it's unsafe to walk around at night here? It's awful since the late hours (like right now) are a fabulous time to be outside. Dust fills the air all the time, heat reflects off the unending asphalt during the day, and the only water to speak of falls from the sky or runs from a faucet. This whole place is a great artificial façade presented to us with the pretense and stereotypical American view of the university. This school is everything a top-notch university is supposed to be. If you look at any hollywood college movie, you will see a picture painted that is much like where I now reside. The thing is though, it's not the most wonderful environment. As I said, there is no comfort, no solace to be found in an area as populous as this. Twice as many people flow through this campus every day as who reside year-round in my county; including the mainland. It's just way more people than I'm used to, and there's nowhere to literally run to. Typically when I'm feeling like this I just drive as far south down the islands as I can (aka until I reach the point I can still make it home on the current tank of gas) and just sit on the beach. Sometimes it's for hours and I'll never see another soul. There's really nothing like sitting there under the wide open sky, and looking out at the ocean that fades into nothingness on the horizon. The air is clean, and there's a salt-tinged breeze on your face. It's the perfect escape from the scheduling of everyday life. People here operate in a very different way. Everything's a race, everything's a push, everything's a competition. And right now, in this moment, I want nothing more than to hop in my car and drive as far south as I can, then get out and run east till you can run no more. To the end of America, to the start of the sea.
I've never been a city girl, and I don't think I ever really will be.
Well, I don't think that statement fits very well with my major...
But anyhow...right now for the first time ever, I'm sitting on the outside as back home they are waiting for category 4 hurricane Earl to make his move up the coast. It's the very first time in 15 years that I won't be on the beach for a major storm. It's so surreal to be watching this, anticipating this, from the outside. I've never known what it's like to worry for those who are facing the path of a storm. I think when you are the one in the path (and it's routine like it is for we locals), it's just another day. But either way you have to look at the sheer magnitude and awesome power of the beastly storms that pay their visits in the late summer and early autumn. But for all the destructive, and awesome power these storms carry, there's nothing like the beaches this time of year. There's less crowding, the breezes are he perfect mixture of warm and cool, and the water is more beautiful than the height of summer. Perhaps a trip home will have to be planed soon to find that little corner of (mostly) uninhabited earth. But for now I must sleep. For no matter how I do not wish to be in this picturesque university setting in this moment, classes will still continue. Homework will still seem to multiply like mice. Here's really hoping for a better tomorrow and a successful search for an area of escape (once I have the time to look for it!).
Peace,
Elina
And no, this image is not one of Hurricane Earl. He's not quite this as well formed and stable. What you see here is Hurricane Isabel who left us without power for 7-30+ days depending where on the islands you lived. This photograph was probably from when she was still a category 5 storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment