In knowing that I have moved less than 80 mile in the somewhat wrong direction since last week makes me feel pretty shitty about the progress of my bike trip. I have started to accept the fact that I am becoming fat, lazy, and would rather find away into the Goudi dining hall to eat a hot fresh meal rather than eat peanut butter, apples, cheese, and the occasional treat of kind semi moist beef jerky. Yes, I am in the process of taking another week off of my trip to bum around the Willamette College campus, and also yes, I have been wasting the last of my very limited resources to buy party supplies, but in the end is it not worth me finding a place staying to see if I like it and than moving onto the next. I have started to evolve out of my old, constantly moving, continually scared self into realizing that I can literally do whatever I want. There really is no reason (accept making it to Pete's Graduation on time) for me to not spend as much time as I possibly can figuring a place out. I have come to realize (and I am so glad that I did) this is the great lesson to teach myself. After spending sometime on the Willamette campus I have realized that I have found a hidden gem. Something that in my entire life I would have for sure looked over, dismissing it as another private school, that is full of a bunch of elitist rich kids that were way more worried about grades for their future careers as CEO's than anything else in the world. When I came onto this campus this preconceived notion blinded me. I was so wrapped up in my own ideas of doubt that I missed what was standing right in front of me for the first few nights. In all honesty I was only staying because there was a massive storm raging outside, and I felt as though getting soaking wet for a couple more days would be way less fun than staying in a superbly decorated, warm dorm room. It took me being left by all of my friends from Boise to really begin to understand what the campus was all about. When waking up on Saturday morning I felt pretty bad about myself, I felt kind of lonely, and knew that I was failing hard at assimilating into the Willamette community. Instead of acting like myself I was putting on a front of something that I felt people wanted to see, I was acting the exact way that made me feel so terrible about my self when living in Bozeman. I knew that I would either have to stop doing this to myself or leave. It would have been a bash on the whole spirit of this trip if that was the way that I acted for an extended period of time, so I knew that I was going to have to hightail it out of Willamette if this pressing feeling of shittiness persisted. On Saturday morning though all of this changed. I was walking around Terra hall and happened to bum into Megan and Cross... Actually I just kind of walked into their room to see what they were up to. After sitting, letting my guard down and really engaging with them my eyes were opened to what at least Terra house really was. They made me understand that everyone at this campus, no matter what they are into is extremely smart. This opened my mind to the fact that the people here are very real, they understand the world, and although a lot of them were brought up in privileged circumstances they at least understand and appreciate the circumstances that led them to thins point of their lives. Also this was the first time it hit me that I was living in a girls dorm room, using the women's bathroom completely unattended by her your anyone else. Even in my state of reclusion I was seen as a part of the community, people trusted me enough to live with them without really knowing me at all. This is a special thing that I have not found on any other college campus that I was visited. I am always greeted with some justifiable anticipation. (like your cool man and I guess you can stay, but don't steal my fucking sunglasses you bastard.) I am a transient bum, and having a healthy sense of respect when dealing with people this way, is probably a good idea if you don't want to get totally ripped off. So entering into a community that started out trusting me, based on someone else word that kind of knew me, was a pretty telling sign of how awesome this college community actually was. From here I was able to start acting like myself again I began to branch out and meet more and more people and them more that I have done this the more I realize that this is a place filled with kids that are like me. As I continued on my journey for the day a ran into Eli who kind of knowing me asked if I was still coming to plateau by Detroit lake so I could come and party with them. After making it to the top of the plateau, realizing it was too wet to camp, going to a hot springs, taking a wrong turn and getting stuck in the snow, trying to get unstuck for a hour (with all of our car member not ready for snow at all.) running to a hot springs to meet up with some other kids whose car we could use, driving out to call a tow truck, getting towed out, bringing the keys back down to the hot spring, deciding that it was too cold and wet to camp, convincing kids to leave the womb like hot springs to enter the harsh world, starting to drive back, passing a closed gas station on empty, running out of gas 20 miles down the road, waiting an extremely long time for the other crew to get gas, learning they got pulled over, stressing out for a while, deciding when they got back that the only two suitable drivers were Eli, and Jillian who had never driven a clutch, having Jillian step up to the plate and driving a manual as well as I do, and making it home safely just so we could partying our brains out at 3:30 am, I began to realize this is an incredible place. We were in a string of really terrible situation and no one complained, actually I think that people were secretly happy about it. (I was having a great time personally) I have never met this big of a group of people that have gamed this hard in a completely outrageous string of events and having everyone at the end talking about how awesome it was. This event (realizing the potential of the kids that go here), the best campus music scene ever, the best, most relaxed dining hall on the west coast, and the fact the my mind is on fire with it constantly being fed by the community around me I have come to fall in love with this place. So yes, I am still here, wasting my life away waiting until April 20th and the massive campus wide celebrations that the school has been kind enough to give everyone the day off for, but I have come to the conclusion that this is not a terrible thing. Alex Blake was completely right in telling me that I need to steel my mind so I don't end up on the couches of my friends... I have ended up on my friends couches. I guess this has proven the pink squishiness of my mind, but at least I don't have a steel trap that won't let any new ideas in or out.
Tim
P.s. Thank you so much Lauren for being my temporary roommate. I honestly think that you have allowed me to fall onto the best spot on campus.
P.s.s. Thank you Terra house for accepting me into the community, you guys rule.
No comments:
Post a Comment