SB DUB 11 WHOO!!

Classic is driving. The iTrip is disappointing and staticky as usual, but we still get ruffled sound from my iPod (and not his), this passenger door is howling because of the air passing through it; apparently the repair from the car accident Brian and I got in over summer didn't patch up the door completely. This car is like, four-out-of-ten crappy, but it has nothing on my brother's '93 Buick that we drove (successfully) 12 hours to and from Green Bay, Wisconsin, so we should be good.

I like the highway. There's a bunch of cornfields and far away farm buildings, but other than that, it's just super speedy cars and changing scenic skies. Also, if you're lucky, you have a good friend or two to enjoy the ride with. Right now, we are trying to pass a car that we're like, 70% sure is a cop, but he's being a dick about it and driving all fast and stuff.

Today Classic and I venture to Missouri, the University of. This makes two other-college visits for me, and two for Classic. Last time was Bradley. What a piece of shit waste of time that was. Anyway, we are going to visit Sunday Robert and we have about three hours of driving ahead of us. I hope to make a bunch of road trips over the summer, some of which will probably be to see Robert as he dickishly elected to spend his summer in Missouri for the sake of in-state tuition. Broke bastard.

College, the beast we have made it out to be, has smeared my pile of friends, that used to be concentrated in one town, all over the face of the US. It was worse last semester, but everyone lives elsewhere now. If I visit you, it means I give a shit about you. Spending time with friends used to be a de facto aspect of life, now I have to work for it. Maybe I'm supposed to focus on myself for a while now, or maybe I'm supposed to dump my friends and find new ones. Either way, I'm not havin' it. Here's to clinging to the past.

Being in Springfield again, as usual, is weird. I guess I'm still not used to not living in a different place. I'll grow up one day. It's different this time though, because it's warm outside. It feels like summer again. But it's not summer 2010 again. It never will be.

Spring Break and I have had our quarrels over the years. It's not long enough, and merely serves as a preview of what you will be able to do after you go through two of the hardest months of school you'll have throughout the year. But this one is shaping up pretty well. Brian and I have thus far survived our trip to Missouri and are looking to have a couple chillaxing days in Columbia, which we are hoping isn't another shit town (we drove through forty on the way here). The scenery changes from just cornfields to hills, cornfields and crappy towns pretty much as soon as you hit the MO/IL border. It's quite amazing, really.

I hope to do a lot of adventuring this summer. I realize that all the traveling I ever did until I was like 16 was done with my parents. Now I have the ability to go anywhere I want with my friends over the summer. And that sounds pretty awesome. Except the part where gas costs a shit ton. Last summer Sunday Robert had this stupid plan to walk to Champaign and back over the span of a couple days. I was kind of down, but at the same time very aware of how dead I would be.

Last summer I wanted to hang out in Springfield at the same places with the same people every night. This summer I want to camp, road trip, make money, and play Final Fantasy. It's no longer a time for goodbyes and bittersweetness, but a time to make something of myself and do a little growing up. 

--Eliot Sill