Cocaine flame in my bloodstream, Sold my coat when I hit Spokane

For the past four nights I've holed myself up on the fourth floor of the library to finish a video project that had a focus on obesity. I've never actually made a video before and waiting until the last possible moment to start wasn't one of the smartest choices to make. I literally spent close to 30 hours working on it. Thirty. That's not an exaggeration. 30 hours on a video that isn't even close to five minutes long. I blame it on Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0, but Gabe tells me that's one of the most basic editing softwares available. I felt like such a complete fool.

The project wasn't a difficult one. We've known about it since the beginning of the semester, and we've had several opportunities to meet as a group to discuss plans and ideas. Our "meetings" consisted of us sitting at a table in the entryway to the library, looking at one another uncomfortably and not saying anything to not come across as too assertive or bossy. Group projects are not my forte. Leave me alone to do a project and I'll shine as bright as the highest star in the highest of heavens. Bloated ego? Please. Put me in a group with five other girls who would rather be eating nachos and fake-tanning and I might as well self-destruct.

So I found myself sitting in a cushiony chair at a wooden table on the fourth floor Special Collections section of the library. It's chock-full of old books that tell the ancestry of every family in Boone and crumbly dissertations from the 1920s. I developed a crick in my neck after staring at a computer screen for literally four hours straight. Not pee break. No water break (I was scolded by a junior because I had a Nalgene bottle. In my backpack. Underneath the table.). No snack break. I just sat there. This is what my life has become.

Walking dry-eyed out of the building every night at 11:00 was always refreshing. I was by myself. I was walking down streets with nobody in sight. It was freezing. At one point I remember walking and laughing for no reason. A real laugh. A laugh because nothing was funny. A laugh because I've finally found a place that doesn't ask me to be anyone except myself. A laugh because I was tired and on the verge of sleepy tears. A laugh because I thought the word "disgruntled" was a good obese person stereotype. So good I put it in my movie to describe Regina George in Mean Girls. It's not funny. It is.

I finished the damn movie at 9:53 pm tonight. The ending is too abrupt. I feel the need to explain it. Nobody cares. Our professor gave an 'A' to the group who read off a PowerPoint for 20 minutes. Does anybody know that the slides are just supposed to assist? Anybody? I love what I've created. It's mine. I'm proud. Take that, Adair.

There are four days of classes left. Finals start next week. Then it's done. My first semester of college is out of the way. I'll fly home. It's not my house anymore, but it's home. Those two words, "house" and "home" have found new definitions. It's not quite clear what they are, but they're becoming more and more definite. Traveling. Maybe that's when I'll feel truly at home.

But for now I'll just travel to bed.