Field Trip City

I'm kind of pissed.

Some days I really don't know what I'm doing here. I'm trying to work toward something and it seems to slip out of my grasp on a regular basis. In a couple of months I'll have a degree and it won't have changed me as much as a person the way my undergraduate years did. It all feels like one giant competition to get ahead in academia and will end up being nothing more than two new letters to put on a resume.

I used to scoff at people at University who couldn't spare a minute for social lives. Now I'm one of them. I get up at noon and study, taking breaks to watch an episode of The Simpsons or listen to a few songs here and there in order to turn my mind off for a bit. I go to bed in the wee hours, usually when I'm too tired to keep reading. I don't have a job. This is all I do. It sounds great, and the material typically keeps it from being all bad, but it's isolating and mentally taxing.

The last time I was completely satisfied was when I found myself in Ottawa with my girlfriend. Right now I don't have either of those things. I'm trying to work back to them. It's a slow process, but I'm getting there. And I'd like to think she is, too. Maybe I'm foolish for being so single-minded underneath all of the confusion that I suffer. I feel lost even though I'm positive that on a fundamental level I know exactly where I am. I'm taking a scenic route through literature and essays. Sometimes it's really fucking hard doing it alone. But I'm doing the best I can.

Last night for the first time in forever I wrote some poems. They're mostly about two people. One of them is always in motion while the other keeps perfectly still. And the identity of each often changes.