songs of solitude;

just when

just when you find yourself stressing over how many assignments you have due; how many midterms to study for; papers to write; appointments to make; meetings to participate in; classes to fall asleep in; seminars to stay mute in, it can dawn on you that in spite of it all, you are so lucky to be busy and at school.

after coming out of my microeconomics midterm - which i feel fairly certain that i gave my best on - i began chatting with a mature student in my class as we waited for the bus. turns out he's a math major and he picked the same 3 (of 4) questions to answer on our test. we talked about perhaps forming a study group for the final, being that its worth a whopping 40% of our mark. i was curious to know what other courses he was taking but surprised to find out that micro was his only course - he's study part time. he eagerly went on to explain to me that this was due to a kidney condition that he has which he needs to receive a treatment for (blood transfusion? dialysis?) almost everyday - making a regular courseload impossible.

wow. i remarked that being fulltime is overrated anyway, and i longed to be able to spend more time on each course to better absorb the material, to which he nodded in agreement. but in my head i was thinking - this dude is incredible! driven by his thirst for knowledge to study one course at a time to finish his degree.

i can empathize to what it is like to be in daily pain, but i still felt a deep sympathy for this man. less sympathy maybe and more... an understanding. an understanding of where he was coming from. such a sweet man. i'm glad somebody in our class enjoys micro.

~np

posted by crooked girl @ 9:35 PM