The friend who aggressively urged me to attend the school I attend was rolling high on Ecstacy (if that is the streets' spelling) at the time of the urging and added, in a burst of sobriety, that it would be extremely hard, but that I would love it. It occured to me that the acronym of the school sounded much like "a mess of E," but I wouldn't doubt his heart, despite the goofballs. Basing it much on this Chi-town encounter and the taste for challenge it put in my mouth, I signed up. I now stand nearing the crest of my time here. Here's my snapse of the bittersweet bleaknesses and promises foreseen in the coming quarter.
Every lecture and lab I need attend this quarter meets in a tiered brick building with three stories. It's essentially a maze that might inadvertently benefit students by forcing them to plot complex three-dimensional routes through it. I've been told it takes spending years as an instructor in the building before it is mastered. I generally end up ten minutes late on a catwalk above some massive machinery on the first day of class, not quite sure of which floor I'm on. With all classes meeting in this labyrinth, it feels more than ever that education is a fulltime occupation, in a centralized job site.
Last night, in my one-hour break between my two-hour classes, I became hungry. With the cafeteria closed, and the Greek place up the street sounding like an expensive habit to begin on my first night on the 'job,' I retired to 'Lee's Lounge' in search of a sandwich of some sort. There is a framed picture of a young bearded man in the lounge, and I assume he is the Lee after which the the nook is named. Given the dedication, I doubt he's alive. Despite his bright smile, his face is a bit ominous when it's the only one in the place.
Seeing no one in the lounge, it became easy to deposit $1.30 in a vending carousel for a smoked polish sausage. Without anybody but good old Lee to witness me eat it, I wasn't locked into purchasing something from the machine with a slightly higher value of health, or less phallic shape. I often refrain from ordering extra mayonaise on sandwiches, or opt for something consisting of white meat and lettuce, if there's a pretty stranger to impress in the line behind me. Tell me no one's ever influenced themself in this way.
In the silence of the empty tables and chairs, Lee's bright stare, and the lights' florescent glare, I chewed into the microwaved polish sausage. Incising the membranous casing revealed the well-marbled meat plasma within. The bun turned to dough where I gripped it. I sipped coffee from an uncovered paper cup. The anti-romantic routine of the next 10 weeks stretched out before me, and it had beauty.
En route to the orientation for an electronic communications course, I realized I had to return to the lounge for my schedule, which I had misplaced there. Other students had taken up positions at the tables. Before spotting the yellow paper atop the microwave, I was going to ask a young lady, who was sitting at the table I had sat, if she had seen it. Upon requesting her attention, I was shot a cold, afraid look. I can only try to dispell to myself that many nights of meloncholic solitude in Lee's lounge has hardened this one.
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