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| I have a dream...
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| Or not. It seems I can't get much of anything in the way of scholarships at KU if I transfer mid-year. So, I have to decide if I want to go home at the end of the semester, or take the risk of completing a year.
On one hand I would have to get a job if I went back home. Not the most appealing prospect. Plus, I would be bored out of my skull.
On the other hand I can go for broke and stick out the rest of the year here. Maybe the place will grow on me and I won't want to transfer. That's seeming like the smarter choice at the moment. However, I will have to take chem (which is incredibly difficult yet enjoyable) in the spring, and perhaps physics also. That'd be two labs, and I'd also probably have to take Calc 3 and a social science class.
I guess I have some time yet to make my decision. I think I will put in a transfer app to KU, just to have the option open for next fall, but it looks like it's either go home or stay here for the spring of 2010.
What a difficult decision this is proving to be.
-Jon
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| Two and a half years ago I had made up my mind that I was going to apply to schools in the northeast. I had an overwhelming urge to escape the midwest and the boredom that comes therewith.
Now I'm returning home; or, I will be at the conclusion of this semester. I'm not a city boy. The saying is cliché, but "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of a boy." Damn straight. People here are too rude, too busy, for me to identify with. Their clocks seem to be running at a pace five-fold mine and I've been exhausting myself trying to keep up.
But no more. I'm headed back to the heartland. I'll be about two and a half hours from home and only thirty minutes from Kansas City. Plus it'll be a lot cheaper.
Having said all this, it would seem as though I passed up the more practical option years ago. And in fact that's true. But I wanted to see the city and learn to live like the people here. I now find that the latter is impossible. I'm a product of my environment, and that environment was rural Kansas. I'm like a tropical plant transplanted in the tiaga. I simply cannot survive, let alone flourish, here.
Thus, the prodigal son returns home broke, but not broken. I retain some hope for the future: That KU will be less daunting than BU. That I can identify with the common denominator. That I will have friends.
If not KU, then perhaps another midwestern institution. Grinnell sounds nice, but right now I think I need to be close to home.
The prairie beckons.
-J
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| There's something about growin' up in the country that changes a man. It isn't apparent at first, hell, it took me nineteen years to figure it out, but I think I've finally seen the subtle thumbprint of the prairie. I'm an individual. I don't like large groups, and when I'm in them I want to lead them. There's something about having to fend for yourself growing up that makes a man like that.
And then there's the general repulsion of the city. It's like the air is poisonous when you're in the city, and the poison just slowly drives you mad. It seeps into your pores and drives you crazy with visions of home and wishes of freedom. Back home I could go anywhere I wanted. Here I'm stuck within a <45 mile radius, unless I really want to splurge on a bus or train. But that bus or that train's just going to take me to another damn city, and what's the point of that? Back home I could jump on a motorcycle and ride till my cheeks were windburnt and my lips were chapped beyond all reason. Didn't matter where I was riding it to; the ride was the destination.
And the sunsets. Once a man's seen a Kansas sunset he can't imagine anything more beautiful; ocher, violet, crimson, orange, and blue intertwining. Hell, I can't see the sun set OR rise from my room! And the city weather lacks spirit. It seems almost as disheartened as I am. At least back home storms had the power to strike death where ever they damn well pleased.
And the people. The vain, shallow, LOUD, and narcissistic people. God they drive me up the wall. They act like they don't have any responsibilities. I can't remember the day when I didn't have responsibilities. I mean, sure, I didn't have to get up at 5:00 to milk the cows, but I knew certain things were expected of me. But at the same time I admire them. They're able to navigate the catacombs of city society and culture in ways I can't even fathom. They're agile lemurs in a concrete jungle, while I, the sloth, am left to ponder their deft movements.
In conclusion, I'm a man out of his element. I'm an encaged animal yearning to be set free. Maybe I will remain here in the city, and learn to roam its streets, but more probable is that I will go home and label the city as a misadventure; short chapter in my misspent youth. I have a few months left until I have to make my decision. My family has lived in rural America for about 140 years, and whether or not Nelson feet will still set foot on tilled earth rests, at least in part, on a few fortnights and a young man rife with longing for his prairie home.
There's nothing quite like a sunset on the prairie, and this native son wishes he were sitting there today.
-Jon
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