The Last Marigold

Dorian Gray for days and days!

I have so much reading this quarter that even when I get an entire day to myself, and attempt to spend the whole entire thing doing homework, I barely even finish one assignment. Today I’ve been reading A Picture of Dorian Gray which is tedious and full of double meanings, though enjoyable. I am so tired of literature after only three weeks of classes that I can’t quite ever imagine reading a book in its entirety ever again after this. Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent so much time in the realm of poetry, where every little tiny word counts, and now when I try to read a novel it seems important to scrutinize every single syllable, and that just takes FOREVER.

Day in and day out I am reminded that there are many reasons that I am not a literature major, the first and foremost being that reading seems to cause some kind of magical narcolepsy within me where I fall asleep as soon as I encounter the fifth sentence of anything. Determined to buck that trend, I’ve had somewhere between 3 and 5 cups of coffee today, and my hands are shaking while I type this. I managed to pay all my bills for the month, mail a package, print my reading assignments for the next week, read eleven chapters and even make a real dinner (Oh, the miracles of caffeine!) but somehow I don’t feel very productive.

The last four months of college have had me feeling as if I’m treading water, and the current is rough and choppy. I’ve been working so hard, at school and at work and in the in-between moments, but I am restless and more than ready to move on with my life. I’m interested in what I’m doing here and I try hard to live in the present but I can’t help but to find myself lost in thoughts of breakfasts in Paris and climbing to the top of church rotundas patinated with age. I catch the 90A to campus and I wish it was the overcrowded, peculiar-smelling bus in Budapest instead. I guess for now all I can do is stick my nose back into the pages of my book and save pocket change. If only international flights didn’t cost an arm and a leg and I could make car payments disappear with the snap of my fingers!