travel thoughts.

There is a really fresh scent in the Oklahoma air that is traveling through the van right now. It’s not anyone’s perfume, and it’s definitely the synthetic smell of the leather seats. I think it’s the rain. It’s been a while since I’ve smelled rain like this, though, and now it has me reminiscing about summertime…and Christmas day is only two days away.

            Otherwise, Oklahoma is pretty bleak, or at least the drive through it is. Its grass is the typical wintry-brown, the trees are completely barren of anything visually indicating life; there are fenced-in black cows and piles of rubbish along the highway. Not like trash. It’s actually the kind of “rubbish” I think of, maybe in an antiquated sense, like rocks and dirt and pieces of concrete pulled up from the ground. It has a look that reminds me of a post-war scene (of course, and thank you, movies), maybe inspired by my own introverted workings of a “violent and destructive shattering.” And I do not want to feel better. Anyone feeling the impulse to try to make me feel better or understand everything behind this, please stop that thought before you act upon it.

            I’m just bummed-out and angry, to put it as simply as possible.

I’m bummed-out and angry towards college. I’m bummed-out and angry that I didn’t see it coming—that college really is not the great institution of enlightenment and expansion. That college isn’t about the education, it’s about the grades. It’s about something that I have never aspired to do correctly, and for some reason I feel like I now have to make it my priority. It seems like an entirely superfluous component of education to me. It always has.

            But I’m still disappointed that I’m not meeting the “standards.”

And I think I’ve come up with at least two explanations, and the first one is the shortest:

1.     I’ve got my priorities in the right place already: grades aren’t all. In fact, they will contribute nothing to the “big picture” of my life.

2.     I’m just making excuses for my failure to comply. Grades are the gateway to the “big picture” of my life, thereby of utmost importance.

Ugh. All I really want to do is be depressed. And, like always, I will. Because to me, I am the victim; the second explanation is correct, and I’m a failure of the most ultimate kind because I have no motivation to apply it to my life.

That scent from earlier is gone. And it looks like we’re approaching some sort of Oklahomian civilization comprised of trailer lots, gas stations and ponds filled with cow shit.

How appropriate. I should move to Oklahoma.