Ode To the South Mall

I booked a ticket to Germany today.
Oh my.

It's ridiculous how excited I am. I've been tearing up all day today for no reason.

When I was lying on the quad outside between classes, I realized a couple of things. Here I will bestow on you the infinite wisdom of the quad-revelations.
One, when I was thinking about how I really just wanted to leave and fly away and go to Europe and be in all these different cities (I picture myself walking through streets alone, looking vaguely wistful and a bit awed) rather than be here, sitting on a grassy quad in Austin, Texas, where I've been practically my whole life. How my life would basically start again from page one. Or so it would seem in my brain. I started to feel sort of bitter about the whole societal dictate that everyone needs to go to college to be successful when I really thought about it and the fragile networks of friends, familiar places, and emotions that I have set up here. That has been nineteen years in the making. And suddenly I felt like maybe it was a good thing to be in college. I don't think a lot of people at my age could handle their life suddenly being a blank slate, including me. Although I might complain, I still need to use a booster seat (thanks guys) or I won't be able to reach the table. And we all know how scary being under the table is. Everything is alien, all legs and feet and floor. Hmmm...

Two, when I was lying on the ground, I had one of those special nature moments when I was looking at the grass and thinking about the ground underneath it and the shape of the earth. Then I watched the people walking by and wondered how long it had been since they'd looked at the world from ground level. How often do I even lie down and look at things between blades of grass? I sometimes forget that you can do that I guess. Me, who is supposedly all about different perspectives.... But I've never liked self-imposed labels. They're not tasteful. Or classy.