Also, after butchering a statistics assignment, I really needed to improve my mood. Thus, when I heard that there was a rally the next day called Extravaganja, I couldn’t resist going on a bit of a safari. Riding my bike into town, I saw the cloud of pot smoke before I smelled it. I resolved to sightsee for only an hour or so, as I wanted to go to the Holi festival back at school. Holi, as I understand it, is an Indian celebration of Spring where they throw paint all over each other to welcome color back into the world. Anticipating that sort of mayhem, I’d dressed in a white tank top and battered jeans. Making a note of the time, I slipped into the crowd to burn time until I cast off for Holi.
Except that I never went to Holi.
I had no idea that I could feel so good just walking around a cannabis rally! I don’t smoke nor do I intend to. However I do enjoy being around people who are stoned off their noggins because they are hilarious! I love watching these guys! They ranged from your typical frat rats to artsy, imaginatively dressed people. I wish I’d remembered to take some pictures. I suppose that I was too distracted to pull out my phone, what with seeing all manner of piercings, dress, and smoking apparatuses. I even encountered a couple of cute girls that were cosplaying, of all things! It took me a moment to reconcile the fact that no one else was giving a second glance to these girls’ cat ears.
To cement my distraction, I repeatedly ran into people I knew. Considering how this was off campus and that I attend a school of about 26,000 students, I was kind of shocked at that. I even met a friend that I haven’t seen since junior high! What’re the odds, right?
I don’t know if I got some sort of high from second hand smoke, as I’ve never used weed. I think I might have though, because it took until four o’clock for me to notice a tingling on my exposed shoulders. I didn’t think anything of it at first and kept exploring and catching up with people. Then I remembered that this was the sensation I felt when I started getting a sunburn. It’d been too long since I had been able to go outdoors so lightly covered and I had forgotten. But I had just encountered other friends, so I didn’t worry about getting a light sunburn if it meant good company.Then I thought “Wait, this tingling means I’m getting a sunburn. And I might be kinda high right now so the fact that I’m feeling anything at all- Oh shit.”
I sprinted to my bike and booked it back to my dorm as fast as the decaying vehicle could take me. When I first looked in the mirror I was dismayed to see uncomfortably rosy shoulders. Two hours later I was downright horrified at how deep the red was compared to my alabaster skin. It looked like my arms and head had been stitched onto my body.
That night I was still agonizing over my career goals, so I had a long Skype session with my best mate Hunter. I needed to get the matter off my chest. My parents, my father in particular, didn’t really seem to understand or want to accept the facts that I’d uncovered, so they weren’t much consolation despite their best efforts. Hunter, on the other hand, listened without bias, having little prior knowledge about the film industry, and took it in stride.
Then he made me realize something: I don’t need to worry about employment. As he put it, there’s no way in Hell that I’ll be unemployed, or at least not for long. Maybe I won’t make it in film and maybe I’ll have a job that I don’t like, but I will always get by. I work hard enough that I can get better jobs at whatever I do and even if I don’t, I can always come home to my writing. No matter what happens with film, life won’t be bad. Besides, he said that if things go so far south that they hit Mexico he could pull a few strings and set me up in an officer’s academy for the National Guard or something. However, as much as I respect the military and no matter how good Hunter and I think I’d be at the job, I hope that it doesn’t come to that. He then mentioned an idea that I’d toyed with for a while and then forgotten about. He wondered what it would take for me to become a fight choreographer. To be honest, I’d probably be pretty good at it. If anything I’d be making better fight scenes than most of what’s coming out now. As a more experienced martial artist, most of the fighting I see in films now is unrealistic and downright embarrassing. The prospect tickled my imagination.
Once Hunter hung up I felt pretty good. I felt great actually! I was finally out of the fog that had mired me for the past week. Almost as if Karma wanted to celebrate with me, the next day one of the guys in my hall gave me a ticket to the concert on Sunday night. We didn’t have school the next day and I was ready to cut loose, so I jumped at the chance, even though the concert was only featured rap. I don’t like rap, but I love hyperactive crowds!
