First of all, I should prelude my explanation of why I don’t look forward to Spring Break with a description of my home life. While I’m at home, I stay at home. On rare occasions, I might go out. Usually this is because I’m needed to help lift heavy objects, or because I might be useful in assisting with the grocery shopping. I don’t have many friends where I live, at least not ones close to where I live that I can really identify well with now that I’m in college. This virtually leaves me to my own devices, however I might find ways to stave off boredom.

Now here’s the reason why such an existence is not quite what I’d hope for. If left to myself, I would stay in my room nearly constantly spending my time sleeping, reading, facebooking, writing, and watching movies. Obviously, this wouldn’t be such a bad existence for an exhausted college student looking for a break from all the work being put in during the school week. The problem is that such options are looked unfavorably upon by my parents, who tend to rule the house with an iron fist. They are quite strict, and tend to frown on me spending much time in my room, beyond the eight hours of sleep they expect me to get between 11pm-7am.

Clearly, there is a serious conflict of interests here. Without these numerous activities within my room to prevent myself from quickly going insane, I’m left with few alternatives. Of course, my parents would see this as an excellent opportunity for me to work on all the various menial tasks they’ve been setting aside during the school year. Now, I’ll admit, I’m not much a fan of these tasks. They’re usually mundane, time-consuming, and dirty. I do realize that as a member of the family I should have certain obligations while I’m at home. My problem is that it always feels like I’m never doing enough of these chores to ever come close to pleasing them. This simply compounds the frustration I feel from doing these meaningless chores during a break when I’m supposed to be relaxing to prepare for the next half of the semester.

While these are enough problems to deal with for one break, they still don’t encompass the full depth of my frustration brought on by Spring Break. A major problem is that my phone doesn’t get service at home. I chose my cell provider based on where my school is, since most of my year is spent there anyways. However, I live so far out in the middle of nowhere that I’m unable to use my phone while I’m at home. This leaves me with an often unreliable wireless access to attempt communication with friends from school. Since those friends are as close as family—or closer—I would prefer to be able to have more reliable means to talk to them.

Then there’s the relationship factor. I have no problem admitting that I’m crazy about my girlfriend. The thing is, we’ve only been together for barely over a month, so I’m still very much at that point where I love to spend as much time with her as I possibly can. Maybe that’s not just a phase, I wouldn’t know…I never claimed to be terribly experienced when it comes to relationships. At any rate, this upcoming break will be the longest we’ll have been apart since our relationship began. Being a strong “quality time” person it behooves me to at least try to talk to her during the break. Of course, my restricted communications issue won’t help with that much. But of course, that’s not all. My parents, far from approving of the relationship, have already expressed their extreme disappointment in me and anger towards my decision to see someone while I’m still in school. While they may not actively seek to prevent me from talking with my girlfriend, I do know they’ll be slightly more than reluctant in helping me out.

So that pretty much sums up why I’m feeling out of place this Spring Break. I don’t have any fun plans, no fun destinations, hardly any friends to hang out with—if any—and on top of all that, I’ll barely be able to even talk to anyone from school. Ironically, I’ll feel more comfortable and be able to rest better once I’ve finished with this so-called break and have safely returned to my cozy, hospitable, friend-filled, communications-ready, on-campus apartment.

Enjoy your Spring Break everyone.

Within so short a time,

It seems that you and I

Have begun quite the

Journey with both

Laughter and tears.

I cannot but wonder

How things might

Have progressed, had

I not chosen you to

Be with. You’ve been

More than I hoped for,

Even though you may

Not see it now. Through

You, I feel as if I have

Truly been blessed.

I can remember the

Laughs we’ve shared,

Both shocking and

Subtle. You know what

I mean, even if the

Others cannot. Still I

Know that not all has

Been happy and warm.

Tears have been shed

And nerves unstrung,

Even a time when I

Thought I might lose you.

Still we hold on through

All, driven by what? I but

Wonder and hope…

Tops of trees, in brilliant

Contrasting clusters. Brisk breezes

Chase their tails through the

Forest, and pull the leaves out

From their comfortable homes.

Fighting against gravity, the leaves

Swirl about, struggling to stay

Close to the sky. The leaves

Do not want to be separated

From all they know, all they love.

Down towards the ground

Those bright and cheerful

Leaves flutter, until they

Drop into the mud covering

The feet of the trees. There

The leaves are stuck, helpless to

Escape the dreary place they

Find themselves. Just so

Recently, they had been the

Pride and glory of the trees,

Jewels in the shimmering

Diadems of the noble trees.

Now they lay, waiting to rot,

Forsaken to the pitiless ground.

Even the highest must soon fall,

And the most beautiful cannot

Escape the grip of death.

Anyhow, just a quick intro, I’m a college sophomore and an English major looking to build some experience in writing through this blog. I’ll post pretty much whatever random things I think of, although I hope to focus more on my literary efforts. Expect to see plenty of poetry covering a variety of themes, some character sketches and short fiction, and definitely the occasional rant!

Well, that pretty much does it for now. I’ll be back with something real later, but for now I’ve really got to stop procrastinating on all of the things I’m supposed to be doing right now…ciao!