Tag Archives: college

Festivus For the Rest of Us: Part I

It’s The Most Magical Time of The Year

Ah, December. What a magical time. Frost in the air, cookies in the oven, stockings hung on the mantle with care. It’s a time when families gather all around and set out as a pack to choose one tree that will serve as a reminder to the other trees not to get too cocky as we parade it through the streets atop our four-door, family vehicles before dragging it inside and decorating it’s withering body with sparkles and various other whimsical baubles. We prefer to put them in front of large windows so that its slow and drawn-out, but none the less beautiful, death tells passerby’s “Hey, hey look at all this shit we can pile on this thing. I know right? Keep it moving, plebeians”.

O Christmas Tree

O Christmas Tree

How much better does your slowly rotting carcass look in our house that it does from that

tacky whore, Debra’s?

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The Carshank Redemption

   It was the darkest of days. The sky looked like the bath water of a chimney sweep and the air was pungent with decay from the surrounding forest and gardens. This was the third day of heavy rain and I had just about had enough of it. By some divine coincidence I had managed to leave class and make it to my car in between the brief pauses in the storms but today my luck had run out.

   It was a wonderful thing to attend a university surrounded by a nature reserve but it also meant that thousands of tiny black Lovebugs had an endless amount of space to reproduce into black swarms that drunkenly bumbled about the air like Football fans the day after Superbowl. It was infuriatingly amazing how they were able to dodge the constant sheets of rain. It was like a force field was protecting them from the rain just long enough to get tangled up in my hair.

   I stood there under the awning of the front building, remembering where I had parked.

   All the way at the back of the lot. My car locator app said .984 miles away.

   What was that? Some kind of death sentence? This backpack was weighing on my back with the stacks of textbooks crammed into every possible nook and cranny of its interior. I used a backpack made for hunting purposes so I could get a nice refreshment straw attached but I had to remove it to make room for an analysis of Richard the III. As if he couldn’t get any more foul, his very presence in the curriculum had robbed me of convenient hydration.

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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

It was the last day of class. Finally I would be free from the toils of the mountains of essays and the relentless onslaught of writing page after page of dull, lifeless prose that sucked out my soul and left dark rings under my eyes. No longer would I have to sit in the classroom that smelled of wet cardboard and stale kitty litter and listen to Professor Hammond’s twin prattle on about Iambic Pentameter while making a makeshift beat on his podium, losing it about five seconds in and restarting the lesson from the top.

On a side note here, it honestly scared me how much he looks like my professor. Down to the hat and cane.

I was positive that I had begun to develop a brain tumor out of stress, not due to difficulty, but out of frustration that he insisted on using the space bar when the tab key would indent the correct amount already. I was mentally exhausted from holding back audible screams of rage when ever he would look into my eyes and proceed to center his words using his fast little clicks.

Tiptiptiptiptiptiptiptip “Oh darn, too far” Tack Tack Tack Tack Tiptiptiptiptip Continue reading →

T.Hanks and the Tab Key

“Does anyone not know how to log on to a computer?”

I lean back in my desk and feel the glaze on my eyes further solidify as I join the rest of the class in silence. The curve of the chair bites into my tail bone but at least I feel something again. I check the time on my phone from the pocket of my dress. We’re entering hour two of our three-hour tour. I was forming a theory that this was a psychological experiment of some sort over how long it will take for millennial’s to go all Planet of the Apes on an old man.

“Okay, so you start with your name, usually it has this format with a name box and password box.”

Lord have mercy he’s doing it again. I could not count the times that I had seen this exact presentation. It was a good fifteen minutes about the importance typing with the correct fingers.

“Now, some people do, I think it’s chicken beak type style, like this”, he held up his stubby little hands, “Notice my pointer finger is up, like this, and the rest of my fingers are curled under like a fist without the raised finger. Now watch.” Continue reading →

Red Dawn

It started like any other regular day on campus. I was obnoxiously early, the parking was ridiculous, and the packs of feral cats were in full swing. The golden light of day heated the drainage tunnels where they resided just enough to give the whole campus that lonely old cat-woman smell. It was a pungent mix of cat urine and indifference that stung the interior of your nostrils and made you wonder if the smell lingered on your clothing. It was like a bouquet of Pepe le Pew from that time he went to Bonnaroo.

On any other day, I would have been content to enjoy the solitude and silence of the sanctum that was an empty classroom, but on this particular day I decided to enjoy the finer things that this humble college had to offer and enjoy a nice visit to the library. Previously, the library had been like stepping back into time. It used to have the entire original everything from its Mad Men era origins plus free wifi. You almost expected Don Draper to walk out and put a cigarette out on a book in the Women’s Studies section and were almost surprised when he didn’t. It was amazing how intact and preserved it was. Everything was in pristine condition in the same state in which they were first rolled into the room. It was immaculate and one of the main attractions to taking classes on campus. Continue reading →

The Owl Knows

Last week, I got accepted into an actual university. It isn’t a community college or trade school but an actual four-year university with a football team and obnoxious mascots. I bet if I asked around I could even find underground hazing rituals. Ever since I applied I’ve been anticipating its arrival like a Golden Ticket. I only applied a few months ago but I feel like I had been waiting for that Charlie and The Chocolate Factory moment since the day I graduated high school two years ago.

Back then the plan had been to go to a community college, get my basics done and then transfer to a university, but I have always wondered if I made the right decision. As stupid as it may seem, seeing the college adventures of former classmates on Facebook drives a sword of regret piercing through my heart, twisting each time someone posts an obscure collegiate music event. Maybe I made the wrong choice and I convinced myself that I was making the smart decision when in reality I was just scared of the future. Scared of the unknown and yet to be discovered. Even now the thought of it still makes my heart race and my breathing become labored and strenuous because the worse that letter could say was “no” and that “no” would seemingly seal my future in this cesspool of a town. Continue reading →

We Don’t Need No Education

While registering for the summer semester someone told me I should sign up for a physical class to get out more and meet new people, which sounds horrible. I don’t want to intermingle. If I was Tom Hanks in Castaway, I would not have ever left and Wilson would have been turned into a funky hat or canteen. It would have been a really boring movie. I crash. I get to the island. I go full Swiss Family Robinson and retire at 19. It would have been very anticlimactic. I’ve seen enough Naked and Afraid to know how to live out there. I would be Naked and Having an Alright Time. Someone get the Discovery Channel on the phone.

Yet there I was at 4:30 humming along the freeway in my car. Off to mingle with other twenty-somethings and talk about Instabook or Facegram and how my sweater was gluten-free-range from local farmers. The thought made my heart race and small beads of sweat form above my eyebrows. This was my nightmare. I looked down over my outfit. It was pretty trendy. It was a bright blue dress with geometric cuts strategically placed along my chest and a square, strappy neckline. Very Modern. Continue reading →