 Oh, and that first quarter at UCSD turned out to be a D not an F.  I guess that leaves me with something to accomplish still.





Jack continued to stare at the ground in front of him.  Grey, brown concrete.  Green grass, pale in dying spots, bright in new ones, deep in the healthy areas.  Brown earth, rich as candy, filled with rocks and bugs.  Jack raised his head, quickly but without a sharp snap, and looked up and down the straight lines of the street.  No, it wasn’t here yet.  Just another large truck rumbling by.  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, slowly.
Sometimes he didn’t have to look, he just knew.  Instead of waiting impatiently, checking every mechanical noise, and every passerby, he would just close his eyes and let the world attenuate itself to his senses.  He would simply wait, resting his mind, while reality serenely washed over his soul like a water color painting in motion.  At such times he did not have to look for the bus, because he just knew when it was there.  Those were good days.
Today was not one of those days.  Today, as for the last several, Jack could not keep his eyes closed and could not simply rest, and wait, and listen.  No, today he felt a need to fluctuate between serenity and annoyance, patience and agitation.  Jack was unable to sink into the warm, comfortable, secure, universal, immortal center of his self because his focus was continually being readjusted by some tugging-urging-scampering-tickling-fleeting otherness.  He tried to fight it by tensely straining his shoulders against the straps of his backpack, and tried to ignore it by closing his eyes to melt away, and tried to co-exist with it by giving in to whatever seemed to interest it at the moment, but nothing would satisfy that other consciousness.  So Jack found himself looking up and down the street, fidgeting, relaxing, stretching, and self consciously fiddling with the two quarters he held in his jacket pocket.   Serene or agitated, he thought to himself, the bus would not arrive any sooner.  
As he waited, Jack’s mind rolled over various concerns.   He would have to stop for a sandwich, after the forty minute bus ride, to give his body’s muscles fuel for the four mile walk.  Jack had tried to go without food during his walks, to save money, but every time he did, upon reaching home, his body would explode into a hundred jaws angrily gnawing and gnashing and growling for sustenance.  He would have to rest when he got home.  He had tried immediately jumping into study and homework after the hour of walking, but his body would rebel in repugnance at his mind’s commands, forcing desires towards rest.  Jack found he wasted too much time when he ignored the demands of his body so, although he had once prided himself on the ability to exert mind over matter, he now acquiesced to the body in order to maximize the efficiency of his day. 