J-TERM at Spring Arbor, Part I

Friday, January 7th, 2011. A massive time warp had just occurred, causing the first hour of my American History class to last nearly 18 months. I wasn't sure exactly what had caused the time warp in the first place, but I felt certain it was likely to occur again in the second and third hours of the class, and I wouldn't leave the building until sometime in mid-summer of 2015. My course of action was clear. As soon as we were released for a ten minute break I strode towards the stairs, kicking my way through a cluster of obligations that lingered obnoxiously en-route. I arrived on the second floor and sucker punched several cultural expectations before shouldering through a window with my course schedule hot on my tail. Shards of glass exploded on the sidewalk as I aimed for a small patch of grass, landing in a clean shoulder roll, seizing the course schedule and using it to deflect heavy verbal fire from the Establishment. By the time the smoke cleared, the schedule lie broken on the ground in a pool of ink and I was sprinting through the distant freshman parking lot, my blood coursing hot through my veins even as each deep breath crystalized in the winter air and was left behind me as vaporous evidence of my passing. My feet carried me as if they possessed the wings of Mercury, and-

"Jimmy."

"..I… what's up?" My friend Brittany had arrived and clearly wanted to share some urgent information.

"I think everyone is heading back into class now."

"Cla… oh! Right. Class." I summoned my cheesiest grin. "Just two more hours, right?"

The remaining two hours of class did indeed last approximately three years, but no one else seemed to notice and the clocks around campus neglected to record the discrepancy. Remarkably, my iPod touch had enough battery power to survive the elongated class period. "Humans were not intended to endure three hours of lecture about history. Back in the good ol' days before history, all we had to do was battle Mastodons and discover fire," I posted to my Facebook status.

When I left class, my iPod had also failed to account for the time warp and stated that it was still only 11:30 am on the same Friday. I got back to my room and struggled with the idea of sleeping for the remainder of J-term. Finally I managed to take off my socks and shoes, replace my t-shirt with a different one, and wander into the weight room downstairs. I placed a 25 pound dumbbell under the chin-up bar and stood motionless. After a few minutes of mental struggle, I grabbed the bar with my hands and the dumbbell with my feet and spent a few seconds in the physical struggle of actually doing chin-ups. That process was repeated three times, and after about ten minutes in the weight room I racked up and walked out the door feeling much more in touch with my neanderthal roots.

"Good work out today," I complimented myself. For the final portion of my morning routine, I got into the shower, letting the hot water envelop me and entering into a state of comatose.

By the time I got out of the shower, 1:00 pm felt like the dawn of a new day. I set about making myself breakfast and attempting to fill my day with things that seemed worthwhile. I played some guitar and studied some Spanish notecards; hung out with Trevor and helped him run lines for his play. All the while, some of my time was spent studying the perennial problem that always arises at every transition to a new semester -- is this really what I should be doing?

"man, nearly $2,000…" I thought. That's what I would have if I dropped out of college, took the money, and ran. "Wait, wait, I've gotta consider," I cautioned myself, "if I use that to pay off the second semester right now… I could probably save up nearly as much again by summer. And then I wouldn't be burning any bridges."

Another, fainter but truer voice added, "No matter where you go, you have the opportunity to make the best or worst of it. Of course you're not going to enjoy college if you always spend it daydreaming about being somewhere else."

"But it's so hard! I need some people who can be on the same page with me. Of course there's gotta be likeminded people at this college, but how the heck am I supposed to to find them?"

"The only time I tend to get to know new people is through having class together," I noted, deciding to be optimistic about the second semester of classes coming up once I survived the accelerated J-term. I looked back on past experiences in life, noting that whenever I stuck something out for long enough, things tended to fall into place just when it seemed most unlikely.

Alright, let's do this. I texted my friend Jazmine, who had taken my old macbook home over break so that her brother could instal Snow Leopard on it for a $30 fee. I figured that, with the new OS X installed, I could sell it on eBay for close to $400 and be that much closer to paying off the second semester.

"Can I come trade you $30 for my computer sometime soon?" I texted Jazmine.

"Of course! Lemme know when and where."

"How about that common area where I met you last time in about 5 minutes?"

"The basement lounge?"

"Yeah -- that's the one."

"K!"

In five minutes I arrived in the girl's dorm, Muffit, and tramped downstairs.

"Hey, you're cooking your own food!" I exclaimed to a girl named Lulu who had been in my World Views class, and another girl who was with her.

"Yeah," said Lulu.

"I know, no one does - right?" added her friend as if jumping back into a conversation with her own brother.

"Actually, my friends and I are famous for it over in Mainey," I replied with a grin.

"Really? Well we should totally cook together!"

"Alright, definitely. Is this tofu you're using?"

"It's similar," said Lulu.

"It's mostly wheat," her friend added. "I just made it. We're going vegan for J-term."

"Oh, so basically as a sort of fast??" I asked with interest.

"Yeah! Well, kinda. It's just something we decided to do and it worked out like that."

Jazmine appeared with the computer and I wrapped up the conversation.

"I.. don't have either of you on Facebook, right?" They responded in the negatory.

"Lulu, I'm sorry, but I don't even remember your real name since I always call you Lulu."

"That's alright; I like when people call me Lulu," she replied. "That's even how I have it on Facebook."

"I'm so glad you admitted that!" said her friend, "cause it happens to everyone and they pretend they remember her name. By the way I don't think we know each other."

"Oh thank goodness! I was afraid I was supposed to know you from somewhere!"

"Oh - yeah, I thought you two must have known each other too," Lulu added.

"No. My name's Alyssa. So add Lulu on Facebook and then find me, and we'll make dinner together! This is going to be so fun!"