Skim Milk and Whole Wheat

As I sit in a cold, whitish room, staring at the irritating glare of a luxurious widescreen monitor much better than one i could personally afford, i look around the melieux of student devotion around me.
Oh look, there's a dude reading deadspin!
That's awesome, I love deadspin!
Hey, a girl writing a paper!
I too have papers to write. I identify with her.
I faintly hear music coming out of somebody's ipod!
Maybe I should turn on mine.

The girl across the table from me just accidentally kicked me. Seriously, right now, as I type.
Why?
It was an accident, but was it out of frustration, exhuberance, or just plain muscular movement for the sake of it that made her kick?
I try and figure out, hoping to further identify with everyone in the room, to remember through dark times - like being trapped in a computer lab with bitch-till-we-all-cry amounts of work to do - that there are tons of people immediately around me who are trapped in the muck and the mire, too. I feel it, I feel them. They work at what I do, do what I do, maybe even play like I do. Some are anonymous, some are not, but nonetheless, they are all here, with me, in the whitish brick room, staring at expensive computer machines.

This little tale has a point.
Why am I here? Why are we here?
Ostensibly, university is a means to an end - go to class, get your grades, your degree, your job, your life. Cool, can't wait.
But, there must be more, there simply must. It seems that a mere 32 months of hard work and sleepiness and bad weather would be a fine tradeoff for a life, no?
Eh, not really.
Fact is, those months of hard work aren't enough. We need to get something personal out of our experience. Even if a degree and a job were foregone conclusions anywhere I'd do my best to feel this computer lab, to feel this paper, to feel this silly history assignment due friday at 5 P.M. It might be nice to live dedicated and devoted, with real purpose and goals. That's probably why deeply religious people are so happy (or at least think they are). Yet, I'll take my wandering mind, my deadspin, and my tears of the phoenix that Gil Troy will rise in me late, late this coming Thursday night.

She just kicked me again.

I like being trapped in this computer lab, and I like bitching about my homework. I think going out and getting drunk and then being mad at myself is fun. Mainly because I get to get drunk, but the fact of the matter is that it means I care.
I care that I learn, that i work, and that I turn those 32 months into more than a means to an end. Part of me certainly wishes I didnt, but I quickly silence that part with some Garg and an episode or two of Skins between my nightly fights with Edmund Spenser's Trochaic Foot.

Because that's what I like about it here. Having the freedom to push limits. First, its the feeling that you won't make it - exhilaration. Then, the relief when you do - exuberance.
G.K. Chesterton once said "There is your lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren...and your [tree], rich, green, and living. Yet you only see the tree with the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree".
The dark times are important, all. they really do make those light ones better.
Without the ugly lamp, we can't see the beautiful tree next to it.
Try and make the most of the lamps and the trees, that's why were here. Share them. Enjoy them.
Perhaps even come to the computer lab, or the library, or the cafe on the corner. Take a look at others, who feel for you without even knowing it.

The girl, across the table, who keeps kicking me. She has a nose ring. I miss my nose ring.