sleepless musings

It’s late and I’m tired but I’ve had too much coke (of the cola variety) - which I never drink and now I remember why. My eyes feel like they are wedged open by toothpicks but they are itching to close, despite the fact they just will not shut and my mind is ticking over almost audibly...

Or perhaps that’s some cheeky cicada outside my window?

Anyway, I’m thinking about people. Awesome people in particular. People who in their own unique way embody the best of what is generosity, or good humour, positivity, drinking ability, wisdom or just plain good company. Why is it that so often the very best of people are the ones that are only in your life for the blink of an eye? Awesome people who live miles and miles away, whose path you cross only rarely or who you get to know well before they disappear into the vastness of the universe again... or become lost behind the heavy stones of their barricades.

Is it purely so you appreciate having met them more? Probably. It’s God’s plan, fate, just the way it is etc etc.

All the caffeine in my system is leading me to conclusions. Primarily, I wish there was a way to keep the awesome people on the same continent. But I know there is email and jet planes and paths that cross again and funny memories in the meantime. In other cases, I wish there was a way to stop good friendships from dying horribly slow deaths at my own hands. But I know I should know by now when to stop shaking the life out of it.

Coke you see, provides the answers, but not the sleep.

Send me back to suburbia, before academia claims my soul

[Warning: Rant will ensue.]

Here’s a fact for you, I am sick to death of facts. I have a growing distaste for words I can barely lift with a forklift and metaphors you have to hurl an encyclopaedia, a PhD and two separate bi-lingual dictionaries at before you can even begin to understand what they might be getting at. Historians and their truths, lies and unknowns are getting on my nerves, as are the high and mighty in-joke’s that fly around in the reputably stale old world of academia. It’s not all that stodgy and stale most of the time, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m playing in a sea of theoretical codswallop larger than I can handle. Post-structuralism, deconstructionism, superstructure, cultural hegemony, truth...

...or dare? No? Ok...

Nobody appreciates jokes in languages they can’t understand, or names of people they don’t know that espoused theories that they’ve never heard of but oh-my-you-really-should-know-that. Those kinds of intellectualities are why people don’t like the cultural elites that hide in their university offices dressing things up in big-big-words and arguing over the nitty-gritty and bemoaning common society before retiring to their books and fantasies. I belong to this less than heavenly world of pen and paper. I spend my time philosophising and hurling large, ridiculous words at people. I kind of like it. But right now I’m entering the final round of semester with only 2 essays to knock out and I’m about to start flatlining on the brain monitor. The realisation is fast approaching that I’m 99% sure I cannot remember a damned thing I’ve been studiously attempting to absorb all day because low and behold, my carefactor is speedily approaching 0 with 1/1000 chance of radical turnaround.

Disenchanted? Disengaged? Dis-dis-dissertation will be the end of me.