Hi everyone!

Fall break has started and I am ready for a long weekend! I will probably not post over the weekend as I usually do; weekends home are not nearly as boring as weekends at school, so I will have less time to post ;o) But here is a poem to tide you over until Tuesday. It’s more of  “whiney” poem, I suppose, than the others I’ve put on here. It came from some frustration I had yesterday about college, about the current education system that I consider to be flawed in many ways, flawed with good and bad intentions.

I do want to be clear that, while I may complain about college in the poem, I do not mean to reflect upon my particular school or the wonderful people who run it. I see the source of my frustrations as the education system itself, a broken and nonsensical game that we all play because we must. So with that in mind, here is

an impromptu poem, written in a fit of frustration and sleep-deprivation, and thus true college student poetry.

 

 

Tired
 

I am writing this on Friday night,

very late, and I am very very

Tired.

Books lay at my feet,

books several inches thick,

which I will attempt to sell when I am through with them.

I was talking with someone today at college about college,

about how ridiculously expensive it is,

about how we are forced to learn what we are not studying,

for a well-rounded education

that we don’t desire,

because we have passions

that we have come to pursue.

I learned this week that I need two language classes

to satisfy the state.

They only offer Spanish but my heart was set on Russian.

I also need two gym classes

because, although I am an adult,

I do not know how to go to the gym by myself

(the three times a week I lift weights and kick-box don’t count).

My well-rounded education costs a five-figure sum,

which I can’t afford,

and which I will be paying for until my children are my age.

I am frustrated, to say the least.

But I am also conflicted,

because I do love to learn,

I love waking up and hearing bells toll

in the sandstone steeple where birds sleep.

I love sitting at a desk, jotting down notes,

while my world is expanded and my reality stretches.

I love being challenged and awed and inspired.

But there comes a tap on my shoulder;

the reality that stretched for me snaps back like a rubber band.

I must spend half my time on things I did not come here for,

I must ask the government to give me money,

I must learn my language and take my gym class.

I must do as I am told like a good little girl.

Because I must have a well-rounded education,

and I didn’t go to school twelve years before this at all,

so I have never learned math or science before.

My eyes have been opened!

How foolish of me to think

that my love of books is not well-rounded!

I must not only study literature,

because Geometry is enormously helpful when you are writing a book.

I must not only study poetry,

because Aerobics class is great for the metaphors.

I must not only learn to be a writer,

because when that fails (as they seem to assume it will),

my well-rounded education will keep me afloat.

They pat me on the head and give me a scroll,

a tassel on my hat and off I go,

head crammed with things I don’t remember,

with a price tag attached.

Now I mean something!

Now I am well-rounded.

It is not their fault, I know.

They do as they are told, like good little children.

So I do not mean to be rude,

because I am very grateful.

The opportunity I have

is a blessing.

But I am sick of playing games,

and I am very very

Tired.