Maeglin, I love you.
Five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed someone if they told me that I’d study medieval European history, Latin, and end up learning Arabic because I’d get so pissed at the one-sided Latin sources regarding the Crusading era. (Two hundred glorious Christian knights surrounded by three hundred sixty thousand mounted Turks, and fighting them all off? Suuuure. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.) Of course, when I was in college, I wouldn’t have believed someone if they told me that I’d get a job coding with absolutely no relevance to my degree.
If you’re in college, do what it takes to stay there. Club a baby seal. Fake your own death. Hold the administrators hostage. Don’t ever leave.
I’m expected to be at my desk every morning, rain or shine. If I want to accomplish anything at work, I need at least six hours of sleep the night before. Add in time to shower and commute, and I have to live by a well-defined schedule. In college, there was no such schedule. Yup, I had classes at regular times on specific days, but it wasn’t important. If I only had two hours of sleep, no big deal, I just had to make it through an hour or so of class (which coffee could easily do) and then it’s off for another catnap before the next class. It didn’t matter where I slept- bed, couch, floor- since I’d just wake up whenever.
…forcing myself to get an hour of sleep while writing a paper, having bizarre dreams about Edessa, Antioch, and Tyre, and then being unsure in my near-hallucinatory state whether a certain event actually took place or is just a figment of my imagination…
…creating scale-model mockups of trebuchets and onagers as props to go along with a presentation on concepts of motion, and giving them to a professor who then catapulted marbles at one of his colleagues…
…selling books at the end of the academic year to raise beer money so I could finish a contest at the local pub…
…taking Penguin mints to keep myself awake, then dosing myself with Nyquil to get a few hours of sleep, then taking more Penguin mints to counteract the Nyquil… (kids, don’t do this part)
…translating Winnie-ille-Pu back to English because Cicero was an arrogant boor…
Maybe someday I’ll win the lottery, and become phenomenally wealthy, and can go back to college full-time without worrying about finances. Until then, I’ll just remain nostalgic about college, and spend more money on books than I rationally should.