Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

college

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I can’t remember the last time i had an entire week off. I cannot even fathom the last time it happened… before i started doing internships, and before i started working at the coffee shop, but sometime after high school ended. There is a three or four week window in there somewhere, and that is the last time i truly had a week off..

Last week my obligations, as if in cahoots with each other, all cancelled each other out. Between last Tuesday and this Monday i had a single class and worked for three hours, but for all intents and purposes i was off — with no responsibilities other than to myself. I hardly knew what to do with myself at the time, but i fell into a sort of rhythm: waking up a little late, doing something i had been meaning to do for months, playing guitar, running an errand, et cetera. Nothing of substance, just the things i would find the time to fit in if time were more hours in a day.

I know people who have worked every week of their adult life in order to support themselves. They impress me; even if i wanted to be i am not quite that independent. I also know a lot of people who have somehow managed to shirk all responsibilities altogether, and spend a lot of time achieving nothing. I’m not sure if they impress me, but i am amazed by them, because i do not know how not to achieve anything. Even with my dead week i still recorded three new songs, and read six books. Numbers. Events. Achievements.

Now that i am back to a normal week, i am suddenly unsure of how a “day” works, or what i am supposed to achieve within its restraints. My responsibilities are back, but i am unsure of what to do with them. Today i have actual classes and responsibilities looming, and i can’t even seem to set foot out of my room. And, if i were to escape it, i’m not sure what i’d even do afterwards.

Do i have a volunteer to go to Ethics for me while i work this all out?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/10/106631399772989979/

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Teachers giving explanations that i’ve already figured out the punchlines to, and office work i know how to complete before i start doing it. Everything feels as if it is in slow motion. Still waking up at eight in the morning and doing something, until five in the afternoon because how can i sleep late or watch television when i know how many things i can get done in an uninterrupted day?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/09/106440469919937395/

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Dear sweet lord, i graduate in 360 days.

This occurred to me about halfway through Lindsay’s graduation ceremony on Saturday: Lindsay is finishing school a year before me, so i will graduate a year from now.

That’s the first time i’ve ever actually gave the span of time between myself and being an adult an actual quantifiable number.

Man, there’s some bone crushing pressure for you.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105604577815836958/

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But, what if being a good corporate employee is not all about knowing who to say yes to and how loud to say it, but knowing why they want to hear yes and if they could be convinced to hear it at a different volume.

This is the reason i, with my year of college left over, am not jealous of my friends from high school who graduated last month: i’ve had a year and a half of nine to five to learn working logic, against their optional three summers of internships.

Well, plus i’m not ready to be a grown up yet.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/200432789/

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I didn’t think my question had been rude; after all, I would be missing half a day of work to attend their silly “Honors Day.” I just wanted to know what I would be honored for. My outstanding GPA? My flawless academic writings? My strenuous extracurricular schedule?

The associate dean was mum on the matter, somewhat indignant that I had even asked. Apparently the invitation itself should have been honor enough. After our exchange I might have skipped out on the ceremony altogether if not for the fact that Elise had also been invited. And ,she knew why: she was receiving an award for a particularly spectacular paper she wrote on the topic of style and pacing in James Joyce’s Ulysses. So, at worst I would be a pretty applauding face in the crowd when Elise took the stage, and at best I would be crowned as the most dominating intellect in the Liberal Arts program.

The event program was huge, listing all ninety honors that would be conferred during the ceremony to seventy-some individuals. It even listed the title of Elise’s paper next to her name (“Oh god, I’ll die if someone reads a passage from it”), though I could not locate the indication of my achievements as easily.

I finally found my own name, in the midst of a small group at the top of the last page, listed under The General Electric College Bowl Award. The image it summoned was that of the Alex Trebek hosting the National Geography Bee, which I absent-mindedly audited on PBS last week. I remember thinking that those kids were either geniuses or freaks of nature, and that either way I would gladly get them liquored up to avert their almost inevitable descent from middle-school smarty-pants to high school social reject.

Yes, I know that they’re mostly twelve. I’d still show them a good time. But I digress.

Being on the last page, my award was near the end of the ceremony. My trip up to the stage was unremarkable: two quick handshakes and I was down again, tiny envelope in hand, back to my seat. Like the Oscars, only without any movie stars or acceptance speeches. I opened my envelope and scanned the letter inside. Congratulations, blah blah blah, esteemed, yadda yadda yadda, deposited in your account, blah blah huh, call with questions.

It was not just a dorky award given in the memory of a former Junior-team-Jeopardy style television show that all of our parents apparently watched on weekend afternoons. Not just recognition for my two year string of As, only broken once. All of that, plus an anonymous faculty nomination in light of some distinguished facet of those efforts. And the end result was money. Cash, dollars, paid on my behalf directly to Drexel University. Not an alarming amount of money, but enough that I made my advisor assure me that he could deliver a thank you card to my anonymous benefactor. It’s only the third scholarship I have ever earned, and the first I had not applied for on my own.

In retrospect, missing out on a few dozen dollars from work was definitely worth it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200363453/