This semester just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, I am happy to report that my grades were really good (better than I thought in one of my classes, to be honest, based on my admittedly half-assed final project because of exhaustion), and I am currently in the grip of a book-reading frenzy that will cause me to push close friends and family members away in the pursuit of sweet, sweet literature.
I'm being completely serious...
Since the semester wrapped up, I've managed to read all the way through at least five books (off the top of my head) and I'm in no danger of stopping anytime soon. Summer is great for reading, what with everyone else off back to their hometowns and you stuck in your hometown which is only a short drive from countless great bookstores. "The Needle and the Damage Done"? Hard drugs have nothing on books in addictive qualities.
(Note: to anyone who read that and is a recovering drug addict, please know that I am a master of hyperbole and exaggeration. I also frequently name-drop, as my good friend President Obama could tell you)
Anyway, it's summer break (if not officially summer-time: the actual season itself doesn't kick in until the end of June, much like my online Spanish class) and I am at a loss for things to do that don't require spending of money (I have a nest egg squired away and hope to keep it from going exceedingly into the red. But I *do* think my car could use gold plating, now that I think about it). So I'm riding around using "freedom fuel" and looking for cheap thrills (literally). I may look into a summer job, to be honest, more just to have something to do than to get any extra cash.
Summer in a college town has changed for me over the years. Back when I was an undergrad at Clemson, it meant that my peeps were leaving the area to go back home (a reasonable thing to do) while I stuck it out in Hogwaller, because that's where I'm from and continue to live. I'd come down to the library (I was working there at the time) and see several international students who either didn't want to go home or couldn't afford to, and we'd have a passing acquaintance. When I graduated and subsequently got a job downtown, I looked forward to the summer break because it meant that the annoying little kids (none of them my friends from my undergrad years, as most of those had long since left school by that point) were no longer standing between me and a reasonable expectation of getting food and eating it within the thirty minutes allotted for lunch. But again, a lot of the attractive girls that worked up front would leave for the summer and, well, that sucked. Some remained, of course, but it was always a bit of a crapshoot.
That reminds me: when I was working downtown and my cohorts and I would take a break or get lunch, we might spend some time sitting on one of the benches downtown checking out the girls walking by. I merely did this out of peer pressure, of course, and from a purely sociological standpoint. Okay, maybe not. But girl-traffic also went down during the summer time. Mostly it was dudes riding their bikes on the sidewalks after about the first of May. And those weren't what I and my chums looked forward to.
Anyway, now I'm back in the position of being a student (i.e., one of those "annoying little kids" I used to sneer at when they took their time trying to decide what to get at Moe's, as if there are enough options there to boggle the mind and keep one from arriving at a decision). And I'm in town more or less, while a lot of my peers (both in grad school and undergrads) are gone off back to their hometowns. A college town in summer is a bit depressing, if not also relaxing: you don't have to be anywhere in a hurry, but the odds of you running into anyone you know are slim to none. It's an interesting sociological concept to consider, if you're not busy contemplating the very sociological survey of attractive females who walk by your perch on the side of the street.
Because, you know, sociology...
I read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage in one sitting, and it's gotten me to thinking: like the title character, I've often times let traumatic experiences get in the way of present or future happiness, from time to time. I like how Murakami ends the book on a note not of certainty but of possibility. Great book, highly recommend it.
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