The Things The Carried

They carried laptops: Dell, Sony, Mac. Some weighed 10 pounds, desktop replacement units, as they were known. If you were lucky you had an ultraportable machine, which weighed maybe 5 lbs. Ultraports, though, never got too much respect.
They carried carrying cases for the laptops, full of accessories. Power charger, 24 oz. , USB memory stick 1 oz., a couple of sheets of loose leaf, .1 oz. If they were writing a paper, which they almost always were, they carried books. Stacks and stacks of books. I once saw a young woman buried under the complete works of James Joyce and the Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. Thinking about these things could drive a man crazy.
The third floor study lounge was the closest thing on Princeton's campus to Vietnam. There was no central air, so in the heat of the midday sun, it could get to feeling hotter than hell. Also, for some unknown reason, the entire bug population of Forbes college had migrated there. Maybe it was the heat.
There was one time, I can't forget it, I saw a girl lose it. The place was packed, but she didn't care. She just started yelling "I can't do it! It's so hot in here!" over and over. But that's not what gets me so many years later. What get's me is that as she sitting there, losing her mind, the guy next to her doesn't even take off his ipod ear-buds. He sat there, humming along, and dreaming, no doubt, of home.

After you've lost all energy or interest in school anymore it's the fear that keeps you going. You've gotta imagine the test and getting your grades back and then energy isn't a problem anymore.
For me at least. I wondered how everyone else did it, so I asked this guy who everyone called Slick Rick.
"You ever see The Ring?" he said
"Yeah"
"Good movie."
"Slick Rick, I don't see what that has to do with my question."
"You know that scene where the girl comes out of the TV after everyone thinks she's gone?"
"Sure, I remember it."
"I love that part."
Later we found out that Slick Rick wasn't a student at Princeton, at all, but rather a functionally retarded homeless man, living in the study lounge. This explained a lot.

One day I had to go in for shots. I was going to China, and just to be safe they were gonna pump me full of vaccines. What did I care? To me it was a chance to get away from a daily grind. My brain was starting to hurt anyway, maybe a nice jab in the arm would take my mind of the pain.
When you're out there, in the study lounge, you tend to forget things. So, I made a mark on the back of my hand. Dragged my number two mechanical pencil up and down till the skin turned red. When I saw the mark, I would think of my vaccines, and I wouldn't miss my appointment.
But making the mark had distracted me. I couldn't focus and started to mess around with my mobile phone (6 oz.). I noticed a feature that I hadn't seen before: quick text. You could program in common text messages and then send them with the click of a button. I got goofy all of a sudden and programmed in the message "please pass the milk please" as the number one quick text. Classic, I thought, I have to remember to write about this in my blog. But how to remember? I glanced down at my hand, and multitasked the mark.

To Be Continued...