Dialogue

5:59PM

I once told my sister that she had herpes of the eye. She cried. I didn't know that you could actually get herpes of the eye, but you can. I learned it from a commercial.

Oh well, I thought you should know. Off to the gym to punish myself for all of the chocolate I ate today. I know, I could avoid the chocolate and get away with not working out but you just do not understand the degree of my addiction to the chocolate.

Considering making this my final semester, taking the degree, and
running far far away without telling a soul.

It is not too late. I could be disappeared by May. I could take a chance.

- OR -
(and there is always an or, an and, a but)

I could stay another year and make myself employable. This is the safe
way. Or is it a merely delaying the eventual responsibility of life.

yes.

Then there is the argument that completing my undergraduate career in
a nice, even, four years is much more satisfying than doing it in
three.

I might have something against odd numbers. Perhaps left over from the
mentally unstable past.

Truth is, an extra year of paper writing, page turning, lecture
attending life might do more harm than good.

I lie when I say there is much left to be experienced. That I would be
cheated if I so quickly abandoned "the best years of my life".

College life hasn't ever had much to offer me. In fact, it is much
more reasonable to stay up all night saturating ones liver and go to
work the next day than it is to do the same and attend a class. You
get paid to suffer at work.

Maybe I am doing this wrong. Perhaps to enjoy college you mustn't have
a real life job at the same time. That is a reasonable line of
argument but things like responsibility, integrity, and debt do not
support a purely academic lifestyle.

I worked hard enough to be admitted to the school of journalism to
almost guarantee that I will finish a degree within its confines.