The first performers, Time Flies, only “sang” covers, which were decent, until the lead’s “free styles” at the end. He was blatantly reading from a sheet of paper. He then tried to rap to “Space Jam” and I nearly collapsed laughing. I considered leaving afterward. The music just wasn’t doing it for me. Then these guys called “Hoodie Allen” came out and I was severely entertained! This was more of a rap-rock group and I went a bit nuts dancing, cheering, and head banging. About halfway through their act, I even saw someone throw their bra onto the stage. That was a new one for me. I’ve never been so dismayed to see a set of guitars and drums vanish because the next guy, Chance, was horrific. He was so obnoxious, loud, unimaginative, and boring that I left after his second song. His beats couldn’t even hype me up.
So the concert was a miss-hit-miss situation, but it was fun. Likewise, the next day was exhilarating for the first half while I worked on a lip-dub video for the dorm. Then it became hellishly boring, as I spent the rest of the day working on statistics. It was Tuesday, however, that seemed to throw everything at me at once. In the middle of my bio-ethics class, I was notified that I’d won the English Department’s essay competition. As a freshman! I was on cloud nine!
Until about ten minutes later when I was notified that I’d been rejected as a writing tutor and I came crashing back down to the pavement. Yeah, nobody can figure that one out.
Later that same day, while despondency and elation were playing tug of war, I got a callback for a second interview regarding a campus job. I hadn’t expected to get invited to a first interview, much less a second! That brought me back up to about cloud seven or eight for the rest of the day. On Wednesday, I discovered that I’d received an A on an essay in my most difficult class, but then, while the professor held me back for a few minutes, I missed my last chance to get the phone number of a girl who won’t be attending any more classes. As if my mood wasn’t grim enough, that night I discovered that my group got a 42.5% for our stats project. Yet within five minutes I got an email telling me that I had a 100.396% in my bio-ethics course due to absurd amounts of extra credit work. I was starting to think that someone was yanking my chain.
It didn’t end there though! On Thursday, one of my female friends asked me if she looked fat. Enough said. There’s no good end to that scenario. Finally, today, when I went to the interview I’d been anticipating, I tripped over my tongue again and again and again. I’d entered cheerily and I left thoroughly disappointed in myself and the rare lapse in eloquence. I decided to lock myself in my room for the rest of the night.
So here I am, sequestered and hoping that the universe will stop using my moods to play pingpong. In retrospect, this week has been almost the complete opposite of the previous one. Last week, I was stuck in one mood and confused about everything from life to schoolwork. This week, I couldn’t keep a sentiment for more than an hour, but my problems had become defined again. Exhausting as it is, I think that of the two I prefer the emotional tennis match.
I can’t stand not knowing what to do. At least this week I had a clear agenda and my questions were mostly answered. Before, I said that I like stability and normalcy and that these are what make a place Home to me. I think that I want to revise that. What makes me happy is certainty.
For me, worrying about how to solve a problem is immensely more distressing than actually attacking the problem. I wonder how it is for other people. Are some of us happier in a state of flux, where we don’t know what to do with ourselves or how to handle a situation? That would explain why so many people like traveling. Even while traveling though, how many people set out lacking some sort of contingency plan for when things fall apart? It seems to me that most people need some sort of safety net; some foundation to rest upon when things get too confusing. While my net might be wider and more closely woven than some hostel hoppers, I believe that, as people, we all need something to ground ourselves in. We need a plan or a safe haven. Otherwise we start to get lost. So long as we have that thing to steady ourselves on, I think that most of us can handle whatever emotional hurricane comes our way.
So I got an idea a few days ago. I’m always walking around with some song or other playing in my head. It never ends. I seem to have a soundtrack. Usually the song suits my mood, even though I don’t deliberately summon the tune. Sometimes I’m enamored with a song and can’t stop singing it for days on end. So I figured, for fun, why not infect my readers’ minds with either a song that suits the week or whatever has been looping between my ears for the past few days.
Anyhow, here’s the first song of the week and I hope you hate it. Also, I'd advise skipping the first 30 seconds. To Sam Reeves and This Past Week: This one’s for you.
