un-trumpeted return

I have had more than one person inform me this week that I have been less than diligent in continuing to post on my blog since returning from Europe. I, of course, was completely aware of this shortcoming, however, had not done anything to remedy the situation. This evening I took the chance to catch up on a good friend, future roommate, and, more than probably, your future commander in chief’s blog, and felt compelled to scribble a few words of my own. While my blog to sum up this summer thus far will not contain stories of boot camp or government camp, as this evening’s inspiration does, it will cover a lot of ground, in what I hope is a relatively succinct manor.

First of all, I have been given repetitive leave to acquire a healthy amount of cynicism, perhaps just enough to curb my naturally idealistic outlook, some would say more. That to say I have joined, once more, the ranks of the brokenhearted. It is a complicated story which, in the telling of, even my telling of, I tend to come off as something of an idiot. Therefore, if you don’t know what happened already, chances are good that it’s not worth the explanation.

I have been here at Pepperdine University for the summer working for the Housing Department replacing hundreds of matrices, raising and lowering small countries’ worth of beds, and relocating enough furniture to supply living arrangements for the entirety China’s standing army. The net effect of all this is that I am in better shape physically than I have been in since the end of freshman football two-a-days, and I tend to spend more evenings bored silly than I can handle. So, I got a second job working in the library, and now I get paid to spend my evenings bored silly watching over an empty library.

Finally, I feel compelled to round out my largely un-trumpeted return to the blogosphere with a rant. I love Pepperdine University. I have no doubts that I have made the best choice possible for my so-called higher education. That said, I thought this was supposed to be college! In my mind, college life, especially with respect to living in on campus housing, carries with it certain concessions that must be made. Chief of which is the fact that, as a dorm resident, one must forgo the thought that it is their right to have silence in which to sleep in at night. Because of this, I learned to sleep in a room that was literally rocked, swayed, vibrated, jack hammered by the overly large subwoofer the residents above me insisted on blowing at full blast freshman year. Twice already this week I have been instructed by my RA, whom I live, with, to quiet down. First in regard to my car, which has a worthlessly large exhaust that is louder in idle than most cars are as they approach their engine’s redline. There’s nothing I can do about that, seeing as how I can’t very well turn my engine off and coast uphill and into the parking garage. Secondly with regard to my music, which is played out of a simple bookshelf stereo, not capable of approaching the earthshaking force that left me wondering all freshman year long if I had finally actually felt what 5.0 on the Richter scale feels like. Moreover, I never play my music loud except between the hours of noon and ten pm when every college student in the known, and it’s speculated the unknown as well, universe is wide awake. Ladies and gentlemen, please, oh please realize that you’re in a college dorm… not the Ritz Carrolton, it’s part of the experience, deal with it.