| | 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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| | Posted 9/22/2009 10:33 PM - 5 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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