Human Services

I am applying for food stamps.

I applied for food stamps.

bludgeoning...

This will be my only stressed out hell week/finals post. I'm self-diagnosing myself with ADD; I really have to bludgeon my imagination into submission in order to read or do anything. It's a sad state. Why focus? Why discipline the mind? What is this getting me?
I only keep going because I know it will be over soon. I'm very much looking forward to real life over break; cooking, playing music, building, reading with reckless abandon (as opposed to isolated purpose).
Also, I'm going to have to borrow significantly more money to go to Mexico next semester than I thought or ever had to borrow before. Also, what the hell is up with the damn OCS fee of about $2k on top of the Grinnell tuition, which is already way over the actual program cost. Consider this my first "donation," as an alum, jerks.

between the grain belt and the rust belt

I actually went home for Thanksgiving. It's a weird ritual: get in a car and travel about eight hours when I should be spending all my time doing homework, see people, turn around and come back. The ride home was the worst. I was cramped up and then we got home and tried to go to my favorite pizza restaurant, but it was packed and we would've had to wait an hour for a table. My legs had atrophied in a mere seven hours; my stomach and brain were no better.
The trip back was nice, but long. I read a whole book, which then helped me very little in writing a long history paper. I was the only one on the bus with the light on after it got dark, and little kids kept asking me to turn it off. "I'm reading," I would say, and they'd just look confused. There were other Grinnellians on the trip, one of whom almost had to stand for 45 minutes leaving Chicago.