So how does this end?

  Five months ago I was sprawled out on The Quad's singular grassy hill, reading Do Androids Dream  at my leisure under the pleasant shade of one of the many young saplings sprinkled along the Quad.

 That was before the start of this Fall semester and (well I almost can't resist letting out a laugh as I write this next part) but I must admit, that as much as I enjoyed it at the time, I can't honestly remember much of the experience.

 Much like an Impressionistic painting, my memory of that particular afternoon is a blurry, heterogeneous composition of feelings, thoughts, and emotions that I can only recall bits and pieces of.

If you squint hard enough you can see me in the foreground
reading a science fiction novel and contemplating the Universe.

 And I do like this analogy of an Impressionist painting because a) analogies are my... strong suit and b) I believe that analogies (when executed properly at least) can express complex, abstract ideas that are normally much harder, if not impossible, to communicate without the use of them.

 So much has happened in the past five months since The Quad.  I would never have been able to predict any of it - the strangers I've befriended, the friends I've lost, the mistakes I've made, the lessons I've learned. Everything constantly changing. Obeying entropy. For better or for worse all I can think of is how things have certainly changed enormously since then.

Specifically, in regards to me.

 Returning to my analogy of memories as Impressionist paintings, I realize that I had gotten myself lost in philosophical musings while reading PKD because my thought process was akin to that of an art spectator, who as a result of standing too close to an Impressionist painting, cannot make any sense of it. Only after many difficult months have I discovered, stepping away from my older perspective, the bigger picture in front of me.

 It is a very abstract work of art, but nonetheless it's representative of the near-culmination of my college existence.  A composition of my flaws and triumphs, my fears and newfound confidences, my foolish regrets and optimistic visions - everything and all that I have experienced in the past four years.

It's ugly and it's beautiful. But above all else it's me.

And did I mention that it's not even finished yet?

Something tells me that it will always be a work in progress. 

And that really excites me. Because who knows what it will eventually look like?

I just hope it never fucking looks like this.

Anddddd time for me to ACTUALLY get back to studying for these absolutely pointless finals. The education system is seriously a joke. But rules are rules and grades are grades. C'est la vie...!!